Stevenson v. Holland

• Decision Date: 01 December 2020
• Docket Number: Case No. 1:16-CV-1831-AWI-JLT
• Citation: 504 F.Supp.3d 1107
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of California
• Parties: Douglas Jerome STEVENSON, Plaintiff, v. K. HOLLAND, et al., Defendants.

504 F.Supp.3d 1107

Douglas Jerome STEVENSON, Plaintiff,

v.K. HOLLAND, et al., Defendants.

Case No. 1:16-CV-1831-AWI-JLT

United States District Court, E.D. California.

Signed December 1, 2020

Laurie Suzanne Wilmore, Law Office of Laurie Wilmore, Los Gatos, CA, Meredith Fahn, Meredith Fahn, Attorney at Law, San jose, CA, for Plaintiff.

Gregory Lane Young, Leena M. Sheet, Attorney General's Office of the State of California Department of Justice, Los Angeles, CA, for Defendants S. Foster, R. Valverde, J. Dunnahoe, V. White.

Gregory Lane Young, Kandice Jung, Leena M. Sheet, Attorney General's Office of the State of California Department of Justice, Los Angeles, CA, for Defendants M. Crotty, C. Gonzales.

Gregory Lane Young, Kandice Jung, Leena M. Sheet, Attorney General Office of California, Los Angeles, CA, Sylvie P. Snyder, Deputy Attorney General, San Diego, CA, for Defendant A. Cantu.

ORDER ON MOTIONS IN LIMINE AND REQUESTS FOR JUDICIAL NOTICE

Anthony W. Ishii, SENIOR DISTRICT JUDGE

INTRODUCTION

This lawsuit is about a former prisoner, Plaintiff Douglas Stevenson, who alleges that he was physically abused by multiple prison officers on November 11, 2012, and December 7, 2012, while incarcerated at the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi, California. The alleged physical abuse occurred during two separate incidents: the "holding-cell incident" and the "beating incident." While the parties dispute the factual circumstances of these incidents, the following specifics are taken from the facts drawn by the Court at summary judgment:

On November 11, 2012, Officer M. Crotty escorted Stevenson to a holding cell. Stevenson's hands were handcuffed behind his back. Crotty took Stevenson's hands and pushed them up his back. Upon arriving at the holding cell, Crotty "ran" Stevenson's face into the gate in the back of the cell.

On December 7, 2012, Crotty escorted Stevenson from the shower. Stevenson's hands were handcuffed. Stevenson suddenly lunged toward Crotty, striking Crotty in the left shoulder with his right shoulder, thereby causing Crotty to lose his grip on Stevenson's arm. Crotty grabbed Stevenson's arm and slammed him into a wall, and Stevenson fell to the ground. Stevenson kicked at Crotty. Crotty hit and stabbed Stevenson with a baton, including in Stevenson's ribs. Crotty hit Stevenson's injured leg, which Crotty knew was injured (from a prior unrelated incident), and ankle with a baton seven or eight times. Officer C. Gonzales was nearby watching the incident. At least two other prison officers arrived at the scene of the incident and they along with Crotty and Gonzales continued beating Stevenson and "did a pile" on Stevenson. One of the officers was "sticking" Stevenson with a baton, and that officer hit Crotty's hand with the baton. The beating lasted at least three or four minutes. Stevenson suffered injuries from the beating, including an abrasion, scratch, bruise, discoloring, and swelling in the left thigh. From the moment Stevenson fell to the ground through the end of the beating, the officers did not give any orders to Stevenson. Stevenson's force or violence fractured a bone (or bones) in Crotty's hand. During this incident, Officer A. Cantu was stationed in a nearby patrol tower. Cantu saw Crotty escort Stevenson. Cantu saw a "commotion" during the escort. Cantu saw Crotty force Plaintiff to the ground. Cantu saw Stevenson kick while he was on the ground. After the beating ended, Cantu sounded an alarm. Stevenson heard the alarm.

Stevenson is proceeding to trial on the following three causes of action:

• Against Officer Crotty: Eighth Amendment violation for use of excessive force during the holding-cell incident (second cause of action);

• Against Officer Crotty: Eighth Amendment violation for use of excessive force during the beating incident (third cause of action); and

• Against Officers Gonzales and Cantu: Eighth Amendment violations for failure to intervene during the beating incident (third cause of action).

In anticipation of trial, Defendants have filed thirteen motions in limine. Doc. Nos. 112–116, 118–120, 122, 123, 125–127. Stevenson has filed fourteen motions in limine and two requests for judicial notice. Doc. Nos. 117, 121, 124. The Court held a hearing on these and other matters on November 23, 2020.

LEGAL STANDARDS

A. Motions in limine

"A motion in limine is a procedural mechanism to limit in advance testimony or evidence in a particular area." United States v. Heller, 551 F.3d 1108, 1111 (9th Cir. 2009). Motions in limine may be "made before or during trial, to exclude anticipated prejudicial evidence before the evidence is actually offered." Luce v. United States, 469 U.S. 38, 40 n.2, 105 S.Ct. 460, 83 L.Ed.2d 443 (1984). "Although the Federal Rules of Evidence do not explicitly authorize in limine rulings, the practice has developed pursuant to the district court's inherent authority to manage the course of trials." Id. at 4 n.4, 105 S.Ct. 460 ; Jonasson v. Lutheran Child & Family Servs., 115 F.3d 436, 440 (7th Cir. 1997) ; see also City of Pomona v. SQM N. Am. Corp., 866 F.3d 1060, 1070 (9th Cir. 2017) (explaining motions in limine "are useful tools to resolve issues which would otherwise clutter up the trial" (quoted source omitted)).

In Hana Financial, Inc. v. Hana Bank, the Ninth Circuit cited with approval the following "standards applicable to motions in limine":

Judges have broad discretion when ruling on motions in limine. However, a motion in limine should not be used to resolve factual disputes or weigh evidence. To exclude evidence on a motion in limine, the evidence must be inadmissible on all potential grounds. Unless evidence meets this high standard, evidentiary rulings should be deferred until trial so that questions of foundation, relevancy and potential prejudice may be resolved in proper context. This is because although rulings on motions in limine may save time, costs, effort and preparation, a court is almost always better situated during the actual trial to assess the value and utility of evidence.

735 F.3d 1158, 1162 n.4 (9th Cir. 2013) (citing Goodman v. Las Vegas Metro. Police Dep't, 963 F. Supp. 2d 1036, 1047 (D. Nev. 2013), rev'd in part on other grounds by 613 F. App'x 610 (9th Cir. 2015) ); see also Tritchler v. County of Lake, 358 F.3d 1150, 1155 (9th Cir. 2004) ; Jenkins v. Chrysler Motors Corp., 316 F.3d 663, 664 (7th Cir. 2002).

By resolving a motion in limine, the court may prevent the presentation of potentially prejudicial evidence to the jury, which also eliminates the need to try to neutralize a prejudicial taint after the evidence has already been presented. See Brodit v. Cambra, 350 F.3d 985, 1004–05 (9th Cir. 2003). Notwithstanding a motion in limine ruling, a court may change course at trial in the event that testimony or other evidence "bring[s] facts to the district court's attention that it did not anticipate at the time of its initial ruling."

United States v. Bensimon, 172 F.3d 1121, 1127 (9th Cir. 1999) (citing Luce, 469 U.S. at 41–42, 105 S.Ct. 460 ).

B. Admissibility generally

Evidence is relevant if (a) it has any tendency to make a fact more or less probable than it would be without the evidence; and (b) the fact is of consequence in determining the action. Fed. R. Evid. 401. Irrelevant evidence is not admissible. Fed. R. Evid. 402. "Relevancy is not an inherent characteristic of any item of evidence but exists only as a relation between an item of evidence and a matter properly provable in the case." Sprint/United Mgmt. Co. v. Mendelsohn, 552 U.S. 379, 387, 128 S.Ct. 1140, 170 L.Ed.2d 1 (2008) (quoting Fed. R. Evid. 401 advisory committee notes). Even if relevance is established, the court may exclude evidence "if its probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of one or more of the following: unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, misleading the jury, undue delay, wasting time, or needlessly presenting cumulative evidence." Fed. R. Evid. 403. In general, "[e]vidence of a person's character or character trait is not admissible to prove that on a particular occasion the person acted in accordance with the character or trait." Fed. R. Evid. 404(a)(1). Likewise, "[e]vidence of a crime, wrong, or other act is not admissible to prove a person's character in order to show that on a particular occasion the person acted in accordance with the character." Fed. R. Evid. 404(b)(1). But evidence of a crime, wrong, or other act may be admitted for another purpose, such as motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake, or lack of accident. Fed. R. Evid. 404(b)(2).

DISCUSSION

In this Order, the Court will address Defendants’ Motions in Limine Nos. 1 through 14 (exclusive of Nos. 2, 3, 6,¹ and 14), and Stevenson's Motions in Limine Nos. 1 through 14 (exclusive of No. 13 and his requests for judicial notice). For the matters not addressed here, during the motions-in-limine hearing, the Court instructed the parties to further meet and confer and provided new deadlines by which the parties are to file supplemental briefing or submit disputed evidence to the Court for in camera review. The Court will reserve its rulings on these matters at this time.

A. Defendants’ Motion No. 1 concerning Stevenson's use-of-force expert Daniel Fulks

Defendants seek an order excluding the opinions of Stevenson's use-of-force expert, Daniel Fulks. (Doc. No. 112.) Alternatively, they seek an order limiting Fulks’ opinions to matters within the scope of his expertise and such that those opinions do not invade the province of the jury.

1. The parties’ arguments:

Defendants first assert that Fulks is not qualified to provide expert opinions on the use of force in correctional settings. Defendants contend that his employment experience at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation ("CDCR") does not establish he possesses the requisite specialized knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education...