Noel v. Artson

• Decision Date: 02 June 2011
• Docket Number: No. 09–1562.,09–1562.
• Citation: 641 F.3d 580,85 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 605
• Parties: Charles Raymond NOEL; Jacob Ralph Noel, Individually and as Personal Representative of the Estate of Cheryl Lynn Noel; Ramona Schweiger, To The Use of Matthew Noel, Plaintiffs–Appellants,v.Carlos ARTSON, Officer, Badge No. 3836; David Sweren, Officer, Badge # 3794; Michael Giddings, Officer, Badge # 3305; Mark Crump, Sergeant, Badge # 3389; Robert M. Gibbons, Sergeant, Badge # 3904; Baltimore County, Maryland, Defendants–Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

641 F.3d 580

85 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 605

Charles Raymond NOEL; Jacob Ralph Noel, Individually and as Personal Representative of the Estate of Cheryl Lynn Noel; Ramona Schweiger, To The Use of Matthew Noel, Plaintiffs–Appellants,

v.Carlos ARTSON, Officer, Badge No. 3836; David Sweren, Officer, Badge # 3794; Michael Giddings, Officer, Badge # 3305; Mark Crump, Sergeant, Badge # 3389; Robert M. Gibbons, Sergeant, Badge # 3904; Baltimore County, Maryland, Defendants–Appellees.

No. 09–1562.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: March 25, 2011.Decided: June 2, 2011.

ARGUED: Terrell Roberts, Roberts & Wood, Riverdale, Maryland, for Appellants. Paul M. Mayhew, Baltimore County Office of Law, Towson, Maryland, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: John E. Beverungen, County Attorney, Adam M. Rosenblatt, Assistant County Attorney, Baltimore County Office of Law, Towson, Maryland, for Appellees.Before TRAXLER, Chief Judge, and WILKINSON and WYNN, Circuit Judges.Affirmed by published opinion. Judge WILKINSON wrote the opinion, in which Chief Judge TRAXLER joined. Judge WYNN wrote an opinion concurring in the judgment.

OPINION

WILKINSON, Circuit Judge:

After a nine-day trial, a jury found that police officers carrying out a search warrant for narcotics did not violate the Fourth Amendment when they performed a no-knock entry into a residence and fatally shot a woman with a gun therein. The woman's family and estate now allege that a variety of instructional and other errors taint that verdict. But the charge provided a complete and accurate statement of the law and afforded plaintiffs ample latitude to argue their case. Finding no other reason for reversal, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

I.

The unfortunate events that led to this lawsuit began when a Baltimore County police officer noticed a plastic bag with white dust in the car of Matthew Noel during an October 2004 traffic stop. Matthew, an eighteen-year-old who lived at home with his parents Charles and Cheryl Noel, admitted to having a Percocet abuse problem. In the following months, Baltimore County Sergeant Robert Gibbons, a narcotics investigator, examined the trash left outside for pickup at the Noel residence and discovered additional drugs and drug paraphernalia. On January 19, 2005, Sgt. Gibbons successfully applied for a search warrant for the Noel home.

Sgt. Gibbons consulted with the supervisors of the Baltimore County SWAT Team and decided that a no-knock entry was appropriate. Gibbons testified that he was concerned for the safety of the SWAT officers executing the warrant, and thought that knocking and announcing their presence might put them in danger for three reasons: (1) Charles Noel had a thirty-year-old conviction for second-degree murder; (2) on December 18, 2004, shortly before the search of the Noel house, Matthew was charged with attempted first-degree murder for shooting a man in the foot at a convenience store, though the charge was eventually reduced to first-degree assault; and (3) there were guns registered to Cheryl and her other son Jacob at the Noels' address.

On January 21 around 4:30 a.m., the team of fifteen officers approached the Noels' residence. The officers breached the front door with a battering ram and then deployed a flash-bang grenade outside of the house to distract the occupants momentarily. The officers testified that as soon as they entered the house, one officer announced “Police—Search Warrant” and continued to do so as the officers proceeded upstairs and approached Charles and Cheryl's bedroom. Charles and his neighbors, however, testified that they heard the explosion from the grenade but never heard any police announcements.

Less than five seconds after the SWAT team entered the house, Officer Carlos Artson entered Charles and Cheryl Noel's bedroom. There, he testified that he found Cheryl spinning toward him holding a revolver. Officer Artson then immediately fired two shots, hitting Cheryl in the left shoulder and the right breast. She then slumped to the floor near the foot of the bed. Artson ordered Cheryl to drop the gun several times, but even when Cheryl eventually released it, the gun remained only eight inches from her right arm.

The parties agree that Officer Artson then ordered Cheryl to move her hand away from the gun, but what happened after that order was hotly contested. Artson testified that Cheryl looked “like she's trying to make a choice, make a decision,” and that she moved her hand back towards the gun. Charles, however, insisted that Cheryl never made any movement toward the gun. At that point, Officer Artson shot her in the chest. The coroner testified that Cheryl might have survived the first two shots, but could not have recovered from the third shot, which pierced her heart.

Cheryl's family brought this suit against Officer Artson and the rest of the SWAT team under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming that the officers violated her Fourth Amendment rights by failing to knock and announce their presence, by executing the search warrant unreasonably, and by using excessive force. The officers moved for summary judgment. On September 6, 2007, the district court denied the officers' motion. We dismissed the officers' appeal in 2008, holding that they had waived the defense of qualified immunity by failing to raise it in their motion for summary judgment. See Noel v. Artson, 297 Fed.Appx. 216 (4th Cir.2008).

After a nine-day trial, the district court instructed the jury as follows:

[T]he plaintiffs claim that the defendants acted unreasonably, and in violation of Cheryl Noel's constitutional rights, in the manner of the execution of the warrant. And that is by deliberately avoiding the knock-and-announce rule or procedure before entering the residence, and by subjecting Ms. Noel to unreasonably excessive and/or deadly force after they entered.... So you should consider all the evidence presented in relation to the method used in executing the search warrant in reaching a decision as to whether the plaintiff has proven a violation of the Fourth Amendment rights.

And with regard to the plaintiffs' claims of loss and damages resulting from the alleged excessive and/or deadly force used against Cheryl Noel, you're instructed that a law enforcement officer may only employ that amount of force which is reasonably necessary under the particular circumstances surrounding the execution of the search warrant. Therefore, in determining whether the plaintiffs have proven a deprivation of Ms. Noel's Fourth Amendment rights, and a resulting loss or damages under this theory, you must determine whether the amount of force used against Ms. Noel exceeded that which a reasonable officer would have employed in executing a warrant under similar circumstances.

In this regard, you consider all of the attending and surrounding circumstances including the nature and severity of the crime at issue, whether Ms. Noel posed an immediate threat to the safety of any of the officers or others, and whether she was actively resisting or attempting to interfere with a lawful execution of the search warrant. The defendant, or the particular officer whose actions or omissions you are considering, need only have acted or failed to act within a range of conduct considered to be reasonable.

Reasonableness of an officer's conduct in executing a search warrant, including the use of force ... must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, and not with the 20/20 vision of hindsight. The test of reasonableness must allow for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments in circumstances that are tense, uncertain and rapidly evolving with respect to the means and amount of force that is reasonable and necessary in any particular situation.

On March 30, the jury returned a verdict for the officers on all counts, and the district court later denied the Noels' motion for a new trial. The Noels now appeal.

II.

The case before us presents numerous assignments of error. No doubt litigants in a hotly contested jury trial become invested in their case and losers often leave convinced that only serious errors on the part of the trial court would have allowed the jury to return the verdict that it did. In this case, however, the trial was conducted more than capably and provided ample reason for an appellate court to sustain a verdict on behalf of either party.

The first set of challenges relates to the jury instructions, which we review holistically and through the prism of the abuse of discretion standard. The Supreme Court has instructed that “a single instruction to a jury may not be judged in artificial isolation, but must be viewed in the context of the overall charge.” Henderson v. Kibbe, 431 U.S. 145, 153 n. 10, 97 S.Ct. 1730, 52 L.Ed.2d 203 (1977). It is easy enough to pick at words, phrases, and sentences in a charge, but that overlooks the fact that the charge in its totality was what the jury heard. A jury verdict, moreover, represents a good deal of work on the part of a good many people, and the instructions undergirding that collective effort should not succumb lightly to semantic fencing. Accordingly, we simply determine “whether the instructions construed as a whole, and in light of the whole record, adequately informed the jury of the controlling legal principles without misleading or confusing the jury to the prejudice of the objecting party.” Bailey v. Cnty. of Georgetown, 94 F.3d 152, 156 (4th Cir.1996) (quoting Spell v. McDaniel, 824 F.2d 1380, 1395 (4th Cir.1987)).

The party challenging the jury instructions faces a heavy burden, for “we accord the district court much discretion” to fashion the charge. Teague v. Bakker, 35 F.3d 978, 985 (4th Cir.1994). A district court will be reversed for declining to give an instruction proposed by a party only when the requested instruction “(1) was correct; (2) was not substantially covered by the...