Opinion ID: 3151680
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Officer Jones

Text: The district court concluded that Officer Jones’ conduct could be considered unconstitutional and that Graham alone clearly established the law. We need not decide the constitutional issue because the district court erred in concluding that the law was clearly established. The Supreme Court has “repeatedly told courts not to define clearly established law at a high level of generality, since doing so avoids the crucial question whether the official acted reasonably in the particular circumstances that he or she faced.” Plumhoff, 134 S. Ct. at 2023 (citation, ellipsis, and internal quotation marks omitted). And the Court has characterized Graham as “cast at a high level of generality,” indicating that it alone can establish the law only in an “obvious case.” Brosseau, 543 U.S. at 199. As in Brosseau, “[t]he present case is far from the obvious one where Graham . . . alone offer[s] a basis for decision.” Id. The district court found sufficient evidence to support the following facts with regard to Officer Jones. Officer Jones had probable cause to arrest Mr. Ashley for 8 assault. Mr. Ashley initially obeyed the command to sit down but then he got up and started walking toward the exit. Officer Jones followed Mr. Ashley, and he noticed that Mr. Ashley was sweating heavily. But then Mr. Ashley stopped and moved toward Officer Jones. At that point, Officer Jones grabbed Mr. Ashley’s arms. Mr. Ashley resisted; Officer Jones then tackled him, and as they struggled, punched him in the stomach twice and deployed the Taser twice. The question then is whether case law existing as of July 2011 would alert any reasonable officer that (1) when faced with an assault suspect who was apparently attempting to leave the area, who may have been suffering from excited delirium, and who then moved toward him, it would be excessive force for the officer to grab the suspect’s arms; and (2) when the suspect forcibly resisted, it would be excessive to escalate the amount of force and tackle him to the ground, punch him twice in the stomach, and deploy a Taser twice. We conclude that the law in this circuit as of July 2011 would not have put a reasonable officer on notice that this conduct could be considered excessive. First we consider the initial use of force. Officer Jones had probable cause to arrest Mr. Ashley for assault. “In Graham, the Court noted that the Fourth Amendment recognizes the right of the police, in making an arrest or a stop, ‘to use some degree of physical coercion or threat thereof to effect it,’” Hinton v. City of Elwood, 997 F.2d 774, 781 (10th Cir. 1993) (quoting Graham, 490 U.S. at 396), and grabbing Mr. Ashley’s arms was not a great use of force, see Gallegos v. City of Colo. Springs, 114 F.3d 1024, 1030 (10th Cir. 1997) (grabbing person’s arm was “a 9 relatively minor application of force”). If the encounter had ended there, it is unlikely that a court would conclude even the first qualified-immunity prong was satisfied. See Cortez v. McCauley, 478 F.3d 1108, 1128 (10th Cir. 2007) (“We have little difficulty in concluding that a small amount of force, like grabbing [plaintiff] and placing him in the patrol car, is permissible in effecting an arrest under the Fourth Amendment.”). The district court was troubled by the fact that Officer Jones noticed that Mr. Ashley was sweating profusely, implying that the officer should have recognized that Mr. Ashley was suffering from excited delirium. This court has held that a detainee’s mental health is part of the factual circumstances that the court considers under Graham. See Aldaba v. Pickens, 777 F.3d 1148, 1155 (10th Cir.), petition for cert. filed, 83 U.S.L.W. 3934 (U.S. June 17, 2015) (No. 14-1492). But Ms. Waters identifies no Supreme Court or Tenth Circuit decision existing in July 2011 that required officers to refrain from a minimal use of force when dealing with an impaired individual, particularly one who reportedly has committed a crime against another person. To the contrary, in a published decision in 2005, this court upheld the use of force against a man taking antidepressant medication, see Phillips v. James, 422 F.3d 1075, 1081, 1083 (10th Cir. 2005); in an unpublished decision in 2007, this court upheld the use of force against a woman with mental health problems, see Giannetti v. City of Stillwater, 216 F. App’x 756, 762-66 (10th Cir. 2007); and in a published decision in 2008, this court did not disapprove of the initial 10 use of force against a detainee who was apparently intoxicated and behaving bizarrely, see Weigel v. Broad, 544 F.3d 1143, 1148, 1155 (10th Cir. 2008).2 The district court also noted that Officer Jones’ use of force “appears to have triggered Mr. Ashley’s response and the escalation in force to subdue him.” Aplt. App., Vol. IV at 538. It is (and was) clear, however, that the totality of the circumstances matter and “[t]he reasonableness standard does not require that officers use alternative less intrusive means.” Medina v. Cram, 252 F.3d 1124, 1133 (10th Cir. 2001) (internal quotation marks omitted). Moreover, “in order to constitute excessive force, the conduct arguably creating the need for force . . . must rise to the level of recklessness, rather than negligence.” Id. at 1132. Given what occurred previously, Ms. Waters identifies no decisions indicating that grabbing a suspect’s arms when he is approaching an officer rises to the level of recklessness. Next we consider the escalation in force. The key fact here is that while Officer Jones was applying force, Mr. Ashley was resisting being taken into custody. In several cases decided before 2011, this court upheld use of force by officers who 2 As discussed below with regard to Officer Coleman, Weigel involved a protracted struggle between a detainee and two state troopers in which the detainee was kept under restraint even after being subdued. 544 F.3d at 1148-49. This court ultimately held that the troopers were not entitled to qualified immunity because a reasonable jury could conclude that the continued restraint, after the detainee was under control, was excessive. See id. at 1153, 1155. But the court “acknowledge[d] that, up to a point, the troopers were protecting themselves and the public from [the detainee] and [the detainee] from himself.” Id.; see also id. (Hartz, J., concurring) (“I do not think that the defendants violated [the detainee’s] constitutional rights before his legs were bound.”); id. at 1156 (O’Brien, J., dissenting) (“[The decedent’s] acts, not those of these troopers, escalated the violence to an extremely dangerous level. His behavior fully justified the restraints employed as well as their duration.”). 11 faced physical resistance, including against persons who were impaired. See Weigel, 544 F.3d at 1148, 1155 (tackling to ground, chokehold); Gallegos, 114 F.3d at 1030-31 (tackling to ground); Hinton, 997 F.2d at 781, 782 (wrestling to ground and using stun gun); Giannetti, 216 F. App’x at 760, 762, 765 (struggle in which multiple officers held detainee’s legs, arms, head, and held her back down); see also Aldaba, 777 F.3d at 1158 (“In cases where the subject actively resisted a seizure, whether by physically struggling with an officer or by disobeying direct orders, courts have held either that no constitutional violation occurred or that the right not to be tased in these circumstances was not clearly established.”). Further, the pre-2011 cases holding that force may have been excessive tend to emphasize a detainee’s lack of resistance. See Cavanaugh v. Woods Cross City, 625 F.3d 661, 665-66 (10th Cir. 2010); Casey v. City of Fed. Heights, 509 F.3d 1278, 1285 (10th Cir. 2007). In light of these decisions, it would not have been clear to a reasonable officer that the conduct at issue might be unlawful in these circumstances. At best, the facts place the case in the “hazy border between excessive and acceptable force.” Brosseau, 543 U.S. at 201 (internal quotation marks omitted). For these reasons, we conclude that in July 2011 it was not clearly established that the force used by Officer Jones could be considered excessive. Officer Jones is entitled to qualified immunity.