Brenda Mason v. City of Lafayette
Opinion
*763
This case arrives before us for the second time, as the panel in a previous appeal denied qualified immunity to Officer Faul, who tragically shot to death Quamaine Mason under circumstances that were the subject of numerous and conflicting witness statements and expert opinions. The shooting was precipitated by a 911 call to the Lafayette, Louisiana police about a possible armed robbery. Faul arrived at the scene with his canine and saw two other officers with weapons drawn on Mason and his former girlfriend. Faul was within three to six feet of the suspect. Alarmed by what he thought were Mason's sudden movements toward a gun in his waistband, Faul released the dog and began to fire. As the dog attacked him, Mason was hit five times in his side and front, then after a brief pause where he had fallen face down, an additional two times. This court carefully reviewed the evidence on summary judgment, vacated the defense judgment on Faul's first five shots, and found material fact issues concerning the availability of qualified immunity for Faul's final two shots.
See
Mason v. Lafayette City-Par. Consol. Gov't
,
On remand, the case was tried before a jury for several days, at the conclusion of which the jury determined that Officer Faul had used unconstitutionally excessive force against Mason but was nevertheless entitled to qualified immunity. From that verdict, and judgment accordingly, Mason's family appeals. Appellants raise four issues. We discuss each briefly, noting that Appellants pointedly do not contend that the verdict was not supported by sufficient evidence or was against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence.
A. Whether the Trial Court erred in relying on
Young v. City of Killeen
,
Appellants argue the trial court referenced this case improperly for several purposes: to analyze the qualified immunity defense; to exclude portions of their expert testimony; and to justify jury instructions. The question of jury instructions will be treated in the next section. In
Young
, this court explained what has been consistently reinforced as the basis for law enforcement officers' qualified immunity defense. Such immunity may be sustained even when officers act negligently, or when they could have used another method to subdue a suspect, or when they created the dangerous confrontation, or when the law governing their behavior in particular circumstances is unclear.
Anderson v. Creighton
,
*764
Mullenix v. Luna
, --- U.S. ----,
Thus, although the parties might better have relied in their briefs on Supreme Court precedent from the ensuing three decades following
Young
, the trial court's reliance on that case as a general matter was not misplaced. Contrary to the views expressed by Judge Higginbotham's dissent in
Mason I
,
Exactly what portion of Young was erroneously relied on by the trial court for evidentiary purposes is unclear from Appellants' brief, but as noted, that case correctly concluded that officer negligence is not a basis to deny qualified immunity. Further, expert testimony concerning police procedure violations by a defendant officer are not relevant to the circumstances that confronted the officer at the moment he used deadly force. We have reviewed the record pertaining to the court's exclusions of proffered expert evidence and do not find those rulings that were based on Young in error under the circumstances of this case. In particular, the court permitted the expert to testify about proper dog handling procedures, and whether Faul's actions were consistent with those procedures, but not to what Faul could or should have done prior to his encounter with Mason.
B. Jury Instruction and Verdict Errors
Appellants contend that the trial court erred by submitting to the jury two jury interrogatories, one on unconstitutional excessive force and one on qualified immunity. They contend that this alleged error, fortified by the court's misplaced reliance on
Young
, led to an inconsistent jury verdict on the issues. There is no error. The court's charges on the constitutional issue
*765
and qualified immunity separated the two questions and were precisely and almost verbatim stated according to the Fifth Circuit Pattern Jury Instructions (Civil) 10.1 and 10.3. The pattern instructions, in turn, represent an admirable summary, based on Supreme Court and Fifth Circuit precedent, of the elements of a plaintiff's claim that must be proven at trial. We find no error in the court's use of the pattern charges.
See
United States v. Andaverde-Tinoco
,
The court also did not err in rejecting a plaintiff-proffered charge founded on the Second Amendment, because no question was litigated about Mason's legal carrying of a firearm. Plaintiffs' evidence that Mason could legally carry a pistol went unaddressed by the defense, because although the defense performed a records search and found no concealed weapons permit, the defense was not confident enough in their search efforts to establish that Mason absolutely did not have a permit. For this reason, the court resolved the factual dispute in favor of Mason to the extent it was disputed. In any event, the case cited by Appellants for the Second Amendment argument is unpublished and therefore non-precedential in this court.
See
Graves v. Zachary
,
C. Inconsistent Jury Verdicts
Because the jury found that Officer Faul used "objectively unreasonable" excessive force (Issue One) but was also entitled to qualified immunity (Issue Two), Appellants contend the verdict is fatally inconsistent. We disagree. That these two issues were framed according to governing law and the pattern jury instructions has already been pointed out. It is therefore inherently difficult to credit an argument of legal inconsistency, much less redundancy. To be sure, an officer's conduct must be objectively unreasonable to find a Fourth Amendment violation.
Graham
,
The term "objective reasonableness" pertains independently to the determination of a constitutional violation and also to the immunity issue.
Saucier v. Katz,
D. Whether the case for qualified immunity "fails."
Appellants' final contention is that as a matter of law Officer Faul could not sustain a qualified immunity defense. To support this proposition, which seems inconsistent with their preliminary assertion that they do not challenge sufficiency of the evidence, they provide a rendition of trial evidence much of which was contradicted or questioned by other testimony. This multi-day trial, after all, evoked a great deal more evidence, or evidence more compellingly presented, than was available at the summary judgment stage. The jury were entitled to judge witness credibility in a way not permitted on the earlier appeal. In brief, the hotly disputed evidence centered on how violently Mason had acted when he went to his former girlfriend's apartment; how threatened the other witnesses present in the apartment felt by Mason's behavior; whether, as three officers and Babino (in an early statement to police) said, he reached for his waistband where the pistol was hitched; and whether he continued to move his arm after falling to the ground. Appellants point to alleged contradictions in Faul's statements and testimony, but the jury no doubt assessed these along with the rest of the evidence. Following a properly conducted trial, this court is required to sustain the jury's verdict on the fact issues.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the trial court is AFFIRMED.
If this kind of quick dismissal of qualified immunity, based solely on the general test set forth in
Tennessee v. Garner
,
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Brenda MASON, Individually & on Behalf of Quamaine Dwayne Mason; Billy C. Mason, Individually & on Behalf of Quamaine Dwayne Mason, Plaintiffs - Appellants v. Martin FAUL, Individually & in His Official Capacity, Defendant - Appellee
- Cited By
- 25 cases
- Status
- Published