Opinion ID: 3013155
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Particular emphasis in the jury charge

Text: Plaintiffs raise a series of complaints to the effect that the jury charge should have highlighted specific reasons permitting the jury to find in their favor. First, they contend that the judge should have told the jury to look at the defendants’ pre-seizure conduct.6 Instead, the judge 6. The plaintiffs requested the following as part of the jury charge: When an officer’s conduct amounts to more than a minor departure from internal department policy, and particularly where the officer engaged in intentional misconduct, such as when he intentionally does an act knowing it is wrong, you may find that the officer’s . . . acts creating the need for force are important in evaluating reasonableness of the officer’s eventual use of force in this case. Therefore, you may consider that there was more than a minor 9 instructed the jury that “[a]ll the events transpiring during the officer’s encounter with the plaintiffs can be considered in evaluating the reasonableness of Hood’s shooting.” Second, plaintiffs argue that the judge should have told the jury that Hood and Swinton may have acted unreasonably if they failed to identify themselves properly while working a plainclothes detail. Again, the District Court limited its instruction to more general statements about the meaning of reasonableness.7 Third, the plaintiffs argue that the District Court erred by informing the jury that Officer Hood’s suspension for violating police procedure does not necessarily prove that he acted unreasonably under the Fourth Amendment. In each instance about which the plaintiffs complain, the judge told counsel that he would instruct the jury on the established understanding of reasonableness for excessive force claims, but that counsel was free to argue more specific points in their favor at closing. We review the District Court’s decision to use particular language in the jury charge for abuse of discretion. Cooper Dist. Co. v. Amana Refrigeration, Inc., 180 F.3d. 542, 549 (3d Cir. 1999). We have said that, in evaluating jury departure from Internal Department Policy when it indicates in the Internal Affairs Report itself that Officers Hood and Swinton improperly blocked Mr. Campbell’s car in front, failed to radio, and/or communicate important information regarding the car for an investigation as directed by Directive 92, exited their unmarked vehicle, dressed in plainclothes civilian attire, approached the Campbell car they blocked from the front, and then placed themselves in harm[‘]s way. Appellant’s Br. 23-24. 7. Specifically the Court instructed the jury that [y]ou must determine whether the amount of force used to effect the stop was that which a reasonable officer would have employed in effectuating the stop under similar circumstances. In making this determination, you may take into account the reason for the stop, the severity of the crime or the violation, whether plaintiffs posed an immediate threat to the safety of the defendants or others, and whether the plaintiffs actively resisted or attempted to evade the stop. 10 instructions, we shall only find discretion abused “if the instruction was capable of confusing and thereby misleading the jury.” United States v. Fischbach & Moore, Inc., 750 F.2d 1183, 1195 (3d Cir. 1984); see also Bolden v. S.E. Pa. Transp. Auth., 21 F.3d 29, 33 (3d Cir. 1994) (same) (citing Waldorf v. Shuta, 896 F.2d 723, 740 (3d. Cir. 1990)). Likewise, the “district court has substantial discretion with respect to specific wording of jury instructions and need not give [a] proposed instruction if essential points are covered by those that are given.” Douglas v. Owens, 50 F.3d 1226, 1233 (3d Cir. 1995) (citing Heller Int’l Corp. v. Sharp, 974 F.2d 850, 860 (7th Cir. 1992)). A District Court does not abuse its discretion by refusing to emphasize legal inferences favoring one side. Emphasizing arguable inferences to jurors is the job of advocates, not courts. See Brewer v. City of Napa, 210 F.3d 1093, 1097 (9th Cir. 2000) (finding no abuse of discretion in the District Court’s refusal in an excessive force case to apply the law more specifically to the facts in its jury charge because “the instructions given ‘fairly and adequately cover[ed] the issues presented,’ and provided Brewer with ample room to argue his theory of the case to the jury, i.e., that [the officers] had options available to them other than ordering a police dog to attack.”) (citation omitted) (emphasis added); Alexander v. Conveyors & Dumpers, Inc., 731 F.2d 1221, 1227 (5th Cir. 1984) (per curiam) (“Counsel had the opportunity to emphasize the matters in his favor contained in these proposed instructions during jury argument and we decline to hold that the trial court erred in refusing them.”). Moreover, the District Court’s charge that violations of police procedure are not necessarily constitutional violations comports with established Supreme Court precedent. See Davis v. Scherer, 468 U.S. 183, 193-95 (1984). That portion of the charge did not cross the prejudicial propriety line because its only effect was to avoid a possible misunderstanding by the jury. In a related assertion of error, the plaintiffs contend the Court should have instructed the jury that an officer acts unreasonably if his improper conduct creates the situation 11 making necessary the use of deadly force. See Estate of Starks v. Enyart, 5 F.3d 230, 234 (7th Cir. 1993); Gilmere v. City of Atlanta, 774 F.2d 1495, 1501-02 (11th Cir. 1985) (en banc). However, we also note that the plaintiffs never requested the jury charge that our dissenting colleague would issue — “that conduct on the officers’ part that unreasonably precipitated the need to use deadly force may provide a basis for holding that the eventual use of deadly force was unreasonable in violation of the Fourth Amendment.” (Plaintiffs instead sought a charge that linked Fourth Amendment reasonableness to compliance with local police regulations and thus would have made constitutional standards vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. See supra note 6.) In the absence of such a request by the plaintiffs, we review the District Court’s actual instruction for plain error only. United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 731-32 (1993). Our Court has not endorsed the doctrine discussed in Gilmere and Starks and, in fact, has recognized disagreement among circuit courts on this issue. See Abraham v. Raso, 183 F.3d 279, 295-96 (3d Cir. 1999). In Abraham, we announced that “[w]e will leave for another day how these cases should be reconciled.” Id. at 296. In this context, the District Court did not abuse its discretion by refusing to instruct the jury on a doctrine that our Circuit has not adopted. As such, plain error of course did not occur. Our dissenting colleague also parts with us on this issue in a more general way. Jury instructions, he writes, are “the didactic exercise of providing the jury with guidance as to how. . . [legal] principles apply to the evidence presented and how the factual disputes bear on the ultimate outcome.” While acknowledging “the key role of counsel in arguing the facts to the jury and explaining their significance,” nonetheless our colleague believes that “there are some cases in which the failure to explain the significance of key facts does constitute a breach of the trial judge’s duty,” and “this is one of them.” Our pause with this approach is simply this: to adopt it puts courts on the slippery slope to interfering with (indeed substituting for) counsel’s advocacy and ultimately 12 intruding on the jury’s job of finding facts. What our colleague suggests may, in a perfect world with a perfect jury instruction, not interpose the judge in the jury room. But our world is not perfect. Until it is, engrafting evidence to argument is the home turf of counsel. Laying out a level (even if plain) canvas for counsel to color is the court’s model role. When (as in this case) a court does this, it is hardly an abuse of discretion.