Court Opinion

ID: 9499165
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:39:27.913213+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:19.229277
License: Public Domain

COOK, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Because the same reasoning that supports qualified immunity for the unreasonable-seizure claim supports qualified immunity for Officer Bush and Lieutenant Andrews on the excessive-force claim, I respectfully dissent from the portion of the majority opinion affirming the denial of qualified immunity.
The majority properly immunizes all of the steps in the encounter leading up to the officers’ use of force. From the majority’s discussion of the seizure claim, we know that the officers conducting this stop — which, by virtue of its intrusiveness morphed from a permissible Terry stop into an unconstitutional arrest-without-probable-cause — merited immunity from suit because the Smoaks did not carry “their burden of demonstrating that the THP troopers on the scene should have known that the unreasonable seizure was in violation of the Smoaks’ constitutional rights.” (Maj. Op. at 782.) So too should go the excessive force claim.
The majority offers three interrelated statements in denying immunity:
“Given that James was handcuffed, a reasonable officer would not have ‘knocked his legs out from under him, and [thrown] him to the pavement face-first.’ ” (Maj. Op. at 783.)
“A jury could find that a reasonable officer would not have reacted this forcefully to a handcuffed man who showed no signs of noncompliance until his pet was killed in front of his family.” (Maj. Op. at 784 (emphasis added).)
“James was handcuffed, generally compliant, and obviously reacting in horror to the shooting of his dog. The law is clearly established that, in this situation, tackling James in the manner he alleges would not have been a reasonable way to restrain him.” (Maj. Op. at 783 (emphasis added).)
From these it appears that the dog-shooting circumstance (focused on James’s perspective) steers the excessive force analysis: either the use of any force cannot pass muster because James’s understandable reaction to seeing his dog shot ought to have constrained the officers, or the degree of force exerted ought to have been moderated in view of James’s having witnessed the dog-shooting.
Yet the majority acknowledges that resistance by an arrestee may justify the use of force by an officer. {See Maj. Op. at 784 (citing cases).) And when James, though handcuffed, jumped to his feet upon the shooting of the dog despite being ordered to remain in the kneeling position *787(a position meant to protect the officers during the initial stage of this felony stop), a reasonable officer could have viewed that move as resistance, necessitating the use of restraining force. From the “perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene,” Darrah v. City of Oak Park, 255 F.3d 301, 307 (6th Cir.2001), the actions of James— believed at the time to be a possibly armed felon — could also be viewed as posing a danger to those at the scene. The totality of the circumstances, as with the seizure, warrants immunizing the officers’ decision, even if mistaken, to use force to restrain James. See Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 205, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001) (“The concern of the immunity inquiry is to acknowledge that reasonable mistakes can be made as to the legal constraints on particular police conduct.”); Scott v. Clay County, 205 F.3d 867, 873-74 n. 9 (6th Cir.2000) (“[Qualified immunity] sweeps broadly, affording [state officials] ample room for mistaken judgments by protecting all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.” (internal quotation omitted)).
As for the degree of force used to restrain James, determining whether the force used during a seizure is objectively reasonable depends on the totality of the circumstances, including (1) the severity of the crime, (2) whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and (3) whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight. Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989).
As the majority acknowledges, the district court, after viewing the record evidence (including the videotape of the incident), did not “discern any actual excessive force” from the restraint of James. The majority’s analysis itself says only that “the video does not so clearly undermine James’s claim ....” (Maj. Op. at 784.) But qualified immunity is meant to protect officers from the “ ‘hazy border between excessive and acceptable force.’ ” Saucier, 533 U.S. at 206, 121 S.Ct. 2151 (quoting Priester v. Riviera Beach, 208 F.3d 919, 926-27 (11th Cir.2000)). In negotiating that “hazy border,” Bush and Andrews found themselves in the midst of a nighttime felony stop (possible armed robbery) involving multiple persons on the berm of a highway — with the added feature of the discharge of a firearm contributing to the chaos. Given the appearance of resistance and disobedience by James, the officers’ use of force cannot be equated with the objectively unreasonable actions of. officers in cases such as Tapp v. Banks, 1 Fed.Appx. 344 (6th Cir.2001) (“[I]t is not objectively reasonable for an officer dealing with an essentially compliant person, to strike the person’s legs twelve to fifteen times in the absence of resistance.”) (cited by Maj. Op. at 783) or Adams v. Metiva, 31 F.3d 375, 387 (6th Cir.1994) (explaining that no reasonable officer would believe that “gratuitously mac[ing] a helpless and incapacitated person” would not be excessive). Rather, the alleged excessive force in this case consists solely of returning to his knees a suspected armed robber who non compliantly jumped to his feet.
Bush’s and Andrews’s actions in restraining James merit the same benefit of the doubt as did the actions of the other officers during this unfortunate encounter. And because the Smoaks failed to .carry their burden of demonstrating that Bush and Andrews should have known that the restraining of James was unreasonable in the situation they confronted, the law of qualified immunity protects them from being subjected to trial.