Martin v. Gentile, s. 87-7113
| Decision Date | 17 June 1988 |
| Docket Number | 87-7140,Nos. 87-7113,s. 87-7113 |
| Citation | 849 F.2d 863 |
| Parties | Felicisimo N. MARTIN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Bruce GENTILE, Detective, CID Homicide, Bureau of Investigations; Michael Ferriter, Detective, CID Homicide, Bureau of Investigations; Thomas Bruciak, Corporal, CID Homicide, Bureau of Investigations; Terry R. Eaton, Evidence Technician, CID Homicide, Bureau of Investigations; William G. Spalding, Sergeant, Emergency Services Team, P.G.C.P.; Emergency Services Team, P.G.C.P., Defendants-Appellees, and Lawrence Joseph Hogan, Prince George's County Executive; Donald W. Chamblee, Officer; Stanley A. Birckhead, Officer; Paul M. Mazzel, Officer; Mark Murphy, Officer, Defendants. Felicisimo N. MARTIN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Bruce GENTILE, Detective, CID Homicide, Bureau of Investigations; Michael Ferriter, Detective, CID Homicide, Bureau of Investigations; William G. Spalding, Sergeant, Emergency Services Team, P.G.C.P.; Donald W. Chamblee, Officer; Stanley A. Birckhead, Officer; Paul M. Mazzel, Officer; Mark Murphy, Officer, Defendants-Appellants, and Lawrence Joseph Hogan, Prince George's County Executive; Thomas Bruciak, Corporal, CID Homicide, Bureau of Investigations; Terry R. Eaton, Evidence Technician, CID Homicide, Bureau of Investigations; Emergency Services Team, P.G.C.P., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
William H. Klumpp, Jr., Baltimore, Md., for plaintiff-appellant.
Michael Gerard Comeau, Associate Co. Atty. (Larnzell Martin, Jr., Co. Atty., Michael O. Connaughton, Deputy Co. Atty., Upper Marlboro, Md., on brief), for defendants-appellees.
Before HALL, PHILLIPS, and MURNAGHAN, Circuit Judges.
Felicisimo Martin brought this 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 action alleging that Prince George's County, Maryland police officers violated his constitutional rights by using excessive force during his arrest and by denying him medical treatment for fourteen hours thereafter. The district court held, following a bench trial, that neither the force used to arrest Martin nor the delay in providing him medical care rose to the level of a constitutional violation. We affirm.
In January 1980, Prince George's County Police Department detectives Bruce Gentile and Michael Ferriter identified Martin as a suspect in a series of remarkably similar violent rapes and obtained a warrant for his arrest. Because the rapist had used a large knife in the commission of his crimes and cut several of his victims, the detectives were concerned that Martin would be armed and dangerous and likely to resist arrest. This conclusion was bolstered by the fact that Martin had a previous conviction for attempted robbery, a previous arrest for assault with a switchblade, and was believed to have some training in the martial arts. Accordingly, the detectives engaged the police department's Emergency Services Team (EST), which had special expertise in handling violent suspects, to make the arrest. The EST was commanded by Sergeant William Spalding.
The detectives briefed the EST members at length on Martin's prior history and the details of his alleged crimes, and instructed the EST to arrest Martin in his car so they could impound it for a search. To accomplish this task with a minimum of risk to the public, the EST planned to stage a fake accident in an isolated area along Martin's route to work. Several uniformed police officers in marked cruisers were to stop traffic at the scene of the "accident," while the EST members concealed themselves in the brush alongside the road. The arrest was planned for the early morning hours of January 15, 1980.
Martin's car approached the roadblock at approximately 5:30 a.m. It was still dark and visibility in the area was poor. When Martin stopped at the roadblock, the EST members charged his car, jerked open the door, and ordered him to get out with his hands up. When Martin refused to do so, 1 Officer Chamblee reached into the car, grabbed Martin by his shirt, and tried to pull him out of the car. Martin resisted, gripping tightly onto the steering wheel.
In the ensuing confusion, Sergeant Spalding rammed the barrel of a loaded shotgun through Martin's windshield, sending glass flying in all directions. Exactly what was going through Spalding's mind at the time is unclear: he has testified variously that the car lurched forward at him and that he saw Martin's hand move toward the glove compartment as if to reach for a weapon. In any event, it seems clear--and the district court expressly found--that Spalding thrust the shotgun through the window in a deliberate effort to intimidate Martin.
Spalding's action was in that regard successful, for Martin released his grip on the steering wheel, and he and Officer Chamblee went tumbling out onto the road. At that point there was a scuffle of some sort. Martin claims that the officers threw him down face down on the glass-covered pavement, where he landed prone with his hands pinned beneath his body. According to him, one officer then sat on his back, while the others beat him viciously about the head and shoulders before brutally wrenching his hands from underneath his body to handcuff him. The officers' version of the incident is, not surprisingly, somewhat different. They concede that Martin landed face down on the pavement when he tumbled out of the car, and that Officer Chamblee put a knee in Martin's back to hold him down. But they deny beating Martin; they recall only that he refused to submit to handcuffing and that they had to forcibly remove his hands from underneath his body in order to do so.
At some point during this incident--which in its entirety lasted no more than two minutes--Martin sustained a cut above one eye, a puncture wound in his palm, and scrapes and bruises on his shoulders and elbows. Martin contends that he thought his elbows were broken. It is unclear whether the shotgun itself ever came in contact with Martin's person. Detective Gentile's initial report of the incident indicated that the barrel of the shotgun had struck a glancing blow to Martin's eyelid. Spalding denies this, and Martin himself testified on cross-examination that the cut above his eye was sustained during the scuffle on the ground.
Following his arrest, Martin was taken directly to an interrogation room, where he was strip-searched and interrogated for a period of approximately 14 hours. During this period, Martin complained several times about his injuries. The officers allowed him to wash off his scrapes with soap and water and cleaned the cut over his eye for him, but did not take him immediately to a doctor. Martin claims he asked several times to be taken to the hospital because he thought his elbow was broken, but was told he would not be taken until he answered a few more questions. Approximately 14 hours after his arrest, Martin finally confessed to the rapes and was taken to the emergency room for medical treatment shortly thereafter. The physician who examined him there removed a small piece of glass from his palm and bandaged the cut over his eye, but found no broken bones and no wounds requiring stitches. He testified that Martin had a few minor injuries--mostly scrapes and bruises--but that he was otherwise unharmed. 2 There is no evidence that the experience caused Martin any permanent injury or lasting effects.
Based on the confessions, the state charged Martin with eleven rapes. Martin moved to suppress the confessions prior to trial, claiming that they had been obtained by beatings, threats, and the denial of essential medical care. After a three-day hearing, the trial court ruled that the confessions had been voluntary and denied the motion to suppress. Shortly thereafter, Martin pled guilty to four of the offenses charged and was sentenced to four 50-year terms in prison.
After serving several years of his sentence, Martin brought this Sec. 1983 action against the police officers who had participated in his arrest and interrogation. 3 In his pro se complaint, Martin alleged that the officers had deprived him of liberty without due process of law by using excessive force to arrest him and subjected him to cruel and unusual punishment by denying him medical treatment for 14 hours thereafter. The parties consented to have the case tried before a federal magistrate pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Sec. 636(c). Prior to trial, the defendants moved for summary judgment based on collateral estoppel, contending that the constitutional issues raised in Martin's complaint had been resolved in their favor in the state suppression hearing. The magistrate denied the motion and, after a two-day bench trial, entered a verdict in favor of the defendants. The magistrate found that the force used to arrest Martin did not violate his constitutional rights, because it was not inflicted "maliciously to cause this man harm" but "in a good faith effort ... to effect a legitimate state interest--that is, to effect an arrest of a suspect in a number of heinous crimes." The magistrate also found that the 14-hour delay in providing Martin with medical care, though deliberate, did not violate his constitutional rights because he had "no serious medical need" at the time. This appeal followed. 4
We consider first Martin's excessive force claim. We note at the outset that there has been unresolved confusion throughout about the precise source of the constitutional right Martin is asserting here. His pro se complaint alleged only that the force used to arrest him "constitutes [a] violation of my Fourteenth Constitutional Right." See Complaint p 19. But the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment is the source of three distinctly different types of constitutional protection against state interference. See Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 337, 106 S.Ct. 662, 677, 88 L.Ed.2d 662 (Stevens, J., concurring). First, it incorporates against the states certain provisions of...
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