RODIS v. CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today released an opinion in RODIS v. CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, No. 05-15522, an interlocutory appeal. The panel consisted of Dorothy W. Nelson and Consuelo M. Callahan, Circuit Judges, and Cormac J. Carney, District Judge.
D.W. NELSON, Circuit Judge:
Rodel E. Rodis brought suit against the City and County of San Francisco, the San Francisco Police Department, the police chief, and two police officers under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights during a February 17, 2003 arrest. The district court dismissed the suit against the City and the police chief, but it rejected an assertion of qualified immunity by two of the officers (”Defendants”). Defendants brought an interlocutory appeal, . . .
CALLAHAN, Circuit Judge, dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. What happened to Mr. Rodis was unfortunate, and certainly could have been handled in a different manner. Arresting him due to a failure to recognize an older series 100 dollar bill, however, was not an intentional violation of Mr. Rodis’s constitutional rights, nor was the law that probable cause for arresting someone on suspicion of violating 18 U.S.C. § 472 requires proof of the suspect’s subjective intent clearly established. Therefore, the officers are entitled to qualified immunity. In fact, prior case law established that in order to have probable cause to arrest someone for a suspected violation of 18 U.S.C. § 472, an officer simply had to have evidence that 1) someone attempted to pass a false note, and 2) the identity of the person suspected of passing the note. See United States . . .