Recognizing claim for retaliation for exercise of
First and Sixth Amendment rights where officer falsified accident report to retaliate against
plaintiff for recording previous incident with another officer and exposing that officer’s perjury
in criminal trial in which plaintiff was acquitted.
Under Maryland law, emotional distress that exonerated prisoner experienced as result of his 31-year incarceration for murder he did not commit was sufficiently severe to support claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Videotape of search for inmate's contraband phone did not conclusively establish how search was conducted and where phone was located, and thus did not provide sufficient basis for granting officers’ motion for summary judgment in action alleging that officers violated Fourth and Eighth Amendments by violently pulling contraband phone out of his rectum in prison shower.
In deciding whether in-prison search violates Fourth Amendment, court considers: (1) scope of particular intrusion; (2) manner in which it is conducted; (3) justification for initiating it; and (4) place in which it is conducted; genuine issue of material fact as to whether correctional officers’ purported use of force against inmate—including slamming him to ground, forcing him on to his stomach, and handcuffing him, and then grabbing his hair and yanking his head back and forth, and violently pulling contraband phone out of his rectum in prison shower—was reasonable and justified by reaso
“Even an unchallenged video must be taken in the light most favorable to [plaintiff] at summary judgment if it does not blatantly contradict his version of the facts,” reversing summary judgment in favor of defendants.
Officers lacked probable cause for warrant-supported arrest for failure to comply with sex offender registration requirements, where they were purportedly aware that arrestee had been attempting to comply with requirements and communicated with Sheriff's Office regarding permissible methods of compliance, thus precluding satisfaction of willful mens rea for offences; alleged conduct of officers, if proven, precluded summary judgment on qualified immunity.
Clearly established by 2018 that non-dangerous, non-actively resistant, and at least partially subdued arrestee had 4th Amendment right to be free from excessive force in form of head strikes.
Clearly established that it would
violate Fourth Amendment to use deadly force against person who was holding firearm
and ignoring commands to drop it but who was standing still in a position of surrender,
was not firing the weapon or aiming it at any person, and was not otherwise making a
furtive or threatening movement that would suggest he had an intent to use the weapon
to harm the officer or anyone else, no qualified immunity.
Clearly established in 2017 that deadly force against person who called 911 for help, armed with a pistol and in throes of paranoia, would contravene the Fourth Amendment where subject was holding firearm in his hand, ignoring commands to drop the weapon, but standing still in a position of surrender, not firing the weapon or aiming it at any person, and not otherwise making a furtive or threatening movement that would suggest he had an intent to use the weapon to harm the officer or anyone else; citing prior case, court concludes “an officer does not possess the unfettered auth
Court may not dismiss case under PLRA and contemporaneously rule that dismissal constitutes a strike under PLRA’s three-strikes rule.