Opinion ID: 471621
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: State of Mind Instruction

Text: 18 Maddox claims the jury was erroneously instructed to consider the defendant's state of mind in determining if the defendants violated the decedent's fourteenth amendment due process rights. Specifically, the court instructed the jury that 19 In determining whether the police officers crossed the constitutional line and violated the plaintiff's civil rights by using or not using as the case may be unreasonable force, you, in applying your judgment, should consider among other factors the amount of force used in relationship to the apparent need presented, the extent of the injury intended to be actually inflicted, and whether the motive of the officer was to exact punishment rather than arrest the defendant for trial. 20 When determining the constitutional due process line has been crossed, [sic] you may use state law as a guide to form your decision under the vaguer constitutional standard. For example, state and local rules about the reasonable use of force and the officer's knowledge of them may reflect on your judgment of the motive of an officer. 21 Maddox argues that this instruction is erroneous because the correct standard to determine whether defendant violated the decedent's due process rights under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 is negligence. 22 Maddox's argument fails. In Daniels v. Williams, --- U.S. ----, 106 S.Ct. 662, 663, 88 L.Ed.2d 662 (1986) and Davidson v. Cannon, --- U.S. ----, 106 S.Ct. 668, 670, 88 L.Ed.2d 677 (1986), the Supreme Court recently held that mere negligent conduct of a person acting under the color of state law may not be enough to state a claim under section 1983. Daniels and Davidson overruled Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 101 S.Ct. 1908, 68 L.Ed.2d 420 (1981) to the extent that Parratt states that, mere lack of due care by a state official may 'deprive' an individual of life, liberty or property under the Fourteenth Amendment. Daniels, 106 S.Ct. at 665. Thus, negligent conduct by the state official is not enough to state a claim under section 1983 based on an alleged violation of the fourteenth amendment due process clause. See also Baker v. McCollan, 443 U.S. 137, 139-40, 99 S.Ct. 2689, 2692-93, 61 L.Ed.2d 433 (1979) (The question of whether an allegation of simple negligence is sufficient to state a cause of action under Sec. 1983 is more elusive than it appears at first blush. It may well not be susceptible of a uniform answer across the entire spectrum of conceivable constitutional violations). Under Daniels and Davidson, the court's instruction in this case was not in error. 1 23 Maddox's argument fails for another reason. Even prior to the recent decisions in Daniels and Davidson, it was established that section 1983 contains no state of mind requirement independent of that necessary to state a violation of the underlying constitutional right. Parratt, 451 U.S. at 534-35, 101 S.Ct. at 1912-13. This aspect of Parratt predates and survives the recent decisions in Daniels and Davidson. Daniels, 106 S.Ct. at 664. 24 In this case Maddox alleged the defendant officers deprived the decedent of life and liberty without due process when they applied a choke hold. State and local laws, which define when a police officer may use a choke hold, bear on the inquiry of whether, as a matter of federal constitutional and statutory law, the decedent was deprived of life or liberty without due process. Specifically, the Los Angeles Police Commission limits use of the choke hold unless death or serious bodily injury is threatened. Determining whether an officer on the scene is justified in applying a choke hold requires the evaluation of a number of factors. The officer's state of mind is certainly relevant to his evaluation of the urgency of the situation, the threat posed by the defendant to himself and others, the threat the defendant poses to the officers, and the need for the amount of force applied. See Williams v. Kelley, 624 F.2d 695, 697 (5th Cir.1980) (quoting Johnson v. Glick, 481 F.2d 1028, 1033 (2d Cir.) (Friendly, J.), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 1033, 94 S.Ct. 462, 38 L.Ed.2d 324 (1973)) (the constitutionality of the use of a choke hold on a prisoner depended upon such factors as the need for the application of force, the relationship between the need and the amount of force that was used, the extent of injury inflicted, and whether force was applied in a good-faith effort to maintain or restore discipline or maliciously and sadistically for the very purpose of causing harm), cert. denied, 451 U.S. 1019, 101 S.Ct. 3009, 69 L.Ed.2d 391 (1981); see also Tennessee v. Garner, --- U.S. ----, 105 S.Ct. 1694, 1699-1701, 1703-06, 85 L.Ed.2d 1 (1985) (applying a balancing test to determine if seizure obtained by use of deadly force was constitutionally reasonable; considering also the rules in individual states and police departments). 25 In this case the jury instructions allowed the jury to refer to state and local laws concerning when a choke hold may be reasonably used to determine whether plaintiff was deprived of his right to life or liberty without due process. It was also not error for the court to instruct the jury that if the officer's state of mind was such to inflict punishment or injury in excess of the need presented, then local rules regarding the application of the choke hold would have been violated, and the decedent may have been deprived of his fourteenth amendment due process rights. Assessing the jury instructions as a whole, we cannot conclude that they were in error.