United States Ninth Circuit

In a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 action based on officers' alleged failure to investigate a crime or arrest the alleged perpetrator because of the race of the victim and that of the perpetrator, denial of defendants' motion to dismiss based on qualified immunity is affirmed where: 1) officers' discriminatory failure to arrest, as well as investigate, can violate equal protection; 2) plaintiff sufficiently alleged such a violation in this case; and 3) defendant-officers had a more than fair warning that failure to investigate and arrest the perpetrator because of race violated equal protection.

Appellate Information

• Argued 05/12/2009
• Decided 01/12/2010
• Published 01/12/2010

Judges

• Before ALEX KOZINSKI, Chief Judge, JAY S. BYBEE and CONSUELO M. CALLAHAN, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• Braddock Jon Huesman, Assistant Attorney General, CNMI Office of the Attorney General, Saipan, MP, for the defendants-appellants., George L. Hasselback and Joseph E. Horey, O'Connor Berman Dotts & Banes, Saipan, MP, for the plaintiff-appellee.