Burritt v. Ditlefsen

Dist. Ct. did not err in granting defendants-police official and County’s motion for summary judgment in section 1983 action alleging that defendant-officer subjected him false arrest and false imprisonment stemming from plaintiff’s arrest on charge of sexual assault of 11-year-old girl, which officer learned was false only after plaintiff had been arrested. While plaintiff argued that officer lacked probable cause to make warrantless arrest in his home, record showed that officer had consent to enter defendant’s home and had arguable probable cause to arrest him, for purposes of obtaining qualified immunity to instant lawsuit, where: (1) alleged victim repeated same detailed accusations to various individuals; (2) information given by alleged victim’s parents generally corroborated alleged victim’s story; (3) alleged victim’s picture of scene of assault generally matched plaintiff’s property; and (4) car trip in which plaintiff drove alleged victim to her home took over one hour longer than it should have taken. Moreover, while information gained by officer from MapQuest did not support alleged victim’s story, officer actually believed that various routes that she mapped on MapQuest supported alleged victim’s story. Also, officer was not required to wait until she received GPS data before arresting plaintiff, since law enforcement is not required to discover more information to undermine probable cause once it has been established. (Dissent filed.)