Adams v. Blount Cnty.

• Decision Date: 08 January 2020
• Docket Number: No. 19-5306,19-5306
• Citation: 946 F.3d 940
• Parties: Courtney ADAMS, Mother and Next Friend of Minors K.E. and V.E.; Kim Huskey, Mother of Decedent and Personal Representative on behalf of Estate of Anthony Edwards, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. BLOUNT COUNTY, TENNESSEE, Defendant, Jerry Burns, in his Individual and Official Capacity, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

946 F.3d 940

Courtney ADAMS, Mother and Next Friend of Minors K.E. and V.E.; Kim Huskey, Mother of Decedent and Personal Representative on behalf of Estate of Anthony Edwards, Plaintiffs-Appellees,

v. BLOUNT COUNTY, TENNESSEE, Defendant,Jerry Burns, in his Individual and Official Capacity, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 19-5306

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: December 3, 2019

Decided and Filed: January 8, 2020

ARGUED: Gary M. Prince, O’NEIL, PARKER & WILLIAMSON, PLLC, Knoxville, Tennessee, for Appellant. Troy L. Bowlin II, THE BOWLIN LAW FIRM P.C., Knoxville, Tennessee, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Gary M. Prince, N. Craig Strand, O’NEIL, PARKER & WILLIAMSON, PLLC, Knoxville, Tennessee, for Appellant. Troy L. Bowlin II, THE BOWLIN LAW FIRM P.C., Knoxville, Tennessee, for Appellee.

Before: GRIFFIN, STRANCH, and DONALD, Circuit Judges.

JANE B. STRANCH, Circuit Judge.

This case began with a report of suspicious individuals walking down a rural road in Tennessee in the early morning hours of July 25, 2016. It ended with an encounter between Anthony Edwards and two Deputies, Jerry Burns and James Patty, that resulted in Edwards’s death. Edwards’s fiancée and his mother sued on behalf of his estate for violations of the U.S. Constitution and Tennessee state law, including a Fourth Amendment claim for excessive force. The motion of the Deputies for qualified immunity on the excessive force claim was denied and is the basis for this interlocutory appeal. Because the appeal is premised on factual disputes and not questions of law, we must DISMISS the case for lack of jurisdiction.

I. BACKGROUND

A. The Initial Call

Late in the evening on July 24, 2019, Blount County sheriff’s department held a mandatory briefing that included Defendant Deputy Burns regarding suspect Dylan Tarbett, wanted for assaulting an officer. Tarbett was last known to be staying at Winchester Drive, but it was unclear whether he was still there. He allegedly possessed a .45 caliber handgun and had threatened to kill any officer who made contact with him. Burns was patrolling "Zone 4" that evening, which included Winchester Drive.

Patrol officers received a radio call describing three suspicious individuals walking near Winchester Drive. Burns responded to the call and, concerned that one of the suspicious individuals might be Dylan Tarbett, drove around the area until he saw two men walking toward him on the road. As he drove past the two men, Burns says that he noticed one of them acting "fidgety" and trying to hide his face with his hands. Turning on his body camera, Burns exited his car and asked the men their names and date of birth. Travis Hickman provided his information and Edwards identified himself as "Joe Eldridge" and his date of birth as "7/87/85." Edwards snickered as he provided this information, which aroused Burns’s suspicion. Burns ordered Edwards to stand "right there" and put his hands behind his head.

Burns patted down Edwards, and "as soon as [Burns’s] hand hit his pocket, [Edwards] took off." A chase ensued, until Edwards fell and Burns caught up and tried to hold him. Burns ordered Edwards to put his hands behind his back, and Edwards responded, "I’m trying"; the two struggled and yelled with Burns repeatedly shouting, "roll over," and Edwards responding, "I’m trying." After several minutes, Edwards said he was having a seizure and complained of injuries. Deputy Michael Bennett then arrived as backup, ran toward the two yelling commands and, according to his deposition, said it looked like Edwards was giving Burns "a piggy back ride." His body camera revealed that Edwards said, "I’m not running, I’m not, he’s [expletive] hitting me." Bennett then went to find Travis Hickman.

Deputy Patty arrived around the same time and after Bennett left, heard Edwards say "I had a [expletive] seizure, and you go and just [expletive] hit me in the face. It’s [expletive] up. Why are you doing this to me?" Burns told Patty that "every time I get up, he runs." Burns handcuffed Edwards with his hands in front of him. Edwards asked Burns to call 911 to which Burns threatened him with a taser, saying "You see this? This is a taser. You do anything I tell you not to do or don’t do something I tell you, you’re gonna get lit up, you understand?" Burns again said that "every time I get up, he runs" and Edwards responded, "I try to stand up because I feel like I’m going to pass the [expletive] out." At that point, Burns’s camera fell off his body.

B. The Use of Force

Five people were present during the use of force: Edwards, Deputies Burns and Patty, Edwards’s friend Hickman, and passerby Lauren Hatcher, a neighborhood resident. Though Bennett was on the scene, he testified that he did not witness this part of the altercation. Because there is no video footage, the testimonies of these individuals serve as the primary evidence of when and how Burns used force that resulted in Edwards’s death.

Deputies Burns and Patty escorted Edwards in handcuffs to Patty’s SUV. According to Burns, he and Patty both kept Edwards in their grasp on their way to the car, but Patty testified that after the initial encounter he never laid a hand on Edwards the entire night. While they provided different facts about their walk to the car, the officers appear to agree that Edwards got away and began running. Burns caught up to Edwards and grabbed him around the waist, his feet lifted off the ground kicking. Deputy Patty had his taser out and ready to deploy when Edwards kicked Patty near or in the groin.

Burns testified that he "felt a momentum going backward" and he and Edwards hit the ground, though he does not know exactly how that happened. Deputy Patty described the "fall" as Burns "pushing Edwards slightly down and out." Despite being pushed forward, Patty said that Edwards landed on his back. Later, when Burns spoke to Deputy Bennett about the incident, he said: "I didn’t think he’d take off running again when me and Patty had him—got him out to the back of this vehicle." He further explained, "I went to pick him up and pull him back and like he, he fell. He fell right on his back."

Lauren Hatcher witnessed the altercation while walking her dog. In her earlier sworn declaration, Hatcher asserted she saw "two gentlemen fighting in the middle of the road[.]" She saw Edwards "hit and kick" the police officer, and when the officer tried to hold him, Edwards "darted away." She did not see an officer hit or strike Edwards. From her perspective nothing "intentional" was done against Edwards, and the officer "was just trying to get the gentleman under control and the gentleman would not cooperate." Further, Hatcher described the incident leading to Edwards’s injuries as follows:

It appeared the police officer and the gentleman got their feet tangled up and they fell to the ground. There was no force involved. It just looked like two people tripping and they just fell over. From what I saw the officer did not toss him to the ground. I did not see the gentleman’s feet fly up in the air and it just seemed like they both fell down.

In her August 31, 2018 deposition, Hatcher testified that Edwards kicked Deputy Patty when he opened the door to the SUV, not afterwards when Edwards supposedly ran away from the officers and Burns caught him, as Burns and Patty stated. Notably, Hatcher did not actually see Edwards kick Patty but inferred that it happened right before Burns and Edwards fell to the ground:

I seen his thigh come up—I mean, it’s an automatic reaction, if you’re going—when [Burns] had him kind of—you know, when he had him by the shoulders, was fixing to put him in the cop car, you seen Edwards’s leg come up. I mean, you seen his thigh from the back of the car. You seen him push back. You seen the way that his back come back.

At this point, Hatcher states that Edwards’s and Burns’s feet "got tangled" and that is how they fell, mentioning that it looked like Burns was trying to save him and Edwards from falling or getting injured.

Edwards’s companion, Hickman, remained at the scene after Edwards was taken to the hospital, but he did not see the final altercation. He provided two sworn declarations, the first signed on February 23, 2018, and the second on August 23, 2018. In the first, Hickman said Burns and Edwards "wrestled around" before Edwards ran away and was then caught again. He stated that "Edwards was not doing what he was told to do." In the second, Hickman asserted that Edwards was "begging for his life, begging the officer to stop hitting him." Hickman ran toward them to see what was happening, and he saw "Burns standing over [Edwards], hitting him with both fists." When the other officers arrived, Edwards was in handcuffs and "doing what he was told to do." The officers then took Edwards to the SUV and, when Hickman heard (but did not see) the "scuffle," he ran over and saw Edwards on the ground "clearly unconscious."

Hickman was in Sevier County jail when Blount County investigator Tim Hutchison asked for his (first) declaration; the reason for his incarceration is unclear. According to Hickman, Hutchison offered to "get [him] out of there" in exchange for providing the declaration. Because Hickman could not read, the declaration was read to him before he signed; however, Hickman alleges that the recorded declaration does not match what he remembers telling Hutchison, what he remembers of the night of the incident, or what he remembers Hutchison reading back to him for his approval before signing the statement. After he gave his statement to Hutchison, he was released soon thereafter and the charges against him were dropped.

C. The Investigation

Soon after the altercation, then Sergeant Scott Boyd arrived at the scene and saw Edwards handcuffed and lying on the ground with blood coming out of his ears. He called for medical assistance and then spoke with Deputy Burns, who recounted that Edwards was fighting them and kicked Deputy Patty in the groin. Burns told Boyd...