Wade v. Daniels

• Decision Date: 13 June 2022
• Docket Number: 18-12371
• Citation: 36 F.4th 1318
• Parties: Nicholas C. WADE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Solomon DANIELS, DeKalb County Sheriff's Department, Victor Jones, DeKalb County Sheriff's Department, Kerry Wilson, DeKalb County Sheriff's Department, Ms. S. Spears, DeKalb County Sheriff's Department, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

36 F.4th 1318

Nicholas C. WADE, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.Solomon DANIELS, DeKalb County Sheriff's Department, Victor Jones, DeKalb County Sheriff's Department, Kerry Wilson, DeKalb County Sheriff's Department, Ms. S. Spears, DeKalb County Sheriff's Department, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 18-12371

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

Filed June 13, 2022

William Alexander Smith, Troutman Pepper, Atlanta, GA, Misha Tseytlin, Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders, LLP, Chicago, IL, Nicholas C. Wade, Georgia SP - Inmate Legal Mail, Reidsville, GA, Hays SP Warden, Hays SP - Inmate Trust Fund, Trion, GA, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Nikisha L. McDonald, Tiffany B. Harlow, DeKalb County Law Department, Decatur, GA, for Defendants-Appellees.

Before Wilson, Jill Pryor, and Lagoa, Circuit Judges.

WILSON, Circuit Judge:

Nicholas Wade brought this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action against several DeKalb County, Georgia investigators, alleging that they violated his constitutional rights during his arrest. Wade claims that Solomon Daniels used excessive force when he shot him three times, that Victor Jones used excessive force when he pistol-whipped him, and that Daniels, Jones, and Kerry Wilson were deliberately indifferent to his serious medical need after the shooting. The district court granted summary judgment for the investigators on every claim. The district court also denied Wade's motion to amend his complaint to add A. Beach¹ as futile.

In deciding this case, we express no sympathy for Wade; he was pursued and arrested for murdering a child, for which he was ultimately convicted. But we must view the facts in the light most favorable to him and draw reasonable inferences in his favor. Bound by that standard, we reverse the district court's grant of summary judgment for Jones on the pistol-whip claim. But we affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment for Daniels on the shooting claim and for Daniels, Jones, and Wilson on the deprivation of medical care claim. We also affirm the district court's denial of Wade's motion to amend his complaint.

BACKGROUND

The record, viewed in the light most favorable to Wade, would support these findings. The DeKalb County Sheriff's Department identified Wade as a suspect in the death of Keon Belk, a toddler. Keon's mother, Jillian Belk (Belk), was Wade's girlfriend.

Investigators convinced Belk to meet with Wade. On February 5, 2014, Belk picked up Wade. Before she picked him up, the investigators had left a cell phone in the backseat of her car so that they could hear what Belk and Wade were saying. The officers heard Wade accuse Belk of having led the police to him and heard Belk say, "I'm scared." The investigators followed Belk's car into a parking lot, where they surrounded the car. At least eleven officers were on the scene.

Daniels and Wilson approached the driver's side of Belk's vehicle, and Jones and Beach (incorrectly identified in the complaint as Stacey Spears) approached the passenger side. Each investigator drew his or her gun and noticed that Wade held a sawed-off shotgun with the barrel pointed at his own chin. Upon hearing the investigators, Wade instinctively turned his head towards Jones while still pointing the weapon at his own chin. Then, without warning, Daniels fired three shots through the driver-side window at about 2:03 p.m., hitting Wade in the head, shoulder, and leg. Wade crumpled onto the vehicle's center console and dropped the shotgun between his legs. Daniels said, "I shot that motherfucker in the head," and that "mother-fucker will die any [ ] minute."

Beach opened the passenger door of the vehicle, removed the shotgun, placed Wade in handcuffs, and searched him for weapons. She then pinned Wade down to restrict his movements, and he began to suffocate on the blood filling his mouth. Wade asked Beach to allow him to sit up so he could breathe, but Beach maintained pressure on Wade's head. Wade, still handcuffed, "removed" Beach's hands from his head and tried to sit up. In response, Jones slammed his handgun against Wade's face, chipping his tooth and causing lacerations to his face and mouth.

Wilson instructed another investigator on the scene to call an ambulance. At 2:07 p.m.—four minutes after the shooting—an investigator communicated over his radio that shots were fired and requested EMS. One minute later the investigator said that someone had been shot in the head. The ambulance arrived at 2:16 p.m. and transported Wade to the hospital at 2:39 p.m.

Wade was indicted on several counts, including aggravated assault on a peace officer relating to an arrest. A jury convicted Wade on that count. Wade then filed this § 1983 action against Daniels, Jones, Wilson, and Spears, alleging that they used excessive force and deprived him of medical care during his arrest. The investigators ultimately moved for summary judgment, claiming that they were entitled to qualified immunity on all of Wade's claims. After reviewing the documents provided by the investigators in their motion, Wade realized that he had wrongly identified Beach as Spears, so he requested leave to amend his complaint accordingly. The district court granted the investigators’ motion for summary judgment on all claims and as to all defendants. It also denied Wade's request to amend his complaint.

DISCUSSION

I. Summary Judgment

We review a grant of summary judgment de novo, viewing the evidence and all resulting inferences and doubts in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. Kingsland v. City of Miami , 382 F.3d 1220, 1225–26 (11th Cir. 2004), abrogated in part on other grounds by Nieves v. Bartlett , 587 U.S. ––––, 139 S. Ct. 1715, 1726, 204 L.Ed.2d 1 (2019). Summary judgment is appropriate only "if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a).

Wade argues that the district court erred in granting the investigators summary judgment on his excessive force and deprivation of medical care claims because they were not entitled to qualified immunity. "When determining whether a defendant is entitled to qualified immunity, we resolve any issues of material fact in favor of the plaintiff." Alston v. Swarbrick , 954 F.3d 1312, 1317–18 (11th Cir. 2020). Qualified immunity protects government officers acting within their discretionary authority from liability for civil damages unless a plaintiff can show (1) that the officer violated a federal statutory or constitutional right, and (2) that the unlawfulness of the officer's conduct was clearly established at the time. Williams v. Aguirre , 965 F.3d 1147, 1156 (11th Cir. 2020).

A right is clearly established if (1) a case with facts materially similar has been decided by the United States Supreme Court, the Eleventh Circuit, or the applicable state supreme court before the challenged conduct; (2) a broader, clearly established principle controls the facts of the situation; or (3) the conduct so obviously violates the constitution that prior case law is unnecessary. Gaines v. Wardynski , 871 F.3d 1203, 1208 (11th Cir. 2017). The goal is to ensure that "some established law" provided officers with "fair warning" that their conduct was unconstitutional. Sebastian v. Ortiz , 918 F.3d 1301, 1311 (11th Cir. 2019).

A. Excessive Force Claims

"The Fourth Amendment's freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures encompasses the plain right to be free from the use of excessive force in the course of an arrest." Vinyard v. Wilson , 311 F.3d 1340, 1347 (11th Cir. 2002). But this right does not protect against "a use of force that is necessary in the situation at hand." Jean-Baptiste v. Gutierrez , 627 F.3d 816, 821 (11th Cir. 2010) (quotation marks omitted). We determine whether an officer's use of force was lawful by assessing whether an "objectively reasonable officer in the same situation could have believed the use of force was not excessive." Brown v. City of Huntsville , 608 F.3d 724, 738 (11th Cir. 2010).

Wade argues that Daniels and Jones used excessive force in violation of his clearly established rights and thus are not entitled to qualified immunity. Even if we assume that Daniels used excessive force in shooting Wade, we conclude that there was no law clearly establishing that Daniels's conduct violated Wade's constitutional rights. But we hold that Jones used excessive force in pistol-whipping Wade and that Wade's right to be free of Jones's use of force was clearly established at the time.

1. Daniels's Shooting

Wade argues that Daniels violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free of excessive force when he shot him three times. When evaluating the reasonableness of a use of deadly force, we must weigh "the seriousness of the crime, whether the suspect poses an immediate danger to the officer or others, whether the suspect resisted or attempted to evade arrest, and the feasibility of providing a warning before employing deadly force." Jean-Baptiste , 627 F.3d at 821. The second factor essentially asks "whether, given the circumstances, the suspect would have appeared to reasonable police officers to have been gravely dangerous." Penley v. Eslinger , 605 F.3d 843, 851 (11th Cir. 2010) (alteration accepted).

Wade claims that these factors show that Daniels's use of deadly force was unreasonable. He argues that he was not resisting or trying to evade arrest, and he was not posing any immediate danger by pointing a shotgun at his own chin. He also asserts that the district court improperly applied Heck v. Humphrey , 512 U.S. 477, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994),² to hold that it was required to accept that Wade "swung the gun in the direction of" Jones "moments before" Daniels shot Wade. Wade claims that the district court should have accepted his version of the facts instead.

We need not address the Heck issue because even accepting Wade's version of the facts, and even assuming that Daniels's use of deadly force was unreasonable,...