Carr v. Castle
| Decision Date | 04 August 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. 02-6079.,No. 02-6132.,02-6079.,02-6132. |
| Citation | 337 F.3d 1221 |
| Parties | Rodric CARR, Jr., as Personal Representative of the Estate of Randall Carr, deceased, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Randy CASTLE; Jerry K. Bowen, Defendants-Appellants, and City of Oklahoma City, Defendant. Rodric Carr, Jr., as Personal Representative of the Estate of Randall Carr, deceased, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. City of Oklahoma City, Defendant-Appellee, and Randy Castle; Jerry K. Bowen, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit |
John M. Merritt of Merritt & Associates, P.C., Oklahoma City, OK (Michael M. Blue with him on the substantive brief, and Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. of Law Offices of Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr., Los Angeles, CA with him on the jurisdictional brief), for Plaintiff-Appellee in No. 02-6079.
Stacey Haws Felkner of Phillips McFall McCaffrey McVay and Murrah, P.C., Oklahoma City, OK (Robert E. Manchester, Susan Ann Knight, June E. Machette with her on the briefs), for Defendants-Appellants in No. 02-6079.
John M. Merritt of Merritt & Associates, P.C., Oklahoma City, OK (Michael M. Blue with him on the briefs), for Plaintiff-Appellant in No. 02-6132.
Richard C. Smith, Assistant Municipal Counselor for City of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma City, OK (William R. Burkett, Municipal Counselor, with him on the brief), for Defendant-Appellee in No. 02-6132.
Before EBEL and BRISCOE, Circuit Judges, and SHADUR, District Judge.*
Rodric Carr, Jr. as personal representative of the estate of decedent Randall Carr,1 has brought a civil rights action against two Oklahoma City Police Department officers, Randy Castle ("Castle") and Jerry Bowen ("Bowen") (collectively "the Officers"), and Oklahoma City ("City") itself, charging each with a violation of Randall's constitutional rights. Both Officers were charged with the use of excessive force by shooting Randall fatally, while the City was charged with a failure to train or supervise the Officers that resulted in the shooting.
As for the claim against the Officers, they filed a Fed.R.Civ.P. ("Rule") 56 motion for summary judgment, asserting the defense of qualified immunity. That motion was denied by the district court, and the Officers have taken an interlocutory appeal from that ruling.
As for the City, it too filed a motion for summary judgment at a time when two earlier-filed motions to compel its production of certain documents were unresolved. About two months later Carr filed still another motion to compel, followed a few weeks thereafter by the filing of his response to the City's summary judgment motion. Despite the pendency of those motions, Carr did not seek to defer his summary judgment response, either by submitting a Rule 56(f) affidavit informing the court of an inability to respond to the City's dispositive motion or otherwise. Some two months later (on March 25, 2000) the district court sustained the City's motion for summary judgment and found that Carr's last motion to compel (the only one about which he now complains on appeal) was moot. Carr appeals from summary judgment in the City's favor, pursuant to the district court's Rule 54(b) determination.
On November 21, 2000 nondefendant Police Officer Elliott ("Elliott") responded to a call regarding an assault at an apartment building. Upon his arrival he spoke with the landlord, who claimed that Randall had struck him several times. Elliott went to Randall's door and knocked, but when no one answered Elliott returned to speak with the landlord. Shortly thereafter Bowen arrived and, accompanied by the landlord and Elliott, knocked on the apartment door. After the repeated knocking, Randall eventually opened the door and, according to Elliott, was acting very excited and aggressive. Elliott says that when he attempted to handcuff Randall, Randall struck him in the head and kicked Bowen in the groin.2 Randall then ran from the building, pursued by both Elliott and Bowen. During the chase Randall emerged from a hiding place and moved toward Elliott, who testified that he sprayed Randall with OC spray and struck him with a baton.3 Randall then struck at Elliott, who fell, and Randall ran away.
During the chase Castle also arrived in response to calls for assistance. Eventually Randall came to a fence that he was unable to climb because he was holding a four-inch piece of concrete that the Officers had seen him pick up during the chase. Randall then ran toward Castle while raising his arm to throw the concrete at Castle. Although Castle and Bowen testified that they began firing their guns before the concrete left Randall's hand, impartial witness Jason Williams ("Williams") testified that the shots were fired after Randall had finished throwing the concrete. According to Castle, the concrete struck his left arm, causing minor bruising.4
Castle and Bowen fired 11 shots in all. According to the State Medical Examiner, all of the shots that hit Randall entered his back side, with the fatal shot having entered his buttocks, then having traveled through his stomach and lungs and into his heart's pericardial sac. According to Carr's experts, that could have occurred only if Randall had his head near the ground with his buttocks slightly elevated.
Carr's experts found numerous asserted deficiencies in the City's policies and training programs. Primary among those was their allegation that the City's training was inadequate because specific instructions in the City's training program taught officers to shoot to kill rather than to shoot merely to eliminate an existing threat. But Carr also seeks to rely on his experts' conclusions as to a host of other alleged City abuses: (1) inadequate training as to circumstances under which an investigatory detention is permissible, or in procedures for conducting an investigatory detention; (2) inadequate training as to control of subjects who might threaten officers with items similar to the concrete used by Randall; (3) failure to train officers to stop discharging their weapons after the threat had stopped; (4) inadequate training to recognize when the use of a rock would justify deadly force; (5) inadequate training in subject control tactics; (6) improper training in procedures to respond to citizens' complaints and citizens' arrests; (7) failure of the City's Firearms Training Simulator ("FATS II Series machine") to provide any shoot/don't shoot training relating to situations with a rock or other similar object; (8) failure to train officers properly in the recognition and proper handling of emotionally disturbed persons; (9) failure to conduct annual training of its officers; (10) failure to provide standard anger management training to officers; (11) failure to have an independent board or committee to review the use of force by officers; (12) a de facto City policy of turning a blind eye to unconstitutional conduct, as shown by the failures and long-term problems in the City's DNA Laboratory, specifically the misleading testimony provided by Joyce Gilchrist in the forensic work of numerous criminal trials; (13) failure to have a City procedure or policy that requires an officer to report when the officer is using a controlled substance or when there is a physical or mental condition that might affect the officer's fitness for duty;5 (14) inadequate training to recognize that an emotionally disturbed person should have been approached cautiously and in a non-confrontational manner; and (15) training that teaches officers that they are all-powerful and do not need a lawful articulable reason to detain a citizen.
Castle and Bowen not only received training at the Oklahoma City Police Department Training Academy, but were also provided in-the-field training from a veteran police officer and annual in-service training that included the permissible use of deadly force. Indeed, the City's written policy and its training of police officers on the use of deadly force have been upheld in cases litigated in the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma. And according to testimony by the Police Department's training officer, police officers are trained to use deadly force only when necessary to defend themselves or another from imminent harm.
We turn first to the Officers' appeal from the denial of their Rule 56 motion based on qualified immunity. In that respect the district court stated in relevant part (citation omitted):
However, when the submitted facts are considered in the light most favorable to Plaintiff, it appears Mr. Carr was shot at a time when he no longer posed a threat of serious physical harm.... Viewed in the light most favorable to Plaintiff, at the time the Defendant Officers acted, allowing for their need to "make split-second judgments — in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving — about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation," an objectively reasonable officer would not have found deadly force justified.
* * * * * *
Plaintiff has also established that the law governing the actions of the Defendant Officers was clearly established at the time they acted and that the Defendant Officers' mistaken belief that they had the right to use deadly force was not reasonable.
In the past some courts addressing the subject of qualified immunity of law enforcement officers, particularly in the context of an alleged unconstitutional use of excessive force, had tended to conflate the qualified immunity inquiry with the constitutional inquiry. But Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001) has corrected that perception by identifying this as the threshold question: "Taken in the light most favorable to the party asserting the injury, do the facts alleged show the officer's conduct violated a constitutional right?"...
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