Williams v. Bramer

• Citation: 180 F.3d 699
• Decision Date: 22 July 1999
• Docket Number: No. 98-10254,98-10254
• Parties: Sir WILLIAMS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Michael L. BRAMER; Jay C. Angelino; City of Dallas Police Dept., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit)

Page 699

180 F.3d 699

Sir WILLIAMS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Michael L. BRAMER; Jay C. Angelino; City of Dallas Police

Dept., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 98-10254.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

July 22, 1999.

William Todd Hughey, Law Offices of William T. Hughey, Dallas, TX, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Tatia R. Randolph, Mark E. Goldstucker, Dallas, TX, for Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

Before REAVLEY, JOLLY and EMILIO M. GARZA, Circuit Judges.

E. GRADY JOLLY, Circuit Judge:

In this case, Sir Williams alleged, inter alia, that two police officers, Michael L. Bramer and Jay C. Angelino, violated his constitutional rights. He alleges that Bramer choked him twice--once while conducting a search of his mouth and then again in response to William's complaints about the first choking. He further alleges that, sometime after the choking occurred, Angelino arrived on the scene and, after telling him that he was free to go, used a racial epithet while addressing him.

Williams sued the officers under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and a district court granted summary judgment in favor of the officers, finding that they were entitled to qualified immunity. The district court concluded that Williams failed to show evidence of injury and therefore he could not recover for the choking. To the extent that the second choking was allegedly motivated solely by malice, we disagree with the district court's formulation of injury. We therefore reverse the district court's ruling on this issue.

With respect to the use of the racial epithet, the district court did not address the issue. However, because the issue before us is solely a question of law--whether the alleged conduct of the officer amounts to a violation of Williams's right to equal protection--we address the issue on appeal. We hold that, in order to establish an equal protection violation, a plaintiff may not merely assert that an officer used a racial epithet. While the use of the epithet is compelling evidence of racial animus, which establishes that the officer's conduct may be motivated by race, the plaintiff must still show that the officer engaged in specific conduct that denied him equal protection of the laws.

In this case, Williams has presented no evidence that the officer harassed his or impeded his liberty in any other way. We therefore affirm the summary judgment ruling with respect to Williams's equal protection claim.

I

Officers Bramer and Angelino are employed by the City of Dallas ("Dallas"). On April 5, 1995, at approximately 8:15 p.m., Bramer was in the Roseland Homes housing projects to exchange information with Officer Michael Hackbarth regarding suspected drug activity in the area. According to Bramer, he told Hackbarth that he would cover an alley where several citizens had reported that drugs and weapons were being sold out of the back of a house.

Bramer drove to the alley directly behind the suspected drug location where he observed the plaintiff, Williams, sitting in a parked vehicle with his lights off. In his affidavit, Williams stated that he was waiting to take friends to the store. When Bramer drove into the alley, Williams indicated that he moved his car beside a vacant house to allow the police car to pass. Bramer stopped and got out of his car. He approached Williams, shining a flashlight at Williams, and asking Williams to step out of his vehicle.

After Williams stepped out, what occurred is disputed by the two parties. Bramer contends that Williams "immediately became very verbally abusive towards me." In addition, although both parties agree that Bramer searched two areas--Williams's car and Williams's body--they do not agree on the specifics of the search. Bramer argues that he first searched Williams and then searched the car. Williams, on the other hand, argues that Bramer patted him down, searched his car, and then returned to search his mouth.

When Bramer conducted a search of Williams's car, according to Williams, he searched the ashtray, dome light, and sun visor. Bramer stated that he only searched the side floorboard and area immediately around the driver's seat of the vehicle for safety reasons. ¹

With respect to the body search, there is a marked difference between Bramer's and Williams's accounts. Bramer states that, after patting him down, he noticed that Williams was talking as if there were something in his mouth. Based on previous experience with suspects stopped in drug locations, he suspected that Williams might have been holding crack cocaine in his mouth. He therefore executed a search of Williams's mouth. In so doing, he placed his hand on Williams's chest, asked Williams to open his mouth, and then looked inside. When he did not observe anything in Williams's mouth, he proceeded to search Williams's car.

According to Williams, after patting him down and then searching the car, Bramer appeared frustrated and returned to Williams, grabbing him by the throat and telling him: "Let me see what's under your tongue." When he lifted his tongue, Bramer started choking him and told him to "spit it out." He had problems breathing, was unable to swallow, and began to feel dizzy. When Bramer loosened his grip, Williams told Bramer that internal affairs was going to get a report on him, whereupon Bramer began choking him again. At this point, Angelino arrived at the scene ² and Bramer ceased choking him. Bramer and Angelino both denied that Williams was ever choked.

Angelino obtained Williams's identification and conducted a computer search. The computer search came up clean, and Williams was then released. Williams requested the police supervisor's name and number and the names and badge numbers of the officers on the scene. According to Williams, Angelino replied:

You can't call the supervisor because I'm not giving you his name or number and we are not going to tell you our names either boy. You can only have our badge numbers ... [ ] nigger.

Angelino and Bramer both deny that Angelino made this comment.

Williams filed a civil rights action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that his constitutional rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments were violated by Bramer, Angelino, and Dallas. The district court granted summary judgment to the defendants and Williams timely filed his appeal.

II

We review the district court's grant of summary judgment de novo. Guillory v. Domtar Industries, Inc., 95 F.3d 1320, 1326 (5th Cir.1996). In so doing, we apply the same summary judgment standard as that applied by the district court. Id. We first consider the applicable law to ascertain the material factual issues. King v. Chide, 974 F.2d 653, 656 (5th Cir.1992). We then review the evidence bearing on those issues, viewing the facts and inferences to be drawn in a light most favorable to the non-moving party. Lemelle v. Universal Mfg. Corp., 18 F.3d 1268, 1272 (5th Cir.1994). Summary judgment is proper "if the pleadings, deposition, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c).

In this case, the district court held that the defendants were entitled to qualified immunity with respect to all of Williams's claims. We therefore review the summary judgment ruling in the light of the standard for whether a public official is entitled to qualified immunity. In a § 1983 suit, we must make two separate inquiries. We must first determine whether the plaintiff has alleged the violation of a clearly established constitutional right. Siegert v. Gilley, 500 U.S. 226, 231-32, 111 S.Ct. 1789, 114 L.Ed.2d 277 (1991); Lampkin v. City of Nacogdoches, 7 F.3d 430, 434 (5th Cir.1993). If we find that a constitutional right has been violated, our second inquiry is whether the governmental official's actions were objectively reasonable. Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 639, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987). Qualified immunity shields an official performing discretionary functions from civil damages liability, provided his actions meet the test of objective legal reasonableness. Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 819, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). We define reasonableness in the light of the legal rules that were clearly established at the time the actions were taken. Anderson, 483 U.S. at 639, 107 S.Ct. 3034. Objective reasonableness is a matter of law for the courts to decide, not a matter for the jury. Mangieri v. Clifton, 29 F.3d 1012, 1015-16. However, underlying historical facts may be in dispute that are material to the reasonableness determination. Id. at 1016.

III

On appeal, we address whether qualified immunity applies to two claims. The first claim is that Bramer violated Williams's Fourth Amendment rights by subjecting him to excessive force. The second claim is that Angelino violated his equal protection rights under the Fourteenth Amendment by using a racial epithet while conversing with him. We address each claim in turn.

A

Williams argues that Bramer used excessive force when Bramer choked him while searching his mouth. Before addressing the specifics of Williams's argument, we note that the relevant facts are hotly contested here. Because the district court determined the case on the basis of a summary judgment motion, we must accept the allegations in Williams's affidavit as true. Thus, although Bramer has testified that he never choked Williams, we must for purposes of this appeal assume that he did. We must further assume that Bramer choked Williams during his search of Williams's mouth and then again, in response to Williams's comment that he intended to report Bramer.

In Johnson v. Morel, we restated the test for qualified immunity in the context of excessive force: a claim for excessive force in violation of the...