# Sherrod v. Berry

> Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit · August 22, 1988 · 856 F.2d 802

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/8963637

## Case

- **Full name:** Lucien SHERROD, Individually and as Administrator of the Estate of Ronald Sherrod v. Willie BERRY, Frederick Breen and the City of Joliet, a municipal corporation
- **Court:** Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
- **Decided:** August 22, 1988
- **Citations:** 856 F.2d 802; 1988 WL 92583
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Ripple
- **Judges:** Bauer, Coffey, Cudahy, Cummings, Easterbrook, Flaum, Kanne, Manion, Posner, Ripple, Wood
- **Cited by:** 104 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/8963637

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that the veracity of the officer’s testimony and the reasonableness of his actions in dealing with a suspect who he believed to be armed and dangerous and to have made a quick movement with his hand going into his coat as if he were going to reach for a weapon were que…
- holding that under circumstances of case, fact that suspect was unarmed was irrelevant to excessive force claim where officer reasonably believed he was armed
- reversing and remanding for a new trial because district judge erroneously allowed the jury to be presented with facts unknown and unavailable to the officers at the time of the shooting, namely that the decedent suspect was unarmed
- stating that in an excessive force case, courts should look to the split second before the officer had to decide what to do

## Opinion text

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the judgment. In my view, the district court’s failure to give defendant’s instruction No. 10 and the giving of plaintiffs instruction No. 28.1 1 constitute reversible error and requires a new trial. With respect to the admissibility of evidence as to whether Mr. Sherrod had a weapon, I agree essentially with the view stated by Judge Cummings in these en banc proceedings.
. The trial court’s treatment of this issue is discussed by the panel in Sherrod v. Berry, 827 F.2d 195, 202-03 (7th Cir.1987) and 827 F.2d at 218-19 (Coffey, J., dissenting).

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/8963637. Public record. Not legal advice.