Carson v. Polley

• Decision Date: 18 October 1982
• Docket Number: No. 81-1284,81-1284
• Parties: , 11 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1259 Arthur Wayne CARSON, Petitioner-Appellant Cross-Appellee, v. Officer POLLEY, ET AL., Respondents-Appellees Cross-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 562

689 F.2d 562

64 A.L.R.Fed. 613, 11 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1259

Arthur Wayne CARSON, Petitioner-Appellant Cross-Appellee, v. Officer POLLEY, ET AL., Respondents-Appellees Cross-Appellants.

No. 81-1284.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

Oct. 18, 1982.

Rehearing Denied Nov. 16, 1982.

Charles W. Cunningham, Alan S. Loewinsohn, Dallas, Tex., for petitioner-appellant cross-appellee.

Sue Lagarde, J. Steven Bush, Asst. Dist. Attys., Dallas, Tex., for respondents-appellees cross-appellants.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

Before GOLDBERG, WILLIAMS and GARWOOD, Circuit Judges.

JERRE S. WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge:

Arthur Carson brought this civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the Dallas County Sheriff and four of his deputies and a Dallas County Constable and three of his deputies. Carson alleged that he suffered injuries because the defendants used excessive force when arresting him and booking him into jail. In addition to the federal civil rights claims, Carson appended several state law claims growing out of the same incident.

In the first trial of this case, Carson recovered a verdict of $31,725.00. On motion of the defendants, the district court granted a new trial because the jury had considered several exhibits that had been ruled inadmissible and because of an erroneous evidentiary ruling. The second trial resulted in a jury verdict in favor of all defendants. Carson appeals from this judgment, arguing that the district court should have rendered judgment based on the jury's verdict in the first trial. Alternatively, Carson argues that procedural and evidentiary errors attending the second trial require that we order a third trial in this case. The defendants have cross-appealed on the issue of sanctions entered for noncompliance with discovery requests.

I. Facts

The events of Carson's arrest were hotly disputed at trial. We present the facts as asserted by Carson without purporting to resolve the conflicts. On Friday, February 10, 1978, Arthur Carson, while on his way to visit his mother-in-law, took a short-cut through the parking lot behind a precinct police station in Dallas, Texas. Earlier that day, police officers had observed someone tampering with a car in the station's parking lot. Mistaking Carson for this person, two plain clothes officers emerged from an unmarked car and told Carson he was under arrest. Because neither officer identified himself or informed Carson of the charges, Carson walked off. One of the officers then grabbed Carson's wrist and twisted it behind his back. The two tumbled to the ground as Carson attempted to free his arm. At this point, help in the form of three or four more officers emerged from the precinct station. The officers apprehended Carson and subdued him. On Carson's account, they did so by repeatedly hitting and kicking him.

Handcuffs were placed on Carson's wrists and ankles. The officers carried him into the station house where the two sets of cuffs were connected behind his back with a third set of handcuffs. Thus bound, Carson was left face down in an empty room. Three defendants-Deputy Constables Flatt and Crow, and Assistant Chief Deputy Constable Jack Thomas, were among the officers who participated in the arrest. A fourth defendant, Constable Vines, was the official in charge of the precinct station.

Carson was then transported to the Dallas County Jail. During the trip, Carson maintains, one of the officers grabbed him from behind and choked him into unconsciousness. On arrival at the jail, Carson was pushed out of the car and landed on his face on the parking lot. The officers carried Carson into the jail, using the third set of handcuffs as a handle and transporting him like a suitcase.

In the jail, sheriff's department personnel took charge of Carson. Carson's handcuffs were removed and he was taken to the book-in center, also known as the "shakedown" room. There, Carson testified, Deputy Sheriff Polley approached Carson and pushed him towards the back of the room. Carson requested to use a phone, but Polley's only response was to throw him jail coveralls and to tell him to "shut up". Carson still did not know why he had been arrested. Carson testified that Polley then struck him three times in the eye, knocking him over a bench. More officers then entered and kicked and hit Carson. Carson was again choked into unconsciousness. When Carson awoke, he was in solitary confinement. But for one visit to a nurse, Carson was left incommunicado in solitary confinement for three days until the following Monday. In addition to Polley, Carson alleged that Deputy Sheriffs Holley, Ingram, and Ellis were involved in the jail house events. Another defendant, Sheriff Carl Thomas, was the official responsible for the Dallas County Jail.

In July 1978, Carson pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated assault for his conduct in the arrest. In August 1978, Carson filed this suit pro se, naming only Deputy Sheriff Polley as a defendant. One day after the complaint was filed, the district court appointed counsel for Carson. Carson's counsel then filed two amended complaints, naming the additional defendants in this suit. ¹ The district court denied leave to file a third amended complaint approximately one month before the first trial. The third amended complaint sought to add a claim against Sheriff Carl Thomas that he negligently employed certain of the defendants whom he knew to have violent tendencies.

After a trial at which the jury awarded Carson $31,750, the district court granted the defendants' motion for a new trial. Because the jury had reached a verdict in favor of two defendants in the first trial, Sheriff Thomas and Constable Vines, ² the district court ordered that these defendants not be retried. At the second trial, the jury returned a verdict in favor of all of the remaining defendants. Carson's motion for a new trial was denied, and this appeal followed. Carson moved for leave of the district court to appeal in forma pauperis, but the district court denied this motion.

II. The First Trial

We first consider Carson's argument that the district court abused its discretion in granting a second trial in this case. After the first trial ended, the defendants discovered that several exhibits the court had ruled inadmissible had not been removed from the exhibit boxes and, therefore, were considered by the jury during deliberations. The exhibits fell into two categories. First, Carson had attempted to introduce prisoners' complaints and personnel reports about two deputy sheriff defendants, Holley and Polley. These reports and complaints dealt with occasions on which Holley and Polley used excessive force on prisoners. The district court had refused to admit these reports. Second, the defendants had attempted to introduce Carson's pleas of guilty to aggravated assault on the police officers who arrested him in February 1978. The court also ruled these guilty pleas inadmissible.

Despite these rulings, both the reports and the pleas remained in the exhibit boxes and were considered by the jury. Before the jury retired to deliberate, the court had invited counsel for both parties to examine the exhibit boxes and purge them of inadmissible exhibits. Carson's counsel had declined the invitation; the defendants' counsel could not remember having checked the exhibit box when questioned at a post-trial hearing. At any rate, the discovery that the exhibit boxes contained inadmissible exhibits was made only after the jury had concluded its deliberations.

The district court based its granting of a new trial on two grounds. First, the court believed that the personnel reports and prisoner complaints against the sheriffs were more prejudicial than probative. The jury's ability to consider them in assessing the credibility of the defendant law enforcement officers was of significance to the trial. In the court's view, all defendants were prejudiced by the jury's improper consideration of these exhibits. Second, the court believed that it had erred during the first trial in refusing to admit Carson's pleas of guilty to aggravated assault on two of the defendants in the suit. Even though the guilty pleas did in fact go to the jury, the defendants were prejudiced by their inability to mention the pleas in argument to the jury.

A district court, of course, has power to grant a new trial when the jury has inadvertently considered inadmissible evidence, and the evidence was prejudicial to the losing party. Montgomery Ward & Co. v. Duncan, 311 U.S. 243, 251, 61 S.Ct. 189, 194, 85 L.Ed. 147 (1940); DeVasto v. Faherty, 658 F.2d 859, 864 (1st Cir. 1981). Our review of a district court's decision to grant a new trial is broader than our review of a district court's denial of a new trial, but the standard remains one of abuse of discretion. Reeves v. General Foods Corp., 682 F.2d 515, 519 n.6 (5th Cir. 1982); Shows v. Jamison Bedding, Inc., 671 F.2d 927, 930 (5th Cir. 1982); Conway v. Chemical Leaman Tank Lines, Inc., 610 F.2d 360, 362 (5th Cir. 1980). The difference in our standard of review of orders granting new trials and those denying new trials stems from our respect for a verdict by a properly functioning jury. When the trial court grants a new trial because of a disagreement with the jury over the interpretation of the evidence, we review such a decision carefully to ensure that the party who persuaded the jury is not unfairly stripped of its verdict. A trial court's denial of a new trial, in contrast, places the court's judgment in line with the jury's. A ruling against a new trial, therefore, is entitled to great deference.

Here, the primary rationale for reviewing grants of new trials more searchingly than denials of new trials is not present. The district court did not reject the jury's verdict because the court differed with the jury on the evidence. Rather, the court...