United States v. Corder
| Decision Date | 12 February 2018 |
| Docket Number | No. 16-6592,16-6592 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. MATTHEW B. CORDER, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
RALPH B. GUY, JR., Circuit Judge. Defendant Corder, a police officer, was indicted and convicted after a jury trial of willfully depriving Derek Baize of his constitutional right to be free from unreasonable seizure and malicious prosecution. 18 U.S.C. § 242. On appeal, defendant raises a number of alleged errors. After careful consideration of the issues raised we find there was no error requiring reversal, and we affirm.
Late at night on October 22, 2014, Deric Baize arrived at his mobile home to discover that defendant Matthew Corder, a deputy with the Bullitt County Sheriff's Office, had parked hispolice cruiser in front of Baize's home in Baize's parking spot. (PageID # 657, 814, 818). Baize asked defendant what was going on, to which defendant told Baize to mind his own business. (PageID # 658.) Baize asked defendant to move his car, but defendant told Baize that he would move his car when he was ready. (PageID # 658.) Baize admitted that he told defendant to "fuck off" and began walking back into his house; defendant asked Baize to repeat himself, and Baize stated (PageID # 658.) At trial, the parties disputed whether Baize was shouting during this exchange. Baize conceded that he "raised his voice," because defendant asked him to repeat himself. (PageID # 687.) Baize's stepsister, who lived in the same trailer as Baize with her boyfriend, testified that Baize's voice was "[a] little bit above average, not too much, but not yelling." (PageID # 712.) No neighbor called the police or came out of their home to complain. (PageID # 705.)
Baize then walked into his home and closed the front door. (PageID # 658-59, 824-825, 357). Defendant and Baize's roommate both testified that defendant ordered Baize to stop; Baize testified that he did not hear that command. (PageID # 376-79, 712, 688-689.)
After Baize went inside, defendant activated his body camera and knocked on Baize's screen door. Baize opened his front door but left his screen door closed. Defendant opened Baize's screen door and told Baize to come outside "or there are going to be issues." Baize repeatedly refused, saying that defendant needed a warrant, but defendant responded that he did not "need no warrant." Defendant told Baize that "right now you're out here hollering at me and you ran in there, which means there's exigent circumstances." Baize again refused to come outside. Defendant reached inside Baize's home to grab Baize, who braced himself against his doorjamb and said "you are not allowed in my house." Defendant then entered Baize's home, grabbed Baize by the back of the neck, and began to arrest him. Defendant's fellow deputy, Billy Allen, arrived and assisted with the arrest. Defendant tased Baize into submission and completed the arrest.
Defendant prepared a post-arrest complaint charging Baize with three misdemeanors: disorderly conduct in the second degree, Ky. Rev. Stat. § 525.060; fleeing or evading in the second degree, Ky. Rev. Stat. § 520.100; and resisting arrest, Ky. Rev. Stat. § 520.090. The post-arrest complaint operated as the charging document. (PageID # 515, 739.) In support of the first two charges, defendant alleged in the complaint that the "[i]ncident caused alarm to neighbors & occupants of trailer" and that Baize "to evade ran inside [his] trailer."
After reviewing defendant's charges and supporting allegations, the magistrate judge detained Baize on a $1500 cash bond. The judge stated that she rejected the default unsecured bond because the complaint charged Baize with evading police and resisting arrest. (PageID # 794-95.) Baize could not afford the cash bond and spent two weeks in jail.
On December 8, 2014, the prosecutor and Baize's public defender, without Baize's knowledge, agreed on an order of dismissal, which included the following: "The Court notes that [Baize] stipulates that there was probable cause with respect to the charges herein." (PageID # 250.) It is undisputed that Baize never personally agreed to that stipulation. Baize found out that his case had been dismissed when he arrived for his pretrial hearing several weeks later. (PageID # 669.)
A grand jury returned a two-count indictment charging defendant with violating 18 U.S.C. § 242 by depriving Baize of his constitutional rights under color of law. Count 1 charged that defendant violated Baize's right to be free from unreasonable seizures by seizing Baize without probable cause to believe a crime had been committed, and by unlawfully entering Baize's home to effect the seizure. Count 2 charged that defendant violated Baize's right to be free from unreasonable seizures, i.e., the right to be free from malicious prosecution, by charging Baize with "disorderly conduct" and "fleeing and evading" without probable cause to believe that Baize committed those crimes, and by knowingly including "false and misleading information in the charging document," which caused Baize to be detained in jail. (PageID # 1-2). After a four-day trial, a jury convicted defendant of both counts. (PageID # 310.) The court sentenced defendant to concurrent terms of 27 months of imprisonment on Count 1 and 12 months of imprisonment on Count 2. (PageID # 1068.)
Defendant first argues that the jury did not hear sufficient evidence to convict on either count under 18 U.S.C. § 242, because in his view the evidence only permits a conclusion that Baize was, in fact, disturbing the peace and fleeing and evading, which justified an arrest and prosecution. Defendant also takes issue with two of the jury instructions, asserting that one of them misstated § 242's mental-state requirement and the other misstated the physical boundary at which police must recognize the Fourth Amendment's protection of the home. In his fourth and fifth assignments of error, defendant challenges the district judge's evidentiary rulings, i.e., the decision to redact the stipulation in the state-court order dismissing the charges against Baize, and the decision to permit the government to question him about prior lies he told to police investigators in the 1990s. Finally, defendant objects to the inclusion of an enhancement for physically restraining the victim in the calculation of his Guidelines range. We consider his arguments in turn.
We review de novo a district court's denial of a motion for acquittal based on the insufficiency of the evidence, United States v. Mabry, 518 F.3d 442, 447 (6th Cir. 2008), and must affirm the district court's decision if, "after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt." Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979). Because we may not independently weigh the evidence or "substitute our judgment for that of the jury," Johnson v. Mitchell, 585 F.3d 923, 931 (6th Cir. 2009), a defendant making an insufficiency-of-the-evidence argument "bears a very heavy burden." United States v. Daniel, 329 F.3d 480, 485 (6th Cir. 2003).
United States v. Cunningham, 679 F.3d 355, 370 (6th Cir. 2012).
Count 1 of defendant's indictment, brought under 18 U.S.C. § 242, required the jury to find that defendant deprived Baize of his right "to be free from an unreasonable seizure[ ], which includes the right not to be arrested without probable cause, and the right to be free from warrantless arrests in one's home absent consent or exigent circumstances." (PageID # 1, 282). Count 2, brought under the same statute, required the jury to find that defendant deprived Baize of his right to be free from unreasonable seizures, which includes the right to be free from malicious prosecution. (PageID # 1-2, 284, 286-87.) Malicious prosecution occurred if defendant issued the arrest citation "without probable cause to believe that [Baize] actually committed the charged crime[s]."
"To determine whether an officer had probable cause to arrest an individual, we examine the events leading up to the arrest, and then decide 'whether these historical facts, viewed from the standpoint of an objectively reasonable police officer, amount to' probable cause." Maryland v. Pringle, 540 U.S. 366, 371 (2003) (quoting Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 696 (1996)).
Defendant's arrest citation charged Baize with disorderly conduct in the second degree, Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 525.060(1)(b), which occurs when a person "[m]akes unreasonable noise." (PageID # 288.) Jury Instruction 13, which defendant does not challenge, establishes this as a fact question: "When considering whether a noise is unreasonable under subpart (b), [the jury] may consider the time, place, and manner of the noise." (PageID # 288.)
Defendant's sufficiency argument asks us to second-guess the jury's factual finding as to whether Baize generated noise that was unreasonable. There was evidence that Baize did not generate noise that was unreasonable, including his testimony, the testimony of one of the trailer's other occupants, and the fact that no one in the neighborhood complained. There was evidence to the contrary, as well, but the jury was entitled to find Baize credible and defendant not credible, and we may not independently weigh the evidence or substitute our judgment for that of the jury. Cunningham, 679 F.3d at 370. Defendant has not carried his "very heavy burden" to show that no rational trier of fact could have found that he lacked probable cause to arrest Baize for disorderly conduct. See id.
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