Court Opinion

ID: 9411339
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-26 16:01:00.676891+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:06.217531
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 21-13070     Document: 48-1     Date Filed: 07/26/2023   Page: 1 of 9

                                                   [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                    In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                 No. 21-13070
                           Non-Argument Calendar
                           ____________________

       KEVIN LAMAR BLAKE,
                                                      Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
       versus
       ORANGE COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE,
       Police Department, individual capacity,
       et al.,

                                                             Defendants,

       ANDREW E. BRYANT,
       Deputy Sheriﬀ, individual capacity,
       JORDAN M. DZIENDZIEL,
       Detective, individual capacity,
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       2                      Opinion of the Court               21-13070

       BRIAN P. SAVELLI,
       Detective, individual capacity,
       JULIE DEJESUS,
       Deputy First Class, individual capacity,

                                                    Defendants-Appellees.

                           ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Middle District of Florida
                   D.C. Docket No. 6:19-cv-00494-GKS-EJK
                          ____________________

       Before JILL PRYOR, GRANT, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
              Kevin Blake, proceeding pro se, appeals an order granting
       summary judgment to four officers of the Orange County Sheriff’s
       Office. The district court awarded the officers qualified immunity
       from Blake’s excessive force claims because it held that the force
       used in restraining and moving him after an interrogation was
       objectively reasonable. Blake’s appeal, liberally construed, argues
       that qualified immunity was inappropriate because the defendants
       were not acting within their discretionary authority; that the force
       they used was not objectively reasonable and violated his Fourth
       Amendment rights; and that the law on that point was clearly
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       21-13070                 Opinion of the Court                              3

       established at the time of his incident. We disagree with Blake and
       affirm the district court.
                                            I.
              We interpret pro se complaints liberally and construe factual
       inferences in favor of the non-movant at the summary judgment
       stage. See Brown v. Crawford, 906 F.2d 667, 670 (11th Cir. 1990).
       Blake brought this § 1983 suit against five Orange County police
       officers, but on appeal only three remain relevant: Detective
       Dziendziel, Detective Savelli, and Deputy Sheriff Bryant. 1
              Blake was detained as a suspect in the armed robbery of a
       pizza delivery driver. After being transported to the station, he was
       placed in an interview room, where Dziendziel and Bryant tried to
       question him. Bryant read Blake his Miranda rights at the
       beginning of the conversation before Dziendziel arrived, and
       Dziendziel read the Miranda rights again several minutes later
       when he entered.
             The conversation over the next half hour was less than
       pleasant. As Blake admits, he “may have slightly been intoxicated” 2
       and he “urinated in the corner of the room, used excessive

       1 Deputy Sheriff Braden was dismissed from the action before summary

       judgment. In the summary judgment order, the district judge explained how
       Blake conceded that another officer—Deputy DeJesus—did not use any force
       against him. Blake does not contest that fact on appeal.
       2 He said on video “I don’t remember shit from no days, man, I get fucked up

       every day, hang out, chill, and drink, that’s what I do, I drink.” When asked
       to define “fucked up,” he said, “I mean drunk.”
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       4                      Opinion of the Court                21-13070

       profanity, acted rude and belligerent, and at one point during the
       end of the interview refused to sit down.” Explaining that decision,
       Blake says that he “stood from his chair taking a few steps toward
       the door hoping this would cause the Detective [Dziendziel] to end
       the interview. Instead of his decision forcing the interview to end
       it caused the situation to escalate out of control.”
              Throughout his time in the interview room, two cameras
       filmed Blake, producing video evidence (with sound) that he calls
       “indisputable.” It clearly shows what happened. Though
       handcuffed throughout the interview, Blake began leaning into
       officers’ faces while yelling, and swinging his elbows. After he
       stood up, Bryant and Dziendziel pushed Blake into a corner,
       leading Blake to say that “you gonna have to use your gun tonight.”
       Bryant and Dziendziel then took Blake to the ground, causing
       other officers—including Savelli—to enter the room. Savelli
       dragged Blake out of the room by his feet as Blake tried to wrestle
       free, causing him to flip onto his back.
              There is no video once Blake exits the interview room, but
       he can be heard laughing and yelling that he was “walking on his
       elbows.” He recounts being “dragged from the interview room to
       the elevator.” Blake explains that as he “reached the elevator he
       was still yelling and being verbally abusive. During his verbal
       escapade saliva may have flown from his mouth unintentionally
       striking one of the detectives.” Beyond the initial takedown, Blake
       complains of rug burns from being dragged; that Savelli used his
       foot to pin Blake’s head to the ground after the spitting incident in
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       21-13070              Opinion of the Court                        5

       the elevator; that he was dropped rather than lowered to the
       ground outside the building while the officers waited for a car to
       transport Blake to jail; and that Dziendziel “placed a foot to
       Appellant’s chest shoving him back into a laying down position” at
       that time. Blake does not contest that the officers ceased using
       force once his legs had been secured with hobbles. According to
       his § 1983 complaint, these actions constitute unconstitutionally
       excessive force in violation of Blake’s Fourth Amendment right to
       be free from unlawful seizures.
              After the incident, Blake reported abrasions on both elbows,
       both knees, and his face—the last of which needed a bandage. He
       was charged with battery on a law enforcement officer. A
       lieutenant with the Professional Standards Section of the Orange
       County Sheriff’s Office produced an administrative review which,
       in Blake’s words, “corroborates exactly what the Appellant stated
       in his Amended Complaint.” The report concluded that the
       officers had acted reasonably and violated no internal office orders
       or Florida statutes. The district court granted the officers’
       summary judgment motion, determining that the force used
       against Blake was objectively reasonable, and thus the officers were
       entitled to qualified immunity.
                                       II.
             We review a district court’s order granting summary
       judgment de novo, drawing all inferences and reviewing the
       evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party.
       Moton v. Cowart, 631 F.3d 1337, 1341 (11th Cir. 2011).
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       6                      Opinion of the Court                21-13070

                                       III.
              Once a government official shows that he acted within the
       scope of his discretionary authority, the plaintiff must try to
       overcome the qualified immunity defense by showing that: (1) the
       defendant violated a constitutional right, and (2) the violation of
       the right was clearly established. Wood v. Moss, 572 U.S. 744, 757
       (2014).
              “Because interrogating suspects and witnesses is one of a law
       enforcement officer’s basic duties,” the district court concluded
       that the officers were acting within their discretionary authority.
       We agree. The test is whether an officer was “performing a
       legitimate job-related function” through “means that were within
       his power.” Holloman ex rel. Holloman v. Harland, 370 F.3d 1252,
       1265 (11th Cir. 2004).
               Blake’s argument is that after he invoked his right to remain
       silent, any further questions the officers asked him were outside
       their discretionary authority because they violated his Fifth
       Amendment right to remain silent. But while one “might
       reasonably believe that violating someone’s constitutional rights is
       never a legitimate job-related function or within the scope of a
       government official’s authority,” a test framed that way would be
       “no more than an untenable tautology.” Id. at 1266 (quotation
       omitted). Instead, we “look to the general nature of the
       defendant’s action, temporarily putting aside the fact that it may
       have been committed for an unconstitutional purpose.” Id. And
       even Blake concedes that in general, the officers were acting within
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       21-13070                 Opinion of the Court                            7

       their discretionary authority by interviewing him.3 See also Vinyard
       v. Wilson, 311 F.3d 1340, 1346 (11th Cir. 2002) (transporting a
       suspect to jail is “clear” discretionary authority for police officers).
              Because Blake does not cite any authority for his arguments
       that the officers stepped outside their discretionary authority, we
       assess whether he has met his burden on both prongs of qualified
       immunity. He has not.
              “Not every push or shove” violates the Fourth Amendment.
       Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989) (quotation omitted).
       Police officers may use some degree of physical coercion or threat
       thereof to subdue an arrestee. Id. at 396; Rodriguez v. Farrell, 280
       F.3d 1341, 1351 (11th Cir. 2002). Whether force was excessive or
       appropriate is judged under an objectively reasonable standard
       from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene without
       the benefit of hindsight. Graham, 490 U.S. at 396–97. Factors we
       must consider include “the severity of the crime at issue,” “whether
       the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers
       or others,” whether he was “actively resisting arrest or attempting
       to evade arrest by flight,” “the need for the application of force,”
       the “extent of the injury inflicted,” and the “relationship between
       the need and amount of force used.” Mobley v. Palm Beach Cnty.

       3 Outside of excessive force in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights,

       Blake’s other constitutional claims were dismissed before summary judgment.
       He does not challenge that decision in his appellate briefing.
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       8                      Opinion of the Court                21-13070

       Sheriff Dep’t, 783 F.3d 1347, 1353 (11th Cir. 2015) (quotations
       omitted).
              These factors all support the use of force displayed by the
       officers here. Blake was being questioned concerning an armed
       robbery on a night when he had been drinking. Though he denied
       being “drunk” during the police interview, he admitted he “may
       have slightly been intoxicated” and to drinking “every day.” In his
       own words, Blake explained how he stood up to try to end the
       interview—and video and audio show him resisting the officers’
       attempts to subdue him after that. Both his words and body
       language threatened the officers. And the abrasions that Blake
       reported all flowed from the officers’ efforts to get and keep him
       on the ground, where he could be more easily secured. Cf. Smith
       v. Mattox, 127 F.3d 1416, 1417–18, 1420 (11th Cir. 1997) (denying an
       officer qualified immunity at summary judgment when he used
       excessive force by breaking an arrestee’s arm while he “docilely
       submitted” to handcuffing on the ground).
               Blake cannot point to any clearly established law to the
       contrary. We have held that an officer who punched a
       “handcuffed, non-resisting” suspect “for no apparent reason other
       than malice” used unreasonably excessive force. Hadley v.
       Gutierrez, 526 F.3d 1324, 1333–34 (11th Cir. 2008); see also Lee v.
       Ferraro, 284 F.3d 1188, 1190–91, 1199 (11th Cir. 2002) (similar). But
       while Blake was handcuffed, he can hardly be described as non-
       resisting—nor were the officers’ efforts to secure and remove him
       from the room equivalent to a punch. As we explained in Lee,
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       21-13070               Opinion of the Court                        9

       slamming a handcuffed arrestee against a car was excessive force
       when she was “completely secured, and after any danger to the
       arresting officer as well as any risk of flight had passed.” Lee, 284
       F.3d at 1199. Blake was only in this position once the officers had
       secured his legs with a hobble on the curb—which is also when
       they stopped using force. The more comparable case is Draper v.
       Reynolds. Draper—after initially behaving “politely”—became
       “hostile, belligerent, and uncooperative,” refusing to comply with
       an officer’s request while he “gestured animatedly” and
       “continuously paced” about, necessitating a taser shot before
       handcuffing. Draper v. Reynolds, 369 F.3d 1270, 1272–73, 1278 (11th
       Cir. 2004).
              Recognizing the lack of on-point caselaw, Blake argues that
       the conduct was so obviously at the core of what the Constitution
       prohibits that its unlawfulness was readily apparent to all. See
       Mercado v. City of Orlando, 407 F.3d 1152, 1160 (11th Cir. 2005). As
       he points out, that rule is “narrow.” The plaintiff must show that
       every reasonable officer would conclude that the excessive force
       used was plainly unlawful—a tall order here, especially given the
       post-incident administrative review. See Priester v. City of Riviera
       Beach, Florida, 208 F.3d 919, 926 (11th Cir. 2000). Here, the force
       was not “so far beyond the hazy border between excessive and
       acceptable force that the official had to know he was violating the
       Constitution even without caselaw on point.” Id. at 926 (quotation
       omitted and alteration adopted). We therefore AFFIRM.