Stanton v. Elliott

• Decision Date: 01 February 2022
• Docket Number: No. 21-1197,21-1197
• Citation: 25 F.4th 227
• Parties: Jeffery L. STANTON, as Administrator of the Estate of Spencer Lee Crumbley, Deceased, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. Cory E. ELLIOTT, Trooper First Class, individually as member of the West Virginia State Police; James J. Cornelius, Trooper First Class, individually as member of the West Virginia State Police, Defendants - Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

25 F.4th 227

Jeffery L. STANTON, as Administrator of the Estate of Spencer Lee Crumbley, Deceased, Plaintiff - Appellant,

v.Cory E. ELLIOTT, Trooper First Class, individually as member of the West Virginia State Police; James J. Cornelius, Trooper First Class, individually as member of the West Virginia State Police, Defendants - Appellees.

No. 21-1197

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: October 27, 2021

Decided: February 1, 2022

ARGUED: James Anthony McKowen, JAMES F. HUMPHREYS & ASSOCIATES, L.C., Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellant. Michael Deering Mullins, STEPTOE & JOHNSON PLLC, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: James F. Humphreys, JAMES F. HUMPHREYS & ASSOCIATES, LC, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellant. Candace Haley Bunn, Robert L. Bailey, STEPTOE & JOHNSON PLLC, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellees.

Before RICHARDSON and QUATTLEBAUM, Circuit Judges, and Michael F. URBANSKI, Chief United States District Judge for the Western District of Virginia, sitting by designation.

Reversed in part, affirmed in part, and remanded by published opinion. Judge Richardson wrote the opinion, in which Judge Quattlebaum and Chief District Judge Urbanski joined.

RICHARDSON, Circuit Judge:

Spencer Lee Crumbley was shot dead by West Virginia State Trooper Cory Elliott. According to Trooper Elliot, he lost sight of Crumbley during a foot chase. When Trooper Elliott turned a corner, he saw Crumbley turned away from him. Crumbley then abruptly turned toward Trooper Elliott and began to raise his hands, causing Trooper Elliot to believe that he might have a gun. That is when the shooting happened. As it turned out, Crumbley did not have a gun in his hands. But his conduct earlier in the encounter, including threats of violence and erratic behavior, added to the sudden hand movements, may well have been sufficient justification for Trooper Elliott's split-second decision to use deadly force.

But one important detail calls Trooper Elliott's story into question: Crumbley was shot in the back. Based on that detail, Crumbley's son sued for excessive force. If we took Trooper Elliott at his word, his actions may not amount to a constitutional violation at all. But this case arrives here on summary judgment, so we must determine whether there is any genuine dispute about what happened that day. And the shot in the back calls Trooper Elliot's version of events into question. On this record, there is a genuine dispute of fact that might show a violation of a clearly established constitutional right. We thus reverse the district court's grant of qualified immunity.

I. Background

Weeks before the shooting, Crumbley's children came to visit. His daughter, Ashley Vazquez, along with her boyfriend and her two young boys, had come down to West Virginia from Michigan. Jeffery Stanton, Crumbley's son and the plaintiff in this case, was also staying at his father's place. The Crumbley property sits at the end of a gravel path in rural West Virginia, and it has two buildings on it: a small A-frame house on one side and a slightly larger cabin about fifty feet away. Crumbley stayed alone in the A-frame, and his children stayed in the cabin, along with Vazquez's boyfriend and the two grandchildren. They all planned to help Crumbley by fixing up the property and filling out the forms to get food stamps.

Before the shooting, things had been tense at the Crumbley place. About a week before he was killed, Crumbley had run his son's girlfriend off the property with a gun. She had two young children with her, and he had chased them down the road threatening to kill her. This was not unusual for Crumbley. In the past Crumbley had apparently sat on the hill above the property with his gun, surveying the land and making sure his kids did not leave without his permission.

But this fatal episode really started when it got cold. In the days before Crumbley's death, it had gotten so cold that the pipes had frozen. Crumbley was furious. Crumbley wanted his kids to solve the problem—they were supposed to be there to help—and berated them when they did not. After a brief thaw, Crumbley got the water running again. Out of frustration, he hit his daughter in the head. He was "hateful" that day, Vazquez told the police. J.A. 56. And he stayed up all that night watching the cabin and making sure they could not leave.

That was the day before the shooting. The next day was cold, and there was snow on the ground. In the morning, Vazquez wanted to leave to get cigarettes, but the tires on her van were flat. She was convinced her father had done it to keep them there. And given the previous day's showdown, she feared a confrontation that morning; she feared "chaos." J.A. 58. It seems Crumbley had been drinking moonshine the night before and was in a foul mood after coming down from meth.

Vazquez began texting her mother about the situation. Vazquez was especially worried because she knew her father had weapons in the A-frame: at least a handgun, maybe a shotgun, and possibly even a sword. Vazquez's boyfriend seemed to think there was a .22 rifle in the A-frame as well. Because there was no cell service to make calls from the property, Vazquez texted her mother and asked her to call 911.

Meanwhile, West Virginia State Troopers Cory Elliott and James Cornelius were at the Elkins State Police communications center. They were just starting their morning when the 911 calls started coming in about Crumbley. All things told, there were three 911 calls that morning about the Crumbley situation. Vazquez's mother called; so did a family friend. They both asked the police to go to the Crumbley place and diffuse the situation. They told the dispatcher that Crumbley was armed and dangerous and keeping his family hostage. Stanton also made a call to 911.¹ He had walked down off the property to get cell service, and he hid this small betrayal from his father, who Stanton knew would react badly to it. On the 911 call, Stanton said that his sister and her kids were trapped, that there were weapons, and that Crumbley was armed and dangerous.² Stanton told the 911 dispatchers to tell the troopers what Vazquez later confirmed on the scene: Be careful because Crumbley often made threats about shooting the police.

With this information from the 911 calls, the troopers sped over with sirens on. On the way, the troopers discussed Crumbley's rumored drug connections. The troopers had heard Crumbley's name in connection with drugs like marijuana and methamphetamine. And after the shooting, Vazquez confirmed these rumors, recounting that her father was "a real bad meth head," who was the "devil" when he was coming off a meth high, as he was on the day he was shot. J.A. 57, 60; see also J.A. 188 (post-mortem toxicology report finding meth in Crumbley's system).

The troopers arrived mid-morning, and Crumbley would be shot less than twenty minutes later. There is no audio or video footage of anything that happened; the troopers did not have bodycams. Once there, Trooper Cornelius went up to the cabin and met Vazquez, while Trooper Elliott stayed down by the cruiser to watch for Crumbley. Vazquez confirmed that her father was somewhere on the property, possibly with a weapon, that he had hit her before, that there was a handgun in the house, and that he had flattened their tires and threatened them. Trooper Cornelius told Vazquez to lock the cabin doors and to keep everyone inside. Cornelius came back to the cruiser to tell Trooper Elliott what was said.

When Cornelius returned to the cruiser, Crumbley came out of the A-frame house screaming. He demanded that the troopers get off his property and threatened a shootout. He had nothing in his hands yet but threatened to get a weapon from the house. After first appearing, Crumbley went back and forth several times between the yard where the troopers were and the A-frame house, each time threatening to get a weapon and shoot the troopers. And all the while, the troopers were telling Crumbley to put his hands up, calm down, and come over to them. At one point, Crumbley lifted up his shirt and pulled down his pants to expose his genitals while spinning in a circle.

But things really boiled over when Crumbley got hold of a shovel. He threatened the troopers with it and then, with the shovel in hand, tried to get into the locked cabin where Vazquez and her family were hiding. After failing to get into the cabin, Crumbley turned to see the troopers approaching, and he started swinging the shovel at them. The troopers backed off, and Crumbley ran. As the troopers gave chase, Crumbley threw the shovel. Trooper Cornelius slipped on the snow and fell.

Trooper Elliott kept chasing. Crumbley ran around the right side of the A-frame, and Trooper Elliott lost sight of him for a second or two. That's when Trooper Elliott took out his service pistol. Then, Trooper Elliott turned the corner.

The only testimony we have of what happened next is Trooper Elliott's. He says that he "took the corner just a little bit wide" and then saw Crumbley just slightly to his left. J.A. 85–86. Crumbley was standing still, facing the near end of a couch that was set up there along the house. Trooper Elliott saw the wall of the house on his left, with the couch set up parallel to it, and Crumbley facing the couch and the wall, meaning that Crumbley was turned about 90 degrees away from Trooper Elliott with his left side facing Trooper Elliott. At that moment, they were about seven or eight yards apart.

Trooper Elliott could not tell what Crumbley was doing at the couch, maybe reaching for something, maybe just "bent over in the couch," but whatever it was, it ended when Crumbley abruptly turned toward Trooper Elliott and began to raise his hands. J.A. 86. That's when Trooper Elliott fired, five shots, without stopping, all in a few seconds, at the same moment Crumbley's hands came up. He shot because he thought his life was in danger as Crumbley might have...