Williams v. McDonough

Case: 22-40281 Document: 00516697122 Page: 1 Date Filed: 03/31/2023

United States Court of Appeals

for the Fifth Circuit

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

No. 22-40281

FILED

March 31, 2023

Summary Calendar

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

Melvin Earl Williams, Jr.,

Plaintiff—Appellant,

versus

April Dawn McDonough; M. McGuire,

Defendants—Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of Texas

USDC No. 4:17-CV-811

Before Jones, Haynes, and Oldham, Circuit Judges.

Per Curiam:*

Plaintiff-Appellant Melvin Williams challenges the district court’s

dismissal of his § 1983 excessive force claims pursuant to Heck v. Humphrey,

512 U.S. 477 (1994). For the following reasons, we AFFIRM.

*

This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.

Case: 22-40281 Document: 00516697122 Page: 2 Date Filed: 03/31/2023

No. 22-40281

I.

On an evening in November 2015, Williams was spending time with

his girlfriend, Melanie Younkman, at her home. According to Williams, they

got into an argument, and he put his hands on Younkman’s neck. She left

and ran to the police station. Meanwhile, Williams—unaware where

Younkman had gone—went to the backyard to smoke a cigarette. Shortly

thereafter, Younkman and Officers McDonough and McGuire met at the

house so Younkman could retrieve some of her possessions. The Officers

and Younkman began talking in the driveway, prompting Williams to walk

back around the side of the house.

Officer McDonough’s body camera video depicts the subsequent

events. When the Officers saw Williams, they asked him several times to get

on the ground. Williams raised his hands and asked, “What have I done?”

but did not comply. Officer McGuire attempted to grab Williams’s right

hand, but Williams jerked it away and attempted to flee. A prolonged

physical struggle ensued, during which the Officers attempted,

unsuccessfully, to detain Williams. When Williams finally wriggled away,

Officer McGuire warned him that he was “about to get tased.” About forty

seconds later, Officer McGuire deployed her taser, striking Williams’s chest

and causing him to fall to the ground. Williams remained still for a few

seconds, then stood back up, said “here I go, baby,” and began running

towards the garage. This prompted Officer McGuire to deploy her taser

again, causing Williams to fall near the garage door. As Williams attempted

to stand up, Officer McGuire tased him a third time, and he fell back down.

When Williams began to pull himself up, it became apparent that one of the

taser prongs was attached to his left eye, and Officer McDonough radioed for

medical assistance. Williams then climbed to his feet and ran into the garage

as the Officers again commanded him to “get down.” When Williams

realized he couldn’t get into the house, he ran out and attempted to climb the

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fence leading to the backyard. This proved impossible, so he returned to the

garage. For the next several minutes, Williams repeatedly asked Younkman

to let him into the house, while the Officers continued to order him to lay on

the ground and submit to handcuffing. Finally, about ten minutes into the

encounter, Williams complied. Williams was transported by ambulance to

the hospital. As a result of the incident, he was treated for a fracture to his

nasal bone, a laceration to his eye, and an irregular heartbeat.

The Officers charged Williams with resisting arrest in violation of

Texas Penal Code § 38.03(a). 1 He entered a no contest plea and was

sentenced to one hundred days in county jail. A few months later, Williams

sued the Officers 2 pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for using excessive force in

violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. The Officers moved for summary

judgment based on qualified immunity. Following a hearing, the district

court sua sponte raised the issue of whether Williams’s claims were barred

by Heck, 512 U.S. at 486–87, and ordered supplemental briefing on the issue.

Concluding that they were, the court granted the Officers’ motions and

dismissed the case. Williams timely appealed.

II.

We review a grant of summary judgment de novo, construing the

evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. United Fire &

Cas. Co. v. Hixson Bros., Inc., 453 F.3d 283, 284 (5th Cir. 2003). Summary

judgment is proper where there are no genuine issues of material fact and the

1

A person violates this statute if he “intentionally prevents or obstructs a person

he knows is a peace officer . . . from effecting an arrest . . . of the actor . . . by using force

against the peace officer or another.” Tex. Penal Code § 38.03(a).

2

Williams also brought separate claims against the City of Denton and Denton

County, but this appeal concerns only the claims against the Officers.

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movant is entitled to prevail as a matter of law. Alkhawaldeh v. Dow Chem.

Co., 851 F.3d 422, 426 (5th Cir. 2017).

III.

The district court entered summary judgment for the Officers because

it concluded that Williams’s § 1983 suit improperly challenges his conviction

for resisting arrest. In Heck, 512 U.S. at 486–87, the Supreme Court

prohibited such “collateral attack[s]” in the interest of finality and

consistency. See generally Ballard v. Burton, 444 F.3d 391, 397 (5th Cir. 2006)

(quoting Heck, 512 U.S. at 486–87). Accordingly, a plaintiff may not bring a

§ 1983 suit if success on the claim would necessarily imply the invalidity of a

prior criminal conviction. 3 Id. Rather, the plaintiff must challenge the

conviction directly. Id.

Determining whether an action is Heck-barred is “fact-intensive” and

requires the court to analyze whether success on the § 1983 claim “requires

negation of an element of the criminal offense or proof of a fact that is

inherently inconsistent with one underlying the criminal conviction.” Bush

v. Strain, 513 F.3d 492, 497 (5th Cir. 2008). In other words, if the conviction

and successful § 1983 claim can co-exist, Heck is no bar to suit. See Poole v.

City of Shreveport, 13 F.4th 420, 426–27 (5th Cir. 2021).

Williams contends that he can succeed on his excessive force claims

without undermining his resisting arrest conviction because each relies on

“temporally and conceptually distinct” factual allegations. See Bush, 513

F.3d at 498. Per Williams, the sole act of pulling his hand away when Officer

McGuire tried to handcuff him provided the basis for his conviction. His

3

The only exceptions—inapplicable here—are if the prior conviction has been

overturned, expunged, declared invalid by an authorized tribunal, or called into question

through issuance of a writ of habeas corpus. Heck, 512 U.S. at 487.

4

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excessive force claim, in turn, challenges the Officers’ subsequent conduct

after he ceased resisting arrest—including the Officers’ repeated use of the

taser. See id. (noting that “a claim that excessive force occurred after the

arrestee has ceased his or her resistance would not necessarily imply the

invalidity of a conviction for the earlier resistance”). In other words,

Williams (now) admits to resisting arrest at the beginning of the encounter.

But he claims that afterwards—when the Officers tased him—he was fully

compliant.

This argument—which relies on a flawed post hoc rationalization—

fails for several reasons. First, it is belied by the Officers’ probable cause

affidavit, which describes Williams’s conduct throughout the encounter.

Williams avers that the affidavit is no evidence of the factual basis of the

conviction. But that’s incorrect. The very purpose of a probable cause

affidavit is to describe the factual allegations justifying an arrest. See Franks

v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 165 (1978) (noting that a probable cause affidavit

“must set forth particular facts and circumstances underlying the existence

of probable cause”). Indeed, we have previously relied on similar types of

evidence to discern the factual allegations underlying a conviction. See, e.g.,

Aucoin v. Cupil, 958 F.3d 379, 381 (5th Cir. 2020) (relying on prison

disciplinary reports to “understand the basis of the underlying conviction”);

Knox v. City of Gautier, No. 21-60259, 2021 WL 5815923, at *3–4 (5th Cir.

Dec. 7, 2021) (per curiam) (unpublished) (relying on the factual allegations

that supported the state circuit court’s affirmance of the plaintiff’s

conviction to discern whether his claim was Heck-barred). 4

4

Although Knox and related unpublished opinions cited herein “[are] not

controlling precedent,” they “may be [cited as] persuasive authority.” Ballard, 444 F.3d

at 401 n.7 (citing 5th Cir. R. 47.5.4).

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Second, even setting the probable cause affidavit aside, Williams’s

own allegations demonstrate that success on his § 1983 claim would

invalidate his conviction. Williams’s operative complaint doesn’t concede

that he resisted arrest at the beginning of the incident. Rather, it contends

that he “fully complied with the [Officers’] commands and did not attempt to

flee.” Since such assertions in pleadings are “conclusively binding,” see Davis

v. A.G. Edwards & Sons, Inc., 823 F.2d 105, 108 (5th Cir. 1987) (per curiam)

(quotation omitted) (emphasis in original), Williams cannot now argue on

appeal that he initially resisted arrest but later complied. See Aucoin, 958 F.3d

at 383 (noting that a plaintiff’s claim challenges his conviction where he

“maintain[s] his innocence in the events that led up to his [] conviction”).

Indeed, “[w]here a complaint describes a single violent encounter in which

the plaintiff claimed he was an innocent participant[,] but the allegations are

inconsistent with his conviction, Heck applies to bar his excessive-force

claims.” Ducksworth v. Rook, 647 F. App’x 383, 386 (5th Cir. 2016) (per

curiam) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

Finally, were there any remaining doubt, footage from Officer

McDonough’s clear body camera video conclusively establishes that the

Officers’ taser deployments were not “subsequent, discrete” events

independent from the Officers’ initial attempt to handcuff Williams. Aucoin,

958 F.3d at 384. Rather, as discussed, the video shows that Williams

persistently attempted to evade the Officers throughout the entire incident,

including after he was tased. 5 Though the Officers repeatedly asked Williams

5

Williams’s deposition testimony is largely consistent with this version of events,

and to the extent it’s not, the clear video is dispositive. See Curran v. Aleshire, 800 F.3d

656, 663–64 (5th Cir. 2015) (“Scott instructs that a plaintiff’s version of the facts should

not be accepted for purposes of qualified immunity when it is ‘blatantly contradicted’ and

‘utterly discredited’ by video recordings.” (quoting Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 380–81)

(2007)).

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to get on the ground and submit to handcuffing from the moment they saw

him, Williams did not comply until he was cornered in the garage nearly ten

minutes later. Thus, it’s clear that Williams’s conviction and his claims arose

from “a single violent encounter.” Daigre v. City of Waveland, 549 F. App’x

283, 286 (5th Cir. 2013) (per curiam). Therefore, Williams’s § 1983 claims

constitute an impermissible collateral attack on his conviction under Heck,

512 U.S. at 486–87, and the district court properly entered summary

judgment for the Officers.

IV. Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM.

7