Court Opinion

ID: 9837707
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-02 03:49:01.98239+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:29.337391
License: Public Domain

PETERSON, Judge,
concurring fully and specially.
I concur in the majority opinion and all that I understand it to say I write separately to make clear my understanding of what that opinion says. As the majority opinion explains, the critical factual dispute was “whether Bin-Wahad pulled his left arm away from Hall, turned, and attempted to stand when Hall sought to handcuff him” (and thereby provided Hall with reasonable grounds to believe him an imminent threat), “or whether Hall without warning pulled Bin-Wahad up from a seated position on the porch and threw him to the ground.”
The video is not clear enough for us to determine with confidence which disputed set of facts are true. If it was, we would owe no deference to the trial court’s factual findings on this question, regard*246less of whether they were based in part on resolving conflicting witness testimony. But we do owe deference here because the video alone does not resolve the factual dispute, and the trial court had to resolve conflicting witness testimony to decide the matter.
Decided October 28, 2016.
Tracy Graham Lawson, District Attorney, Erman J. Tanjuatco, Assistant District Attorney, for appellant.
Keith C. Martin, for appellee.
I am authorized to state that Judge Boggs joins in this special concurrence.