Smith v. Ray

• Citation: 781 F.3d 95
• Decision Date: 18 March 2015
• Docket Number: No. 12–1503.,12–1503.
• Parties: Amanda Deanne SMITH, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Officer R.R. RAY, Defendant–Appellant, and Officer Jay Keatley, Defendant, and City of Virginia Beach; City of Virginia Beach Police Department; Alfred M. Jacocks, Jr., Chief of Police, City of Virginia Beach; Sergeant T.T. Yarbrough; Kevin Murphy, MPO; Sergeant Armand Rubbo; Sergeant Jarvis Lynch; Officer Scott Stein; Donald Autsin, MPO; Johnny Monts, MPO; James Hewlett, MPO; Tony F. Bullard, Consolidated Defendants.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (4th Circuit)

781 F.3d 95

Amanda Deanne SMITH, Plaintiff–Appellee

v.Officer R.R. RAY, Defendant–AppellantandOfficer Jay Keatley, Defendant

and

City of Virginia Beach; City of Virginia Beach Police Department; Alfred M. Jacocks, Jr., Chief of Police, City of Virginia Beach; Sergeant T.T. Yarbrough; Kevin Murphy, MPO; Sergeant Armand Rubbo; Sergeant Jarvis Lynch; Officer Scott Stein; Donald Autsin, MPO; Johnny Monts, MPO; James Hewlett, MPO; Tony F. Bullard, Consolidated Defendants.

No. 12–1503.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: Jan. 27, 2015.

Decided: March 18, 2015.

ARGUED:Michael Beverly, Office of the City Attorney, Virginia Beach, Virginia, for Appellant. Darren Marshall Hart, Hart & Assoc., P.C., Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF:Mark D. Stiles, Christopher S. Boynton, Office of the City Attorney, Virginia Beach, Virginia, for Appellant.

Before TRAXLER, Chief Judge, and GREGORY and AGEE, Circuit Judges.

Opinion

Affirmed by published opinion. Chief Judge TRAXLER wrote the opinion, in which Judge GREGORY and Judge AGEE joined.

TRAXLER, Chief Judge:

Officer R.R. Ray appeals a district court order denying his motion for summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity concerning Amanda Smith's excessive force claim. Finding no error, we affirm.

I.

“In reviewing the denial of summary judgment based on qualified immunity, we accept as true the facts that the district court concluded may be reasonably inferred from the record when viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff.” Waterman v. Batton, 393 F.3d 471, 473 (4th Cir.2005). “To the extent that the district court has not fully set forth the facts on which its decision is based, we assume the facts that may reasonably be inferred from the record when viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff.” Id. Application of these rules produces the following facts.¹

On the afternoon of September 21, 2006, Officer R.R. Ray, a uniformed police officer for the City of Virginia Beach, was assisting private citizen Tony Bullard in finding T., who Bullard had represented was his missing juvenile stepson. Bullard and Ray had information that T. was at a house on Marlewood Way, which was an area with a high occurrence of criminal activity involving juveniles. When they arrived there, they looked through a window and saw several young men standing inside the residence. Bullard tentatively identified one of the young men as T. Ray then knocked on the door of the house and heard “scurrying” sounds coming from inside.

Smith opened the main door of the home. When Ray instructed her to come outside, she opened the screen door and stepped out. Both doors closed behind her.

At that point, Smith was standing on the front stoop, which was two or three steps up from the ground and which extended about one foot wider than the front door on each side. Ray asked Smith a few questions, as Bullard stood a few steps back. Smith answered all of Ray's questions clearly and cogently. He first asked her name and age and whether she owned the home. Smith told Ray her first name and that she was 22 years old, and she explained that she did not reside in the home. Ray then asked if T. was inside, and Smith answered that he was not.

Ray next asked if “Joel,” an adult acquaintance of T.'s, was in the home. Smith told Ray that Joel was there and that she would get him. She asked Ray to “hold on,” as she turned back toward the door. J.A. 1077. As she opened the screen door, Ray reached over her right shoulder and slammed the door shut. Startled, Smith took a single step away from the house off the small stoop but did not turn her back to Ray. According to Smith, Ray grabbed her arm with no verbal communication. Smith pulled her arm away, and, facing Ray, asked what he was doing. Rather than responding verbally, Ray tried to grab Smith again, and she again pulled her arm away. In the process of pulling away and asking what Ray was doing, Smith called Ray—who is white—a n* * * *r. However, she did not turn away from Ray or run.

Rather than explain his actions, Ray grabbed Smith and threw her to the ground. When she hit the ground, he jumped on her, jamming his full weight into her back with his knee, and painfully twisting her right arm behind her back.

At that point, Ray ordered Smith to show him her arms. Ray already had her right arm, however, and Smith was using her left arm to press against the ground to try to relieve pressure from her chest so that she could breathe. As Smith resisted Ray's attempts to force her to submit, Ray continued to demand that she show her hands, and she repeatedly responded that she needed to keep her arm under her to breathe because he was pressing down so hard on her. Ray subsequently punched her three times in her right side to try to gain her compliance. He then succeeded in yanking her left arm around and handcuffing her.² Once she was handcuffed, he grabbed her ponytail and yanked her to her feet by her hair, ripping chunks of hair from her scalp.

At some point during this struggle, a small pocketknife fell to the ground from Smith's sweatshirt, although Ray did not notice the knife until Smith was standing and in handcuffs. Throughout the encounter, Smith never struck out at Ray, and Ray never explained that Smith was subject to an investigative detention or under arrest.

Ray brought Smith to his police car, searched her, and put her into the back seat. He eventually drove her to the police station. She was taken before a magistrate and charged with obstruction of justice and unlawfully carrying a concealed weapon.

As a result of Ray's actions, Smith suffered visible bruising and a broken rib, and she also complains of continuing shoulder pain and limited range of motion due to the arm twisting. She further claims that she suffered psychological injuries.

Smith brought suit in Virginia state court alleging multiple claims against Ray and another unknown officer, and the case was removed to federal district court. The somewhat complicated procedural history of this case and Smith's other claims and the factual basis therefor are fully explained in our opinion disposing of a prior appeal and in the district court's opinion at issue in this appeal. See Smith v. Ray, 409 Fed.Appx. 641, 644–45 (4th Cir.2011) ; Smith v. Ray, 855 F.Supp.2d 569, 573–74 (E.D.Va.2012). The only claims remaining at this stage of the litigation, however, are Smith's § 1983 claim against Ray for excessive force and her state-law claim against Ray for assault and battery. See Smith, 855 F.Supp.2d at 594. Both parties moved in the district court for summary judgment on these claims, with Ray seeking summary judgment on the excessive-force claim on the basis of qualified immunity. The district court denied both motions. See id.

In denying Ray's motion, the court noted that Smith was not suspected of any crime prior to the encounter, Ray had no arrest warrant, and Smith was lawfully on the porch of the private residence. See id. at 580. Viewing the record in the light most favorable to Smith, the court added that “she was not intoxicated, or belligerent,” and that Ray did not learn that she was carrying a knife until after she was in handcuffs. Id. The court concluded that, in light of these facts, a reasonable jury could find that Ray employed excessive force in detaining Smith. See id. Considering the state of the law as it existed at the time of the incident, the court also determined that any reasonable officer in Ray's position would have known that the force used was excessive. See id. at 580–82.

II.

On appeal to us, Ray argues that the district court erred in denying his summary judgment motion concerning the excessive-force claim. We disagree.

We review de novo a district court's decision to deny a summary judgment motion asserting qualified immunity. See Danser v. Stansberry, 772 F.3d 340, 345 (4th Cir.2014). Summary judgment is appropriate “if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(a).

The doctrine of qualified immunity “balances two important interests-the need to hold public officials accountable when they exercise power irresponsibly and the need to shield officials from harassment, distraction, and liability when they perform their duties reasonably.” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231, 129 S.Ct. 808, 172 L.Ed.2d 565 (2009). It “gives government officials breathing room to make reasonable but mistaken judgments, and protects all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.” Stanton v. Sims, ––– U.S. ––––, 134 S.Ct. 3, 5, 187 L.Ed.2d 341 (2013) (per curiam) (internal quotation marks omitted).

In determining whether an officer is entitled to summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity, courts engage in a two-pronged inquiry.³ See Tolan v. Cotton, ––– U.S. ––––, 134 S.Ct. 1861, 1865, 188 L.Ed.2d 895 (2014) (per curiam). The first asks whether the facts, viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, show that the officer's conduct violated a federal right. See Saucier v. Katz , 533 U.S. 194, 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001). When a plaintiff has alleged that an officer employed excessive force in making an arrest, the federal right is the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable seizures. See Tolan, 134 S.Ct. at 1865.

The second prong of the qualified-immunity inquiry asks whether the right was clearly established at the time the violation occurred such that a reasonable person would have known that his conduct was unconstitutional. See Ridpath v. Board of Governors Marshall Univ., 447 F.3d 292, 306 (4th Cir.2006). “We do not require a case directly on point” in order to conclude that the law was clearly established so long as “existing precedent [has] placed the statutory or constitutional question beyond debate.” Ashcroft v. al–Kidd, ––– U.S. ––––, 131 S.Ct. 2074, 2083, 179 L.Ed.2d 1149 (2011).

An order...