Williams v. Strickland

• Decision Date: 05 March 2019
• Docket Number: No. 18-6219, No. 18-6220,18-6219
• Parties: Johnnie WILLIAMS, Plaintiff-Appellee, and Son Odarious Williams, Plaintiff v. Lance Corporal Kyle STRICKLAND, Defendant-Appellant and Cpl Heroux; Sgt Walter Criddle; Beaufort County Sheriff Office; Raymond S. Heroux, Defendants. Johnnie Williams, Plaintiff-Appellee, and Son Odarious Williams, Plaintiff, v. Raymond S. Heroux, Defendant-Appellant, and Cpl Heroux; Sgt Walter Criddle; Beaufort County Sheriff Office; Lance Corporal Kyle Strickland, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

917 F.3d 763

Johnnie WILLIAMS, Plaintiff-Appellee,

and

Son Odarious Williams, Plaintiff

v.Lance Corporal Kyle STRICKLAND, Defendant-AppellantandCpl Heroux; Sgt Walter Criddle; Beaufort County Sheriff Office; Raymond S. Heroux, Defendants.

Johnnie Williams, Plaintiff-Appellee,

and

Son Odarious Williams, Plaintiff,

v.Raymond S. Heroux, Defendant-Appellant,andCpl Heroux; Sgt Walter Criddle; Beaufort County Sheriff Office; Lance Corporal Kyle Strickland, Defendants.

No. 18-6219

No. 18-6220

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: December 13, 2018

Decided: March 5, 2019

ARGUED: Elloree A. Ganes, HOOD LAW FIRM, LLC, Charleston, South Carolina; Mary Bass Lohr, HOWELL, GIBSON & HUGHES, P.A., Beaufort, South Carolina, for Appellants. Jordan Calloway, MCGOWAN, HOOD & FELDER, LLC, Rock Hill, South Carolina for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Whitney B. Harrison, MCGOWAN, HOOD & FELDER, LLC, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee.

Before KEENAN, FLOYD, and THACKER, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Floyd wrote the opinion in which Judge Keenan and Judge Thacker joined.

FLOYD, Circuit Judge:

Johnnie Williams brought suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against two law enforcement officers: Kyle Strickland and Raymond Heroux. Williams claimed that the officers violated his Fourth Amendment rights by using deadly force while arresting him. The officers moved for summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity. The district court denied their motions, and the officers now appeal. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

I.

On June 29, 2012, Williams drove from Georgia to South Carolina to visit a relative. His six-year-old son was with him. When Williams and his son arrived in South Carolina, they stopped at a gas station. There, Williams ran into an acquaintance, Anthony Ancrum, who needed a ride to his apartment. Ancrum's apartment complex was nearby, and Williams offered to drive him.

On the way to the apartment complex, Williams crossed paths with Officer Heroux, who was on duty in a patrol car. Heroux ran Williams's license plate through dispatch and learned that the plate had been stolen. He followed Williams into the parking lot of the apartment complex, where he turned on his blue lights. In response, Williams pulled into a parking space. Heroux got out to approach him. Two other officers, Kyle Strickland and Walter Criddle, arrived on the scene.

What happened over the next several seconds forms the heart of this appeal. When Heroux was about ten feet from Williams's car, Williams shifted the car into reverse and cut the wheel, causing the front end of the car to swivel in Heroux's direction. Heroux, believing himself to be in danger, stepped back and drew his gun. At the same time, Strickland started walking toward Williams's car. Williams then put the car in drive, straightened out, and drove toward Strickland.

Heroux and Strickland opened fire on the car. Crucially, it is not clear—at this stage—how far Williams got before Heroux and Strickland started shooting. He may have been headed toward Strickland. He may have been passing by Strickland, such that Strickland was alongside the car and out of the car's trajectory. Or he may have already driven past Strickland, such that Strickland, like Heroux, was behind the car.

One of Heroux's shots hit Williams in the back.¹ Williams lost control of the car and crashed into a tree. He was airlifted to the hospital for emergency surgery, after which he was placed in a medically induced coma. Despite several subsequent surgeries, Williams has, among other things, "lost the full and proper function of his bowels, lungs, and other bodily systems." J.A. 45.

Years later, Williams was charged with three counts of assault and battery related to the incident. He pleaded guilty. As part of his plea deal, he admitted that he had deliberately rotated the car in Heroux's direction and that he had driven towards Strickland. Notably, Williams also agreed as part of his plea deal that the officers had started shooting only after his car had driven past them.

In 2015, Williams filed a § 1983 suit against Strickland, Heroux, and other defendants who are no longer parties to the action. He alleged that by firing on him during the course of his arrest, the officers had subjected him to excessive force, violating his rights under the Fourth Amendment.

After discovery, Strickland and Heroux each moved for summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity. In relevant part, the officers argued that they were entitled to summary judgment because the undisputed facts showed that they had not violated Williams's clearly established rights. More specifically, they argued that when they opened fire on Williams, they believed that Williams was about to hit Strickland with his car; under those circumstances—according to the officers—Williams had no clearly established right to be free from the use of deadly force.

The district court denied the officers' motion. The court determined that a reasonable jury, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Williams, could conclude that when the officers discharged their weapons, Williams's car was either (a) in the process of passing Strickland or (b) already past Strickland. According to the district court, if either (a) or (b) were true, then the officers' use of deadly force would have violated rights that we clearly established in Waterman v. Batton , 393 F.3d 471 (4th Cir. 2005). Since a reasonable jury could conclude that the officers had acted in a way that violated Williams's clearly established rights, the district court held that the officers were not entitled to summary judgment. The officers now appeal.²

II.

Our first task here is to determine whether, and to what extent, we may subject the district court's order to appellate review. Generally, our jurisdiction is limited to final decisions of the district court. 28 U.S.C. § 1291 ; Martin v. Duffy , 858 F.3d 239, 246 (4th Cir. 2017). This means that we cannot normally review a district court's order denying summary judgment, since orders denying summary judgment are interlocutory, not final. Hensley v. Horne , 297 F.3d 344, 347 (4th Cir. 2002). There are, however, exceptions. One exception is the "collateral order doctrine," which "permits appellate review of a small class of orders that are conclusive, that resolve important questions separate from the merits, and that are effectively unreviewable on appeal from the final judgment in the underlying action." Adams v. Ferguson , 884 F.3d 219, 223–24 (4th Cir. 2018) (internal quotation marks omitted).

A district court's denial of summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity is a collateral order and therefore subject to immediate appellate review, despite being interlocutory. Iko v. Shreve , 535 F.3d 225, 234 (4th Cir. 2008). Our review of such orders is limited to a narrow legal question: if we take the facts as the district court gives them to us,³ and we view those facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, is the defendant still entitled to qualified immunity? Id . ; see also Brown v. Elliott , 876 F.3d 637, 641–42 (4th Cir. 2017) ("[W]hen resolving the issue of qualified immunity at summary judgment, a court must ascertain the circumstances of the case by crediting the plaintiff's evidence and drawing all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff's favor." (internal quotation marks omitted)); Waterman , 393 F.3d at 473 ("In reviewing the denial of summary judgment based on qualified immunity, we accept as true the facts that the district court concluded may be reasonably inferred from the record when viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff."). Significantly, we cannot reach whether the plaintiff has produced enough evidence to survive summary judgment. Winfield v. Bass , 106 F.3d 525, 530 (4th Cir. 1997) (en banc).

What this amounts to is: We may review the portion of the district court's order denying Strickland and Heroux's motions for summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity. But our review may reach only one question: would the officers be entitled to qualified immunity if a jury concluded that they had fired on Williams when they were no longer in the trajectory of Williams's car? We turn to that question now.

III.

Qualified immunity "protects government officials from liability for violations of constitutional rights that were not clearly established at the time of the challenged conduct." Iko , 535 F.3d at 233. Given this standard, we must determine two things. First, if Strickland and Heroux fired on Williams after they were no longer in the path of Williams's car, did they violate Williams's Fourth Amendment right to freedom from excessive force? Second, as of June 29, 2012, was it clearly established that using deadly force against Williams after the officers were no longer in the car's trajectory would violate Williams's right to freedom from excessive force?⁴ The answer to both questions is yes.

A.

The Fourth Amendment prohibits law enforcement officers from using excessive force to make a seizure. Jones v. Buchanan , 325 F.3d 520, 527 (4th Cir. 2003). "Whether an officer has used excessive force is analyzed under a standard of objective reasonableness." Henry v. Purnell , 652 F.3d 524, 531 (4th Cir. 2011).

Because deadly force is extraordinarily intrusive, it takes a lot for it to be reasonable. See Tennessee v. Garner , 471 U.S. 1, 9, 105 S.Ct. 1694, 85 L.Ed.2d 1 (1985) ("The intrusiveness of a seizure by means of deadly force is unmatched."). Indeed, an officer may reasonably apply deadly force to a fleeing suspect—even someone suspected of committing a serious felony—only if the officer has "probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others." Id. at 3, 105 S.Ct. 1694.⁵ And even a "significant threat of death or serious physical injury" to an officer does not justify the use of deadly force unless the threat...