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Assault and Battery: Physical

     Three men claimed that a group of officers engaged in an unprovoked attack on them in the early morning hours outside a nightclub. A jury awarded $36,000 to one plaintiff for one officer's use of force against him. A settlement agreement was subsequently reached. On appeal, the court found that the complaint had adequately stated a claim for bystander liability, but found that this ruling only impacted the one officer against whom the jury awarded damages, as he was the only defendant against whom any of the plaintiff's claims survived dismissal, as to his possible bystander liability for actions taken against the other two plaintiffs by others. Stevenson v. City of Seat Pleasant, #12-2047, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 3275 (4th Cir.).

Defenses: Jurisdiction

      Plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in Nevada claiming that a Georgia police officer who searched them at a Georgia airport while working as a deputized DEA agent had seized a large quantity of cash from them. After they returned to their Nevada residence, he allegedly drafted a false probable cause affidavit in support of the forfeiture of the funds. No forfeiture action was ultimately taken. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Nevada federal trial court could not exercise personal jurisdiction over the Georgia police officer, because he lacked "minimal contacts" with Nevada. Walden v. Fiore, #12-574, 188 L. Ed. 2d 12, 2014 U.S. Lexis 1635.

False Arrest/Imprisonment: No Warrant

     An officer had probable cause to arrest a woman for violating a state open-container law even though the flask found under her car seat proved to be empty. At the time, she was a passenger in her husband's car after midnight, and he was being arrested under a warrant. The officer's actions were reasonable in light of the time of day, the woman's non-cooperative attitude, and her repeatedly asking to urinate. Because the officer's actions did not demonstrate either plain incompetence or a knowing violation of the law, he was entitled to qualified immunity. Branch v. Gorman, #12-3545, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 2601 (8th Cir.).

Firearms Related: Intentional Use

****Editor's Case Alert****

     A woman suffering from a mental illness and resisting officers' attempts to take her to a mental health facility claimed that the officers violated her rights by entering her residence without a warrant and shooting her five or six times when she threatened them with a knife. The officers were justified in the initial entry into the home under the emergency aid exception to the warrant requirement because they had an objectively reasonable belief that she was in need of assistance. There were, however, triable issues of fact as to whether the officers violated the Fourth Amendment in forcing a second entry and thereby allegedly provoking a near fatal confrontation, leading to an unnecessary use of deadly force that could have been avoided. The appeals court also held that federal disability discrimination statutes apply to arrests, and that there was a triable issue as to whether the officers failed to reasonably accommodate her disability when they forced their way into her room, arguably failing to take her mental illness into account or to utilize generally accepted law enforcement practices for peacefully resolving such a confrontation with a mentally ill person.  Sheehan v. City and County of San Francisco, #11-16401, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 3321 (9th Cir.).

Firearms Related: Second Amendment Issues

****Editor's Case Alert****

     A federal appeals court, in a lawsuit claiming that California's concealed handgun laws violate the Second Amendment right to bear arms, held that the right included an ability to carry an operable firearm outside the home, and that carrying such weapons, in or out of the home, was a central component of the right to bear arms. A county's "good cause" requirement before a conceal carry permit was issued violated the Second Amendment right to bear arms in self-defense. The California scheme failed to allow the typical, law-abiding citizen to bear arms in public for the lawful purpose of self-defense. The contrary holdings of the Second, Third, andf Fourth Circuits were rejected. Peruta v. County of San Diego, #10-56971, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 2786 (9th Cir.).

First Amendment

     A city's policy confining leafleting to a designated protest area outside an arena did not facially violate the First Amendment. It was a reasonable time, place, and manner regulation. The appeals court upheld summary judgment to the defendants in the plaintiff's lawsuit challenging his arrest for refusing to obey an officer's repeated requests to confine his leafleting to the designated area. Ross v. Early, #12-2547, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 4161 (4th Cir.).

     A protestor was barred from entering a military base's designated protest area because of alleged prior acts of trespass and vandalism. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the protest area was included as a portion of the military installation, making it a federal crime to reenter it after being ordered not to do so by an officer or person in command. U.S. v. Apel, #12-1038,188 L. Ed. 2d 75, 2014 U.S. Lexis 1643.

Medical Care

     A man claimed that he was beaten by police officers and sustained a fractured collarbone, a SLAP-type labral tear, and facial injuries leaving permanent scarring and requiring two nose surgeries. He also became legally deaf in one ear and has reduced hearing in the other. A federal appeals court reversed the dismissal of a deliberate indifference denial of medical care claim against the doctor at a hospital emergency room, finding that if the complaint were amended to allege two things claimed in the plaintiff's opposition to the doctor's motion to dismiss, it would show a sufficiently culpable state of mind for a constitutional violation. Those two things were that the officers falsely told the female doctor that one of the officers he allegedly attacked was a woman, and that he should therefore be "ignored and left alone." Nielsen v. Rabin, #12-4313, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 2745 (2nd Cir.).

Police Plaintiffs: Search and Seizure

     Police officials did not violate the Fourth Amendment rights of police officers by searching them after the residents of a home that they were searching accused him of stealing $1,750 in cash during the search. A reasonable person in the plaintiffs' position would not have feared arrest or detention if they had refused the defendants' request to search them for the money. The fact that one of the plaintiffs agreed to the search only because he was taking a nonprescription supplement to clean his colon and therefore had an immediate need to use the restroom and couldn't do so until he had been searched did not turn what occurred into a "seizure." Carter v. City of Milwaukee, #13-2187, (7th Cir.).

Search and Seizure: Home/Business

     Six Muslim individuals and a number of Muslim-owned businesses, mosques, and a student organization claimed that the New York City Police Department's surveillance of the Muslim community in New Jersey following the attacks of September 11, 2001 violated the First and Fourteenth Amendment by targeting Muslims solely on the basis of their religion. The federal trial court dismissed the lawsuit. “The more likely explanation for the surveillance was a desire to locate budding terrorist conspiracies. The most obvious reason for so concluding is that surveillance of the Muslim community began just after the attacks of September 11, 2001. The police could not have monitored New Jersey for Muslim terrorist activities without monitoring the Muslim community itself.” The court also stated that, “Nowhere in the complaint do plaintiffs allege that they suffered harm prior to the unauthorized release of the documents by the Associated Press. This confirms that plaintiffs’ alleged injuries flow from the Associated Press’s unauthorized disclosure of the documents. The harms are not ‘fairly traceable’ to any act of surveillance.” An appeal in the case is expected. Hassan v. City of New York, #2-12-3401, 2014 U.S. Dist. Lexis 20887 (D.N.J.).

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     Hostage Negotiation: “Crisis” or “Hostage” Negotiation? The Distinction Between Two Important Terms, By Jeff Thompson, FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin (March 2014).

     Interrogation: Reading People: Behavioral Anomalies and Investigative Interviewing, By David Matsumoto, Lisa G. Skinner,, and Hyisung C. Hwang, FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin (March 2014).

     Police Licensing: Police Licensing and Revocation, by Thomas Jurkanin, Ph.D. Police Chief Magazine (Feb. 2014).

     Terrorism: Countering Violent Extremism in the United States, Congressional Research Service (Feb. 2014).

Reference

• Abbreviations of Law Reports, laws and agencies used in our publications
• AELE's list of recently-noted civil liability law resources.