Court Opinion

ID: 9384154
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-04-01 00:00:25.45665+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:51.082259
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-40281        Document: 00516697122             Page: 1      Date Filed: 03/31/2023

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

                                      No. 22-40281
                                                                                     FILED
                                                                               March 31, 2023
                                    Summary Calendar
                                                                                Lyle W. Cayce
                                                                                     Clerk
   Melvin Earl Williams, Jr.,

                                                                   Plaintiff—Appellant,

                                            versus

   April Dawn McDonough; M. McGuire,

                                                                Defendants—Appellees.

                     Appeal from the United States District Court
                          for the Eastern District of Texas
                               USDC No. 4:17-CV-811

   Before Jones, Haynes, and Oldham, Circuit Judges.
   Per Curiam:*
         Plaintiff-Appellant Melvin Williams challenges the district court’s
   dismissal of his § 1983 excessive force claims pursuant to Heck v. Humphrey,
   512 U.S. 477 (1994). For the following reasons, we AFFIRM.

         *
             This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 22-40281     Document: 00516697122             Page: 2   Date Filed: 03/31/2023

                                    No. 22-40281

                                        I.
          On an evening in November 2015, Williams was spending time with
   his girlfriend, Melanie Younkman, at her home. According to Williams, they
   got into an argument, and he put his hands on Younkman’s neck. She left
   and ran to the police station.       Meanwhile, Williams—unaware where
   Younkman had gone—went to the backyard to smoke a cigarette. Shortly
   thereafter, Younkman and Officers McDonough and McGuire met at the
   house so Younkman could retrieve some of her possessions. The Officers
   and Younkman began talking in the driveway, prompting Williams to walk
   back around the side of the house.
          Officer McDonough’s body camera video depicts the subsequent
   events. When the Officers saw Williams, they asked him several times to get
   on the ground. Williams raised his hands and asked, “What have I done?”
   but did not comply. Officer McGuire attempted to grab Williams’s right
   hand, but Williams jerked it away and attempted to flee. A prolonged
   physical struggle ensued, during              which the Officers attempted,
   unsuccessfully, to detain Williams. When Williams finally wriggled away,
   Officer McGuire warned him that he was “about to get tased.” About forty
   seconds later, Officer McGuire deployed her taser, striking Williams’s chest
   and causing him to fall to the ground. Williams remained still for a few
   seconds, then stood back up, said “here I go, baby,” and began running
   towards the garage. This prompted Officer McGuire to deploy her taser
   again, causing Williams to fall near the garage door. As Williams attempted
   to stand up, Officer McGuire tased him a third time, and he fell back down.
   When Williams began to pull himself up, it became apparent that one of the
   taser prongs was attached to his left eye, and Officer McDonough radioed for
   medical assistance. Williams then climbed to his feet and ran into the garage
   as the Officers again commanded him to “get down.” When Williams
   realized he couldn’t get into the house, he ran out and attempted to climb the

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                                            No. 22-40281

   fence leading to the backyard. This proved impossible, so he returned to the
   garage. For the next several minutes, Williams repeatedly asked Younkman
   to let him into the house, while the Officers continued to order him to lay on
   the ground and submit to handcuffing. Finally, about ten minutes into the
   encounter, Williams complied. Williams was transported by ambulance to
   the hospital. As a result of the incident, he was treated for a fracture to his
   nasal bone, a laceration to his eye, and an irregular heartbeat.
           The Officers charged Williams with resisting arrest in violation of
   Texas Penal Code § 38.03(a). 1 He entered a no contest plea and was
   sentenced to one hundred days in county jail. A few months later, Williams
   sued the Officers 2 pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for using excessive force in
   violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. The Officers moved for summary
   judgment based on qualified immunity. Following a hearing, the district
   court sua sponte raised the issue of whether Williams’s claims were barred
   by Heck, 512 U.S. at 486–87, and ordered supplemental briefing on the issue.
   Concluding that they were, the court granted the Officers’ motions and
   dismissed the case. Williams timely appealed.
                                               II.
           We review a grant of summary judgment de novo, construing the
   evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. United Fire &
   Cas. Co. v. Hixson Bros., Inc., 453 F.3d 283, 284 (5th Cir. 2003). Summary
   judgment is proper where there are no genuine issues of material fact and the

           1
             A person violates this statute if he “intentionally prevents or obstructs a person
   he knows is a peace officer . . . from effecting an arrest . . . of the actor . . . by using force
   against the peace officer or another.” Tex. Penal Code § 38.03(a).
           2
            Williams also brought separate claims against the City of Denton and Denton
   County, but this appeal concerns only the claims against the Officers.

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   movant is entitled to prevail as a matter of law. Alkhawaldeh v. Dow Chem.
   Co., 851 F.3d 422, 426 (5th Cir. 2017).
                                           III.
           The district court entered summary judgment for the Officers because
   it concluded that Williams’s § 1983 suit improperly challenges his conviction
   for resisting arrest. In Heck, 512 U.S. at 486–87, the Supreme Court
   prohibited such “collateral attack[s]” in the interest of finality and
   consistency. See generally Ballard v. Burton, 444 F.3d 391, 397 (5th Cir. 2006)
   (quoting Heck, 512 U.S. at 486–87). Accordingly, a plaintiff may not bring a
   § 1983 suit if success on the claim would necessarily imply the invalidity of a
   prior criminal conviction. 3 Id. Rather, the plaintiff must challenge the
   conviction directly. Id.
           Determining whether an action is Heck-barred is “fact-intensive” and
   requires the court to analyze whether success on the § 1983 claim “requires
   negation of an element of the criminal offense or proof of a fact that is
   inherently inconsistent with one underlying the criminal conviction.” Bush
   v. Strain, 513 F.3d 492, 497 (5th Cir. 2008). In other words, if the conviction
   and successful § 1983 claim can co-exist, Heck is no bar to suit. See Poole v.
   City of Shreveport, 13 F.4th 420, 426–27 (5th Cir. 2021).
           Williams contends that he can succeed on his excessive force claims
   without undermining his resisting arrest conviction because each relies on
   “temporally and conceptually distinct” factual allegations. See Bush, 513
   F.3d at 498. Per Williams, the sole act of pulling his hand away when Officer
   McGuire tried to handcuff him provided the basis for his conviction. His

           3
             The only exceptions—inapplicable here—are if the prior conviction has been
   overturned, expunged, declared invalid by an authorized tribunal, or called into question
   through issuance of a writ of habeas corpus. Heck, 512 U.S. at 487.

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   excessive force claim, in turn, challenges the Officers’ subsequent conduct
   after he ceased resisting arrest—including the Officers’ repeated use of the
   taser. See id. (noting that “a claim that excessive force occurred after the
   arrestee has ceased his or her resistance would not necessarily imply the
   invalidity of a conviction for the earlier resistance”). In other words,
   Williams (now) admits to resisting arrest at the beginning of the encounter.
   But he claims that afterwards—when the Officers tased him—he was fully
   compliant.
           This argument—which relies on a flawed post hoc rationalization—
   fails for several reasons. First, it is belied by the Officers’ probable cause
   affidavit, which describes Williams’s conduct throughout the encounter.
   Williams avers that the affidavit is no evidence of the factual basis of the
   conviction. But that’s incorrect. The very purpose of a probable cause
   affidavit is to describe the factual allegations justifying an arrest. See Franks
   v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 165 (1978) (noting that a probable cause affidavit
   “must set forth particular facts and circumstances underlying the existence
   of probable cause”). Indeed, we have previously relied on similar types of
   evidence to discern the factual allegations underlying a conviction. See, e.g.,
   Aucoin v. Cupil, 958 F.3d 379, 381 (5th Cir. 2020) (relying on prison
   disciplinary reports to “understand the basis of the underlying conviction”);
   Knox v. City of Gautier, No. 21-60259, 2021 WL 5815923, at *3–4 (5th Cir.
   Dec. 7, 2021) (per curiam) (unpublished) (relying on the factual allegations
   that supported the state circuit court’s affirmance of the plaintiff’s
   conviction to discern whether his claim was Heck-barred). 4

           4
              Although Knox and related unpublished opinions cited herein “[are] not
   controlling precedent,” they “may be [cited as] persuasive authority.” Ballard, 444 F.3d
   at 401 n.7 (citing 5th Cir. R. 47.5.4).

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           Second, even setting the probable cause affidavit aside, Williams’s
   own allegations demonstrate that success on his § 1983 claim would
   invalidate his conviction. Williams’s operative complaint doesn’t concede
   that he resisted arrest at the beginning of the incident. Rather, it contends
   that he “fully complied with the [Officers’] commands and did not attempt to
   flee.” Since such assertions in pleadings are “conclusively binding,” see Davis
   v. A.G. Edwards & Sons, Inc., 823 F.2d 105, 108 (5th Cir. 1987) (per curiam)
   (quotation omitted) (emphasis in original), Williams cannot now argue on
   appeal that he initially resisted arrest but later complied. See Aucoin, 958 F.3d
   at 383 (noting that a plaintiff’s claim challenges his conviction where he
   “maintain[s] his innocence in the events that led up to his [] conviction”).
   Indeed, “[w]here a complaint describes a single violent encounter in which
   the plaintiff claimed he was an innocent participant[,] but the allegations are
   inconsistent with his conviction, Heck applies to bar his excessive-force
   claims.” Ducksworth v. Rook, 647 F. App’x 383, 386 (5th Cir. 2016) (per
   curiam) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
           Finally, were there any remaining doubt, footage from Officer
   McDonough’s clear body camera video conclusively establishes that the
   Officers’ taser deployments were not “subsequent, discrete” events
   independent from the Officers’ initial attempt to handcuff Williams. Aucoin,
   958 F.3d at 384. Rather, as discussed, the video shows that Williams
   persistently attempted to evade the Officers throughout the entire incident,
   including after he was tased. 5 Though the Officers repeatedly asked Williams

           5
             Williams’s deposition testimony is largely consistent with this version of events,
   and to the extent it’s not, the clear video is dispositive. See Curran v. Aleshire, 800 F.3d
   656, 663–64 (5th Cir. 2015) (“Scott instructs that a plaintiff’s version of the facts should
   not be accepted for purposes of qualified immunity when it is ‘blatantly contradicted’ and
   ‘utterly discredited’ by video recordings.” (quoting Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 380–81)
   (2007)).

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   to get on the ground and submit to handcuffing from the moment they saw
   him, Williams did not comply until he was cornered in the garage nearly ten
   minutes later. Thus, it’s clear that Williams’s conviction and his claims arose
   from “a single violent encounter.” Daigre v. City of Waveland, 549 F. App’x
   283, 286 (5th Cir. 2013) (per curiam). Therefore, Williams’s § 1983 claims
   constitute an impermissible collateral attack on his conviction under Heck,
   512 U.S. at 486–87, and the district court properly entered summary
   judgment for the Officers.
                                IV.      Conclusion
          For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM.

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