State v. Hall

• Decision Date: 28 October 2016
• Docket Number: A16A1704
• Citation: 793 S.E.2d 522,339 Ga.App. 237
• Parties: The STATE v. HALL.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

339 Ga.App. 237

793 S.E.2d 522

The STATE

v.HALL.

A16A1704

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

October 28, 2016

Elizabeth A. Baker, Tracy Graham Lawson, for Appellant.

Keith Clifford Martin, for Appellee.

Barnes, Presiding Judge.

A Clayton County police officer, Ryan Coker Hall, was indicted for simple battery based on his use of force during an encounter with a homeowner whom he believed might be a burglar. Hall filed a motion seeking immunity from prosecution under OCGA § 16–3–24.2, arguing that his use of force was reasonable and justified in light of the homeowner's resistance to being handcuffed and detained. Following an evidentiary hearing that included witness testimony and cell phone video footage of most of the incident, the trial court granted Hall's motion for immunity, resulting in this appeal by the State. For the reasons discussed below, we affirm.

On appeal from the trial court's grant or denial of immunity under OCGA § 16–3–24.2, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the trial court's ruling. Sifuentes v. State , 293 Ga. 441, 444 (2), 746 S.E.2d 127 (2013). So viewed, the evidence presented at the immunity hearing showed that around noon on May 2, 2014, a concerned neighbor called 911 and reported a burglary in progress at a residential address in Jonesboro. The neighbor told the 911 dispatcher that a red Durango sport utility vehicle ("SUV") was parked in the rear of a newly renovated house in the neighborhood and that a man was going in and out of the house. The neighbor described the man as "breaking into" the house and provided the dispatcher with the residential street address.

During the time period in question, Hall was an officer with the Clayton County Police Department assigned to a special crime suppression unit that responded to residential burglaries and other high priority calls. Hall and his partner responded to the 911 call of the burglary in progress.

Hall and his partner parked down the street from the house where the suspected burglary was taking place and were joined by another patrol officer and a police captain.¹ The four officers then proceeded towards the house on foot with their guns drawn. When the officers arrived at the house, they did not see any visible signs of forced entry, such as broken windows or doors, but a red Durango SUV was parked in the back of the house, consistent with the description provided by the 911 caller.

Hall's partner went to the back of the house, and Hall, the patrol officer, and the police captain approached the front of the house from different directions. The patrol officer stepped up onto the front porch, where he saw a 70–year–old man later identified as Almyahid Bin–Wahad at an upstairs window and gestured for him to come to the front door. Once Bin–Wahad came to the door, the patrol officer asked him to identify himself. However, Bin–Wahad would not provide his name and demanded to know why the officers were at his house. When asked if anyone else was inside the house, Bin–Wahad initially did not respond but then said that no one else was there. According to the patrol officer, Bin–Wahad was angry, waived his hands around as he spoke, and kept interrupting the patrol officer as he tried to explain that they were at the house to investigate a suspected burglary.

Unsure whether Bin–Wahad was in fact the homeowner or a possible intruder in light of the 911 call, the patrol officer asked Bin–Wahad to calm down and instructed him to come outside onto the front porch for further investigation. Bin–Wahad initially questioned why he needed to come outside but then stepped out onto the porch. The patrol officer and Hall, who had holstered their firearms, stood near Bin–Wahad on the porch while the police captain stood a short distance away and observed the interaction.

According to the officers, Bin–Wahad angrily told them that he was moving into the house that day, was belligerent and argumentative in response to their investigatory questions, would not keep his hands down, and kept yelling at the officers about their presence at the home despite their requests that he calm down. Bin–Wahad was yelling so loudly at the officers that Hall's partner could hear him from the back of the house.

While on the porch, the officers requested to see Bin–Wahad's identification, but Bin–Wahad said that his driver's license was in the SUV parked in the back of the house. The officers then offered to have another officer get the driver's license out of the SUV, but Bin–Wahad said the car doors were locked and the keys were inside the house. According to the patrol officer, "it was a little merry-go-round that we were on, where we were getting nowhere" in ascertaining Bin–Wahad's identity.

As the officers spoke with Bin–Wahad and attempted to calm him down, Hall took hold of Bin–Wahad's arm to keep him from moving around on the porch, conducted a pat-down search for weapons, and found none. According to the officers, Bin–Wahad remained belligerent and argumentative as they continued to question him, and Bin–Wahad became upset that Hall was holding onto his arm. Hall then repeatedly instructed Bin–Wahad to sit on the porch for safety reasons, but Bin–Wahad refused to cooperate until the police captain came up to the front porch and convinced him to sit down. Hall released Bin–Wahad's arm once he sat down, and Bin–Wahad again said that no one else was in the house.

As Hall was speaking with the seated Bin–Wahad, the patrol officer went inside the house to secure it. Because he was focused on Bin–Wahad, Hall did not see the patrol officer enter the house, and the patrol officer did not communicate on the police radio that he was entering the house. Shortly thereafter, Hall received a radio transmission from his partner, who remained positioned at the back of the house, that he had just seen another male peeking out of a back window of the house.

Believing that another suspect was in the house and that Bin–Wahad had deceived the officers by claiming that no one else was there, Hall decided to place Bin–Wahad in handcuffs to more securely detain him on the porch while the inside of the house was secured. Hall testified that at that point, he did not know "if somebody was going to come running outside the house ... and now I'm dealing with two people on the front porch."

Hall testified that after deciding to handcuff Bin–Wahad, he told Bin–Wahad that he was being detained and to put his hands behind his back. However, according to Hall, as he took Bin–Wahad's left wrist to handcuff it, Bin–Wahad pulled his left arm away from Hall, turned his body, and began to stand. In response to Bin–Wahad's actions, Hall testified that he attempted to use an arm bar technique as a defensive tactic to bring Bin–Wahad down on the porch so that he could be handcuffed. Hall further testified that Bin–Wahad's position on the steps and Bin–Wahad's movement made it difficult for him to apply the arm bar technique, and Bin–Wahad fell to the ground and struck his head and shoulder on the front wall of the house as Hall attempted to use the technique on him. Hall and the police captain then handcuffed Bin–Wahad and detained him on the front porch while other officers secured the house.

After Bin–Wahad was handcuffed and detained on the porch, the house was secured by other officers and no other suspects were found. The officers then realized that Hall's partner had mistaken the patrol officer who initially entered the house for another suspect.² Bin–Wahad's driver's license was obtained from his truck and the officers were able to determine that he lived at the house. Once that determination was made, Hall removed the handcuffs and released Bin–Wahad, who had no visible injuries.

Unbeknownst to the officers, a witness who was visiting a friend at another house in the neighborhood recorded most of the police encounter on his cell phone through a front window of the house, which was approximately 200 feet away from where the encounter occurred. The cell phone recording did not include any audio footage of the police encounter.

A grand jury subsequently indicted Hall on one count of simple battery for grabbing [Bin–Wahad's] arm and taking him to the ground in a manner that caused injury to his neck and shoulder area." Hall filed a motion to be granted immunity from prosecution under OCGA § 16–3–24.2 on the grounds that his actions were reasonable and justified in light of Bin–Wahad's resistance to being handcuffed. The trial court thereafter conducted an evidentiary hearing on Hall's immunity motion.

At the immunity hearing, the defense theory of the case was that Hall applied an arm bar technique to take Bin–Wahad to the ground as a defensive measure when Bin–Wahad resisted being handcuffed after the erroneous radio transmission about another suspect in the house, and that Hall's use of force was reasonable and justified under the circumstances to protect himself. In contrast, the State's theory of the case was that Bin–Wahad never resisted and that Hall instead grabbed him by the arm, lifted him up from the porch, threw him to the ground, and handcuffed him in an unreasonable and unprovoked use of force after hearing the erroneous radio transmission.

In support of the defense theory of the case, Hall testified, as summarized above, that he applied the arm-bar technique as a defensive measure when Bin–Wahad resisted being handcuffed by pulling his left arm away from Hall, turning, and attempting to stand up on the porch after there had been a radio transmission that a second suspect was in the house. Likewise, as previously summarized, the other three responding officers testified that Bin–Wahad had been argumentative and belligerent throughout their encounter with him and had been uncooperative when given commands by the officers.

In addition to the testimony of Hall and the other responding officers, Hall presented the testimony of several experts in support of the defense theory of the case. An...