Lindsay Acre v. Jason Chambers

Case: 15-14024 Date Filed: 04/18/2016 Page: 1 of 8
[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 15-14024
Non-Argument Calendar
________________________
D.C. Docket No. 2:14-cv-00211-CSC
LINDSAY ACRE,
ROBERT MORRIS,
as personal Representative of the Estate of Jeremy Allen Acre,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
versus
JASON CHAMBERS,
in his individual capacity, Deputy Sheriff of Elmore County, Alabama,
AL COX,
in his individual capacity, Deputy Sheriff of Elmore County, Alabama,
Defendants-Appellees.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Alabama
________________________
(April 18, 2016)
Before ED CARNES, Chief Judge, WILSON and ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judges.
Case: 15-14024 Date Filed: 04/18/2016 Page: 2 of 8
PER CURIAM:
Lindsay Acre and Robert Morris appeal the district court’s grant of summary
judgment, on qualified immunity grounds, in favor of deputy sheriffs Jason
Chambers and Al Cox. Because neither Chambers nor Cox violated clearly
established law, we affirm the district court’s judgment.
Sometime on March 19, 2013, Chambers received a call from Chris Zeigler,
a lieutenant with the Elmore County Sheriff’s Department. Zeigler, who was off-
duty at the time, explained that he had received a call from Amy Shumate, who
said that she had just left the home of Jeremy Acre and his wife, Lindsay, and that
the Acres “were potentially involved in a physical altercation at that time.” Zeigler
then relayed to Chambers that, about two weeks earlier, “he had completed an
incident/offense report involving Jeremy and Lindsay Acre where Jeremy had
allegedly strangled his wife and bound her with duct tape and . . . threatened her
with some type of weapon, I believe a handgun,” but that Lindsay had “refused to
pursue criminal prosecution against [Jeremy]” at that time. Zeigler said that he had
been to the Acres’ home on an earlier occasion to speak with Jeremy; that “this
problem between the Acres had been going on for a couple of weeks”; that there
was “a history of violence there, being domestic violence”; and that “Mr. Acre did
own a weapon also that was . . . allegedly used.”
2
Case: 15-14024 Date Filed: 04/18/2016 Page: 3 of 8
Zeigler asked Chambers to conduct a welfare check on the Acres. A welfare
check is a routine police practice where officers “check on someone’s well-being.”
Because Jeremy was “hostile or very temperamental,” Zeigler instructed Chambers
to “take somebody with [him]” when he checked on the Acres and “to use extreme
caution” around Jeremy. After the call from Zeigler, Chambers phoned Cox and
briefed him about what Zeigler had said. In particular, Chambers told Cox that
Jeremy “had been known to have a weapon,” so that they should “use extreme
caution” during the visit.
At around 10:54 p.m., the defendants arrived at the Acres’ home, which was
dark. They approached the front door, listened there, and, hearing nothing,
knocked. When no one responded to their first knock, they knocked again.
The parties dispute exactly what happened next. We resolve that dispute by
adopting Lindsay’s account of events — at least where it materially differs from
the defendants’ — since it was the deputies who prevailed at summary judgment.
See Tolan v. Cotton, 572 U.S. ––, 134 S. Ct. 1861, 1866 (2014). Lindsay heard the
deputies knock and told Jeremy that she thought someone was at the door. Jeremy
grabbed his gun and went to check. Just before he opened the door, the deputies
heard a semi-automatic firearm being chambered with a round of ammunition.
Chambers turned to Cox and said, “hey, that’s a gun,” then drew his own firearm
and held it by his side. Jeremy opened the door in a manner Lindsay described as
3
Case: 15-14024 Date Filed: 04/18/2016 Page: 4 of 8
“more forceful[] than normal.” When he saw the deputies, who were in uniform
and clearly recognizable as law enforcement officers, he looked at Lindsay with
what Chambers describes as “this enraged look on his face,” and said, “Really?”
Lindsay insisted to him that she had not called the sheriff. Chambers says she
“cowered down to [Jeremy]” when she told him that. Jeremy never asked or
expressed any uncertainty about why the deputies were there.
The deputies noticed that Jeremy, who was “obviously angry” and
“agitated,” was holding a gun, and Chambers, “fear[ing] for [his own] safety as
well as [his] partner’s safety,” told Jeremy to put it down. Jeremy refused,
insisting that “it was his home and he had every right to hold his gun.” After
repeatedly instructing Jeremy to put his gun down, Chambers pointed his gun at
Jeremy and ordered him to put it down. Jeremy continued to refuse, his voice
becoming louder and louder. Eventually, Cox told Chambers “that he was going to
tase [Jeremy],” at which point Jeremy tried to shut the door on the deputies.
Chambers, however, managed to put his foot in the door before Jeremy could shut
it. He then pushed the door open to “make sure that [Jeremy] wasn’t fixing to try
to shoot me through the door or cause harm to [Lindsay].” A few seconds after the
deputies entered the Acres’ home, 1 Jeremy “aggressively . . . rush[ed]” them,
1
What happened in those few seconds is disputed. The deputies say they tased Jeremy
and he briefly fell to the floor, then got up. The plaintiffs argue that data from the taser shows it
was not fired until about nine minutes after the deputies reported that shots had been fired. That
4
Case: 15-14024 Date Filed: 04/18/2016 Page: 5 of 8
“raising [his] weapon in a threatening manner” that led Chambers to believe
Jeremy was “fixing to, you know, shoot [him] or Deputy Cox or both.” Sensing
“that [his] life as well as [his] partner’s life was in danger,” Chambers fired his
weapon, killing Jeremy before he could reach either deputy. Lindsay and Morris,
the representative of Jeremy’s estate, brought § 1983 claims against Chambers and
Cox, alleging two Fourth Amendment violations: (1) unlawfully entering the
Acres’ home; and (2) using excessive force against Jeremy. The district court
granted summary judgment to the deputies on the ground that qualified immunity
shielded them from the plaintiffs’ claims.
It is undisputed that Chambers and Cox were acting within their
discretionary authority at all times relevant to this case, and they are therefore
entitled to qualified immunity unless their conduct violated clearly established law.
See Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S. Ct. 2727, 2738 (1982). The
“dispositive inquiry” for purposes of deciding whether official conduct violated
clearly established law “is whether it would have been clear to a reasonable officer
in the [deputies’] position that their conduct was unlawful in the situation they
confronted.” Wood v. Moss, 572 U.S. ––, 134 S. Ct. 2056, 2067 (2014)
(alterations and quotation marks omitted).
sequence of events is immaterial to the outcome here because the plaintiffs’ excessive force
claims are predicated on the deputies’ use of deadly force against Jeremy, not their use of the
taser.
5
Case: 15-14024 Date Filed: 04/18/2016 Page: 6 of 8
The deputies did not violate clearly established law when they entered the
Acres’ home because the law allows law enforcement personnel to enter a home
without a warrant when exigent circumstances call for it. See Brigham City v.
Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403, 126 S. Ct. 1943, 1948 (2006). “One exigency obviating
the requirement of a warrant is the need to assist persons who are seriously injured
or threatened with such injury.” Id. (emphasis added). Under the circumstances
and based on Zeigler’s report to them, the deputies reasonably concluded that there
was an imminent threat of domestic violence. As the Supreme Court has
explained, “so long as they have good reason to believe such a threat exists, it
would be silly to suggest that the police” could not enter a home “to determine
whether violence (or threat of violence) has just occurred or is about to (or soon
will) occur.” Georgia v. Randolph, 547 U.S. 103, 118, 126 S. Ct. 1515, 1525
(2006).
That is exactly what the deputies did here. They had a report that Jeremy
was “possibly engaged in a domestic violence type of situation” with Lindsay and
that he had violently attacked her in the past. When they encountered Jeremy on
the night of the shooting, he was visibly “enraged,” refused to put down his loaded
gun despite the deputies’ repeated commands that he do so, and accused Lindsay
of calling the cops. They saw Lindsay cowering and heard her insist to Jeremy that
she hadn’t called anyone. And so, when Jeremy tried to lock himself in his home
6
Case: 15-14024 Date Filed: 04/18/2016 Page: 7 of 8
with Lindsay, the deputies reasonably feared for Lindsay’s safety (as well as their
own). Based on those circumstances, viewed in their totality, a reasonable officer
in the deputies’ position could have believed that violence was imminent, so that
exigent circumstances warranted the deputies’ entering the Acres’ home to protect
Lindsay (and themselves) from Jeremy.
The plaintiffs also contend that the use of deadly force against Jeremy
violated his Fourth Amendment rights. We have explained that “[a]ny use of force
must be reasonable,” and that “[r]easonableness is dependent on all the
circumstances that are relevant to the officer’s decision to use deadly force,
including . . . whether the suspect poses an immediate danger to the officer or
others . . . and the feasibility of providing a warning before employing deadly
force.” Jean-Baptiste v. Gutierrez, 627 F.3d 816, 821 (11th Cir. 2010). The use of
deadly force “is judged objectively, and [the deputies are] shielded from liability
unless application of that standard would inevitably lead every reasonable officer
in [their] position to conclude the force was unlawful.” Id. (alterations and
quotation marks omitted).
The officers had a reasonable belief that there was an imminent threat of
domestic violence when they entered the Acres’ home. Jeremy had refused to put
down his firearm after repeated instructions to do so, and he continued to refuse to
put it down even after Chambers pointed his service weapon at him and ordered
7
Case: 15-14024 Date Filed: 04/18/2016 Page: 8 of 8
him to do so. After the deputies entered the home, Jeremy came toward them
threateningly with a loaded firearm in his hand, and only at that point did Deputy
Chambers discharge his firearm. Under those circumstances, our binding
precedent dictates that the use of deadly force did not violate clearly established
law. See, e.g., id. at 821–22; Garczynski v. Bradshaw, 573 F.3d 1158, 1168 (11th
Cir. 2009); Robinson v. Arrugueta, 415 F.3d 1252, 1256 (11th Cir. 2005);
Kesinger ex rel. Estate of Kesinger v. Herrington, 381 F.3d 1243, 1249 (11th Cir.
2004); Carr v. Tatangelo, 338 F.3d 1259, 1269 (11th Cir. 2003); Montoute v. Carr,
114 F.3d 181, 185 (11th Cir. 1997).
AFFIRMED.
8