CA11: Summers applies to arrest warrant execution, too

Summers, on detaining persons near the scene of search warrants, is applied, in an unreported decision, to arrest warrants, too. Gomez v. United States, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 2118 (11th Cir. February 11, 2015):

Although Summers expressly reserved judgment on “whether the same result would be justified if the search warrant merely authorized a search for evidence” instead of contraband, id. at 705 at n.20, 101 S. Ct. at 2595 n.20, the Supreme Court has subsequently indicated that the Summers exception is a broad, categorical rule and applied it again where the search warrant was “for, among other things, deadly weapons and evidence of gang membership,” Muehler v. Mena, 544 U.S. 93, 95-96, 125 S. Ct. 1465, 1468 (2005). The plaintiff in Muehler was asleep in the home, was awakened and moved to the garage, was asked questions about her immigration status, and was detained even after it was clear she posed no safety threat to the officers. Id. at 96-97, 125 S. Ct. at 1468-69. The Supreme Court held that the plaintiff’s “detention was, under Summers, plainly permissible.” Id. at 98, 125 S. Ct. at 1470. It added that (1) “[a]n officer’s authority to detain incident to a search is categorical; it does not depend on the quantum of proof justifying detention or the extent of the intrusion to be imposed by the seizure,” and (2) the plaintiff’s “detention for the duration of the search was reasonable under Summers because a warrant existed to search 1363 Patricia Avenue and she was an occupant of that address at the time of the search.” Id. at 98, 125 S. Ct. at 1470 (quotation marks omitted).

Subsequently, in Bailey v. United States, the Supreme Court noted that the categorical “rule in Summers extends farther than some earlier exceptions because it does not require law enforcement to have particular suspicion that an individual is involved in criminal activity or poses a specific danger to the officers.” 568 U.S. ___, ___, 133 S. Ct. 1031, 1037-38 (2013). The Supreme Court in Bailey held that the Summers rule is, however, spatially constrained to the “immediate vicinity” of the premises to be searched. Id. at ___, 133 S. Ct. at 1041. In Bailey, two occupants of a home left the scene prior to the officers making their presence known and commencing a search of the home pursuant to a search warrant. Id. at ___, 133 S. Ct. at 1036. The officers followed the occupants’ car, stopped and detained them “about a mile” from the home, and brought them back for the duration of the search. Id. The Supreme Court held that the occupants were too far away to justify the detention: “Limiting the rule in Summers to the area in which an occupant poses a real threat to the safe and efficient execution of a search warrant ensures that the scope of the detention incident to a search is confined to its underlying justification.” Id. at 1042.

Whether the categorical detention exception recognized by Summers in a search warrant context applies with equal force to the execution of an arrest warrant is an open question in this Circuit. Other circuits have indicated that the Summers exception also applies in the context of the police executing arrest warrants. See United States v. Enslin, 327 F.3d 788, 797 n.32 (9th Cir. 2003) (concluding that, “[a]lthough Summers involved a search pursuant to a search warrant rather than a consent search to execute an arrest warrant, much of the analysis remains applicable” and applying Summers in the arrest warrant context)8; Cherrington v. Skeeter, 344 F.3d 631, 638 (6th Cir. 2003) (stating in dictum that “the police have the limited authority to briefly detain those on the scene, even wholly innocent bystanders, as they execute a search or arrest warrant” (emphasis added)).

Before leaving Summers, we note that this Court has already cited and applied Summers to some extent to analyze what a police officer may lawfully do at the scene vis-à-vis detaining and controlling an innocent passenger during a traffic stop of a vehicle or a bystander on the sidewalk watching a fight. See Hudson v. Hall, 231 F.3d 1289, 1292 (11th Cir. 2000) (passenger during a traffic stop); United States v. Clark, 337 F.3d 1282, 1283 (11th Cir. 2003) (bystander to a fight). In those cases, this Court has noted that, “[a]s the Supreme Court has recognized, a police officer performing his lawful duties may direct and control- to some extent-the movements and location of persons nearby, even persons that the officer may have no reason to suspect of wrongdoing.” Hudson, 231 F.3d at 1297 (citing, inter alia, Summers, 452 U.S. at 702-03, 101 S. Ct. at 2594); see Clark, 337 F.3d at 1286-87 (11th Cir. 2003) (citing Summers and stating that “the Supreme Court held that the ‘risk of harm’ to officers is ‘minimized’ when police officers ‘exercise unquestioned command of the situation'”).

3. Gomez’s False Arrest Claim against Officer Doe

Given that we have already utilized Summers before to analyze what an officer may lawfully do in non-search-warrant situations, we do so here too.