CA9: Arrest on mistaken warrant was objectively reasonable

Defendant’s arrest on a mistaken warrant was still objectively reasonable. The officer did all he could to verify defendant was the right guy. United States v. Nomee, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 30533 (9th Cir. Dec. 4, 2024):

Officer Anthony executed the mistaken arrest in good faith and under the reasonable belief that Nomee was Paul Gary Nomee, whose name appeared on two outstanding warrants. After pulling Nomee over, learning his name, and asking about the damage to his car, Officer Anthony can be heard expressing a belief that Nomee had outstanding warrants. Then, before making the arrest, he followed a reasonable course of action by (1) asking dispatch to run a warrant check and (2) retrieving Nomee’s driver’s license and reciting the birth date to make sure it matched an outstanding warrant. Dispatch not only confirmed the match, “ten-four that’d be him,” but also relayed the offenses listed on the arrest warrants.

Nomee argues that the dispatcher was unreasonable for not telling Officer Anthony that the outstanding warrants had two different birth dates and were for a Paul Gary Nomee. But when Officer Anthony gave the dispatcher a birth date matching one of the warrants, the dispatcher had good reason to think that the different birth date on the other warrant was erroneous–not that Officer Anthony had stopped the wrong Paul Nomee. Because “sufficient probability, not certainty, is the touchstone of reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment,” this error did not violate Nomee’s Fourth Amendment rights. Hill, 401 U.S. at 804.

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