Joiner v. Lewis

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA

JOHN JOINER CIVIL ACTION

VERSUS NO. 23-7144

TAYLOR LEWIS, ET AL. SECTION “R” (4)

ORDER AND REASONS

Plaintiff John Joiner, a state pretrial detainee proceeding pro se and in

forma pauperis, seeks to recover under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for injuries to his

jaw allegedly caused by police officers’ excessive use of force during his arrest

and for alleged deliberate indifference by supervising medical staff at St.

Tammany Parish Jail. Defendants Taylor Lewis and Chance Cloud now

move in their official capacities to stay this action based on (1) immunity;

(2) the rule from Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384, 393-94 (2007), providing

that a district court should stay Section 1983 proceedings when those

proceedings would “relate[] to rulings that will likely be made in a pending .

. . criminal trial”; or (3) the impracticability of discovery in light of plaintiff’s

Fifth Amendment privilege stemming from his criminal case.1 Plaintiff did

not file a response to defendants’ motion to stay. On May 22, 2024,

Magistrate Judge Karen Roby issued a Report and Recommendation

1 R. Doc. 25.

(“R&R”), finding that defendants were not entitled to immunity, but

recommending that defendants’ motion to stay be granted under Wallace v.

Kato.2 Defendants timely filed an objection to the R&R, noting their

agreement with Magistrate Judge Roby’s recommendation that the case be

stayed but arguing that the magistrate erred by finding that while defendants

filed their motion in their official capacities, they were also sued in their

individual capacities. Defendants contend they were sued only in their

official capacities.3 Plaintiff also filed an objection, contending that the case

should not be stayed because the officers broke his nose after he was

handcuffed and the conduct underlying his criminal charges had ceased, and

that he sued defendants both in their individual and official capacities.4

The Court applies de novo review to the parts of the R&R to which

defendants objected. Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b)(3). The Court is limited to plain-

error review of any part of the R&R not subject to a proper objection. Starns

v. Andrews, 524 F. 3d 612, 617 (5th Cir. 2008).

When a plaintiff files suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 based on claims that

are “related to rulings that will likely be made in a pending . . . criminal

trial[], it is within the power of the district court, and in accord with common

2 R. Doc. 49.

3 R. Doc. 55.

4 R. Doc. 53.

practice, to stay the civil action until the criminal case . . . is ended.” Kato,

549 U.S. at 393-94. This principle follows from the rule that a plaintiff may

not bring claims under Section 1983 that would “challeng[e] the validity of

outstanding criminal judgments,” unless the plaintiff has proven “that the

conviction . . . has already been invalidated.” Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S.

477, 486-87 (1994).

In ruling on the motion to stay, the Court is not required to determine

whether Heck will apply to bar plaintiff’s claims. See Mackey v. Dickson, 47

F.3d 744, 746 (5th Cir. 1995) (holding that district court “should [] stay

proceedings in the . . . case until the pending criminal case has run its course”

even though “it [was] simply premature to determine whether . . . [plaintiff’s]

claims [were] barred under Heck”). Instead, the Court should stay the

Section 1983 proceedings if they “may ultimately be barred by Heck,” even

if it would be premature to rule on the applicability of the Heck bar. Hopkins

v. Ogg, 783 F. App’x 350, 355 (5th Cir. 2019) (emphasis added).

Magistrate Judge Roby found that “there is some inevitable

entanglement between the crimes charged and Joiner’s excessive force

claim,” and that, while the parties have not provided enough information to

determine whether the Heck bar applies to plaintiff’s claims, “the most

prudent action for the Court to take is to grant the stay.”5 Although plaintiff

did not oppose the motion to stay, he contends in his objections to the R&R

that there is no possibility that Heck will bar his excessive force claims

because the conduct underlying his criminal charges—including counts for

resisting a police officer with force or violence, simple escape by intentional

departure of a person from the place of legal confinement, and misdemeanor

battery of a police officer—had ceased before Officers Cloud and Lewis broke

his nose after he had been handcuffed.6 See Bush v. Strain, 513 F.3d 492,

498 (5th Cir. 2008) (holding that plaintiff’s excessive force claims were not

barred by Heck because the conduct giving rise to her claims occurred after

the conduct giving rise to her criminal charges). First, “issues raised for the

first time in an objection to a report and recommendation,” but not raised in

a response to a motion which is the subject of the report and

recommendation, are “not properly before the district court.” Brown v. City

of Cent., No. 23-30146, 2024 WL 546340, at *7 (5th Cir. Feb. 12, 2024).

Second, plaintiff’s self-serving timeline of his arrest, without any

corroborating evidence, does not change the fact that his claims “may

ultimately be barred by Heck,” Hopkins, 783 F. App’x at 355, because the

5 R. Doc. 49 at 13.

6 R. Doc. 53 at 1-2.

issue of the lawfulness of any force used by Officers Cloud and Lewis “may

relate[] to rulings that will likely be made in” plaintiff’s pending criminal trial

for resisting a police officer with force or violence, escape by intentional

departure from the place of legal confinement, and misdemeanor battery of

a police officer. Kato, 549 U.S. at 393-94; see Knox v. City of Gautier, No.

21-60259, 2021 WL 5815923, at *4 (5th Cir. Dec. 7, 2021) (discussing the

“framework for examining a temporal [Heck] argument” based on the timing

of an arrest and the conduct underlying criminal charges). Accordingly, the

Court finds that the case should be stayed and adopts the R&R as its opinion

with respect to the stay under Wallace v. Kato.

Because the Court finds that the case should be stayed as to defendants

Cloud and Lewis under Wallace v. Kato based on the relationship between

the issues involved in his excessive force claims and his criminal charges, the

Court does not reach the issue of whether defendants were sued in their

official or individual capacities, and does not adopt the R&R as to these

issues. The stay applies whether or not defendants are sued in both

capacities in the interests of judicial economy and efficiency. See Norwood

v. Michigan Dep't of Corr., 67 F. App'x 286, 288 (6th Cir. 2003) (“The

capacity in which [plaintiff] sued the defendants does not matter because his

claims were barred by Heck.”); Darnell v. Sabo, No. 19-871, 2022 WL

16577866, at *5 (N.D. Tex. Nov. 1, 2022) (“The Supreme Court's holding in

Heck, however, applies to bar claims against defendants in both their

individual and official capacities.”).

I. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the Court OVERRULES plaintiffs

objections to the Magistrate Judge’s Report and Recommendation with

respect to the issuance of a stay, and APPROVES and ADOPTS the Report

and Recommendation on this issue. The Court GRANTS defendants’ motion

to stay.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that plaintiffs excessive force claims

against defendants Lewis and Cloud are STAYED and that, within 60 days

from finality of Joiner’s conviction or a favorable disposition of the state

criminal charges for resisting a police officer with force or violence, simple

escape by intentional departure of a person from the place of legal

confinement, and misdemeanor battery of a police officer, either plaintiff or

these defendants may move to reopen the matter for further proceedings

consistent with Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994).

New Orleans, Louisiana, this _17th_ day of July, 2024.

Lora Varvee_

SARAH S. VANCE

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE