7th Circuit upholds dismissal of wrongful death lawsuit filed against Evansville police

(Adobe Stock photo)

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s decision  that Evansville police officers did not use excessive force on a man who died following a violent 2019 struggle, in a case which sparked nationwide publicity and an investigation by the Associated Press and Frontline.

The plaintiffs, the family and estate of Edward Snukis, sued the City of Evansville and three city police officers last year, claiming officers with the Evansville Police Department used excessive force that led to Snukis’ wrongful death.

U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Brookman previously dismissed the suit, finding the force used by officers was reasonable.

The federal appellate court upheld Brookman’s ruling, with Judge Michael Kirsch writing that “Snukis had several opportunities to comply with the officers’ commands but forcefully refused, putting the officers and himself at risk of further harm.”

The lawsuit alleged Officers  Matthew Taylor, Trevor Koontz and Nicholas Hackworth violated Snukis’ Fourth Amendment rights and ultimately caused his death.

Mark Miller of Mark Miller Law Office represented the plaintiffs.

Miller said he and his clients appreciated that the courts are open to claims of wrongful death by police force.

“However, the standards applied in these cases make it nearly impossible to survive a summary judgment motion when the primary often only witness to the use of force is dead.,” Miller said in a lengthy e-mail statement to The Indiana Lawyer.

Miller noted that the  7^th Circuit has said that “because an excessive force case “nearly always requires a jury to sift through disputed factual contentions, and to draw inferences therefrom, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has held on many occasions that summary judgment as a matter of law in excessive force cases should be granted sparingly.”

He said the “special truth,” that summary judgment should not be used to deprive the victim of deadly force from presenting her case at trial, is not considered by the courts when examining the evidence. No weight is given to the silencing of the only witness that could contradict the officer’s testimony.

Miller argued the summary judgment standard as applied rewards excessive force and creates a perverse incentive to silence the victim thereby eliminating the victim’s side of the story and ensuring that summary judgment will be granted.

“At the very least, there should be inferences drawn from the death of the victim that the death was caused by the officers and that the force was excessive.  It would then be the officer’s burden to rebut those inferences.  This would restore balance to the system and require that the officers justify their actions.  It would also incentivize training that would mitigate the use of force that can kill,” Miller added.

Clifford Whitehead, a partner with Ziemer, Stayman, Weitzal & Shoulders, LLP, represented the defendants. Whitehead was unavailable for comment.

According to court documents, on Sept. 13, 2019, officers responded to a Honda dealership where the caller said a man was said to have been impaired and refusing to leave.

The caller had expressed concern that the man could be hit by a vehicle.  Taylor and Koontz—who resigned about two months after the incident—responded to the scene and found Snukis, who matched the description of the man described by callers.

Snukis failed to comply with the officers’ requests, so Koontz grabbed Snukis’s arm and commanded him to turn around.

According to the investigation by AP and Frontline, Snukis asked the officers why he had to put his hands on his head, but instead of answering, Koontz grabbed his arm.

And, a witness reportedly told police that Snukis was just standing before Koontz grabbed his arm.

“I didn’t see him do anything,” she said.

Snukis resisted, and a struggle ensued. Snukis struck Koontz while trying to break free, and at that point, Taylor fired his taser and gave Snukis orders to get on the ground.

After Snukis rolled over and started removing the barbs, Taylor tased him a second time, but Snukis removed the barbs and fled, leading to a foot pursuit, the opinion continued.

Once Snukis tripped and fell, the officers got on top of him and attempted to handcuff him, but Snukis resisted and grabbed at Taylor’s genitals, reached for his holster and took hold of his leg. Taylor then struck Snukis in the head about six times, and the officers were eventually able to get Snukis’s hands behind his back to handcuff him. Office Nicholas Hackworth arrived on the scene at this point.

According to the AP’s investigation, the officers had piled on Snukis’s back and held him face down under their weight, a position, it reported previously, was known for being dangerous.

After Snukis was detained, the officers noticed that he appeared to be unconscious, so they turned him over to check his breathing, the court wrote. Even though they detected breathing, Snukis was unresponsive, so Hackworth called for medical assistance while another officer began applying sternum rubs.

Once the officers could no longer detect a pulse, they removed the handcuffs and began chest compressions on Snukis until medics arrived.

Snukis died later that evening.

The plaintiffs argued that officers used excessive force three distinct times during the encounter: when Koontz grabbed Snukis’s arm, when Taylor tased Snukis and when Taylor repeatedly struck Snukis’s head.

The appellate court did not accept any of the plaintiff’s arguments for excessive force, specifically saying that Taylor’s two uses of his taser were reasonable.

The 7th Circuit also ruled it was reasonable for Taylor to believe that significant force was necessary to subdue Snukis, and that “there is no evidence that Taylor continued striking Snukis after he released his grip on Taylor’s inner thigh.”

Another complaint raised on appeal by the plaintiffs was that the officers failed to attend to Snukis’s medical needs until they had handcuffed him and unreasonably delayed performing chest compressions for about four minutes after Snukis was secured.

The Court denied these arguments as well, saying the officers’ response to Snukis’s medical emergency was “prompt” and “appropriate.”

This story has been updated with Mark Miller’s comments.