Evidence — relevance

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United States Court of Appeals

Civil

Evidence — relevance

In an excessive force claim against an officer for shooting the defendant, evidence was properly admitted that the plaintiff had five bags of cocaine in his mouth at the time of the shooting.

“The Palmquist intoxication exception is not at issue here—it is uncontroverted that the packets of drugs in Smith’s body remained intact and that he had no traces of drugs in his system at the time of death. Thus no one can, nor does, argue that Smith acted the way he did because of drug intoxication. On the other hand, the packets of drugs in Smith’s mouth made it more likely that Smith acted in the way that Officer Nelson contended he acted as opposed to the way that other witnesses contended he did. The fact that Smith possessed illegal drugs gave him a motive to avoid their discovery— by hiding them in his mouth, for example. This made it more likely that he would initially turn from the officer and hide his hands as he took the drugs from his pockets and placed them in his mouth. It also made it more likely that Smith might engage in a flight or fight response—either turning away from the police, as he seemed to have done initially, or turning toward the officer and grabbing for his gun. In this case, unlike in Sherrod or Palmquist, the evidence of the deceased’s behavior was highly contested. Under Officer Nelson’s version of events, Smith turned away from him, refused to show his hands, and then Smith eventually turned back toward Officer Nelson and grabbed his gun. Under the estate’s version of the events, Smith immediately complied with Nelson’s command to raise his hands, turned and faced Officer Nelson with his hands raised, but nevertheless Officer Nelson shot him at point-blank range.”

Affirmed.

09-2645 Common v. City of Chicago

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Kennelly, J., Rovner, J.