Leyba v. City of Santa Fe
| Decision Date | 08 February 2017 |
| Docket Number | CV 16-185 WPL/LF |
| Parties | LYDIA LEYBA and LAWRENCE TRUJILLO, as co-personal representatives of the ESTATE OF ROBERT DOMINGUEZ, deceased, Plaintiffs, v. CITY OF SANTA FE; CHARLES A. LARAMIE, II; RAYMOND J. RAEL; BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF SANTA FE COUNTY; SANTA FE REGIONAL EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS CENTER BOARD OF DIRECTORS; ROBERT EAGAN; JUDITH EAGAN; LIVEWATCH SECURITY LLC d/b/a SAFEMART; and DOES I-V; Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of New Mexico |
This lawsuit is based upon the accidental shooting of Robert Dominguez, the father of Plaintiffs, by Officer Charles Laramie of the Santa Fe Police Department in the early morning hours of March 4, 2013. Officer Laramie has filed a motion for summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity, which Chief of Police Raymond J. Rael and the City of Santa Fe have joined. (Doc. 97.) They argue that it is undisputed that Mr. Dominguez pointed a gun at Officer Laramie that morning, and that Officer Laramie did not violate Mr. Dominguez's constitutional rights because his use of force was reasonable under the circumstances. In response, Plaintiffs dispute that Mr. Dominguez pointed a gun at Officer Laramie, contend that Officer Laramie's reckless conduct that night created the need to use deadly force, and submit that it was clearly established at the time that an officer cannot use lethal force against an individual who posed no threat to the officer.
Under the doctrine of qualified immunity, "government officials performing discretionary functions generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). When a defendant raises a qualified immunity defense, the plaintiff must show both that the defendant's conduct violated a constitutional right and that the constitutional right was clearly established when the violation occurred. Thomson v. Salt Lake Cty., 584 F.3d 1304, 1312 (10th Cir. 2009). If the plaintiff meets this two-part inquiry, the defendant assumes the normal summary judgment burden of establishing that no material facts exist that would defeat his claim for qualified immunity. Clark v. Edmunds, 513 F.3d 1219, 1222 (10th Cir. 2008).
Allegations of excessive force are analyzed under the Fourth Amendment's "objective reasonableness" standard. See Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 395 (1989). "The 'reasonableness' inquiry in an excessive force case is an objective one: the question is whether the officers' actions are 'objectively reasonable' in light of the facts and circumstances confronting them, without regard to their underlying intent or motivation." Id. at 397. Proper application of the reasonableness inquiry "requires careful attention to the facts and circumstances of each particular case, including the severity of the crime at issue, whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of officers or others, and whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight." Id. at 396. "The 'reasonableness' of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight." Id. Police officers may be "forced to make split-second judgments—in circumstances that are tense, uncertain and rapidly evolving—about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation." Id.
In assessing the second Graham inquiry, the threat facing the officers, courts look at a number of factors, including 1) whether the officers ordered the suspect to drop his weapon, and the suspect's compliance with police commands; 2) whether the suspect made hostile motions with the weapon towards the officer; 3) the distance separating the officers and the suspect; and 4) the manifest intentions of the suspect. Est. of Larsen v. Murr, 511 F.3d 1255, 1260 (10th Cir. 2008). Courts will also examine whether the officers were in danger at the precise moment that they used force, and whether the officers' reckless conduct unreasonably created the need to use such force. Thomson, 584 F.3d at 1315, 1320.
There are no bright line rules for assessing the objective reasonableness of an officer's actions. Est. of Larsen, 511 F.3d at 1262. In the end, the inquiry is whether, "from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, the totality of the circumstances justified the use of force." Id. at 1260. If the facts, taken in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, show that the officer's conduct violated a constitutional right, then the court must examine whether the right was clearly established so that "it would be clear to a reasonable officer that his conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted." Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 202 (2001). For the law to be clearly established, "there must be a Supreme Court or Tenth Circuit decision on point, or the clearly established weight of authority from other courts must have found the law to be as the plaintiff maintains." Walker v. City of Orem, 451 F.3d 1139, 1151 (10th Cir. 2006).
In considering a motion for summary judgment, I normally view the facts and the reasonable inferences from the facts in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. Cortez v. McCauley, 478 F.3d 1108, 1126 (10th Cir. 2007). When one party tells a story that is blatantlycontradicted by a video or audio recording, so that no reasonable jury could believe it, the court should not adopt that version of the facts when ruling on the motion. Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 380 (2007); York v. City of Las Cruces, 523 F.3d 1205, 1210 (10th Cir. 2008). This standard "is a very difficult one to satisfy," and applies only in rare, exceptional cases. Cordero v. Froats, 613 F. App'x 768, 769 (10th Cir. 2015) (unpublished). It is not enough that the video or audio strongly supports the defendant's position, id.; the plaintiff's version of events must be "so utterly discredited by the record that no reasonable jury could have believed him." Scott, 550 U.S. at 380.
Officer Laramie shot Mr. Dominguez at approximately 3:30 a.m. on March 4, 2013, when he was investigating a home burglary alarm call at 512 Johnson Lane in Santa Fe. Mr. Dominguez, who acted as the caretaker of 512 Johnson Lane when its owners were not present, had been contacted by the alarm company about the alarm going off and went to the house. Officer Laramie was not informed that a caretaker or homeowner would be responding to the alarm. Officer Laramie turned on his belt tape recorder before he approached the house, so there is a contemporaneous audio record of what occurred that morning.
When Officer Dominguez approached the house he could hear the alarm. He entered the courtyard to get a view of the house and assess the situation. He could see that the front door of the house was open, and he notified dispatch of the open door. Officer Laramie could hear someone moving around inside the house. The alarm went off, but then went back on again. Officer Laramie then saw a man in the open doorway. Officer Laramie identified himself as a police officer and asked the man to identify himself. The man responded that he was Robert Dominguez. It is at this point that the parties' version of events diverges.
Officer Laramie claims that after Mr. Dominguez identified himself, he saw that Mr. Dominguez was wearing a holster and was reaching for it. Officer Laramie again identified himself as a Santa Fe Police Officer and ordered Mr. Dominguez to keep his hands down. Mr. Dominguez did not comply with Officer Laramie's order and drew a gun and pointed it at Officer Laramie. Mr. Dominguez was ten to fifteen feet away from Officer Laramie, who was in an exposed, uncovered location. Because he believed his life was in imminent danger, Officer Laramie fired five shots at Mr. Dominguez. Mr. Dominguez fell to the ground, but then raised and pointed his gun again. Officer Laramie fired two additional shots. Officer Laramie then radioed for an ambulance and notified dispatch that Mr. Dominguez had pulled a gun on him. Officer Laramie next entered the house and positioned himself to cover Mr. Dominguez until additional officers arrived. During this time, Officer Laramie asked Mr. Dominguez why he pulled a gun on him. Mr. Dominguez responded:
Plaintiffs admit that Mr. Dominguez brought a gun with him that morning, but they deny that he pointed it at Officer Laramie prior to the shooting. Plaintiffs claim that Mr. Dominguez put the gun down while he was trying to turn off the alarm, and that what Officer Laramie saw was an empty holster and Mr. Dominguez beginning to put his hands up when he was shot. Officer Laramie admits that he did not see the gun in Mr. Dominguez' hand or laying on the floor near him after he fell to the floor. Instead, Officer Laramie saw the gun sitting on a chair, inside the house, to the right of the door. Officer Laramie stated that the gun "just sort of disappeared" after his second volley of shots, and admitted that he did not see Mr. Dominguez throw the gun onto the chair and he did not know how the gun got on the chair. Officer Faron Rodriguez, one of the first officers to arrive on the scene, claimed that he saw the gun by Mr. Dominguez' left hand when he arrived, but Officer Laramie, who was present with Mr.Dominguez in the house for five to six minutes before Officer Rodriguez arrived, disputes that the gun was near Mr. Rodriguez on the floor after the shooting.1
The parties dispute the admissibility of statements made by Mr. Dominguez in the months after the accident. Plaintiffs rely on recorded statements that Mr. Dominguez gave to the New Mexico State Police and to his own attorney on March 14, 2013 while he was in the hospital recovering from his...
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