Sharp v. Kelsey

• Decision Date: 13 March 1996
• Docket Number: No. 5:94:CV:169.,5:94:CV:169.
• Citation: 918 F. Supp. 1115
• Parties: Elaine Whitfield SHARP and Dan Sharp, Plaintiffs, v. Sheriff Arthur T. KELSEY; Officer Randy M. Carpenter; Officer Michael J. Baird; Officer Steven Kiboloski; and Officer Dan Easter, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Michigan

918 F. Supp. 1115

Elaine Whitfield SHARP and Dan Sharp, Plaintiffs, v. Sheriff Arthur T. KELSEY; Officer Randy M. Carpenter; Officer Michael J. Baird; Officer Steven Kiboloski; and Officer Dan Easter, Defendants.

No. 5:94:CV:169.

United States District Court, W.D. Michigan.

March 13, 1996.

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Louis J. Porter, Joseph R. Assenzo, Hill, Lewis, Adams, Goodrich & Tait, Lansing, MI, Daniel S. Sharp, Whiteifle, Sharp & Sharp, Marblehead, MA, for Elaine Whitfield Sharp, Dan Sharp.

James L. Dyer, Cummings, McClorey, Davis & Acho, PC, Battle Creek, MI, for Arthur T. Kelsey, Randy M. Carpenter, Michael J. Baird, Steven Kiboloski, Dan Easter.

PARTIAL JUDGMENT

ENSLEN, Chief Judge.

In accordance with the Opinion entered on this date;

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that defendants' motion to dismiss or for summary judgment (dkt. # 20) is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part;

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the motion is GRANTED so for as all defendants are entitled to JUDGMENT on all Fourteenth Amendment claims and the Fourth Amendment claims of excessive force and unlawful seizure, and Sheriff Kelsey is entitled to JUDGMENT on the failure to train theory of liability.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the motion is DENIED with regard to the Eighth Amendment claim lodged against the officer defendants, and with regard to the Eighth Amendment deliberate indifference/supervisory liability claim lodged against Sheriff Kelsey, as well as with regard to the state claims.

OPINION

This matter is before the Court on defendants' motion to dismiss or for summary judgment. Plaintiffs are husband and wife attorneys. Defendants are the Sheriff and Officers of the Eaton County Sheriff's Department.

FACTS

The case regards events which occurred shortly after plaintiff Elaine Whitfield Sharp, an attorney, was held in contempt by the Honorable G. Michael Hocking, a state judge.

Ms. Sharp appeared before Judge Hocking on a custody matter. The judge ruled against her, and she began to talk over and argue with him. The arguing continued through several warnings from the judge that he would hold her in contempt if she did not cease. She questioned his judgment and knowledge of the law. The judge tolerated no more, summarily judged Ms. Sharp guilty of criminal contempt, sentenced her to a fine and five days in jail, and ordered Officer Baird to take her away. The judge and Ms. Sharp each had questioned what planet the other was from.

In accordance with the judge's order, Officer Baird escorted Ms. Sharp out a door at the side of the bench. The complaint alleges that Ms. Sharp went out the door peacefully. Once out the door, Officer Baird shoved her toward what appeared to be a cell. She retraced her steps from the shove, and asked why she was being pushed to a cell. She thought she only needed to pay a fine. Officer Baird said "You're done, lady", and punched her in the breasts so hard that she fell to the ground and struck her head against the wall or door of a neighboring courtroom. He then dragged her off the floor as she struggled to get to her feet. Ms. Sharp's complaint explains that she staggered back into Judge Hocking's courtroom, only to have Officer Baird grab her and take her back out of the courtroom again. He slammed her against a wall just outside of the courtroom, held her by the hair, and placed his knee in her back while he opened the cell door. When he opened the door, he shoved her through and then slid her briefcase in after her. Officer Baird then entered the cell and came toward Ms. Sharp in an intimidating manner. Grasping a set of keys in her fist, she raised her fist and keys toward the officer and declared that she would defend herself. Officer Baird left and shut the door behind him.

A moment later Sheriff Kelsey, and Officers Carpenter, Baird, Kiboloski, Easter, and Rainey assembled outside the cell door. Officer Carpenter entered first and made a motion as if to strike Ms. Sharp with a weapon, but his arm was obstructed by a wall. Two of the officers grabbed her, and together with the other officers, slammed her against the cell wall. They then tossed her to the cell floor. The officers proceeded to batter her, twist her arms and pull her hair. The officers handcuffed her, pulled her arms high and behind her back, grabbed her by the hair, grabbed her throat in a manner that strangled her, and escorted her to another cell. They moved her from cell to cell in this manner several times, occasionally grinding her face into a wall.

The officers' version of events is taken from depositions. According to Officer Baird's testimony, Ms. Sharp initially accompanied him to a door out of the courtroom without resistance. On the way out the door, or just after passing through the door, she struck him with her briefcase and bolted back into the courtroom where she called to the gallery that someone should call the papers and an attorney. Officer Baird retrieved her by following her back into the courtroom and grabbing her arm. On the way through the door the second time, or after passing through the door, she struck him in the face. A witness testifies in a deposition that he saw Ms. Sharp strike Officer Baird in the back of the head. Officer Baird exclaimed "You're done, lady," secured his grip on her arm, moved her against the far wall of a vestibule located outside the courtrooms, placed his knee and thigh against her back, unlocked and opened the door, and spun her around and into the vestibule. The vestibule is the room immediately before the holding cell, but it is not itself a holding cell. Once inside, Ms. Sharp came toward him clutching a set of keys in her fist with individual keys protruded from between her fingers like prongs, in a manner he had seen in self-defense classes. He pushed her in the chest to get her away from the door. He then shut and deadbolted the door. Officer Baird maintains that Ms. Sharp did not fall from the push. But she was yelling and screaming during the whole trip from the courtroom to the vestibule.

Officer Baird then called for back-up and the assistance of a female officer. Officer Dan Easter arrived on the scene first. He noticed a scratch on Officer Baird's face, and Officer Baird warned him that Ms. Sharp "still had her keys" and that he should not go into the vestibule. Officer Easter could hear Ms. Sharp's kicking, pounding and "irate" screaming, which included yelling about someone "touching" her breasts. Officer Easter called for assistance from the jail. At the time, court was still in session in both of the courtrooms immediately adjacent to the vestibule in which Ms. Sharp was held.

Officers Randy Carpenter and Steven Kiboloski then arrived. The officers decided that Ms. Sharp would have to be moved because of the disturbance she was creating and because they did not regard the vestibule as a secure area. Officer Baird warned Officers Kiboloski and Carpenter that Ms. Sharp had keys and that "she'll try to take your eyes out." Officers Carpenter and Kiboloski saw that Officer Baird was holding the side of his face. When Officer Baird then took his hand away, they noticed that he had a red scratch that intermittently extended from his eyebrow, across his cheek and down to his neck. Officer Carpenter testified that there was blood on his collar. Officer Kiboloski testified that the scratch was slightly swollen and showed a little blood in some places, but it was not actively bleeding at the time.

Officer Carpenter entered the vestibule first, with Officers Kiboloski and Easter behind him. Ms. Sharp continued to scream and yell. Officer Carpenter reached for his "do-right sticks"¹ and began to take them out of their holster, but determined not to use them because the proximity of a wall would not permit him to use them appropriately. He began talking to Ms. Sharp in a firm but non-threatening manner to explain to her that they had to take her to jail, and to get her to calm down and surrender the keys. She continued to yell and scream, demanding the press and an attorney and citing to the United States Code.

Officer Carpenter extended an open hand to coax her into calmly surrendering by turning and placing her hands against the wall, but instead she charged him with her keys clutched like prongs in her fist. He grabbed and lifted her arms, and spun her around. He and Ms. Sharp went to the ground, with Ms. Sharp falling rapidly and hard. As Officers Carpenter and Kiboloski attempted to gain control of Ms. Sharp's wrists, she bit Officer Carpenter's forearm. Officer Kiboloski grabbed her head and hair to dislodge her bite. Officers Easter, Baird and Rainey secured her torso and legs or were otherwise involved. Officers Carpenter and Kiboloski were then able to get her handcuffed with her arms behind her back.

Officers Baird and Carpenter then led Ms. Sharp to another floor to be placed in a holding cell. On the way out of the vestibule, Ms. Sharp saw Sheriff Kelsey. When she learned who he was, she informed him that she would sue him. As each officer held her by an arm and walked her away, she faced and walked backwards because it is a position affording the officers more control. On the way to her holding cell, she gathered the names of each of the officers and informed them that she would sue them. After being placed in a holding cell for a short period, the officers decided to move her again because she continued to yell and kick, and the officers were concerned that they could not observe her for her own safety.

The parties agree that at some point she asked to be taken to a hospital where she was observed, treated and spent the night. Ms. Sharp avers that a treating physician found her disoriented, with bruises and a possible closed head injury. In the struggle, her glasses had been bent and a broach crushed. She was later treated by her own physicians for mental and psychological pain. Ms. Sharp was also convicted in state...