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Christina Jones v. Craigclarkand Donn Kaminski

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ARGUED APRIL 7, 2010

Before WOOD, EVANS, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

Christina Jones is an employee of Commonwealth Edison (“ComEd”), which is the major electricity provider in the Chicago area. One day, while working in her job as a meter reader in Braid-wood, Illinois, she was stopped and then arrested by Officers Craig Clark and Donn Kaminski. The officers were responding to a report that a “person of color” was taking pictures of houses in Braidwood. (Jones is an African-American, and Braidwood is almost entirely white. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Braid-wood’s population in 2000 was over 97% white. See http://www.census.gov.) Jones sued the officers, alleging among things that the stop and arrest violated her Fourth Amendment rights. The defendant officers took the position that no constitutional violation had occurred because they reasonably suspected that Jones was involved in criminal activity at the time of the stop and they had probable cause to arrest her. The parties outlined their positions in cross-motions for summary judgment, and Officers Clark and Kaminski added that they were entitled to qualified immunity from suit, which allows public officials to avoid trial ” ‘insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.’ ” Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 517 (1985) (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982)). The district court concluded that factual disputes required a trial on the merits and similarly made it impossible to resolve the immunity question. In this appeal, Officers Clark and Kaminski urge that the undisputed facts entitle them to immunity. We conclude that the district court correctly saw that this case is not suitable for summary disposition, and we thus affirm.

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