Murray-Ruhl v. Shiawassee

246 F. App'x 338
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedAugust 29, 2007
Docket05-2607
StatusUnpublished
Cited by33 cases

This text of 246 F. App'x 338 (Murray-Ruhl v. Shiawassee) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Murray-Ruhl v. Shiawassee, 246 F. App'x 338 (6th Cir. 2007).

Opinions

MARTHA CRAIG DAUGHTREY, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff Joan Marie Murray-Ruhl filed this civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming that Shiawassee County (Michigan) Deputy Sheriffs Thomas Passinault and Jason Jenkins acted unreasonably in using deadly force against her son, Michael Murray, in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. She now appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the defendants based on the court’s determination that they were entitled to qualified immunity in the fatal [340]*340shooting of Murray. We affirm the grant of summary judgment to defendant Jenkins. However, because we conclude that the record reflects genuine disputes of material fact concerning the reasonableness of defendant Passinault’s action, we find it necessary to reverse the grant of summary judgment to him and remand the case to the district court for further proceedings.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Although the parties’ versions of the facts surrounding the actual shooting conflict, the facts leading up to the event are essentially undisputed. The record establishes that on the evening of September 5, 2003, Murray and a friend, Ryan Conklin, attended a party at the home of a mutual friend. According to Conklin, the pair arrived sometime before midnight and left when the party broke up several hours later. Murray and Conklin agreed to drive two young women, Rebecca Rodriguez and Corey Straub, home from the party. Conklin dropped off Murray and Rodriguez at Uncle Buck’s bar, where Murray had parked his truck earlier in the evening, then left to take Straub home.

Murray, with Rodriguez sitting in the passenger seat, was pulling out of the Uncle Buck’s parking lot when he saw the defendants’ patrol car drive by. In a moment of panic, presumably because he had violated his parole by consuming alcohol earlier that evening, Murray attempted to avoid the police by driving across adjacent parking lots and pulling into an alley that opened into a parking lot for nearby businesses. Murray turned off the truck’s lights and engine, ducked down in his seat to hide from the police, and told Rodriguez to do the same.

Jenkins and Passinault observed Murray’s truck exiting the lot near Uncle Buck’s and followed it, concluding the truck was being driven erratically. Ultimately, the officers located the truck in the alley and parked directly behind Murray’s vehicle, blocking it. Jenkins and Passinault got out of the patrol car and, seeing no visible occupants in the truck, began to search the surrounding area on foot. After the officers passed by, Murray started the truck’s engine. Beyond that point, the facts of this case are highly disputed.

The Defendants’ Version of the Facts

The defendants claim that after Murray started the truck, he accelerated directly toward Passinault, who was standing next to a pole barn approximately 165 feet north of the truck. Jenkins and Passinault also assert that Passinault was “effectively trapped between the truck and the pole barn.”1 According to the defendants, Passinault repeatedly ordered the driver of the truck to stop, but his orders were disregarded and the driver of the truck continued accelerating toward him. Passinault gave conflicting accounts of how close the truck came as it passed him, eventually testifying that it was between one and eight feet away from where he was standing when he fired the first shot at the driver. But immediately after the shooting and for some days afterward, he reported that he had been hit by the truck and injured—even going so far as to call for an ambulance to come to the scene [341]*341because he needed medical attention. However, that version of the facts turned out to be a complete fabrication.

In truth, Passinault had not been hit by the truck and continued shooting after it had passed him, claiming later that he believed that the driver might be heading toward his partner, Jenkins, who was on foot somewhere in the area. Passinault also asserts that he fired at the truck as it was driven away from him because he was concerned for the safety of other officers who had been summoned to the scene and for the public in general. The vehicle was not being operated at a high rate of speed, however, and there were no other officers or members of the public in the area at the time of these events.

Later investigation revealed that Passinault had fired a total of 12 shots at the truck, at least two or three of which struck Murray. The truck eventually came to a stop in a ditch some distance down the road, with Murray slumped over the wheel, dead.

The Plaintiffs Version of the Facts

Because Rebecca Rodriguez was an eyewitness to what occurred, the plaintiff was able to offer a significantly different version of events, which must, of course, be viewed in the light most favorable to her. According to this account of the facts, when Murray started the truck in order to escape from the alley, he accelerated not toward Passinault but rather toward the only exit available to him. Because the officers’ patrol car blocked the truck in the alley from behind, “Murray had only one option, which was to drive forward past the position of the Deputies” in order to get away. The plaintiff concedes that Murray’s truck went by Passinault at a distance of about eight feet, but asserts that he took this path only because he could not get out of the alley any other way.

Rodriguez testified that she heard Passinault yell at Murray to stop the truck only once, as opposed to the repeated orders that the defendants claim Passinault made. According to Rodriguez, after ordering Murray to stop, Passinault did not wait for a response but immediately fired his weapon. Moreover, the record tends to show that Passinault fired only that first shot before the truck passed him and was moving away, because forensic evidence fails to reflect that even one bullet struck the front of the truck or the windshield. Instead, according to Rodriguez, Passinault fired the remaining shots after the truck had already turned and driven past him. She testified, in fact, that she saw Passinault running after the truck as he continued shooting at it.

The plaintiff also contends that the fatal shot could not have been fired in self-defense because, according to the autopsy report, the shot that killed Murray would also have paralyzed his legs, yet he was able to operate the truck’s gas pedal for some distance after passing Passinault. In addition, the autopsy report indicates that the bullet moved from the back of Murray’s body toward the front, indicating that he was shot from behind.

The plaintiff calls into question Passinault’s alleged concern for the safety of others. Although Passinault claimed that he continued shooting after the truck had passed him because he believed it was bearing down on his partner, Jenkins indicated that he was not in the truck’s path and that he never felt in danger of being struck by the vehicle. The plaintiff also asserts that the officers lacked reason to believe Murray posed an ultimate threat to the general public because, despite the officers’ suspicions that he might have committed a crime of some sort, the most [342]*342serious offense they actually saw him commit was a traffic violation.

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Bluebook (online)
246 F. App'x 338, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/murray-ruhl-v-shiawassee-ca6-2007.