Metro Police officer wins appeal on traffic stop arrest case

By Steve Kanigher

Friday, Aug. 5, 2011 | 11:20 a.m.

A federal judge in Las Vegas erred by failing to dismiss claims against a Metro Police officer accused of violating a motorist's civil rights after arresting her following a traffic stop, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday.

But the decision was only a partial victory for Metro because plaintiff Jessica Gonzalez can still pursue civil rights claims against police related to her overnight stay in the Clark County Detention Center.

The case centers on the early morning April 2008 arrest by Officer Russell Cragin of motorist Jessica Gonzalez near Paradise Road and Swenson Street on an outstanding warrant from Las Vegas Justice Court. In her lawsuit against police, Gonzalez alleged that her arrest was a case of mistaken identity and that she made that point clear to Cragin. She alleged that the mistake easily could have been rectified but that Cragin accused her of being a liar and threatened to take her children to Child Haven.

Police denied her allegation that the arrest was unlawful.

Cragin's request for a ruling in his favor was denied by U.S. District Judge James Mahan. But the Circuit Court overturned Mahan, arguing that although the warrant contained a different Social Security number than Gonzalez provided Cragin, the warrant was otherwise an exact match with Gonzalez's name, birth date, height and hair and eye color.

The Circuit Court said that Gonzalez failed to show that an officer "does not have probable cause to arrest a person based on a valid warrant containing information that matches a person so closely."

"Accordingly, under the prevailing law at the time of Gonzalez's arrest, a reasonable officer in Cragin's position would have no reason to believe that arresting Gonzalez would violate her constitutional rights," the Circuit Court wrote.