Opinion ID: 198593
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Objective Reasonableness of the Ramsdells' Conduct

Text: 20 Napier argues that material factual disputes exist that should have prevented the magistrate from determining that a jury could not find that the Ramsdells' conduct was so deficient that no reasonable officer could have made the same choices under the circumstances.
21 With regard to Richard Ramsdell's conduct, the magistrate found that two facts -- both of which were conclusively established by Napier's criminal convictions -- led to the conclusion that Richard's actions were objectively reasonable. It is beyond doubt that issue preclusion applies to a federal civil rights action following a criminal conviction in state court. See Allen v. McCurry, 449 U.S. 90, 102 (1980); Glantz v. United States, 837 F.2d 23, 25 (1st Cir. 1988). Because federal courts must give preclusive effect to judgments in state court whenever the courts of the particular state would do so, see Allen, 449 U.S. at 415-16, we examine Maine's collateral estoppel rules in this context. In Maine, a prior criminal conviction conclusively establishes all facts essential to the final judgment of conviction. Hanover Ins. Co. v. Hayward, 464 A.2d 156, 160 (Me. 1983). The convicted party is precluded from litigating the issues essential to that conviction in subsequent civil actions. See Beale v. Chisolm, 626 A.2d 345, 347 (Me. 1993). 22 The magistrate correctly found two facts to have been established in the criminal action against Napier: (1) that Napier placed Richard in fear of imminent bodily injury with a dangerous weapon, and (2) that Napier recklessly created a substantial risk of serious bodily injury to Richard with a dangerous weapon. These facts were essential to Napier's criminal convictions for criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon and reckless conduct with a dangerous weapon, see 17-A M.R.S.A. §§ 209(1) & 211(1), and are therefore established for purposes of Napier's civil rights suit. In light of these established facts, we agree with the magistrate that a jury could not find that Richard's conduct -- firing a single shot at Napier while attempting to find cover -- was so deficient that no reasonable officer could have made the same choice under the circumstances. See Roy, 42 F.3d at 695 (affirming summary judgment in favor of officers who used deadly force on a suspect who threatened them with knives, because no jury could find the officers' conduct to be objectively unreasonable). 1
23 Ronald Ramsdell's conduct, however, requires closer scrutiny because Napier was acquitted of threatening Ronald and of placing him at risk of serious bodily injury. It is undisputed that Ronald fired two bursts of three bullets each at Napier, and the magistrate analyzed each burst separately. As noted by the magistrate, Ronald testified at Napier's criminal trial that he fired the first three rounds because he thought Napier was going to shoot Richard and that he fired the second three rounds because he thought Napier was going to shoot him. 24 The magistrate recommended summary judgment with regard to the first burst because he found that a reasonable officer could have made the same choice under the circumstances of witnessing Napier's creation of a substantial risk of serious bodily injury to Richard. Due to the collateral estoppel effect of his criminal conviction, Napier cannot create a genuine issue regarding whether he actually created a substantial risk of serious bodily injury to Richard. What Napier can and does argue on appeal is that there is a genuine issue of material fact regarding whether Ronald knew of or was able to witness that creation of risk. 25 Napier now claims that Ronald could not see Napier inside the house. However, Napier did not present this argument or any evidence supporting it to the magistrate, so it was not part of the summary judgment record. 2 This alone adequately supports the magistrate's determination. In any event, it would not matter if Napier had claimed that Ronald could not have seen Napier inside the house because Ronald did not claim to have been able to do so. To the contrary, Ronald specifically testified that he could not see Napier when Napier was inside. All parties agree that, when Richard jumped behind the woodpile, Napier came to the open doorway of the house. Whether Ronald could see into the house from his position in the driveway is irrelevant, because Napier came out to the open doorway, where he could be seen -- and shot -- by Ronald. Napier does not dispute that Ronald: (1) knew that Napier was possibly mentally disturbed; (2) knew that Richard had quickly retreated from Napier by jumping over the woodpile on the porch; and (3) saw Napier in the open doorway holding a gun. Consequently, Napier has not created a genuine issue as to whether Ronald knew that Napier placed Richard at a substantial risk of serious bodily injury. Rather, it has been conclusively established that Napier threatened Richard and placed him at risk of serious bodily injury, and it is undisputed that Ronald knew of those facts at the time he fired the first burst of bullets at Napier. Therefore, we do not disturb the magistrate's decision regarding the first burst of bullets fired by Ronald. 26
27 The magistrate found Ronald's second burst to be objectively reasonable based on his fear that Napier was going to shoot him when Napier turned to face him after the first burst of bullets. Because Napier was acquitted of charges of criminal threatening and reckless conduct toward Ronald, there is no collateral estoppel with regard to those issues. In making his determination regarding the reasonableness of the second burst, the magistrate relied on the very short period of time involved, the plaintiff's failure to drop his gun, and the fact that the plaintiff does not contend that he did not hear Richard's and Ronald's repeated orders to drop his gun. In light of those three factors, the magistrate stated that Napier's denial that he raised his gun when he turned toward Ronald was not determinative. 28 We would agree with the magistrate's conclusion if the undisputed record was that Ronald: (1) saw that Napier held a firearm when Napier turned to face him; (2) ordered Napier to drop his weapon; and (3) shot Napier when he refused to do so. However, Napier disputes whether the officers ever identified themselves or instructed him to drop his weapon. Contrary to the magistrate's statement, Napier did contend that he did not hear the officers identify themselves or order Napier to drop his gun. Napier also points to the testimony of neighbors who heard Napier shouting to his neighbor before the police arrived but did not hear any later yelling or shouting from the officers. From this, Napier contends that a reasonable jury could conclude that no such warnings were given by the officers. 29 At oral argument, Napier pointed out that he did argue below: (1) that neither he nor his neighbors heard the warnings that the Ramsdells claim to have given, and (2) that a reasonable jury could conclude that the Ramsdells did not in fact warn Napier of their presence or command him to drop his gun. However, these arguments were not made in Napier's brief in opposition to appellants' motion for summary judgment; rather, they were offered in the accompanying Statement of Material Facts. The argument section of Napier's brief was the proper place to outline all of his arguments in opposition to defendants' motion for summary judgment, including all of the alleged factual disputes. Nowhere in Napier's brief did he argue that a factual issue existed regarding whether the officers gave warnings to Napier before opening fire. We are reluctant to forgive the omission of an argument from an opposition brief merely because that argument was made in an accompanying statement of material facts. Because of Napier's failure to include this argument in his brief, the magistrate missed this factual dispute and erroneously stated that Napier [did] not contend that he did not hear Richard's and Ronald's repeated orders to drop his gun. 30 However, these arguments were expressly outlined in Napier's Statement of Material Facts, an eleven-page document that Napier was required to file with his opposition brief. Further, after the magistrate issued his recommended decision, Napier filed a statement of objections to that recommended decision. In that document, Napier specifically identified the factual dispute between the officers, who testified that they ordered him to drop his weapon, and Napier, who testified that he heard nothing. The district court's October 1, 1998 Order affirming the recommended decision stated that the district court: (1) reviewed the recommended decision and the entire record, and (2) made a de novo determination of all matters adjudicated by the recommended decision. Even though we can understand how the magistrate and district court could have missed the factual dispute buried in Napier's Statement of Material Facts, that factual dispute was reiterated in Napier's objections to the recommended decision. Finally, Napier's motion for oral argument was denied by the district court, depriving him of any last opportunity to point out the magistrate's error and to more prominently bring this dispute to the attention of the court. For these reasons, we reluctantly find that the factual dispute regarding whether warnings were given is part of the summary judgment record. 31 Nevertheless, we can affirm the district court's entry of summary judgment in favor of Ronald Ramsdell on any independently sufficient ground. See Mesnick v. General Electric Co., 950 F.2d 816, 822 (1st Cir. 1991), cert. denied, 504 U.S. 985 (1992); Polyplastics, Inc. v. Transconex, Inc., 827 F.2d 859, 860 (1st Cir. 1987). Even absent agreement that the officers warned Napier to drop his gun, we agree with the magistrate that no reasonable jury could find Ronald's conduct of firing the second burst of three bullets to be so deficient that no reasonable officer could have made the same choice under the circumstances. 32 The established and undisputed circumstances facing Ronald at the time he made the decision to fire the second burst were as follows. The Ramsdells were investigating a complaint that Napier was firing a weapon from his home and were told that Napier might be mentally unstable. When Richard approached the house, Napier threatened him with a gun, recklessly creating a substantial risk of serious bodily injury to Richard. Richard responded by jumping behind a woodpile, scrambling around the corner of the house, and firing a shot at Napier, who continued to hold the gun. Ronald knew that his brother had leaped behind the woodpile in retreat, and he saw Napier, still holding his gun, emerge into the doorway. Fearing for his brother, Ronald fired the first burst of bullets at Napier, but Napier was not hit. 3 Rather than drop his gun, Napier then turned toward Ronald. It was at this point that Ronald fired the contested second burst. 33 We cannot find that the firing of the second burst was so deficient that no reasonable officer could have made the same decision. The facts established at Napier's criminal trial demonstrate that Ronald was correct in fearing that his brother had been threatened by a possibly mentally disturbed man with a gun and was at risk of serious bodily injury. Ronald fired a burst of three bullets and nothing changed: Napier did not fall to the ground, drop his gun, or otherwise indicate that the risk no longer existed. Instead, he turned to face Ronald, causing him to believe that he was now also placed at risk. All of this occurred within seconds. We agree that Napier's self-serving claim that he did not point his gun at Ronald is not determinative. After what had already occurred, Napier need not have specifically pointed his gun at Ronald for Ronald to believe that the danger still existed and now also encompassed him. We must remember that the reasonableness of an officer's use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight. See Graham, 490 U.S. at 396. The calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that officers are often forced to make split-second judgments -- in situations that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving -- about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation. Id. at 396-97. Therefore, we agree with the magistrate that no reasonable jury could find that Ronald's conduct of firing the second burst of three bullets was so deficient that no reasonable officer could have made the same choice under the circumstances. At the very least, we find that Ronald could have reasonably believed that the second burst was justified and lawful due to the threat to his brother, the ineffectiveness of the first burst at ending that threat, and the quickly emerging apparent threat to himself. Therefore, under the standard enunciated in Anderson, Ronald is entitled to qualified immunity with regard to the second burst, whether Napier has alleged a viable Fourth Amendment violation or not. See Anderson, 483 U.S. at 641.
34 Napier also argues that even if the officers' conduct was objectively reasonable given the exigent circumstances, the officers were the ones to blame for creating those exigent circumstances. Citing St. Hilaire v. City of Laconia, 71 F.3d 20 (1st Cir. 1995), cert. denied, 518 U.S. 1017 (1996), Napier argues that the police cannot evoke exigencies of the moment created by their own unreasonable conduct as justification for inflicting deadly force that, but for their blunders, would never have been used. However, St. Hilaire does not stand for that proposition. In St. Hilaire, we rejected the defendants' argument that the police officers' actions must be examined for reasonableness only at the moment of the shooting, opting instead to examine the officers' actions leading up to the shooting. See id. at 26. We then stated that the district court's focus on only the moment of the shooting led it to erroneously define the issue as whether there was any clearly established constitutional duty on the part of the police to avoid creating situations which increased the risk of the use of deadly force. See id. at 27. We specifically rejected this as the proper inquiry, and we did not pass on the existence of such a broad duty. See id. 35 Absent additional authority, we cannot agree that the Ramsdells' pre-confrontation actions should deprive their later conduct in response to Napier's actions of its reasonableness. Even under Napier's version of the events, the officers merely walked quietly around to the front door of Napier's house with their guns drawn, pursuant to a departmental procedure for responding to a shooting complaint. The cautious and covert manner in which the Ramsdells chose to approach the front of the house does not change the established fact that, once the officers encountered Napier, he threatened Richard Ramsdell with his gun and placed him at risk of serious bodily injury. The fact that the officers prepared themselves for exactly the behavior that Napier exhibited does not make their actions any less reasonable. 36 However, even though the Ramsdells' pre-confrontation actions do not deprive their later actions of their reasonableness, the pre-confrontation actions themselves could theoretically serve as the unreasonable conduct on which a § 1983 claim is based. As noted above, we stated in St. Hilaire that the police officers' actions leading up to the shooting must be examined for their reasonableness. See St. Hilaire, 71 F.3d at 26 (citing Brower v. Inyo, 489 U.S. 593 (1989)). After rejecting the district court's broad formulation of the inquiry (i.e. whether the duty to avoid creating situations which increase the risk of the use of violence was clearly established), we inquired whether the duty to knock and announce in executing a search warrant was clearly established. See id. at 27. Finding that no such duty was clearly established at the time of the incident, we held that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity. See id. at 28. 37 Although Napier's underlying theory that the armed officers caused the confrontation by surprising Napier is similar to the plaintiff's underlying theory in St. Hilaire, see id. at 27, the question of whether an officer must knock and announce before executing a search warrant is plainly not at issue here. Napier does not expressly outline the clearly established right or obligation that the Ramsdells allegedly breached with their pre-confrontation conduct. As noted above, the St. Hilaire court rejected as broadly defined the district court's formulation of the obligation as the duty to avoid creating situations which increased the risk of use of deadly force. Id. To determine which more narrowly-drawn obligation Napier must be asserting as clearly established, we can only analyze Napier's allegations of actions by the Ramsdells that created the confrontation. The only blunder that Napier identifies on appeal in arguing that the Ramsdells erred in allowing the situation to develop into a threatening one was that of sneaking around the house with their guns drawn, rather than telephoning Napier or contacting him from a position of cover. Napier cites no authority for the proposition that, in responding to a complaint of the discharge of a firearm, the officers have a duty to announce their presence to the shooter well before they reach the front door of the dwelling. Napier's assertion that the officers should have called ahead may or may not be a helpful suggestion to law enforcement, but Napier cites no authority that the Ramsdells had a clearly established duty to do so. Nor does he cite any authority for the proposition that the Ramsdells had a duty to refrain from approaching with their guns drawn in preparation for the potential danger of Napier's weapon being fired again. Therefore, like the officers in St. Hilaire, the Ramsdells are entitled to qualified immunity on this theory. See id. at 28. As a result, Napier's attempt to expand the scope of the scrutiny of the Ramsdells' actions to include those that occurred before the confrontation with Napier does not assist him in avoiding summary judgment. 38