Maus v. Baker

641 F. App'x 596
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedApril 14, 2016
DocketNo. 15-2346
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 641 F. App'x 596 (Maus v. Baker) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Maus v. Baker, 641 F. App'x 596 (7th Cir. 2016).

Opinion

[598]*598ORDER

Brian Maus sued jail officers and other law enforcement personnel for using excessive force against him while he was a pretrial detainee at the Langlade County Jail. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. His claims were tried to a jury, which found for the defendants. Maus appeals, raising six arguments for a new trial. Because his trial was free of prejudicial errors, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

The events underlying Maus’s claims took place in January and April 2007. In January, while a pretrial detainee at the jail, Maus blocked the camera in his cell with toilet paper. Two guards spoke to Maus after citing him for violating jail rules and risking the safety of Maus, other inmates, and jail staff. They explained that he had to be moved to a different cell so that they could clean the camera. After resisting briefly Maus allowed the officers to escort him to a new cell. Almost immediately, however, Maus blocked the camera in his new cell and used his mattress to cover the viewing window of the cell’s door. Sergeant Thomas Hunter decided that the bedding had to be removed from Maus’s cell to prevent him from obscuring the view into his cell, so he summoned the assistance of two corrections officers, James Benishek and Bobby Jo LaBarge.

The three officers entered Maus’s cell, and a brief scuffle ensued. Hunter and Benishek held Maus as LaBarge gathered his bedding. Once LaBarge removed the bedding from the cell, Benishek ordered Maus to stand at the back of the cell while he and Hunter left. Maus initially complied, but as Benishek was backing out of the cell Maus lunged towards him. Ben-ishek testified that he pushed against Maus’s chest to direct him to the back of the cell. Maus replied that Benishek choked his throat for up to 30 seconds before Benishek and Hunter left the cell.

In April, Maus again blocked the camera and window of his cell. The jail administrator, Diane Baker, along with three others (Joe Stegall, Heidi Walrath, and Mark Hoerman) went to Maus’s cell to move him. Baker told Maus that, as before, he must relocate to a different cell so that they could clear the obstructions. Maus grabbed his bin full of legal papers and began to leave. But Baker told Maus that he could not take his legal papers because he might use them to cover the camera in his new cell. When Maus resisted, the team pried his fingers from the bin. Ste-gall and Hoerman then took him to the new cell, but as Stegall backed out of that cell, Hoerman, Walrath, and Baker saw Maus swing at Stegall'. (Maus denied that he tried to hit Stegall.) Stegall dodged Maus and left the cell. Then, to prevent the cell door from closing, Maus crammed his chest, hands, and feet into the door jam. Walrath responded with an electrical stun device that emitted a small electrical shock to Maus’s hand. Maus removed his hands and body, allowing the officers to shut the cell door.

A short while later, Maus, having somehow acquired paper, once again covered his cell’s camera. Concluding that Maus had to be moved to yet another cell to clear the obstruction, recalling his previous resistance, and deciding that he needed to be searched for paper, Baker called for backup. Several members of the Lan-glade County Sheriffs Department responded to the call. Sergeant Keith Svo-boda went to Maus’s cell, and when Maus refused to move, Svoboda and Deputy Sheriff Russell Cook grabbed Maus’s arms and extracted him from the cell. They stabilized Maus against a wall in the hallway so he could be searched. Several officers testified that Maus moved his mouth toward Svoboda’s hand, which was on Maus’s shoulder. Svoboda exclaimed, [599]*599“Are you trying to bite me?” and Maus answered yes. (Maus denied that he tried to bite Svoboda.) Svoboda testified that Maus, in attempting to bite him, chewed off the knuckle of the latex glove he was wearing. Deputy Sheriff Mark Westen, standing a few feet away with his taser drawn, fired it at Maus. With Maus incapacitated from the taser shot, Svoboda and Cook lowered him to the ground where Hoerman discovered toilet paper stashed in Maus’s sock. Svoboda and Cook then carried Maus into a new cell and placed him on the bed. Stegall removed the taser probes from Maus’s back, and Walrath, who was standing nearby, cleaned the small wound and covered it with a bandage.

Maus sued, alleging excessive force. He asserted that jail officers used excessive force in January when they entered his cell and (according to Maus) Benishek choked him. He also alleged that Svobo-da, Cook, Stegall, and Westen used excessive force in April when Svoboda and Cook removed him from his cell, they pushed him against the wall, and Westen fired the taser. Finally, Maus accused other defendants of failing to prevent the use of excessive force in April.

With recruited counsel, Maus’s suit proceeded to trial. A jury returned a verdict against him, but we remanded for a new trial because the district judge had prejudiced Maus by requiring him to wear prison garb and shackles before the jury. Maus v. Baker, 747 F.3d 926 (7th Cir.2014). On remand Maus received new counsel, a new judge, and a new trial. This time Maus appeared without restraints and in a business suit throughout the three-day jury trial. The jury once again returned a verdict in favor of the defendants. Maus moved for a new trial raising arguments that he renews on appeal, and the district judge denied the motion.

Maus raises six arguments on appeal. First, he contends that the jury’s verdict was not fair because several officers committed perjury. Maus says that Svoboda lied when he testified that Maus had tried to bite him; his testimony must be false, Maus explains, because if Maus really had bitten him Svoboda would have sought medical attention. Similarly, Maus continues, the testimony of Walrath, Wes-ten, and Stegall — that they saw the bite attempt — is a lie because he denied they could see him attempt to bite Svoboda from where they stood. But Maus has merely presented an arguable conflict in the evidence. It is the role of the jury and the adversarial use of cross-examination to detect and evaluate any supposed discrepancies within or between the testimonies of witnesses. See Perry v. New Hampshire, — U.S. -, 132 S.Ct. 716, 728, 181 L.Ed.2d 694 (2012); Sanchez-Rengifo v. Caraway, 798 F.3d 532, 537 (7th Cir.2015). Even if the witnesses’ accounts conflicted, that would not necessarily mean that the jury’s verdict was based on perjured evidence. See United States v. Freeman, 691 F.3d 893, 900-01 (7th Cir.2012); United States v. Alcantar, 83 F.3d 185, 189-90 (7th Cir.1996) (jury may still credit witness’s story even after cross-examination exposes inconsistencies). Accordingly the verdict is sound.

Second, Maus argues that the district court erred when on remand it refused his pro se request to add four defendants whom he had voluntarily dismissed from his first trial. The issue is waived. At the pretrial conference, his new attorneys said they did not want to pursue Maus’s pro se request, and Maus agreed with them. He told the district judge that instead of pursuing his case without the assistance of counsel, he would keep his attorneys and withdraw the request.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
641 F. App'x 596, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/maus-v-baker-ca7-2016.