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A man who was hit and tased by law enforcement after his mother requested a wellness check failed to convince the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals that the sheriff’s deputies entered the home unlawfully and used excessive force.
Bowe Marvin sued three St. Joseph County deputies — David Holcomb, Matthew Corban and Christopher Lawson-Rulli — after they used a stun gun and hit him in response to a 911 call from his mother, who said Marvin was suicidal and needed a wellness check.
The incident occurred in 2015. Marvin’s mother, Michelle, went to Marvin’s father’s house to tell Marvin he needed to move out. That led to an argument, and Marvin said he wouldn’t leave.
Marvin broke Michelle’s sunglasses and threw a chair across the room, which hit Michelle in the face and cut her lip.
That’s when Michelle called 911. She told the dispatcher Marvin regularly carried a box cutter knife.
When the deputies arrived, Michelle said she was fine and asked them to check on Marvin. The deputies said they wouldn’t go inside until she told them what happened to her lip, so she told them about Marvin throwing a chair.
The deputies asked Marvin to leave the house but didn’t explain why they were there. During the discussion, Marvin’s father seemed to move behind him and take the box cutter out of Marvin’s back pocket.
Seeing what happened, Lawson-Rulli and Holcomb grabbed Marvin’s hands and pulled him from the house. The parties don’t agree on whether Marvin was actually in the house, meaning they dispute whether the deputies had to enter the house to pull him out.
Marvin fell to the ground outside and tried to stand up. Corban wrapped his arms around Marvin’s legs and brought him back to the ground.
Holcomb tased Marvin once, but that didn’t seem to have an effect, so he did it a second time.
At the same time, the deputies hit Marvin with open hands and closed fists. When Marvin stopped moving, Corban was able to place him in handcuffs, after which he “was compliant.”
Marvin sued in June 2020, bringing claims against all three deputies for unlawful entry and excessive force in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. He also brought excessive force claims under Indiana law.
The Indiana Northern District Court, South Bend Division, dismissed the unlawful entry claims against Corban and the excessive force claims against Lawson-Rulli.
The district court also ruled Corban’s and Holcomb’s use of force was reasonable as a matter of law, citing Marvin’s admission that he was resisting arrest. The district court thus granted summary judgment to Corban and Holcomb on Marvin’s excessive force claims.
A jury returned a verdict for the defendants on the remaining unlawful entry claims against Holcomb and Lawson-Rulli.
On appeal, Marvin argued he deserves a new trial on his unlawful entry claims because the district court erred in giving Jury Instruction 8, which read: “Under the Fourth Amendment, the point where the home begins must be identified by inquiry into reasonable expectations of privacy. A reasonable expectation of privacy exists when (1) the plaintiff exhibits an actual expectation of privacy (subjective) and, (2) the expectation is one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable (objective).”
That “inquiry,” the 7th Circuit opinion says, is not clear-cut.
The instruction was almost an exact quote from the 7th Circuit’s opinion in Sparing v. Village of Olympia Fields, 266 F.3d 684 (7th Cir. 2001), which held that the threshold of the home is a malleable concept.
But the appellate court also commented that more recent Fourth Amendment cases have clarified that the test most often associated with legitimate expectations of privacy “supplements, rather than displaces, the traditional property-based understanding of the Fourth Amendment,” citing Byrd v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 1518 (2018).
Ultimately, the 7th Circuit said it didn’t need to address that exact question, ruling Jury Instruction 8 wasn’t prejudicial to Marvin because Holcomb and Lawson-Rulli never argued to the jury that Marvin relinquished any expectation of privacy in his doorway. Instead, they argued exigent circumstances justified warrantless entry through the doorway.
“It is unquestionably an accurate statement of the law that exigent circumstances can justify warrantless entry,” the opinion says.
Marvin also argued the district court erred in its grant of summary judgment on two of his claims.
First addressing use of force, the 7th Circuit stuck with the district court’s judgment, finding Marvin was trying to create a genuine dispute of material fact by relying on allegations.
Appealing the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Corban and Lawson-Rulli for lack of personal involvement in the unlawful entry and use of excessive force, respectively, Marvin argued the court erred because both men “witnessed,” “condoned” and “failed to act to prevent those violations.”
But that argument also failed, the 7th Circuit ruled, because there can be no 42 U.S.C. § 1983 liability without an underlying constitutional or statutory violation.
Judge Amy St. Eve wrote the opinion in Bowe Marvin v. David Holcomb, et al., 22-2757.
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