[00:00:00] Speaker 00: Morning, Your Honors. [00:00:03] Speaker 00: Brenton Aikenhands from the law office of Jerry Steering on behalf of Appellant Scherer. [00:00:08] Speaker 00: I'd like to reserve three minutes if that's okay with you. [00:00:11] Speaker 00: Okay, please watch the clock. [00:00:12] Speaker 00: Thank you. [00:00:15] Speaker 00: So the issue in this case is really simple. [00:00:17] Speaker 00: It's a simple pleading case where the district court took a factual issue and treated it as a legal issue. [00:00:25] Speaker 00: And that issue being whether [00:00:27] Speaker 00: telling the appellant that she would be arrested if she pressed charges would deter her from exercising her right to petition the government for grievances. [00:00:36] Speaker 00: Our position is, of course it would. [00:00:37] Speaker 00: Any person who is trying to press charges, if they're told that they're going to be arrested for doing that, is going to not press charges. [00:00:46] Speaker 00: That's exactly what happened. [00:00:48] Speaker 04: The District Court said that, I guess, Mr. Martinez, Officer Martinez, was just making a factual statement. [00:00:57] Speaker 00: It was not a factual statement. [00:00:59] Speaker 00: It was completely incorrect in every way. [00:01:01] Speaker 00: It was also, it was not supported by what he saw. [00:01:04] Speaker 00: It was not supported by the law. [00:01:06] Speaker 00: And there's just no reasonable way, there's no reasonable officer that could have viewed it that way. [00:01:11] Speaker 00: He might have been mistaken, but that would have been an unreasonable mistake for him to say that, you know, it's a matter of fact that if he presses charges, I have to arrest you too. [00:01:23] Speaker 00: And that's something that we also, we press in the district court as well. [00:01:27] Speaker 01: Was he required to arrest if the two combatants weren't involved in a domestic relationship? [00:01:35] Speaker 00: No, he's not required to arrest. [00:01:38] Speaker 00: But that's not really the issue is whether he was required to arrest. [00:01:40] Speaker 00: The issue is whether our [00:01:43] Speaker 00: client's right to petition the government for redress of her grievances, whether that was chilled. [00:01:48] Speaker 00: And the fact that she actually did say that she wanted to press charges and that she later said that she didn't after she was told that she would be arrested, that's the issue. [00:01:57] Speaker 00: The officer would have discretion not to arrest her assailant, but the real issue here is that she was prevented from pressing those charges. [00:02:07] Speaker 00: And that allowed him to go, her attempted [00:02:10] Speaker 00: rapists and hurt, you know, he beat her pretty severely. [00:02:12] Speaker 00: That's what the video shows. [00:02:13] Speaker 00: That's what the pictures show. [00:02:15] Speaker 00: And there's, there's, you know, there's no reason, there's no reasonable officer that would have believed under those circumstances that that could not be interpreted as, that that would not chill her from pressing charges against her assailant. [00:02:30] Speaker 00: That's our position. [00:02:31] Speaker 00: And I also believe that the video, which was lodged with the court, and I believe the court is in receipt of that, adds some context to it. [00:02:41] Speaker 00: Because sometimes just the transcript of the situation sometimes might not convey the whole picture. [00:02:49] Speaker 00: But you can tell when you hear them talking, she's badly beaten up. [00:02:53] Speaker 00: And you can hear that the assailant, Mr. Bravo, has said that he doesn't want to press charges. [00:02:59] Speaker 00: There's no way that somebody in the officer's position would not realize that telling her that she'd be arrested. [00:03:06] Speaker 00: And his words, quote, is he said, no, you're going to go. [00:03:10] Speaker 00: That's telling her directly, you will go to jail if you press charges. [00:03:14] Speaker 00: So there's only one way a reasonable person in her position could understand that. [00:03:19] Speaker 01: Did the district court dismiss this on a motion to dismiss or on a motion for summary judgment? [00:03:25] Speaker 00: This is a motion to dismiss. [00:03:26] Speaker 00: This is a pleading case. [00:03:29] Speaker 00: If it's a motion for summary judgment after [00:03:32] Speaker 00: you know, a lengthy discovery and some depositions, and we could find out why the officer did what he did, and maybe the record could be developed. [00:03:42] Speaker 00: That might be a different question, but on pleadings, you know, just off the video alone and off the, you know, the verbatim quotes of what he said, this should be sufficient at least for the case to go forward on this claim, her only claim. [00:03:56] Speaker 01: Did the district court arguably decide the issue of qualified immunity for the officer? [00:04:01] Speaker 01: I would suggest he wasn't very clear, and he or she wasn't very clear in that. [00:04:06] Speaker 00: No, he didn't. [00:04:09] Speaker 00: He decided that it wasn't a violation of her rights. [00:04:12] Speaker 00: Now, that is sort of folded into the first prong of qualified immunity. [00:04:15] Speaker 00: You have to decide it's a violation first, and then you go to whether it's clearly established. [00:04:22] Speaker 00: You know, we addressed that in the briefing and the appellees raised that in their answering brief and we addressed it in our reply. [00:04:30] Speaker 00: But the law was clearly established because we have several cases that say implied threats or warnings that imply some sort of an adverse action. [00:04:42] Speaker 00: that's sufficient for a First Amendment claim. [00:04:46] Speaker 04: The Supreme Court has told that for qualified immunity the case has to be very closely on point. [00:04:53] Speaker 04: What's your best case? [00:04:56] Speaker 00: I'm very familiar with all the Supreme Court's line of qualified immunity cases but they've also said that it doesn't have to be [00:05:03] Speaker 00: completely factually on point, it needs to give the officer fair warning. [00:05:06] Speaker 00: And really, the policy underlying qualified immunity is the real thing here. [00:05:11] Speaker 00: It's officers who are trying to faithfully uphold the law and are acting reasonably under the circumstances. [00:05:16] Speaker 00: The idea is that they shouldn't be financially liable for making a mistake. [00:05:20] Speaker 00: Now, if an officer acts unreasonably and acts recklessly, and there's the Lanier case from the Supreme Court, it says that [00:05:32] Speaker 00: If the officer has fair warning based off the previous state of the law, even if the exact, the precise factual scenario hasn't arisen before, that can be enough for liability under Section 1983. [00:05:42] Speaker 04: What's your best case? [00:05:46] Speaker 00: I'm sorry. [00:05:46] Speaker 04: What is your best case? [00:05:48] Speaker 00: The Broadheim case, which is from 2009. [00:05:51] Speaker 04: That's in a prison setting. [00:05:56] Speaker 00: Right, it was, but the setting of it, I don't believe is the... Those are not material facts. [00:06:06] Speaker 00: The fact is, it involved a First Amendment right to petition, and that involves the officer making an implied threat. [00:06:17] Speaker 00: the person in that case that he needs to be careful, be careful, without any specific sort of say, be careful or this is gonna happen to you. [00:06:30] Speaker 00: That's enough for First Amendment liability. [00:06:32] Speaker 00: Certainly telling somebody that you're going to go to jail if you press this grievance, that would certainly deter anybody from filing a police report or from pressing charges. [00:06:46] Speaker 00: So, but it's not just that case. [00:06:49] Speaker 00: There's the Bernhardt case, which we cited in our briefing. [00:06:55] Speaker 00: It's from a district court, and I believe it also relies on Broadheim. [00:07:00] Speaker 00: And it's just telling somebody, I believe the officer there, he said, you'll be lucky if you eat tomorrow. [00:07:11] Speaker 00: Now that, it's hard to even, you know, that wouldn't be a criminal threat. [00:07:16] Speaker 00: That wouldn't be enough for a true threat if, you know, if you were to prosecute that officer, but that would certainly be enough for first amendment violation because a reasonable person could interpret that as saying, okay, I better, you know, the, the, the, the plaintiff in that case had lodged some sort of a grievance against this officer. [00:07:34] Speaker 00: and he would be chilled, he would feel like he would need to withdraw it because he might not eat the following day. [00:07:42] Speaker 00: So point being that a reasonable officer knows that it doesn't need to be a true threat in the sense of threatening harm against somebody in order to have First Amendment liability. [00:07:54] Speaker 00: There's cases in this court and in the lower courts within this circuit that make that very clear. [00:08:01] Speaker 00: And a case decided in 2009, that's more than enough time for the officer to be on notice that he can't just say these sorts of things and expect that it's not going to chill a plaintiff's First Amendment speech. [00:08:20] Speaker 01: But what you're really saying, though, is that the district court did not reach the issue of qualified immunity. [00:08:25] Speaker 01: So at the very least, we should send it back to the district court for that decision to be made. [00:08:31] Speaker 00: I would agree with that. [00:08:32] Speaker 00: He did not reach the issue of qualified immunity. [00:08:34] Speaker 00: He didn't reach that second prong about whether it's clearly established. [00:08:38] Speaker 00: So I believe that the court could send it back on that basis. [00:08:45] Speaker 00: I do agree. [00:08:47] Speaker 03: If you are able to proceed with the case what is your theory of damage is going to be because here eventually the assailant I understand was arrested. [00:08:57] Speaker 00: Eventually yes after after a lengthy process of. [00:09:01] Speaker 00: of petitioning the government and approaching DAs, and she had to hire counsel to advocate for her eventually. [00:09:09] Speaker 00: Yeah, our theory of damages is going to be that it prevented her from getting access to justice, just as a victim, for one, but also to proceed against him as a convicted criminal. [00:09:27] Speaker 00: I understand that, well, [00:09:31] Speaker 00: I won't, I won't get into too many things that are off the record, but there's more that could have been gone into about Mr. Bravo himself and his relation to, you know, powerful people as, you know, as potentially a reason for why things proceeded as they did. [00:09:44] Speaker 00: Cause it's, it's honestly baffling, you know, that, but yeah, there, there's, uh, yeah. [00:09:51] Speaker 00: The damage itself, of course, is her being deterred from being chilled from exercising her First Amendment rights. [00:10:00] Speaker 01: I think what Judge Bress is asking is you have a theory that perhaps this assailant had some connections and that's why he wasn't charged. [00:10:10] Speaker 01: That may or may not be. [00:10:11] Speaker 01: That's not really before us. [00:10:14] Speaker 01: But what is she going to show the jury if she gets to a jury as to what her damages were? [00:10:20] Speaker 00: Well, her damages were that she was a victim of a very serious beating. [00:10:25] Speaker 00: And as a victim, she had a right, and not just a first man right, but a right under the state law in order to have her attacker prosecuted, arrested and prosecuted. [00:10:40] Speaker 00: Of course, anytime you're dealing with violations of constitutional rights, somebody might look at it from a purely economic perspective and decide, well, it's just a right. [00:10:49] Speaker 00: It's not worth anything. [00:10:51] Speaker 00: The jury could decide that's worth a lot. [00:10:53] Speaker 00: Yeah, that's her First Amendment right. [00:10:55] Speaker 00: It's violated. [00:10:55] Speaker 00: She was deterred from pressing charges against him. [00:10:59] Speaker 00: He went free, and he got to go as a free man for a lengthy period of time until eventually, after a lot of, [00:11:08] Speaker 00: time and actually you know the money that she had to spend advocating for herself uh in order to get him prosecuted those are all things that she could bring up in relation to you know her damages as a result of you know her being chilled but one question about your you know the [00:11:25] Speaker 03: I imagine there's lots of situations out in the field where people are in an altercation. [00:11:29] Speaker 03: The police are asking, do you want to press charges? [00:11:31] Speaker 03: And people don't end up going forward with that. [00:11:34] Speaker 03: And one implication of your lawsuit is that a lot of these are going to now turn into, when somebody doesn't press charges, they can then come in later and say, well, I felt pressured not to press charges. [00:11:45] Speaker 03: Or I felt that the police were suggesting to me that I shouldn't press charges because that could be bad for me. [00:11:50] Speaker 03: And that would seem to be something that happens a lot. [00:11:53] Speaker 03: And are we going to have a run of lots of times cases like this? [00:11:57] Speaker 03: This one may be, in your view, I understand more extreme, but you can see a genre of cases that could raise a lot of questions in terms of federal courts essentially looking at very small details of police interactions about charges that were never moved forward. [00:12:13] Speaker 00: Perhaps if we were asking for a broad pronouncement from this court, but we're not. [00:12:17] Speaker 00: We're saying on the facts of this case based on the situation this officer confronted egregiously [00:12:22] Speaker 00: injured, you know, reporting party, she reported that he'd attempted to rape her as well. [00:12:28] Speaker 00: There's very serious allegations and you can see from the video, her assailant, not injured, no visible injuries, and under those circumstances, we're not asking for a broad pronouncement from the court that every time that there's, you know, some sort of, you know, an allegation of mutual combat, you need to arrest the guy or you need to, you know, [00:12:47] Speaker 00: you need to make sure that you don't warn somebody about a mutual arrest or something like that. [00:12:53] Speaker 00: But under these circumstances, that would not have been reasonable for any officer. [00:12:56] Speaker 00: I'd like to reserve the rest of my time if that's possible. [00:12:59] Speaker 04: Thank you. [00:13:08] Speaker 02: Good morning, Your Honors. [00:13:10] Speaker 04: Can you adjust to the e-speakers? [00:13:13] Speaker 04: I'm having trouble hearing you. [00:13:15] Speaker 02: Marieta Rietveld on behalf of defendant and appellee city of Los Angeles. [00:13:20] Speaker 02: Yeah, thank you. [00:13:22] Speaker 02: I'd like to emphasize three points. [00:13:27] Speaker 02: Appellant does not allege facts showing that the police made the threat to arrest her. [00:13:33] Speaker 02: According to the complaint and the supporting transcript and video that they have submitted, Officer Martinez gave appellant the option of making a private person's arrest and informed appellant that Max Bravo also had the right to a private person's arrest. [00:13:49] Speaker 04: At that point, he knew that Bravo said he wasn't going to do that. [00:13:55] Speaker 02: exactly and I think you need to look though at the full context of what happened. [00:14:03] Speaker 02: When officer Martinez [00:14:07] Speaker 02: There are several statements that he made before the targeted statement. [00:14:13] Speaker 02: First of all, when the police showed up at the scene, they restrained Bravo in handcuffs. [00:14:19] Speaker 02: They offered Appellant an ambulance and repeatedly encouraged her to let the medical team treat her wounds. [00:14:24] Speaker 02: And they asked Appellant to give them the full account of her events. [00:14:28] Speaker 02: Officer Martinez then told her she had the right to make a private person's arrest. [00:14:34] Speaker 02: If she did, quote, you have to go to court, and quote, you have to answer the phone when the detectives call. [00:14:41] Speaker 02: And Mr. Bravo over there, angry, drunk, and combative, may decide to press charges when he learns you're pressing charges against him, at which point everyone's going to jail for booking. [00:14:55] Speaker 02: When Officer Martinez told her that if Bravo decided to arrest her, she would go to jail, her response was, quote, bring it on. [00:15:05] Speaker 02: And when she said that, Officer Martinez said, OK. [00:15:09] Speaker 02: But then she specified she did not want to go to jail right then because, quote, she had to get her dog and she wanted to go home first to, quote, ice her face. [00:15:20] Speaker 02: Officer Martinez's response was, quote, that's okay, but we're still going to take a report and document what happened today. [00:15:27] Speaker 02: And he asked her once again, if you want to press charges, I'm asking. [00:15:32] Speaker 02: and she confirmed she did not want to press charges right then. [00:15:36] Speaker 02: She wanted to go home first, and then, as it turns out, shortly thereafter, she did press charges. [00:15:43] Speaker 02: This interaction does not show that Officer Martinez threatened to arrest her. [00:15:48] Speaker 02: Instead, as the district court put it, Officer Martinez told appellant, quote, if Bravo chose to go forward with pressing charges against her, she would face the same consequences. [00:15:59] Speaker 02: And with a private person's arrest, you have to go to jail and fill out the paperwork. [00:16:02] Speaker 01: Why would he say that, given the factual situation that was presented to him? [00:16:08] Speaker 01: Apparently, she looked pretty beat up and was pretty upset, and he did not. [00:16:12] Speaker 01: I'm unfamiliar with the intricacies of the law down in Los Angeles. [00:16:18] Speaker 01: I come from the state of Washington, and perhaps it's a little different, but why would he say that to her? [00:16:24] Speaker 01: Why would he say that if... Yeah, that if you press charges, he might too, and then I'm gonna have to arrest you both. [00:16:29] Speaker 01: Why would he say that? [00:16:30] Speaker 02: Well, I think if you look at the transcript and you see that Mr. Bravo is angry, he's combative, he's drunk, he's a little bit not making sense, and in this officer's experience, he may have thought that once this guy hears that you're pressing charges against him and he's denying any responsibility for this and claiming it's all your fault, he may, out of revenge, this may be what the officer saw happen out of his experience. [00:16:53] Speaker 01: Well, under this... [00:16:53] Speaker 01: The city law does the police have to arrest everybody involved in an altercation when I mean most law enforcement officers that I've dealt with are pretty good at figuring out what happened I realize it's up to the court of law for criminal charges and all that but [00:17:09] Speaker 01: But they're tasked with the duty of, one, getting peace back to an unpeaceful situation, and then figuring out who's at fault, and making sure that once they leave the scene, that the situation remains peaceful. [00:17:21] Speaker 01: And that oftentimes, if it's a domestic situation, I think most jurisdictions have a duty to arrest. [00:17:28] Speaker 01: I assume Los Angeles does as well. [00:17:30] Speaker 01: But if it's not a domestic situation, and that's what they're trying to figure out, [00:17:35] Speaker 01: I assume they have more discretion to arrest or not to arrest, but I also assume they have the discretion to arrest the assailant and not the victim. [00:17:45] Speaker 01: And here, Ms. [00:17:46] Speaker 01: Shearer is saying, I was clearly and obviously the victim, and they were telling me that if I bring charges, they're going to arrest me. [00:17:53] Speaker 01: So why would he say something like that? [00:17:55] Speaker 02: So this goes to my second point. [00:17:57] Speaker 02: I think what appellant is arguing and what you're concerned about is the police were wrong not to arrest Bravo, not to treat this as a domestic violence situation, not to discourage dual arrests as required under state law. [00:18:10] Speaker 02: I don't think that's relevant to what we're looking at here, which is a First Amendment claim, based on an argument that the police threatened to arrest her. [00:18:21] Speaker 02: And what the district court found and what the allegations and the transcripts show is the police were clear that we're not going to arrest anybody here. [00:18:31] Speaker 02: Bravo may arrest you. [00:18:32] Speaker 02: And if that happens, under the penal code, they're required to take her into custody. [00:18:37] Speaker 03: Didn't Bravo say he didn't want to press charges? [00:18:41] Speaker 02: He did and I think we're looking at the whole context here that Bravo was drunk and combative and the police were saying he just so you know this is what's going to happen you're going to have to go to court you're going to have to answer the phone [00:18:56] Speaker 04: She says, I don't want to go right now. [00:18:58] Speaker 04: And Martina says, you're going to go. [00:19:01] Speaker 04: And Shira says, right now? [00:19:03] Speaker 04: Martina says, yes. [00:19:05] Speaker 04: And she said, are you kidding me? [00:19:06] Speaker 04: She says, nope, that's how it works. [00:19:09] Speaker 04: So Martina's pretty clearly said, if you press charges, you're going to jail, which is untrue. [00:19:17] Speaker 02: He very clearly said before that, I'm not arresting anybody, but if Bravo presses charges, you're going to jail right now. [00:19:26] Speaker 02: And she said, I don't want to go right now, but shortly thereafter. [00:19:29] Speaker 04: And he says, you're going to go. [00:19:31] Speaker 04: I mean, I'll tell you, you get more clear. [00:19:33] Speaker 04: She didn't say if Bravo oppresses charges, you're going to go. [00:19:37] Speaker 04: He said, you're going to go. [00:19:38] Speaker 04: And she says, right now. [00:19:40] Speaker 04: And he says, yes. [00:19:41] Speaker 02: She says, that's how it works, which was untrue. [00:19:44] Speaker 04: Well, that's the immediate one when she wants to press charges, and it couldn't be clearer that he's gonna take her to jail, regardless, which is untrue. [00:19:57] Speaker 02: I think he's saying if Bravo presses charges, you're gonna go to jail. [00:20:01] Speaker 01: Yeah, but that's not what he says Council I'm gonna if unless you had a follow-up I didn't want to interrupt your okay So I asked your opposing council if this was a motion to dismiss or a motion for summary judgment he says a motion to dismiss and [00:20:19] Speaker 01: When I'm sitting as a district court, when we're dealing with a motion to dismiss, we're only looking at the pleadings, but you keep referring to transcripts, you keep referring to declarations. [00:20:29] Speaker 01: Did this motion to dismiss get turned into a motion for summary judgment because non-pleading material was put before the judge? [00:20:37] Speaker 01: I'm confused. [00:20:38] Speaker 01: I understand that. [00:20:39] Speaker 02: I'm not challenging you, just tell me what happened. [00:20:42] Speaker 02: you know lodges material with the district court in and in one sense you could say well it wasn't directly incorporated into the complaint but I think you know from our view this goes to the question of what could they amend to cure this defect right so they're treating the transcript in the video as part of the motion dismissed and so am I but it's only to sort of the larger question but you're right it's it's [00:21:06] Speaker 02: Technically, the motion to dismiss is just on the complaint, but here the water was a little muddied because of that procedure. [00:21:14] Speaker 01: The parties agree it was a motion to dismiss, not a motion for summary judgment. [00:21:17] Speaker 01: Yes. [00:21:18] Speaker 01: Okay. [00:21:18] Speaker 01: Just one follow-up question then. [00:21:20] Speaker 01: Did the trial judge arguably deal with the qualified immunity by finding there was no constitutional violation, therefore they don't need to go into that second prong of the qualified immunity analysis? [00:21:33] Speaker 02: I agree with Appellants Council that the district court didn't reach it, but I think that there's no need to remand this to the district court when this is a pure issue of law, qualified immunity. [00:21:48] Speaker 02: Even if there was a First Amendment violation, the officers are entitled to qualified immunity because their conduct did not violate clearly established law. [00:21:57] Speaker 02: There's no precedent for finding that the police violate the First Amendment when they tell a person that a third party may arrest them. [00:22:06] Speaker 02: via private persons arrest. [00:22:08] Speaker 02: There's no circuit that has in a published or unpublished decision addressed whether making such a statement suggests an adverse action by the police that could chill First Amendment activity. [00:22:22] Speaker 02: Broadham is not on point. [00:22:24] Speaker 02: As you pointed out Judge, it created its prison case where the employee there threatened [00:22:32] Speaker 02: gave the prisoner a warning, and then the court also looked at the fact that the employee then requested a transfer of the prisoner and said, well, this was an adverse action. [00:22:44] Speaker 02: There's discussion as to what Officer Martinez was implying here, but there's nothing that has been alleged as to anything implied or inferred by his statement. [00:22:56] Speaker 02: His statement meant what he said, which is, [00:22:59] Speaker 02: If Mr. Bravo presses charges, when he hears you're pressing charges, we're all going to go to jail right now. [00:23:05] Speaker 02: Are you prepared to do that? [00:23:08] Speaker 03: One question here is, we seem to be making some inferences off of the transcript in the video. [00:23:16] Speaker 03: I'm not necessarily saying the inferences are unreasonable, but it does raise the question of whether it's premature to be deciding it at a motion to dismiss. [00:23:24] Speaker 02: I do think at the motion to dismiss stage we have to infer any of which does have to go in the appellant's favor. [00:23:33] Speaker 02: I'm in a way responding to the arguments that he's making that there were inferred threats and I just [00:23:40] Speaker 02: You know, the threats don't have to be explicit, but I don't know what that means. [00:23:45] Speaker 02: I mean, the threat was, if Mr. Bravo arrests you, you have to, you know, if he arrests the police under Penal Code 142, have to take her into custody. [00:23:56] Speaker 02: And then they were telling her, you're going to go to jail right now to looking, you're injured. [00:24:01] Speaker 02: you seem to not want to go. [00:24:03] Speaker 02: I think that's what the police were proposing. [00:24:05] Speaker 03: Is it not at least a little misleading to say this having known that Bravo had just said he wasn't going to press charges? [00:24:11] Speaker 03: He could have changed his mind and I guess that's the point, but couldn't somebody regard the statement as a little misleading given the nature of what he had just heard? [00:24:20] Speaker 02: I think if you're looking in the context here where the police is like, listen, here are all the things you have to do. [00:24:27] Speaker 02: If you're going to press charges, this is what's required. [00:24:30] Speaker 02: Are you ready to do this? [00:24:32] Speaker 02: I think in that context, it's reasonable to think. [00:24:35] Speaker 02: And in the context that the police were helping her in all these other ways, they [00:24:39] Speaker 02: escorted her to get her stuff. [00:24:40] Speaker 02: They made sure she got safely home. [00:24:42] Speaker 02: They repeatedly offered her medical care. [00:24:44] Speaker 02: They wrote down all her statements. [00:24:46] Speaker 02: I think in this context, it doesn't suggest that the police were threatening an adverse. [00:24:53] Speaker 03: I mean, there are other parts of the context, right, which is she is [00:24:57] Speaker 03: badly injured on the video clearly bleeding in distress and he does not look like he's been through much of anything. [00:25:07] Speaker 03: So how does that cut in all of this? [00:25:09] Speaker 02: I think the transcript, the complaint acknowledges he did have scratches. [00:25:16] Speaker 02: He was clearly the more powerful party and had injured her more severely. [00:25:20] Speaker 02: But the police took the view that this was a mutual battery, that both had been injured. [00:25:27] Speaker 02: Both had conflicting statements. [00:25:28] Speaker 04: But that was wrong, right? [00:25:30] Speaker 04: I mean, he was obviously the primary. [00:25:32] Speaker 04: And under California law, they were required to discourage him. [00:25:36] Speaker 04: I didn't see the officer tell her, you know, it's our job to discourage him from pressing charges. [00:25:42] Speaker 04: And he says he is from pressing charges. [00:25:45] Speaker 04: So do you want to press charges? [00:25:46] Speaker 04: I didn't hear that. [00:25:49] Speaker 02: I hear the court's concern that the police are wrong here and that argument and I'm my I would like the court I would argue the court should focus on the First Amendment alleged violation whether they were wrong or not. [00:26:02] Speaker 02: It doesn't go to whether there was a violation whether the police and back to qualified immunity whether there was established case law giving the police fair notice that if they told her [00:26:17] Speaker 02: that a third party had the right to exercise a private person's arrest and would do that, whether that would violate her First Amendment rights. [00:26:24] Speaker 02: This is not one of those cases. [00:26:26] Speaker 02: There's no case on point or closely on point. [00:26:29] Speaker 02: It's not one of those cases where it was so obvious that qualified immunity wouldn't apply. [00:26:35] Speaker 02: And the damages are that there was a short delay. [00:26:41] Speaker 02: She went home, she tended her injuries, and then she pressed charges. [00:26:45] Speaker 02: And that's all that's at issue. [00:26:47] Speaker 02: And so to close this, the state of the law at the time of the incident didn't provide a fair warning to the officers that these statements violated the law. [00:26:55] Speaker 02: They're entitled to qualified immunity, and I think this court can decide that right here. [00:27:02] Speaker 04: Thank you. [00:27:02] Speaker 04: Thank you. [00:27:07] Speaker 00: So just responding to the suggestion that this court should decide qualified immunity. [00:27:14] Speaker 00: The lower court did not decide the clearly established issue the first time that we had an opportunity to address it. [00:27:19] Speaker 00: is in the reply brief. [00:27:21] Speaker 00: So should this court decide that appellant has sufficiently alleged a constitutional violation? [00:27:28] Speaker 00: I believe this court, if it's inclined to even go into the qualified immunity, it should remain to the district court so that we can have a full opportunity to brief it. [00:27:40] Speaker 00: Any further questions? [00:27:41] Speaker 04: Apparently not. [00:27:43] Speaker 00: Thank you. [00:27:43] Speaker 00: Thank you. [00:27:44] Speaker 04: Okay, the case of Joy Hosier versus Sidney Los Angeles is submitted.