Williams v. Aguirre
| Decision Date | 13 July 2020 |
| Parties | Aubrey WILLIAMS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Daniel AGUIRRE, Richard Haluska, Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Richard J. Riley, William Reeves Andrews, David Hall Marsh, Marsh Rickard & Bryan, PC, BIRMINGHAM, AL, Alan B. Lasseter, Lasseter Law Firm, PC, Birmingham, AL, for Plaintiff.
Jennifer Busby, Michael Choy, Eddie Travis Ramey, Kermit L. Kendrick, Burr & Forman, LLP, Birmingham, AL, William Grayson Lambert, McGuire Woods, LLP, Charlotte, NC for Defendants.
Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, GRANT, Circuit Judge, and ANTOON,* District Judge.
This interlocutory appeal requires us to decide whether Officers Daniel Aguirre and Richard Haluska are entitled to summary judgment based on immunity from Aubrey Williams's complaint of malicious prosecution. After being shot by Aguirre and spending two months in a hospital recovering from his injury, Williams spent more than 16 months in pretrial detention on charges of attempted murder based on the officers’ accusations that he pointed a gun at each of them during an investigatory stop. Eventually, a news organization published a video recorded on a dashboard camera that supported Williams's account that he had dropped his gun and complied with the officers’ commands. The district attorney later dismissed the charges against Williams, who then sued the officers and alleged that they fabricated the accusations against him to excuse their use of force. His complaint presented claims of malicious prosecution under both the Fourth Amendment and Alabama law. Aguirre and Haluska moved for summary judgment based on qualified immunity and state-agent immunity. They contended that they did not violate any of Williams's clearly established constitutional rights because they had probable cause to arrest him for carrying a concealed firearm without a permit and at least arguable probable cause to arrest him for attempted murder. They also argued that they did not cause Williams's extended pretrial detention. The district court denied the officers’ motion for summary judgment. Because, under Williams's version of events, the officers enjoy no immunity from Williams's complaint that they falsely accused him of attempted murder, we affirm.
We divide our background discussion in three parts. We first describe the events that led to the arrest based on the evidence viewed in the light most favorable to Williams. Next, we explain the officers’ actions following the investigatory stop and the details of Williams's criminal prosecution. We then conclude with the procedural history of this suit.
In the still-dark hours of a morning in April 2014, Williams and Devon Brown awakened after an evening playing video games and decided to purchase snacks at a nearby gas station. Both Williams and Brown carried concealed handguns "for protection," though Williams lacked a permit to carry a concealed firearm. As Williams and Brown purchased their snacks, Officers Aguirre and Haluska of the Birmingham Police Department arrived at the gas station to investigate a reported robbery at a nearby bank. When questioning someone outside the gas station, the officers saw Williams and Brown looking at them. Williams moved his gun from his hip and placed it in the plastic grocery bag he received for his snacks to conceal it from the officers. He and Brown then left the gas station and walked into a nearby alley to avoid "get[ting] messed with by the police officers."
Williams and Brown did not get far. The officers followed them in a squad car and ordered them to lie on the ground. When Williams and Brown failed to comply with that order, the officers approached them. Although Brown denied having a weapon, Haluska saw a handgun in a pocket of his pants. The two scuffled after Haluska tried to grab Brown's arm. Aguirre then tasered Brown, who fell to the ground, and Haluska then began handcuffing him.
Aguirre dropped his taser, drew his pistol, and again ordered Williams to lie on the ground. Williams complied by placing his hands and knees on the ground as he faced down. Williams also tried to tell Aguirre that he had a weapon, but Aguirre did not appear to hear him. As Williams lowered himself to the ground, he dropped the bag, which caused his gun to slide out of the bag and underneath him. After Williams got on his hands and knees, Aguirre approached him. Williams turned on his side to tell Aguirre that his gun was underneath him. But as Williams was turning, Aguirre jumped back, fired his gun twice, and shot Williams. Aguirre then kicked Williams's gun away and handcuffed him.
Some of these events were captured on the dashboard camera in the squad car, which Aguirre activated after securing Williams. Because the camera uses a buffer system that preserves footage from approximately 60 seconds before an officer activates it, it captured the final moments leading to the shooting.
Nothing we viewed in that video conflicts with Williams's account. The recording begins with Williams on his hands and knees on the ground. A plastic bag rests on the ground near his torso. Haluska wrestles with Brown several feet to the left of Williams and Aguirre. Aguirre walks toward Williams with a gun in his hand. When Aguirre reaches Williams, he places his hand on Williams's back. Williams then turns the left side of his torso to face Aguirre. As Williams turns, Aguirre jumps back and shoots him twice. Aguirre then kicks Williams's gun away, rolls Williams over, and handcuffs him. Haluska gestures toward the patrol car, and Aguirre runs to the car to activate the dash camera.
A few minutes after the shooting, other officers and an ambulance arrived on the scene. Haluska arrested Brown. The ambulance took Williams to the hospital, where he remained for two months recovering from the shooting.
In the hours and days after the shooting, the officers provided a series of statements that presented a dramatically different narrative of the encounter from the one Williams offered. They asserted that Williams had pointed his gun at each of them, which led Aguirre to shoot Williams. These statements eventually led to criminal charges against Williams for attempted murder.
The officers gave three statements on the day of the incident. In an interview with Birmingham Police Detective Rodney Rogers, Haluska stated that Williams "backed up and pointed a pistol" at him after Aguirre had tasered Brown. Haluska stated, Aguirre "yell[ed] hey" to Williams, which led Williams to "turn[ ] and point[ ] the pistol" at Aguirre. Aguirre then "pulled his pistol and ... shot twice." Haluska also submitted an arrest report that morning that offered the same narrative. The report stated that after Aguirre tasered Brown, The report listed the charges of attempted murder and carrying a concealed firearm without a permit. And Officer Michael Burchfield, who arrived on the scene after the shooting, submitted two identical incident reports based on statements from both Aguirre and Haluska. Burchfield's report stated that Williams pointed a gun at both officers, that Aguirre shot Williams, and that Williams then "fell to the ground."
The officers’ narrative evolved after they saw the video from the dashboard camera, which showed that Williams was on his hands and knees when Aguirre shot him and that Williams could not have pointed the gun at both of them immediately before the shooting. Their statements on the day of the shooting, which occurred before the officers saw the video, asserted that Williams pointed the gun at each of them once, likely when he was standing, which led Aguirre to shoot him. But their later accounts shifted in ways that brought their narrative closer to the video.
Haluska's next statement came four days later in an interview with Sergeant Rodney Powrzanas of the internal affairs division of the police department. Haluska told Sergeant Powrzanas that Williams had pointed the gun at each officer before the recording started and that the video showed Williams pointing the gun at Aguirre for a second time. Specifically, Haluska stated that Williams first pointed the gun at him, which led Aguirre to yell "drop the weapon." Williams pointed his gun at Aguirre but then "went down onto his knees like he was going to comply," which was the point at which the video began recording. As Aguirre approached Williams to detain him, Williams "turned back to his left side and pointed the weapon at Officer Aguirre from the kneeling position, and [O]fficer Aguirre then fired two shots as he jumped back to get to safety."
Aguirre, in contrast, told Sergeant Powrzanas that Williams had pointed the gun at each officer once immediately before the shooting:
[Williams] had a bag in his left hand, a plastic bag in his left hand. He sat the bag down and then came up with a black firearm pistol and pointed it at my partner Officer Haluska at which point I yelled several times drop the weapon, drop the weapon and started pushing him .... [Williams] then pointed the weapon away from Officer Haluska and pointed it at me, and fearing for both of our safety and our lives, I jumped back and engaged by pulling my city approved weapon, discharging it twice, hitting [Williams] both times ....
Later in the interview, Aguirre added that he "pushed" Williams while yelling "drop the weapon." And although he said earlier that Williams "came up with" the pistol after setting the bag down, Aguirre clarified that Williams was on the ground when he shot him.
Six days after the shooting, each officer filed a written statement. Aguirre repeated the account he gave to Powrzanas:
[Williams] put a plastic bag...
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