Youngstown Daily Legal News

Cleveland Clinic police home entry case heading back to court

ANNIE YAMSON
Special to the Legal News
Published: August 12, 2014

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals released an opinion recently partially reversing the judgment of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio in Cleveland in a suit brought against Cleveland Clinic police officers for their use of excessive force.

Referring to the officers’ actions as a “violent, traumatic invasion effected through an alarming and unnecessary show of force,” Judge Eric Clay authored the opinion on behalf of the circuit court’s three-judge appellate panel and condemned the actions of law enforcement as “utterly intolerable.”

The suit was brought by Annie and Essex Hayward and their son, Aaron, and stemmed from an altercation that took place at their home with officers of the Cleveland Clinic Police Department.

Case summary states that Aaron was driving home from his parent’s store around 4 a.m. on Jan. 23, 2011 when a CCPD SUV pulled up behind him and followed him home without ever turning on its lights or sirens.

As Aaron parked his car in his parents’ driveway, exited and made his way to the front door, the police officer exited his SUV and yelled, “Hey you, come over here, boy.”

Aaron proceeded to enter his home and was never told that he was under arrest.

The officer radioed for additional help, claiming he was attempting to make a traffic stop and, approximately 15 minutes later, five additional officers arrived at the scene.

They began pounding on the Haywards’ door, yelling expletives and demanding that they open up.

Annie and Essex were awoken by the racket and saw their front lawn aglow in red and blue flashing lights.

Essex opened the front door of the house to investigate at which point the officers began forcing their way through the outer security door.

In response, Essex shut the main door to the house and the officers chose to force open the outer security door by breaking its glass.

Aaron attempted to use his body to prevent the police from breaking down the main door but an officer used the butt of his shotgun to shatter the door’s small window.

Once that occurred, Annie and Essex called 911.

One of the officers then stuck a Taser through the window and began blindly firing into the home.

He struck Aaron twice, causing him to fall on the second shot.

With Aaron on the ground, the officers managed to break through the main door and pour into the Haywards’ home.

Aaron was stunned a third time, case summary states, as he “continued struggling to defend and protect himself and his parents.”

The police proceeded to drag Aaron outside to the driveway where they beat him with their batons, kicked him in the head and other parts of his body, stunned him once more and yelled racial slurs before they finally handcuffed and arrested him.

Throughout the ordeal, the police failed to indicate the purpose of the arrest and, according to the Haywards, they were verbally abused with threats and racial epithets the entire time.

Aaron later pleaded guilty to resisting arrest and willfully fleeing from a police officer.

The Haywards collectively filed federal civil rights claims and state law tort claims against the CCPD and, after an extensive process of amendments, filings and answers, the district court dismissed all of the claims in an order dated Jan. 11, 2013.

The 6th Circuit reversed the dismissal of Annie and Essex Hayward’s federal claims for illegal home entry and their state law intentional infliction of emotional distress claim.

However, the district court’s order granting the CCPD summary judgment with regard to Aaron’s claims was affirmed.

Based on their interpretation of 1994’s Heck v. Humphrey, the district and circuit courts held that Aaron’s claims of excessive force were properly dismissed because he could not prove that the force took place after his arrest.

According to the brief filed by the Haywards, officers “first used a Taser against Aaron prior to any officer telling Aaron he was under arrest.

Moreover, when Aaron was first stunned, he posed no threat to the (police) because he was in his home behind the security door that (officers) had just shattered to assist in gaining entry into the Haywards’ home without consent.”

The issue, however, was that Aaron had entered a guilty plea to resisting arrest, requiring any excessive force claims to have occurred after he was subdued.

“This court acknowledges that, under current 6th Circuit precedent, pre-arrest excessive force is an affirmative defense to a charge of resisting arrest in Ohio and would, therefore, render invalid a conviction for resisting arrest,” wrote Judge Clay.

“Because the factual circumstances in this case indicate that (CCPD’s) allegedly excessive force occurred during (Aaron’s) resistance to arrest, the district court properly dismissed plaintiff Aaron Hayward’s excessive force claim based on Heck.”

Aaron argued that the officers’ illegal entry into the home allowed him to “exercise his lawful right to resist and prevent” a warrantless and violent entry.

“Through this argument,” wrote Judge Clay, “Aaron attempts to do exactly what Heck bars: justify his acts of resistance and contest his conviction for resisting arrest.”

The appellate panel did, however, find merit to Annie’s and Essex’s illegal home entry claim because, in opposition to the district court’s holding, it ruled Heck does not apply to third party claims.

While the CCPD officers maintained they were justified in entering the home because they were in “hot pursuit” of Aaron, the appellate panel found there was enough evidence to prove they entered without an arrest warrant, hot pursuit or any exigent circumstances.

Likewise, the panel determined that Annie and Essex had enough evidence to prevail on a claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress.

“As alleged, around 4 a.m., without announcing a reason for their disturbance, six armed, uniformed officers pounded on the (Haywards’) front door, repeatedly demanding that they ‘open the f------ door,’” wrote Judge Clay.

He pointed out that CCPD used the butts of shotguns to break down two locked doors and entered a private residence illegally, firing blindly and shouting offensive slurs and then “threatened an innocent, elderly couple with physical violence — all because of a few minor traffic violations.”

Those actions resulted in such traumatic emotional distress that Essex required hospitalization following the incident.

“These are neither mere insults nor petty oppressions,” wrote Judge Clay. “Annie and Essex Hayward pleaded sufficient facts to make plausible a claim that (CCPD’s) conduct was ‘so extreme and outrageous as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency and was such that it can be considered as utterly intolerable in a civilized community.’”

The judgment of the district court, which had dismissed the illegal home entry and emotional distress claims, was reversed “to allow Annie and Essex their day in court.”

In regard to the remaining claims, the judgment of the district court was affirmed.

Judges John Rogers and Thomas Ludington, who sat by designation, joined Judge Clay to form the majority.

The case is cited Hayward, et al. v. Cleveland Clinic Foundation, et al., Case No. 13-3132.

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