Smith v. Cupp

430 F.3d 766, 2005 WL 3242150
Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit·Decided December 2, 2005·No. 04-5783·Published·Cited by 133 cases

Opinions

ROGERS, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which DUPLANTIER, D.J., joined.

MERRITT, J. (p. 777), delivered a separate opinion concurring except as to Section II.A. on jurisdiction.

OPINION

ROGERS, Circuit Judge.

Deputy Sheriff Marty Dunn appeals the district court’s denial of his motion for summary judgment based on the defense of qualified immunity. On April 28, 2002, Dunn shot and killed Glen Smith, an arres-tee who had gained control of Dunn’s police cruiser. The district court denied Dunn qualified immunity. Because Smith’s right not to be seized by deadly force when fleeing arrest was clearly established at the time he was killed, we affirm the district court’s denial of summary judgment.

I.

On April 27-28, 2002, Deputy Sheriff Marty Dunn was on patrol in north Hamilton County, Tennessee. During his shift, Dunn responded to a report of harassing telephone calls being received at the home of Janice Quarles, the mother of plaintiff-appellee Cheri Smith. Cheri Smith was living with Quarles at the time because she was separated from her husband, the decedent Glen Smith. Dunn spoke with Quarles about the calls and left.

Later in his shift, Dunn coincidentally observed Glen Smith driving erratically. Dunn initiated a traffic stop and had Smith perform several field sobriety tests. Although Dunn believed that Smith had been drinking, he came to the conclusion that Smith was not so impaired as to justify an arrest. Consequently, Dunn suggested that Smith find a friend to pick him up, and Smith left his car in the parking lot of an adjacent McDonald’s restaurant.

Later that evening, Dunn responded to another report from Quarles’s home concerning harassing telephone calls. In this second encounter, Quarles told Dunn that some of the calls had been recorded by the answering machine, and that she recognized Smith’s voice and heard the name “Dustin” in the background. Dunn listened to some of these recordings and [769] heard someone in the background refer to an item being “smothered and covered,” an apparent reference to a method of hash brown preparation at Waffle House restaurants. The calls continued in Dunn’s presence, with Dunn answering a few of the calls and identifying himself as a police officer.

Dunn left Quarles’s home and went by the McDonald’s parking lot where he had left Smith earlier. Dunn observed that Smith’s car was still in the lot; however, the car had been moved to a different spot, and Dunn saw a man that looked like Smith get into another car parked nearby. Dunn approached the second vehicle and spotted Smith in the backseat. Dunn questioned the driver of the vehicle, Kate Smith (Smith’s sister), and another passenger, Dustin Craig, and these persons indicated that Glen Smith had used Craig’s cell phone to make several calls from a Waffle House restaurant. At this point, Dunn proceeded to arrest Smith for making harassing telephone calls in Dunn’s presence.

Pursuant to the arrest, Dunn advised Smith of his Miranda rights, cuffed Smith’s hands behind his back, double-locked the handcuffs, put Smith in the back seat of Dunn’s police cruiser, and secured the seat belt around Smith. Additionally, Dunn patted Smith down to be sure that he did not have any weapons or other contraband. Dunn also called for a tow truck to pick up Smith’s car. During this period of time, Smith was cooperative with Officer Dunn. However, Dunn did believe Smith to be somewhat impaired. Dunn left the engine running to provide air conditioning. Unfortunately, Dunn’s police cruiser was not equipped with a security partition separating the front seat from the back seat. When Dunn left the vehicle to talk to the tow truck driver, named Richard Rutherford, Smith climbed into the front seat and took control of Dunn’s cruiser. The facts from .this point forward are heavily disputed. The Supreme Court and this court have repeatedly held, however, “that a defendant, entitled to invoke a qualified immunity defense, may not appeal a district court’s summary judgment order insofar as that order determines whether or not the pretrial record sets forth a ‘genuine’ issue of fact for trial.” Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304, 319-20, 115 S.Ct. 2151, 132 L.Ed.2d 238 (1995); see also Carter v. City of Detroit, 408 F.3d 305, 309 (6th Cir.2005). Accordingly, although we note the presence of disputes, we take the facts in a light most favorable to the plaintiffs, the family of Glen Smith. The district court carefully set out the differing versions of events leading to Smith’s death.

[W]hen the wrecker arrived Dunn got out of the patrol car to speak to its driver, Richard Rutherford, and fill out the necessary paperwork to have Smith’s vehicle towed. During this time, Smith was left unsupervised in the patrol car with the engine running and the keys in the ignition.
As they were going about the business of preparing Smith’s car to be towed, both Dunn and Rutherford claim they heard the patrol car being placed into gear and turned to see Smith had made his way into the front seat and was now behind the wheel of the vehicle. Because Dunn had left the dome light in the patrol car on, Dunn claims he was able to clearly see Smith “looking directly at him” while Rutherford claims he could see Smith “in the driver’s seat turning the steering wheel.” Dunn asserts he heard tires squealing and the sound of hard acceleration. Rutherford does not believe the patrol car “went into a pe[e]l out,” but does confirm Smith “floorboarded” the accelerator.
[770] Rutherford states his immediate reaction was to move backwards and around to the front of Smith’s vehicle while Dunn claims he [Rutherford] ran in the opposite direction towards the McDonald’s restaurant. Rutherford asserts Dunn ran towards the moving patrol car with his firearm drawn and recalls thinking he “was fixing to watch Officer Dunn get run over.” Rutherford claims Smith was turning the patrol car to the left, but stated he was not sure whether Smith’s swerve to the left was for the purpose of redirecting the car at Dunn or -following the roadway around the building (and presumably out of the parking lot). Dunn claims he. and Rutherford were standing not more than a vehicle’s length from [the patrol car’s] original position and that Smith was clearly trying to run him and Rutherford over rather than attempting to leave the parking lot.

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

Smith v. Cupp, 430 F.3d 766, 2005 WL 3242150 (6th Cir. 2005).

430 F.3d 766 (Smith v. Cupp) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

Allen v. Lo
M.D. Tennessee, 2024
Robert Sean Reed v. Campbell Cnty., Ky.
80 F.4th 734 (Sixth Circuit, 2023)
Hines v. Lowndes County, MS
Fifth Circuit, 2023
Timothy Raimey v. City of Niles, Ohio
77 F.4th 441 (Sixth Circuit, 2023)
Compton v. Laing
W.D. Kentucky, 2022
Chowning v. Hardin County
W.D. Kentucky, 2022
Roberts v. Cruz
W.D. Kentucky, 2022
Carey v. Mannella
N.D. Ohio, 2022
Burghardt v. Ryan
N.D. Ohio, 2021
Lisa Earl v. Scott Campbell
Ninth Circuit, 2021
Irwin v. Santiago
N.D. Texas, 2021
Mary Stewart v. City of Euclid
970 F.3d 667 (Sixth Circuit, 2020)
Lauren Kesterson v. Kent State Univ.
967 F.3d 519 (Sixth Circuit, 2020)