Rock v. Cummings

• Court: District Court, D. Arizona
• Decided: April 30, 2025
• Docket: 2:20-cv-01837
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

1 WO 2 3 4 5 6 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 7 FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

9 Dillon Rock, No. CV-20-01837-PHX-DWL

10 Plaintiff, ORDER

11 v.

12 N. Cummings, et al.,

13 Defendants. 14 15 One of Plaintiff’s motions in limine seeks to, among other things, “exclude 16 evidence, or any mention of evidence, regarding [Plaintiff’s] criminal activity on October 17 20, 2019, other than what was known to Defendant Miller at the time force was applied.” 18 (Doc. 116 at 1.) During the Final Pretrial Conference, the Court declined to rule on this 19 portion of the motion in limine and instead took it under advisement. (Doc. 146.) 20 Having now given more consideration to the issue, Plaintiff’s exclusion request is 21 granted. As background, the parties have stipulated in the Final Pretrial Order that at the 22 time of the challenged use of force at issue in this § 1983 action (i.e., Officer Miller’s 23 decision to allow the police dog to continue biting Plaintiff for an allegedly excessive 24 period of time), Officer Miller had been informed by the police dispatcher that Plaintiff 25 “was acting erratic, had threatened his mother with a knife, and had broken his parents’ 26 phones.” (Doc. 147 at 2.) At trial, Officer Miller will be allowed to introduce evidence of 27 his awareness of those allegations. See generally 9th Cir. Model J. Instr. 9.25 (“In 28 determining whether the officer[s] used excessive force in this case, consider all of the 1 circumstances known to the officer[s] on the scene, including: (1) the nature of the crime 2 or other circumstances known to the officer[s] at the time force was applied; (2) whether 3 the [plaintiff] posed an immediate threat to the safety of the officer[s] or to others; . . . [and] 4 (12) whether the officer[s] [was] [were] responding to a domestic violence disturbance”). 5 Nevertheless, Officer Miller wishes to go further and introduce evidence that Plaintiff was 6 subsequently convicted via guilty plea of several misdemeanor crimes related to Plaintiff’s 7 conduct toward his family members on the date of the incident.1 8 This evidence is inadmissible for several reasons. First, it is irrelevant. Even 9 though, as noted above, matters known by Officer Miller at the time of the challenged 10 encounter may be relevant in evaluating the reasonableness of his use of force, matters that 11 had not yet occurred at the time of the encounter (such as Plaintiff’s subsequent 12 convictions) obviously could not have been known by Officer Miller and thus have no 13 bearing on his mindset. Cf. Deorle v. Rutherford, 272 F.3d 1272, 1281 (9th Cir. 2001) 14 (“[A]n officer’s use of force must be objectively reasonable based on his contemporaneous 15 knowledge of the facts.”). Additionally, Officer Miller acknowledges in his response to 16 Plaintiff’s motion that “Plaintiff does not have a felony criminal history subject to 17 impeachment, and . . . his criminal convictions cannot be used to support his propensity to 18 commit crimes.” (Doc. 124 at 1.) Thus, Plaintiff’s misdemeanor convictions are not 19 relevant or admissible under Rule 404(b) or Rule 609. See generally Bourgeois v. Strawn, 20 452 F. Supp. 2d 696, 713 (E.D. Mich. 2006) (“Certainly the evidence [of prior 21 misdemeanor convictions] would tend to prove that the plaintiff had a general bad 22 character, but that is not a proper purpose for the evidence. Rule 609 allows prior 23 convictions to be used to impeach a testifying witness, including a plaintiff in a civil case. 24 1 Although the parties have not supplied information regarding the nature of those 25 misdemeanor convictions, the Goodyear Municipal Court’s online docket in Case No. M- 0762-CM-201900571 reveals that Plaintiff was initially charged with eight misdemeanor 26 counts (two counts of “INTENTIONALLY PLACING PRSN IN FEAR OF IMMINENT PHY,” two counts of “DISORDERLY CONDUCT—FIGHTING,” two counts of 27 “CRIMINAL—DEF OR DAMAGE PROP OF VAL GT 250 LT 1000,” and two counts of “PREVENT/INTERFER TELE-EMERG”) and was eventually convicted via guilty plea 28 of one count of “DISORDERLY CONDUCT—FIGHTING” and one count of “PREVENT/INTERFER TELE-EMERG.” 1 However, that rule limits the convictions to felonies and certain misdemeanors that include 2 an element of dishonesty or false statement. None of the crimes fall into the latter category. 3 Therefore, the misdemeanor convictions are not admissible for any proper purpose . . . .”); 4 Lindsay v. City of Santa Paula, 2001 WL 36097435, *2 (C.D. Cal. 2001) (granting 5 plaintiff’s motion, in § 1983 action, to exclude his prior misdemeanor conviction but 6 clarifying that “[t]his ruling . . . is limited to evidence of the conviction itself” and that the 7 defendants “may offer evidence regarding plaintiff’s alleged resistance and/or other 8 conduct that gave the officers probable cause to enter [the plaintiff’s] home and arrest him 9 for” committing the crime that later resulted in the misdemeanor conviction). 10 Second, at a minimum, evidence of Plaintiff’s misdemeanor convictions is barred 11 by Rule 403. One of Officer Miller’s apparent reasons for seeking to introduce this 12 evidence is to establish that Plaintiff had, in fact, engaged in threatening conduct toward 13 his family members on the date of the incident. But putting aside that matters unknown to 14 Officer Miller at the time of the incident (such as whether the allegations relayed by the 15 police dispatcher were true) are irrelevant in evaluating Officer Miller’s use of force, 16 Plaintiff has already stipulated to Officer Miller’s awareness of the allegations concerning 17 Plaintiff’s erratic behavior, threat of violence toward his mother, and acts of property 18 destruction. Thus, evidence of the convictions themselves will have little (if any) probative 19 value, which will, at any rate, be substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice 20 that will flow from informing the jury that Plaintiff has prior criminal convictions. 21 Similarly, to the extent Officer Miller’s theory (as articulated during oral argument) is that 22 Plaintiff’s misdemeanor convictions somehow have a tendency to undermine Plaintiff’s 23 claim for emotional distress damages, the Court is unpersuaded that there is any 24 relationship between those two topics but, at a minimum, any relevance is once again 25 substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice that will flow from informing 26 the jury that Plaintiff has prior criminal convictions. 27 … 28 … 1 Accordingly, 2 IT IS ORDERED that the remaining portion of Plaintiffs motion in limine (Doc. 3|| 116) is granted. 4 Dated this 30th day of April, 2025. 5 6 Am ee 7 i □ Dominic W. Lanza 8 United States District Judge 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

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