Court Opinion

ID: 9555171
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-11 00:00:36.020563+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:41:38.067069
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-60546     Document: 00516853568         Page: 1     Date Filed: 08/10/2023

              United States Court of Appeals
                   for the Fifth Circuit                               United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                Fifth Circuit

                                ____________                                  FILED
                                                                        August 10, 2023
                                 No. 22-60546                            Lyle W. Cayce
                                ____________                                  Clerk

   Devon Modacure,

                                                             Plaintiff—Appellee,

                                       versus

   Kenneth Short, II, Individually and as an Officer of City of Jackson;
   Cobey Smith, Individually and as an Officer of City of Jackson,

                                          Defendants—Appellants.
                  ______________________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                    for the Southern District of Mississippi
                            USDC No. 3:20-CV-476
                  ______________________________

   Before Richman, Chief Judge, and Jones and Ho, Circuit Judges.
   Per Curiam: *
          Defendant-Appellants Short and Smith, former police officers for the
   city of Jackson, Mississippi, appeal the district court’s denial of summary
   judgment. We REVERSE the district court and RENDER judgment for
   the two officers on the basis of qualified immunity.

          _____________________
          *
            Pursuant to 5th Circuit Rule 47.5, the court has determined that this
   opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited
   circumstances set forth in 5th Circuit Rule 47.5.4.
Case: 22-60546      Document: 00516853568           Page: 2    Date Filed: 08/10/2023

                                     No. 22-60546

                                 I. Background
          On October 27, 2017, officers Short and Smith responded to a report
   of a shooting incident at a known drug house. The victim described the
   shooter as a 150-pound black male wearing a maroon shirt. On their way to
   the house, the officers encountered a group of people standing around
   outside, one of whom fit the description of the shooter. That man was
   Plaintiff-Appellee Devon Modacure, who fled as soon as the officers singled
   him out and commanded he “come here.” A brief foot chase commenced
   and ended with the officers shooting Modacure. The officers testified that
   Modacure reached toward his waistline, as if to grab a gun, and turned his
   torso toward the officers, precipitating their use of lethal force. Video footage
   of the event, captured from a residential security camera, is grainy and does
   not show the orientation of Modacure’s torso or hands when the first shot
   was fired. Modacure insists he ran because he was paranoid, having just been
   released from a two-year stint in prison and having seen other people shot by
   the police. A handgun was recovered from the area; Modacure swears it was
   not his and that he was unarmed on the day of the incident.
          Relevant to this appeal, Modacure sued Short and Smith in their
   individual capacities under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging the officers violated his
   Fourth Amendment right against the use of excessive force and his
   Fourteenth Amendment due process right to receive timely medical care.
   The district court denied the officers’ motion for summary judgment based
   on qualified immunity. The officers timely filed this interlocutory appeal.
                                II. Jurisdiction
          “An order denying qualified immunity, to the extent it turns on an
   issue of law, is immediately appealable.” Laviage v. Fite, 47 F.4th 402, 405
   (5th Cir. 2022) (quoting Morgan v. Swanson, 659 F.3d 359, 370 (5th Cir. 2011)
   (en banc)). In contrast, an order denying qualified immunity based solely on

                                              2
Case: 22-60546      Document: 00516853568            Page: 3    Date Filed: 08/10/2023

                                      No. 22-60546

   “evidence sufficiency” is not. Plumhoff v. Rickard, 572 U.S. 765, 773,
   134 S. Ct. 2012, 2019 (2014) (quoting Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304, 313,
   115 S. Ct. 2151, 2156 (1995)). Here, the officers “contend that their conduct
   did not violate the Fourth Amendment and, in any event, did not violate
   clearly established law.     Thus, they raise legal issues.” Id.        We have
   jurisdiction and will turn to the merits; our review is de novo. Wyatt v. Fletcher,
   718 F.3d 496, 499 (5th Cir. 2013).
                                 III. Discussion
          “An officer merits qualified immunity unless (1) he ‘violated a
   statutory or constitutional right of the plaintiff’ and (2) ‘the right was clearly
   established at the time of the violation.’” Betts v. Brennan, 22 F.4th 577, 582
   (5th Cir. 2022) (quoting Dyer v. Houston, 964 F.3d 374, 380 (5th Cir. 2020)).
   The plaintiff bears the burden “to demonstrate the inapplicability of the
   defense.” Club Retro, L.L.C. v. Hilton, 568 F.3d 181, 194 (5th Cir. 2009).
   Further, we may “resolve the case on a single prong.” Garcia v. Blevins,
   957 F.3d 596, 600 (5th Cir. 2020).
          Jumping straight to the second prong, Modacure may show that the
   officers violated his clearly established constitutional rights by identifying an
   “on-point case” or satisfying the “obvious-case exception.” Henderson v.
   Harris Cnty., 51 F.4th 125, 132 (5th Cir. 2022) (per curiam). “Rights are
   ‘clearly established’ when ‘existing precedent squarely governs the specific
   facts at issue.’” Id. (quoting Kisela v. Hughes, 138 S. Ct. 1148, 1153 (2018)).
   And “specificity is especially important in the Fourth Amendment context.”
   Mullenix v. Luna, 577 U.S. 7, 12, 136 S. Ct. 305, 308 (2015); see also Morrow v.
   Meachum, 917 F.3d 870, 876 (5th Cir. 2019) (“overcoming qualified
   immunity is especially difficult in excessive-force cases”). “The Supreme
   Court strictly enforces the requirement to identify an analogous case and
   explain the analogy.” Joseph v. Bartlett, 981 F.3d 319, 346 (5th Cir. 2020).

                                               3
Case: 22-60546      Document: 00516853568          Page: 4    Date Filed: 08/10/2023

                                    No. 22-60546

          Modacure does not invoke the “obvious case” exception and fails to
   cite a single “on-point case” to support his argument, even after the officers
   highlighted this deficiency in their opening brief. We have overlooked such
   shortcomings in cases where the district court carried the plaintiff’s burden
   for him. See, e.g., Joseph v. Bartlett, 981 F.3d 319, 337 (5th Cir. 2020). But
   here, instead of engaging in this prong of the analysis, the district court
   merely announced the presence of factual disputes and recited the general
   contours of excessive force and due process violations on its way to denying
   summary judgment. In other cases where this court has been presented with
   a similarly deficient record, we have not hesitated to reverse the denial of
   qualified immunity. See Laviage, 47 F.4th at 408; Joseph, 981 F.3d at 346.
   We must do so here as well. Where the plaintiff fails to carry his burden to
   show a violation of his clearly established rights, and where the district court
   does not step in to fix that shortcoming, we cannot assent to the denial of
   qualified immunity.
          We REVERSE the district court’s judgment and RENDER
   judgment for officers Short and Smith.

                                              4