Davis v. City of Las Vegas

Last updated
Davis v. City of Las Vegas
Seal of the United States Courts, Ninth Judicial Circuit.svg
Court United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
ArguedOctober 19 2006
DecidedFebruary 28 2007
Full name
  • CITY OF LAS VEGAS, a political subdivision of the State of Nevada; Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, a political subdivision of the State of Nevada; David D. Miller, individually and in his official capacity as a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Officer; Leonard Marshall, individually and in his official capacity as a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Officer; Exber, Inc., a Nevada corporation, dba Las Vegas Club; Alfred Libby, individually and in his official capacity as an employee of the Las Vegas Club; Patrick Lapera, individually and in his capacity as Director of Security for the Las Vegas Club; John Orr, individually and in his capacity as an employee of the Las Vegas Club; Richard Mabe, individually and in his capacity as an employee of the Las Vegas Club; Shane Mundell, individually and in his capacity as an employee of the Las Vegas Club, Defendants-Appellees.
Citation(s)478 F.3d 1048 (2007)
Case history
Prior history United States District Court for the District of Nevada
Holding
Police officer not entitled to qualified immunity for "swinging a handcuffed man into a wall head-first multiple times and then punching him in the face while he lay face-down on the ground, and breaking his neck as a result"
Court membership
Judge(s) sitting Stephen Reinhardt, Sidney Runyan Thomas, Judges; John T. Noonan, Jr., Senior Judge
Case opinions
MajorityReinhardt, joined by Noonan, Thomas
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. IV

Davis v. City of Las Vegas, 478 F.3d 1048 (9th Cir. 2007), was a case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit determined whether a Las Vegas, Nevada police officer utilized excessive force when making an arrest. [1]

Contents

Background and Opinion of the Court

On November 7, 2001, Frankie Davis was handcuffed by security at the Las Vegas Club Hotel & Casino after he was found in an area of the casino that was not open to the public. [2] When a police officer, David Miller, arrived, Davis refused to consent to a search; at that point, Miller then "slammed [Davis] head-first into a wall several times, pinned him against the floor, and punched him in the face." [3] As a result of these actions, Davis suffered a broken neck. [4]

Recording of oral arguments in the appeal heard by the Ninth Circuit.

Davis filed a lawsuit, arguing that Miller's excessive use of force violated the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, but the officer alleged that he was entitled to qualified immunity. [5] The United States District Court for the District of Nevada granted Miller's motion for summary judgment based on his qualified immunity claim, but on appeal, the Ninth Circuit reversed. [6] In an opinion written by Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt, the Court held that Miller was not entitled to qualified immunity because "any reasonable officer" in the same position would have known that "swinging a handcuffed man into a wall head-first multiple times and then punching him in the face while he lay face-down on the ground, and breaking his neck as a result, was unnecessary and excessive." [7]

Commentary and analysis

In its summary of the case, the McQuillin Municipal Law Report stated that the Court "had no question" that the officer was not entitled to qualified immunity. [8] University of Georgia School of Law professor Michael L. Wells argued that in Davis, the Ninth Circuit assumed a role "between judge and jury" by making an independent assessment of the "reasonableness" of the officer's actions. [9] In the Ninth Circuit's 2010 opinion in Luchtel v. Hagemann, the court cited Davis as a case that affirmed the "continuing viability" of circuit precedent that recognized "causing fractures and dislocating shoulders while handcuffing a suspect is excessive force." [10]

See also

Related Research Articles

In law, an en banc session is a session in which a case is heard before all the judges of a court rather than by one judge or a smaller panel of judges.

Edith Brown Clement American judge

Edith "Joy" Brown Clement is a Senior United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, based in New Orleans, Louisiana.

In the United States, qualified immunity is a legal principle that grants government officials performing discretionary (optional) functions immunity from civil suits unless the plaintiff shows that the official violated "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known". It is a form of sovereign immunity less strict than absolute immunity that is intended to protect officials who "make reasonable but mistaken judgments about open legal questions", extending to "all [officials] but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law". Qualified immunity applies only to government officials in civil litigation, and does not protect the government itself from suits arising from officials' actions.

The Doe v. Groody, 361 F.3d 232 lawsuit concerned a strip-search of a 10-year-old girl and her mother despite the fact that neither were criminal suspects nor named in any search warrant. In applying for a search warrant, officers requested the right to search whoever was in the house and were refused that request.

Milan Smith American judge

Milan Dale Smith Jr. is an American attorney and jurist serving as a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Smith's brother, Gordon H. Smith, was a Republican U.S. Senator from 1997 to 2009.

Thomas L. Ambro American judge

Thomas Lee Ambro is a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He began his judicial service in 2000.

Roger Benitez American judge

Roger Thomas Benitez is a Senior United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California. He is known for his opinions striking down several California gun control laws.

Safford Unified School District v. Redding, 557 U.S. 364 (2009), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that a strip search of a middle school student by school officials violated the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.

Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley v. Roommates.com, LLC, 521 F.3d 1157, is a case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, held that immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) did not apply to an interactive online operator whose questionnaire violated the Fair Housing Act. However, the court found that Roommates.com was immune under Section 230 of the CDA for the “additional comments” portion of the website. This case was the first to place a limit on the broad immunity that Section 230(c) gives to service providers that has been established under Zeran v. AOL (1997).

<i>Bryan v. MacPherson</i>

Bryan v. McPherson, 630 F.3d 805, was heard by United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in October 2009. Plaintiff-appellee Carl Bryan was tasered by defendant-appellant Officer Brian MacPherson after being pulled over to the side of the road for failure to wear a seat belt. The case considered whether MacPherson's use of a taser during a routine traffic stop violated Bryan's Fourth Amendment rights. The majority opinion, written by Kim McLane Wardlaw, declared that the use of the taser in this situation could be considered excessive force. Richard Tallman and Consuelo María Callahan wrote the dissent. This case affirmed that this use of a taser could indeed be considered excessive force.

Glik v. Cunniffe, 655 F.3d 78 is a case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit held that a private citizen has the right to record video and audio of police carrying out their duties in a public place, and that the arrest of the citizen for a wiretapping violation violated his First and Fourth Amendment rights. The case arose when Simon Glik filmed Boston, Massachusetts, police officers from the bicycle unit making an arrest in a public park. When the officers observed that Glik was recording the arrest, they arrested him and Glik was subsequently charged with wiretapping, disturbing the peace, and aiding in the escape of a prisoner. Glik then sued the City of Boston and the arresting officers, claiming that they violated his constitutional rights.

Buckley v. Haddock, 292 F. App'x 791, was a case involving excessive force used upon Jesse Buckley by Deputy Sheriff Jonathan Rackard. Deputy Rackard used an electronic control device, or Taser, three times on Buckley because he was resisting arrest. The case was brought against the Sheriff of Washington County, Florida, Hon. Bobby Haddock, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida. The District Court ruled in favor of Buckley, but the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed, ruling in favor of Deputy Rackard.

2013 term per curiam opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States

The Supreme Court of the United States handed down eight per curiam opinions during its 2013 term, which began October 7, 2013 and concluded October 5, 2014.

Mullenix v. Luna, 577 U.S. ___ (2015), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that a police officer who shot a suspect during a police pursuit was entitled to qualified immunity. In a per curiam opinion, the Court held that prior precedent did not establish "beyond debate" that the officer's actions were objectively unreasonable.

Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 576 U.S. 389 (2015), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held in a 5–4 decision that a pretrial detainee must prove only that force used by police is excessive according to an objective standard, not that a police officer was subjectively aware that the force used was unreasonable.

Bertie Correctional Institution is a state men's prison in Windsor, North Carolina, first opened in August 2006, and operated by the North Carolina Department of Public Safety. As one of the state's four largest prisons, the official capacity is 1,400 prisoners, all held in Close Custody. The site is near the Cashie River.

John K. Bush American judge

John Kenneth Bush is an American attorney and United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Bush graduated from Harvard Law School and practiced in Washington, D.C. and Louisville, Kentucky, where he served as president of the local branch of the Federalist Society. In 2017, he was nominated to a seat on the Sixth Circuit by President Donald Trump. During his confirmation hearings, it was revealed that Bush had authored pseudonymous blog posts in which he disparaged gay rights, compared abortion to slavery, and cited alt-right websites promoting birtherism and other false right-wing conspiracy theories. He was confirmed in the Senate by the Republican majority on a party-line vote of 51–47 in July 2017.

District of Columbia v. Wesby, 583 U.S. ___ (2018), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that police officers had probable cause to arrest those attending a party in Washington, D.C.

Plumhoff v. Rickard, 572 U.S. 765 (2014), is a United States Supreme Court case involving the use of force by police officers during high-speed car chases. After first holding that it had jurisdiction to hear the case, the Court held that the conduct of the police officers involved in the case did not violate the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.

Torres v. Madrid, 592 U.S. ___ (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case based on what constitutes a "seizure" in the context of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, in the immediate case, in the situation where law enforcement had attempted to use physical force to stop a suspect but failed to do so. The Court ruled in a 5–3 decision that the use of physical force with the intent to restrain a person, even if that fails to restrain the person, is considered a seizure.

References

  1. ↑ Davis v. City of Las Vegas, 478 F.3d 1048, 1051 (9th Cir. 2007).
  2. ↑ Davis, 478 F.3d at 1051.
  3. ↑ Davis, 478 F.3d at 1051 (Davis "remained handcuffed throughout his encounter" and "was unarmed at all times").
  4. ↑ Davis, 478 F.3d at 1051.
  5. ↑ Davis, 478 F.3d at 1051 (Davis filed the lawsuit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983).
  6. ↑ Davis, 478 F.3d at 1051, 1058.
  7. ↑ Davis, 478 F.3d at 1057 (internal citations omitted).
  8. ↑ 25 No. 4 McQuillin Mun. Law Rep. 6.
  9. ↑ Michael L. Wells, Scott v. Harris and the Role of the Jury in Constitutional Litigation, 29 Rev. Litig. 65, 120 (2009).
  10. ↑ Luchtel v. Hagemann, 623 F.3d 975, 990 n.5 (9th Cir. 2010) (citing Hansen v. Black, 885 F.2d 642, 645 (9th Cir.1989)).
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.