Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-04-01895/USCOURTS-ca8-04-01895-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 555
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Prison Condition
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 04-1895

___________

Robert Eugene Coleman, *

*

Appellant, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the

* District of Nebraska.

David G. Rieck; Donald Carey; *

Shannon Haney, in her official and * [UNPUBLISHED]

individual capacity; Louis J. Tomsu, *

IV, in his official and individual *

capacity; Steven Michael Martinez, in *

his official and individual capacity; *

Jerad Kruse, in his official and *

individual capacity; John Gruidel, in *

his official and individual capacity; *

Gregg Barrios, in his official and *

individual capacity; City of Omaha, *

Nebraska, *

*

Appellees. *

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Submitted: November 3, 2005

Filed: November 16, 2005

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Before MELLOY, MAGILL, and GRUENDER, Circuit Judges.

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PER CURIAM.

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The Honorable Thomas M. Shanahan, United States District Judge for the

District of Nebraska.

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Robert Coleman appeals the district court’s1

 judgment in favor of defendants

in his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action. We affirm.

Coleman filed a complaint against the City of Omaha, Police Chief Donald

Carey, and seven police officers, alleging that the officers used excessive force in

arresting him and conducted an unreasonable search and seizure, and that the city and

police chief promulgated invalid policies, procedures, and customs, all in violation

of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. The district court granted summary

judgment to defendant Officer Rieck on the illegal-search claim and granted summary

judgment to three other defendant officers on the excessive-force claim. A trial was

held on the excessive-force claims against Rieck and the other three remaining police

officer defendants, the jury found in favor of defendants, and the court entered

judgment in accordance with the verdict and denied Coleman’s renewed motion for

judgment as a matter of law (JAML). The court then dismissed the remaining policy

claims against the city and the police chief, finding a verdict against those defendants

would be irreconcilable with the exoneration of the individual officers.

We find that the district court properly granted summary judgment for Rieck

on the illegal-search claim. See Dulany v. Carnahan, 132 F.3d 1234, 1237 (8th Cir.

1997) (de novo standard of review). First, the district court correctly found that the

instant claim was not controlled by the ruling of the Nebraska Court of Appeals in

State v. Coleman, 630 N.W.2d 686 (Neb. Ct. App. 2001), in which the court reversed

Coleman’s conviction for possession of crack cocaine because it found that the patdown search of Coleman was illegal. See id. at 695, 698. The Nebraska Court of

Appeals did not address whether Rieck was entitled to qualified immunity, and Rieck

was not in privity with the state and did not have the opportunity to litigate qualified

immunity. See Duncan v. Clements, 744 F.2d 48, 51-52 (8th Cir. 1984). Further, the

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Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968).

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pat-down search was justified by Rieck’s reasonable suspicion that Coleman might

have been armed and dangerous. See United States v. Roggeman, 279 F.3d 573, 577

(8th Cir.), cert. denied, 537 U.S. 879 (2002). Coleman’s designation as a “2CX,”

meaning he should be considered dangerous, along with the facts that Coleman could

not produce the registration documents for the car and stated that the car belonged to

a person whom Rieck recognized as being a known or suspected drug dealer,

supported the suspicion. See United States v. Hanlon, 401 F.3d 926, 929 (8th Cir.

2005) (court looks to totality of circumstances to determine whether reasonable

suspicion exists that individual is armed and dangerous; officer may reasonably

suspect that suspected car thief might possess weapons); United States v. Walden,

146 F.3d 487, 491 (7th Cir. 1998) (information that passenger in stopped vehicle was

“involved in gang crime activity” and was “armed and dangerous person” was

sufficient justification for weapons frisk), cert. denied, 525 U.S. 1179 (1999); cf.

United States v. Robinson, 119 F.3d 663, 667 (8th Cir. 1997) (reasonable for officer

to believe individual is armed and dangerous if individual is suspected of being

involved in drug transaction because weapons are associated with drug transactions).

Finally, Rieck did not exceed the bounds of the search by asking Coleman to remove

a crack pipe from his pocket, as Rieck testified that he suspected it was a crack pipe

from the minute he touched it. See United States v. Hughes, 15 F.3d 798, 802 (8th

Cir. 1994) (officer did not exceed bounds of Terry2

 frisk by seizing object when his

first impression was that the bump he felt was crack cocaine, citing Minnesota v.

Dickerson, 508 U.S. 366, 375-76 (1993)).

We also find that the district court did not err in denying Coleman’s renewed

motion for JAML, as the testimony from the officers describing why they used the

force they did, and the testimony from their expert that the force did not exceed

national standards, supported the verdict that the force used was not excessive. See

Wilson v. Brinker Intern., Inc., 382 F.3d 765, 770 (8th Cir. 2004) (court must accept

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facts in light most favorable to defendants and consistent with jury’s verdict, and

refrain from making credibility assessments inconsistent with jury’s findings).

Finally, we find that the district court did not err in granting judgment for the

police chief and the city on the policy claims, following the jury’s verdict in favor of

the individual officers. A verdict against the police chief or the city could not be

harmonized with the jury’s finding that the officers did not use excessive force, or

with the court’s determination that the search was legal. See Speer v. City of Wynne,

Ark., 276 F.3d 980, 985-86 (8th Cir. 2002).

Accordingly, we affirm, and we deny Coleman’s appellate motion. 

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