Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-5_02-cv-01479/USCOURTS-cand-5_02-cv-01479-2/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 42:1983 Prisoner Civil Rights

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ORDER RE TRIAL PROCEEDINGS

C 02-01479 RMW

E-FILED on 3/22/07

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

SAN JOSE DIVISION

ROBERT NORSE,

Plaintiff,

v.

CITY OF SANTA CRUZ, et al.,

 Defendants.

No. C 02-01479 RMW

ORDER RE TRIAL PROCEEDINGS

BACKGROUND OF CASE

This case is set for trial on Monday, March 26, 2007 and involves plaintiff's claims for

damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for alleged violations of his civil rights under the First and Fourth

Amendments of the Constitution based upon incidents occurring at Santa Cruz City Council

meetings on March 12, 2002 and January 14, 2004. The March 12, 2002 incident involves the

question of whether the ejection of plaintiff Norse from the council meeting following his Nazi

salute protesting Mayor Krohn's administration of the council's decorum rules violated Norse's

constitutional rights or was an appropriate action within the "great deal of discretion" a presiding

officer has in enforcement of rules for the orderly conduct of meetings. See White v. City of

Norwalk, 900 F.2d 1421, 1426 (9th Cir. 1990).

The January 14, 2004 incident involves Norse's ejection from a council meeting by Mayor

Kennedy for alleged disruptive behavior. Norse's behavior involved allegedly parading with others

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ORDER RE TRIAL PROCEEDINGS

C 02-01479 RMW 2

in front of seated members of the public after being admonished not to do so and carrying on a

distracting conversation while the council was attempting to carry on its meeting. The same legal

question that is at issue in the March 12, 2002 incident is also raised in connection with the January

14, 2004 incident. The defendants are the City of Santa Cruz, Christopher Krohn (the mayor on

March 12, 2002), Tim Fitmaurice (a city council member), Scott Kennedy (the mayor on January 14,

2004), and Loran Baker (a police officer and sergeant-at-arms who removed Norse from the March

12, 2002 meeting at the instruction of Krohn).

QUALIFIED IMMUNITY QUESTIONS AND PROCEDURE FOR RESOLUTION

Each of the individual defendants asserts that he is at least entitled to qualified, if not

absolute, immunity. "[B]ecause [t]he entitlement is an immunity from suit rather than a mere defense

to liability," the Supreme Court has "repeatedly . . . stressed the importance of resolving immunity

questions at the earliest possible stage in litigation." Hunter v. Bryant, 502 U.S. 224, 227 (1991);

see Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 200-01 (2001). The first inquiry is whether, taking the facts in

the light most favorable to plaintiff, do those facts show the official's conduct (here, the acts of the

mayors) violated a constitutional right. Saucier, 533 U.S. at 201. If so, the dispositive inquiry is

"whether it would be clear to a reasonable officer that his conduct was unlawful in the situation he

confronted." Id. at 202; see Tribble v. Gardner, 860 F.2d 321 (9th Cir. 1988). The determination of

qualified immunity on facts not genuinely at issue is one of law for the court. See Thompson v.

Mahre, 110 F.3d 716, 721 (9th Cir. 1997); Act Up!/Portland v. Bagley, 988 F.2d 868 (9th Cir.

1993).

In this case, there are video tapes of the incidents in question and both parties have agreed

they are admissible and presumably agree they accurately depict what occurred. Therefore, the facts

appear undisputed. Since the court is mandated to resolve issues of qualified immunity "at the

earliest possible stage of the litigation," the court needs to resolve the qualified immunity issue, if

possible, before proceeding with the jury aspect of the trial. Therefore, on Monday, March 26, 2007

the court will consider the question of whether any of the individual defendants, based upon the facts

in the light most favorable to plaintiff, is entitled to qualified immunity.

The parties should be prepared to address the following questions:

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ORDER RE TRIAL PROCEEDINGS

C 02-01479 RMW 3

1. Are there any facts in dispute that preclude the determination of qualified immunity as a

matter of law? If so, what are those facts?

2. If one or both of the mayors violated plaintiff's constitutional rights by ordering his

ejection from the council meeting but is nevertheless entitled to qualified immunity, is the City

liable for the constitutional violation? Is a mayor in purporting to enforce a city's decorum rules at a

council meeting acting as a policy maker for the city?

3. Can a sergeant-at-arms at a council meeting be held liable if he ejects a member of the

audience from the meeting at the instruction of presiding officer when the decorum rules require that

upon instructions of the presiding officer the sergeant-at-arms has the duty "to eject from the

Council Chambers any person in the audience who . . . disrupts the proceedings of the Council," if

the presiding officer's instruction was not reasonable based upon the conduct of the member of the

audience?

4. In determining whether there has been a disruption of a council meeting by a member of

the audience, can the presiding officer consider the reaction of a council member to the action of

member of the audience or can he only consider the conduct of the member of the audience and the

impact of that conduct on the audience?

The court will resolve the above issues and finalize its rulings on plaintiff's in limine motions

on Monday, March 26 or Tuesday, March 27. Therefore, jury selection, assuming a jury is needed,

will begin on Wednesday, March 28, at 9:00 a.m.

PLAINTIFF'S IN LIMINE MOTIONS

Plaintiff's Motion in Limine No. 1

Plaintiff Norse seeks to exclude all evidence, testimony, and argument regarding all incidents

involving him at city council meetings other than the meetings on March 12, 2002 and January 14,

2004. Norse argues such evidence is irrelevant to the present suit, which is about whether he caused

disruptions at the council meetings on March 12, 2002 and January 14, 2004. Second, Norse

contends such evidence would be unduly prejudicial and confuse the jury because it consists of past

and subsequent behavior tending to encourage the jury to "dislike plaintiff or hold plaintiff in

contempt for such behavior," which detracts from the true issues at hand. Introduction of such

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ORDER RE TRIAL PROCEEDINGS

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evidence would also be a waste of time in that defendants' pretrial statement has indicated there are

hundreds of such incidents of purported misconduct at city council meetings, which could cause the

trial to go on for weeks. Third, Norse submits such past and subsequent acts constitute inadmissible

character evidence in the form of prior bad acts offered to prove a general intent crime.

The court finds that evidence of what occurred at meetings before the two meetings at issue

is relevant to the extent it shows prior warnings to Norse about his conduct and shows prior conduct

that caused disruption or likely would cause disruption. In particular, evidence that plaintiff was

informed at past meetings that the "Nazi salute" was offensive and was warned not to again make

the gesture is relevant to the question of whether his conduct on March 12 was disruptive or likely to

cause disruption and whether Mayor Krohn's ejection of Norse was reasonable. Evidence, however,

offered to merely show that the council permitted Norse to proceed with harsh criticism of the city

council in the past without incident has little relevance to whether his behavior at the meetings in

question was disruptive and its admission could cause the jury to "dislike plaintiff or hold plaintiff in

contempt for such behavior," which would detract from the true issues at hand. Also, conduct

subsequent to the January 14, 2004 meeting seems irrelevant. The court will consider the specific

evidence that defendant seeks to admit and rule on the admission of it at the proceedings on March

26.

Plaintiff's Motion in Limine No. 2

Norse moves to exclude evidence, testimony, reference, or argument regarding any of his

past criminal convictions on grounds of irrelevance, undue prejudice, inadmissible character

evidence or prior act evidence, and inadmissible prior conviction evidence.

Defendants oppose, arguing that the evidence is directly relevant to the issue of whether

Norse suffered emotional distress as claimed as well as to the measure of damages for emotional

distress suffered. Defendants essentially argue that plaintiff's numerous past arrests and detentions 

evidence that he is familiar with and desensitized to such processes, which refutes his claim that he

suffered severe emotional distress, fear, anxiety, embarrassment, and humiliation with respect to the

arrests and detentions on March 12 and January 14. 

Defendants also argue that the nature of the past offenses show that plaintiff knew his

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28 1 Halvorsen v. Baird, 146 F.3d 680, 687 (9th Cir. 1998), cited by defendants for the same

proposition, is not on point. 

ORDER RE TRIAL PROCEEDINGS

C 02-01479 RMW 5

conduct would likely lead to arrest and incarceration. Defendants submit that such use of the

evidence does not constitute inadmissible character evidence. 

In Udemba v. Nicoli, 237 F.3d 8, 14 (1st Cir. 2001), the district court had allowed defendant

to cross-examine plaintiff about a subsequent arrest that had evoked the same sort of newspaper

publicity for the limited purpose of assisting the jury in determining the extent of damages suffered

for mental anguish and emotional distress. The First Circuit affirmed the district court's conclusion

that the evidence was specially relevant to the contested issue of the amount of damages attributable

to emotional distress.1

The court grants the motion subject to reconsideration depending upon what plaintiff offers

at trial on damages. Although the court finds persuasive the argument that such evidence could be

relevant for the limited purposes of determining the extent of damages attributable to plaintiff's

emotional distress claim, if plaintiff asserts emotional distress, defendants have not presented a

sufficient showing of any particular conviction that would support their relevance arguments.

Defendants note that they "are in the process of acquiring certified criminal and court records

documenting these prior arrests and incarcerations." The basis for defendants' arguments is that

Norse testified at deposition to numerous incidents from 1998 through 2002 for which he was

arrested, convicted, and incarcerated in Santa Cruz County, Santa Clara County, and Sacramento

County. Since plaintiff has suggested he may not offer evidence of emotional distress and since no

showing has been made of particular purportedly relevant past convictions, the court at this point

excludes such evidence as irrelevant and unduly prejudicial to the plaintiff, subject to

reconsideration.

DATED: 3/22/07 RONALD M. WHYTE

United States District Judge

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ORDER RE TRIAL PROCEEDINGS

C 02-01479 RMW 6

THIS SHALL CERTIFY THAT NOTICE OF THIS ORDER WAS PROVIDED TO:

Counsel for Plaintiff:

David J. Beauvais davebeau@pacbell.net 

Kate Wells lioness@got.net 

Counsel for Defendants:

George J. Kovacevich admin@abc-law.com 

Date: 3/22/07 SPT 

 Chambers of Judge Whyte

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