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PC to Arrest Not Supported by "Inherently Innocuous Behavior"

By Shari Allison

Sherhouse v. Ratchner, 2009 WL 2343711 (7/31/09) (Published) - In a civil rights case, the 10th holds one of the plaintiffs was entitled to judgment as a matter of law. The Albuquerque officers did not have probable cause to arrest a Hispanic teenage girl who was seen near the neighborhood of a robbery where the culprit was supposed to be a black female. She was seen giving a sweater to a black teenage girl who was supposedly identified by witnesses as the robber [she wasn't]. Association with a suspected criminal is not enough. While the officers suspected she gave the sweater to her companion to conceal identity, there were many innocent explanations. Here's a quote that we can use: "Where an officer observes inherently innocuous behavior that has plausible innocent explanations, it takes more than speculation or mere possibility to give rise to probable cause to arrest...continue to full post

Full post as published by Tenth Circuit Blog on August 04, 2009 (boomark / email).