Week of May 31, 2022

Officers used excessive force when they found plaintiff asleep in driver’s seat of running vehicle, smelled alcohol, forced him to the ground, sat on him, and peppered sprayed him; no qualified immunity.

Factual dispute prevented summary judgment; if subject was standing 30 feet from officer and took only a single step toward officer, jury could find he did not pose an imminent and serious risk when officer fired, despite fact that subject had robbed a pharmacy, unsheathed a knife when officers confronted him, disregarded commands to drop it, and told officer to shoot him; under those facts, right to be free from deadly force was clearly established and officer not entitled to qualified immunity.

Inmate had a variety of pains and ailments and was later diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia; court holds he did not manifest signs of serious medical need that would be sufficiently obvious to jail personnel without medical training, hence no violation of rights; “if medical professionals failed to grasp the seriousness of his condition, prison staff without medical training could not have been expected to do so.

State inmate who suffered from severe mental health conditions had intercourse with another inmate which she stated was not consensual and was impregnated; claim subject to 8th amendment, not 14th amendment standard; deputies not deliberately indifferent and thus not liable for deputy’s leaving co-ed housing unit for inmates suffering from mental health conditions to use restroom; county not liable for failure to prevent sexual encounter, no authority for proposition that it violated 8th amendment not to house men and women separately.

Plaintiff arrested for aggravated assault arising from shooting; assertion that plaintiff acted in self-defense did not vitiate officers’ probable cause for arrest; in any event lack of probable cause was not clearly established; court affirms award of fees to defendants because plaintiff’s admission to officers that he shot victim and was identified by bystanders clearly demonstrated probable cause.

Plaintiff posted a mock police department page on Facebook and was arrested under a state law that makes it illegal to use a computer to disrupt or impair police functions, indicted by a grand jury, and acquitted after a jury trial; plaintiff had deleted comments on the page that indicated it was fake and copied the department’s warning on its own page word for word; court says whether officers had probable cause was a difficult question, but lack of previous case afford the officers qualified immunity on First Amendment retaliation claim; court holds that officers’ televised announcement o

Family members who witnesses stabbing of family member who were detained against their will at police station for three hours while victim died in hospital were subject to false arrest in violation of the 4th amendment, not an investigatory detention; no qualified immunity.

State prosecutor and sheriff’s detective were not entitled to prosecutorial immunity for fabricating evidence by intimidating and coercing juvenile to adopt false narrative they created; prosecutor was acting in investigatory role, gathering and acquiring evidence; police officer is not entitled to absolute immunity reserved for prosecutor.

Officers’ failures to follow county’s policies did not establish a policy of failure to train; failure to install CCTV monitoring in suicide cells in violation of county’s suicide-prevention policy did not establish deliberate indifference; no evidence supervisor sheriff had actual knowledge of plaintiff’s substantial risk of suicide nor of a generalized risk of suicide; corporal who knew of risk and placed decedent in a regular cell and failed to inform other officers of suicide risk was entitled to qualified immunity because the right was not clearly established.