Court Opinion

ID: 9493140
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:59:07.85889+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:40.329246
License: Public Domain

DAUGHTREY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The majority awards summary judgment to officers Baeppler and Wilsman because it finds, as a matter of law, that Adolph Boyd posed a threat to their safety that made the use of deadly force objectively reasonable. In so doing, the majority discounts the plaintiffs evidence suggesting the existence of genuine issues of material fact that should, under Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304, 115 S.Ct. 2151, 132 L.Ed.2d 238 (1995), preclude our assertion of jurisdiction here. Because I believe that our court lacks jurisdiction to decide this appeal, at the very least as to defendant Baeppler, and therefore that our decision today preempts the jury’s role in deciding the sufficiency of the plaintiffs evidence, see Behrens v. Pelletier, 516 U.S. 299, 313, 116 S.Ct. 834, 133 L.Ed.2d 773 (1996), I must respectfully dissent.
In some sense, the majority’s analysis of the immediate circumstances of Adolph Boyd’s death necessarily makes a determination as to the credibility of Baeppler and Wilsman, the only surviving eyewitnesses to the events, something the law of this court forbids us to do while deciding a summary judgment motion. See, e.g., Kain v. Nesbitt, 156 F.3d 669, 672 (6th Cir.1998). The majority accepts the officers’ rendition of their interactions with Boyd as fact: that Boyd ran toward them and then away from them, that he was carrying a gun while he ran, and that he pointed the gun towards them while run*605ning. Adolph Boyd is, of course, unable to contest the truth of these highlighted facts; the plaintiff here, Bertha Boyd, presents an alternate scenario, one that necessarily lacks the specificity Adolph’s testimony would have lent his case. The plaintiffs counter-narrative clearly states one fact, however: that Adolph Boyd was not carrying a gun. She supports this assertion with trace evidence collected by the Cuyahoga County Coroner’s Office that is inconsistent with his carrying a gun the night of April 14. No one other than the defendants saw Adolph brandish a weapon during their meeting. Were Boyd alive to supplement the trace evidence with his version of events, I imagine we would be more likely to find genuine issues of material fact as to whether any use of deadly force by either Wilsman or Baep-pler was objectively reasonable.
Even were I to join my colleagues in assuming the truth of the defendants’ version of their initial interaction with Adolph Boyd, I could not join their reversal of the district court’s decision as to officer Baep-pler. I reach this conclusion after reviewing carefully the sequence of the alleged series of interactions between Boyd and the officers. According to the defendants, as Boyd approached them officer Baeppler ordered him to freeze; instead of stopping, however, Boyd ran across Buckeye Road and into a driveway. While Boyd ran, he pointed his gun at Baeppler, who then fired three or four rounds of ammunition at Boyd. Boyd continued running away from the officers and then brought his right arm and hand across his chest and under his left armpit and pointed his weapon at Wilsman. Wilsman then fired one round of ammunition from his shotgun, which caused Boyd to fall to the ground. The autopsy report on Boyd’s death stated that one pellet from this shotgun blast lodged at Adolph Boyd’s T9 vertebrae; according to Cuyahoga County coroner Dr. Robert Challener, this pellet caused immediate paralysis of Boyd’s lower extremities.
The defendants then claim that, after Boyd fell with his stomach and face to the ground and while the officers approached him, Boyd pulled his upper torso up from the ground and brought his right hand, still holding the weapon, across his shoulders and pointed it at Officer Wilsman, twisting to the left to do so. At that point, Officer Baeppler fired his weapon at Boyd seven more times until Boyd finally fully collapsed.
Defendant Baeppler claims that Boyd’s continued movement while paralyzed on the ground, including the twisting of his upper torso and continued display of his firearm, made shooting Boyd seven times an objectively reasonable use of force in self defense. Baeppler supports this assertion with Dr. Challener’s testimony, based on the autopsy, that, even while paralyzed, Boyd was “still fully able to move his upper extremities, including his head, arms, and torso.” The plaintiff challenges this assertion with the expert testimony of Dr. Howard Tucker, whose reading of the autopsy report supported his conclusion that scapular muscles on both sides of Boyd’s body and both Boyd’s arms were hit by bullets, and thus “impaired from a functional standpoint.” Tucker admittedly did not know if these wounds were caused by either Wilsman’s or Baep-pler’s shots, but stated that even without the wounds to Boyd’s arms and scapulae “there was severe impairment of ability to turn and with medical probability Mr. Boyd could not assume a defined posture which would signal his intent and capability to return fire” from his prone position.
The majority dismisses Dr. Tucker’s testimony as based on mere probabilities, and any conclusions a jury might reach from it as mere speculation. In so doing, the majority again makes a determination as to which evidence it finds most credible, and thus again wrongfully assumes the role of factfinder. To my mind, this is a classic battle of the medical experts, the outcome of which we must leave to the jury to decide at trial. Doctors Challener *606and Tucker, working from the same medical data, reach contrary results as to Adolph Boyd’s ability to even appear to aim a gun at the defendants from his prone position. In this case, it should be the task of the jury, and not this court, to weigh the testimony of the medical experts and determine which is more credible, and thus decide if Boyd could have presented a risk to the officers making each of Baep-pler’s last shots, from the first to the seventh, objectively reasonable. Cf. Russo v. City of Cincinnati, 953 F.2d 1036, 1047 (6th Cir.1992) (stating, in context of qualified immunity defense to § 1983 failure to train claim, that “we do not believe the opinions of experts are to be given no weight .... [rjeliance on expert testimony is particularly appropriate where, as here, the conclusions rest directly upon the expert’s review of materials provided by the City itself’).
Today the majority holds otherwise, and its decision continues the unfortunate trend noted by other members of this court of a panel “arrogating unto itself the role of resolving on appeal the factual disputes presented by a qualified immunity defense in a § 1983 action.” Scott v. Clay County, 205 F.3d 867, 881 (6th Cir.2000) (Clay, J., dissenting) (citing Claybrook v. Birchwell, 199 F.3d 350, 359-60 (6th Cir.2000)). Because I believe that the record supports the district court’s conclusion that genuine disputes remain regarding whether the defendants’ conduct was reasonable, I therefore dissent.