(CN) — A 10th Circuit panel on Monday handed qualified immunity to two Colorado Springs police officers who faced excessive force claims brought by the family of a man who died after being shot by a Taser during a 2018 investigation.
On April 26, 2018, Colorado Springs Police officers Daniel Patterson and Joshua Archer were investigating a reported disturbance at an apartment building after midnight. The tenant let officers in and said he had fought with his friends earlier, but they had left. Patterson and Archer found a 16-year-old girl at the residence and told her she needed to get picked up when a new person arrived on the scene: Jeffrey Melvin.
Patterson met Melvin in the hall and asked if he was going to the apartment. Melvin said no, ran to the door and tried to lock Patterson out, only to find Archer inside. The two officers ordered Melvin to put his hands behind his back. Melvin resisted and the officers grappled with him for seven minutes, eventually pepper-spraying him and deploying their Tasers eight times in 90 seconds.
Melvin ran outside, where officers pinned him to the ground.
“You’re killing me,” Melvin told them. “I can’t breathe. I’ve honestly got asthma.”
Melvin collapsed and died six days later at the hospital “as a result of complications of sickle cell trait and extreme exertion during confrontation with police and associated Taser deployment.” The coroner marked Melvin’s death a homicide. He was 27 years old and left behind four children. A blood test taken when he arrived at the hospital showed that he was not on any illicit drugs when he was killed.
Melvin's family sued the city and officers in April 2020. This past March, Senior U.S. District Judge Christine Arguello denied the officers’ request for qualified immunity. The George W. Bush appointee found that deploying a Taser eight times in 90 seconds was clearly excessive and violated Melvin’s Fourth Amendment rights.
On Monday, a three-judge 10th Circuit panel reversed and granted both officers qualified immunity.
“Our precedent does not clearly establish that the officers’ conduct violated Mr. Melvin’s rights,” U.S. Circuit Judge Carolyn McHugh wrote for the panel. “Instead, our precedent has drawn a clear line between subdued detainees and individuals who are not subdued. We have also clearly differentiated between individuals who are tased after they have been informed they are being detained or arrested and have been instructed to stop resisting, and those who have received no such information or instruction. Mr. Melvin was not subdued, he was informed that he was being detained, and he was instructed to stop resisting. As a result, the estate has failed to demonstrate that the officers’ conduct violated Mr. Melvin’s clearly established rights.”
The Melvin family also relied on out-of-circuit precedent to support their argument that courts have made a distinction between “active, violent resistance and passive resistance,” and that Melvin’s resistance was passive, and that doesn't justify the use of a Taser, the panel found.
“Mr. Melvin was attempting to flee and was subject to Taser deployments after the officers initially attempted lower levels of force to detain Mr. Melvin. These facts meaningfully distinguish this case from the out-of-circuit decisions relied upon by the estate, none of which addresses the particular conduct at issue here,” McHugh wrote for the panel.
McHugh and U.S. Circuit Judge Robert Bacharach, both Barack Obama appointees, and Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Mary Beck Briscoe, a Bill Clinton appointee, made up the panel.
While he disagrees with the court’s decision, the Melvins' attorney Darold Killmer said the family's suit against the city of Colorado Springs is headed for a jury trial where they’ll try to prove that the city’s training of police officers and policies led to Melvin's death by Taser.
“There is no qualified immunity for a city,” he said.
A spokesperson for Colorado Springs said the city does not comment on pending litigation.
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