Courtney MacKintrush v. Dustin Hodge

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

___________________________

No. 20-1162

___________________________

Courtney MacKintrush

Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

Pulaski County Sheriff’s Department; Pulaski County Regional Detention Facility

Defendants

Dustin Hodge, individually and in his official capacity as a Deputy with Pulaski

County Sheriff’s Office

Defendant - Appellant

Franklin Snodgrass, individually and in his official capacity as a Deputy with

Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office; John Does, 1-2; Pulaski County Arkansas

Defendants

____________

Appeal from United States District Court

for the Eastern District of Arkansas - Little Rock

____________

Submitted: January 12, 2021

Filed: February 5, 2021

____________

Before GRUENDER, BENTON, and STRAS, Circuit Judges.

____________

BENTON, Circuit Judge.

Courtney D. MacKintrush sued Deputy Dustin Hodge and Pulaski County

under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violations of his Fourth Amendment rights. Defendants

moved for summary judgment, which the district court 1 denied. Having jurisdiction

under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, this court affirms.

The facts stated here are those the district court likely assumed, in the light

most favorable to the nonmoving party. See Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304, 319

(1995).

MacKintrush was arrested on April 18, 2015 at a halfway house. There he

destroyed several pieces of property, acting erratically. Taken to the Pulaski County

Regional Detention Facility, he was booked for second-degree criminal mischief, a

misdemeanor. During booking, MacKintrush appeared agitated. He complained

that Deputy Hodge mispronounced his name and asked him to wear the standard-

issue detainee shirt. To calm him down, Hodge and Deputy Franklin Snodgrass led

MacKintrush toward a holding cell. To steer him, Hodge tried to place his hand on

MacKintrush’s shoulder. MacKintrush shrugged him off. (The parties dispute

whether the shrug touched Deputy Hodge.) Hodge lifted and slammed MacKintrush

to the floor. (The parties dispute whether Hodge used a “standard takedown

maneuver” or a “full body-slam”.) About five detention facility employees

responded within ten seconds. MacKintrush was knocked unconscious. Six

unrestrained detainees watched the incident. None made any move toward Hodge

or the employees.

1

The Honorable Brian S. Miller, United States District Judge for the Eastern

District of Arkansas.

-2-

“Summary judgment is proper if the pleadings, the discovery and disclosure

materials on file, and any affidavits show that there is no genuine issue as to any

material fact and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.”

Torgerson v. City of Rochester, 643 F.3d 1031, 1042 (8th Cir. 2011) (en banc)

(quotation omitted). “We review de novo a district court’s denial of summary

judgment based on qualified immunity.” New v. Denver, 787 F.3d 895, 899 (8th

Cir. 2015). “A defendant denied summary judgment based on qualified immunity

may appeal the purely legal issue of whether the facts alleged support a claim of

violation of clearly established law.” Mallak v. City of Baxter, 823 F.3d 441, 446

(8th Cir. 2016) (cleaned up). “When opposing parties tell two different stories, one

of which is blatantly contradicted by the record, so that no reasonable jury could

believe it, a court should not adopt that version of the facts for purposes of ruling on

a motion for summary judgment.” Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 380 (2007).

“Qualified immunity attaches when an official’s conduct does not violate

clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person

would have known.” City of Escondido v. Emmons, 139 S. Ct. 500, 503 (2019).

“To determine whether the defendants are entitled to qualified immunity, we ask two

questions: (1) whether the facts, viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff,

demonstrate the deprivation of a constitutional or statutory right; and (2) whether the

right was clearly established at the time of the deprivation.” Ehlers v. City of Rapid

City, 846 F.3d 1002, 1008 (8th Cir. 2017). “For a right to be clearly established,

[t]he contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would

understand that what he is doing violates that right.” Kelsay v. Ernst, 933 F.3d 975,

979 (8th Cir. 2019) (en banc) (quotation omitted).

I.

A jury could find MacKintrush’s constitutional rights were violated.

MacKintrush’s “excessive-force claim is governed by the Fourth Amendment’s

objective reasonableness standard.” Parrish v. Dingman, 912 F.3d 464, 467 (8th

Cir. 2019). “[T]he Fourth Amendment’s ‘objective reasonableness’ standard for

-3-

arrestees governs excessive-force claims arising during the booking process.” Hicks

v. Norwood, 640 F.3d 839, 842 (8th Cir. 2011). To determine objective

reasonableness, a court may look to “the relationship between the need for the use

of force and the amount of force used; the extent of the plaintiff’s injury; any effort

made by the officer to temper or to limit the amount of force; the severity of the

security problem at issue; the threat reasonably perceived by the officer; and whether

the plaintiff was actively resisting.” Zubrod v. Hoch, 907 F.3d 568, 577 (8th Cir.

2018), quoting Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 135 S. Ct. 2466, 2473 (2015).

A jury could find Hodge’s use of force reasonable, but his arguments on

appeal require impermissibly construing disputed facts in his favor. See Thompson

v. Murray, 800 F.3d 979, 983 (8th Cir. 2015). The district court correctly identified

two disputed issues of fact that precluded determining Hodge’s conduct was

objectively reasonable: (1) whether and to what degree MacKintrush was

noncompliant; (2) whether MacKintrush posed a threat. See Littrell v. Franklin,

388 F.3d 578, 584-85 (8th Cir. 2004) (a factfinder determines disputed facts before

a district court rules on qualified immunity); Zubrod, 907 F.3d at 577. The district

court did not err in ruling that material factual disputes prevented it from determining

Hodge used reasonable force.

II.

The right of a passive arrestee to be free from excessive use of body slams (or

similar techniques) was clearly established when Hodge took MacKintrush to the

floor. Force may be appropriate if a suspect presents a possible threat to police. See

Kisela v. Hughes, 138 S. Ct. 1148, 1151 (2018) (per curiam); Hicks, 640 F.3d at

841 (involving a takedown). “There is no requirement that the plaintiff must find a

case where the very action in question has previously been held unlawful so long as

existing precedent has placed the statutory or constitutional question beyond

debate.” Karels v. Storz, 906 F.3d 740, 747 (8th Cir. 2018), quoting Rohrbough v.

Hall, 586 F.3d 582, 586-87 (8th Cir. 2009) (cleaned up). It is “unreasonable for an

officer to body-slam a nonviolent, nonthreatening misdemeanant who pulled her arm

-4-

away from the officer to extinguish a cigarette, where no reasonable officer would

have viewed the act as noncompliance.” Shelton v. Stevens, 964 F.3d 747, 754 (8th

Cir. 2020), citing Karels, 906 F.3d at 747. Ambiguous gestures that officers claim

are noncompliant (such as reaching to extinguish a cigarette) do not justify body

slamming an otherwise compliant, nonviolent, nonthreatening misdemeanant.

Karels, 906 F.3d at 747.2 See also Small v. McCrystal, 708 F.3d 997, 1005 (8th Cir.

2013) (takedown of nonresistant subject unconstitutional); Montoya v. City of

Flandreau, 669 F.3d 867, 873 (8th Cir. 2012) (leg sweep of nonviolent

misdemeanant unconstitutional); Shannon v. Koehler, 616 F.3d 855, 864-65 (8th

Cir. 2010) (only de minimis force justified against nonresistant subject); Atkinson

v. City of Mountain View, 709 F.3d 1201, 1213 (8th Cir. 2013) (charging into

nonresistant suspect unconstitutional during an arrest); Brown v. City of Golden

Valley, 574 F.3d 491, 499 (8th Cir. 2009) (use of stun gun on nonviolent

misdemeanant unconstitutional); Rohrbough, 586 F.3d at 586-87 (punch to face of

originally compliant suspect unconstitutional where officer provoked conflict).

Crediting MacKintrush’s account and the video of the incident, he was not

actively resisting Hodge. Hodge tried to physically steer MacKintrush while he was

walking through booking. MacKintrush shrugged off his touch. Hodge immediately

body-slammed MacKintrush to the floor, knocking him out. Assuming that

MacKintrust was a nonviolent, nonthreatening misdemeanant who pulled his arm

away from the officer, Karels put Hodge on notice that his body slam was excessive

force.

2

Although Karels was decided in 2018, its holding binds the panel since this

court said it was clearly established on March 28, 2015 that an officer cannot use a

body-slam technique under ambiguous circumstances, by an otherwise compliant,

nonviolent, nonthreatening misdemeanant. Karels, 906 F.3d at 746. Cf. Kelsay, 933

F.3d at 980 (right not established in May 2014). This incident occurred on April 18,

2015, so Karels controls.

-5-

*******

The order of the district court is affirmed.

______________________________

-6-