Opinion ID: 2669076
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Did a Seizure Occur?

Text: The Fourth Amendment provides that “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons against unreasonable seizures shall not be violated.” U.S. Const. amend. IV. A Fourth Amendment seizure occurs “when there is a governmental termination of freedom of movement through means intentionally applied.” Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 381, 127 S. Ct. 1769, 1776 (2007) (emphasis added). Officer Commins argues that he did not intentionally strike Gaillard with his police vehicle; he contends, instead, that the collision was an accident and thus not a seizure for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. Viewed in the light most favorable to Plaintiff Gaillard, however, the record, which includes a video taken 5 Case: 13-11442 Date Filed: 04/07/2014 Page: 6 of 17 from Officer Commins’s police vehicle, would support factual findings that Officer Commins (1) intentionally turned and accelerated his car directly towards the unarmed Gaillard and (2) intentionally struck Gaillard with the vehicle in an effort to stop Gaillard’s flight and to make an arrest. It is undisputed that Gaillard was fleeing on foot in the paved roadway, was wearing a white t-shirt and tan shorts, was unarmed and fully visible to Officer Commins, and was running from Commins’s right to left. Officer Commins does not deny that he turned his vehicle left, accelerated, and struck Gaillard. In addition, Plaintiff’s expert, Anthony Sasso, testified that Officer Commins (1) controlled the path of his vehicle; (2) turned his vehicle left towards Gaillard’s running path; (3) accelerated from about 22 miles per hour to about 28 miles per hour; and (4) did not hit the brakes until 1.5 seconds after hitting Gaillard. Sasso opined that Officer Commins could have stopped his vehicle before striking Gaillard and running him over. As such, the record evidence would allow a reasonable jury to find that Officer Commins intentionally struck Gaillard with the police vehicle to stop and arrest him. Intentional use of force to stop and arrest a suspect is a “seizure” for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. See Scott, 550 U.S. at 381, 127 S. Ct. at 1776. We recognize that Officer Commins contends the collision was an accident and not an intentional use of force to stop Gaillard’s flight. Officer Commins says 6 Case: 13-11442 Date Filed: 04/07/2014 Page: 7 of 17 he had to turn and accelerate his police vehicle to avoid hitting the other fleeing suspect and another officer who was chasing the suspects on foot. But the video taken from Officer Commins’s vehicle does not show another police officer at all. And, although the other suspect is shown briefly, the video does not establish, conclusively, that Officer Commins needed to turn left and accelerate to avoid hitting the other suspect.2 Officer Commins further explains that he accidently hit Gaillard when Gaillard fell in front of the police car.3 But Plaintiff’s expert Sasso testified that Gaillard did not fall in front of Commins’s car; instead, Gaillard was knocked to the ground when the front bumper of the police car hit Gaillard’s legs. Based on the video and the testimony of plaintiff’s expert, a reasonable jury could reject Officer Commins’s version of the events and, instead, find that Commins intentionally struck Gaillard to stop and apprehend him. 2 The vision field of the video taken from Officer Commins’s car is arguably narrower than Office Commins’s entire field of vision during the incident. But, at this stage, the evidence viewed in the light most favorable to Plaintiff Gaillard does not establish conclusively that Officer Commins had to turn and accelerate to avoid hitting the other suspect and/or another officer. 3 Officer Commins’s contention is supported by his expert witnesses: one of the defense experts stated that Gaillard entered the travel path of Officer Commins’s vehicle; another defense expert opined that Officer Commins did not have adequate time to avoid hitting Gaillard after Gaillard ran into the vehicle’s path. In short, Officer Commins’s experts opined that there is no evidence of intentional force. 7 Case: 13-11442 Date Filed: 04/07/2014 Page: 8 of 17 2. Was the Force Used in the Seizure Objectively Unreasonable? Assuming a jury found that Officer Commins’s striking Gaillard was intentional and thus a “seizure,” the next and separate question is whether a jury could find that the means and manner in which Officer Commins seized Gaillard were objectively unreasonable under the circumstances. See Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 395-97, 109 S. Ct. 1865, 1871-72 (1989) (holding that a claim of excessive force in the course of an arrest or other seizure “should be analyzed under the Fourth Amendment and its ‘reasonableness’ standard”). Because “[t]he test of reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment is not capable of precise definition or mechanical application,” Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 559, 99 S. Ct. 1861, 1184 (1979), “its proper application requires careful attention to the facts and circumstances of each particular case, including the severity of the crime at issue, whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and whether [the suspect] is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight,” Graham, 490 U.S. at 396, 109 S. Ct. at 1872. Therefore, a police officer’s “use of force must be judged on a case-by-case basis from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.” Jackson v. Sauls, 206 F.3d 1156, 1170 (11th Cir. 2000) (quotation marks omitted and alterations adopted). “The calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often 8 Case: 13-11442 Date Filed: 04/07/2014 Page: 9 of 17 forced to make split-second judgments—in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving—about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation.” Graham, 490 U.S. at 396–97, 109 S. Ct. at 1872. Because “[t]he hazy border between permissible and forbidden force is marked by a multifactored, case-by-case balancing test,” Jackson, 206 F.3d at 1170 (quotation marks omitted), “[t]he test requires weighing of all the circumstances,” Smith v. Mattox, 127 F.3d 1416, 1419 (11th Cir. 1997), and sloshing “through the factbound morass of ‘reasonableness,’” Scott, 550 U.S. at 383, 127 S. Ct. at 1778. “The question is whether the officers’ actions are ‘objectively reasonable’ in light of the facts and circumstances confronting them, without regard to their underlying intent or motivation.” Jackson, 206 F.3d at 1170 (quotation marks omitted and alterations adopted). “An officer’s evil intentions will not make a Fourth Amendment violation out of an objectively reasonable use of force; nor will an officer’s good intentions make an objectively unreasonable use of force constitutional.” Graham, 490 U.S. at 397, 109 S. Ct. at 1872. At bottom, “[w]e must balance the nature and quality of the intrusion on the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests against the importance of the governmental interests alleged to justify the intrusion.” United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 703, 103 S. Ct. 2637 (1983). Given that Officer Commins’s appellate brief suggests that hitting the fleeing Gaillard with his vehicle was reasonable 9 Case: 13-11442 Date Filed: 04/07/2014 Page: 10 of 17 under the circumstances, “we must consider the risk of bodily harm that [Officer Commins’s] actions posed to [Gaillard] in light of the threat to the public that [Officer Commins] was trying to eliminate.” Scott, 550 U.S. at 383, 127 S. Ct. at 1778. To that end, we conclude that, in the version of events most favorable to Plaintiff Gaillard, the evidentiary record would allow a jury to find Officer Commins’s action objectively unreasonable under the circumstances. Importantly, this is not a case where a high-speed car chase remained in progress. Instead, the suspects’ vehicle spun off the road and came to a complete stop. An unarmed Gaillard then abandoned the vehicle and fled on foot. In his deposition, Officer Commins admitted that when he saw Gaillard running, Gaillard “wasn’t brandishing a weapon, putting a third party at risk [or] another officer at risk.” Officer Commins conceded that Gaillard “didn’t show any reason for any deadly force.” Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Plaintiff Gaillard, we conclude that a reasonable jury could find that (1) Officer Commins applied deadly force when he struck Gaillard with his police vehicle in order to stop and arrest him and (2) Gaillard was unarmed and did not pose a threat to a police officer or to a third party. A jury could therefore conclude that Officer Commins’s action was objectively unreasonable under the circumstances. 10 Case: 13-11442 Date Filed: 04/07/2014 Page: 11 of 17