Excessive Force Was Not Used in Arrest of Mentally Ill Man Who Died Shortly After Restraint

Facts of the Case

Mr. Roell, a man with chronic mental illness, had been noncompliant with his psychotropic medication since June 2013. While his wife was away in August 2013, he relapsed; at one point, he threw a flower pot through his neighbor's window. The neighbor found Mr. Roell outside, naked except for a t-shirt. While the neighbor tried to talk to Mr. Roell, he pulled out the window screen and threw it at her. Feeling threatened, she had her son call 9-1-1.

Two sheriff's deputies arrived and found Mr. Roell standing by the broken window, holding a garden hose with a metal nozzle and a garden basket. According to their testimony, they told Mr. Roell, “Show us your hands,” and he “charged at them at a ‘pretty brisk walk,’ … still holding the hose and the garden basket” (Roell, p 477). Witnesses described Mr. Roell as muttering unintelligible phrases and talking about “water.” The neighbor's son recalled that Mr. Roell repeatedly stated that he did not have a weapon.

Deputies continued to make attempts to instruct Mr. Roell to stop and get on the ground, or risk being tased. Because Mr. Roell resisted physical restraint from the deputies, one deputy tased him, with little effect. A third deputy arrived, but all were unable to restrain Mr. Roell due to his combativeness. Accordingly, one deputy deployed his taser twice more. Once restrained, Mr. Roell went limp and began to snore. The deputies noted that twice Mr. Roell woke up, thrashed around, and then returned to snoring before they observed that he had no pulse or respirations. Despite resuscitation efforts by emergency medical services, Mr. Roell was pronounced dead at the hospital. The deputy coroner recorded the cause of death as “excited delirium due to schizoaffective disorder,” and the manner natural (Roell, p 478).

Mrs. Roell sued Hamilton County, its commissioners, the sheriff, and the three deputies. There were three claims: that the deputies used excessive force, violating Mr. Roell's Fourth Amendment rights (§ 1983 claim); that there was intentional discrimination and failure to accommodate Mr. Roell's known mental disability (ADA claim); and a state-law claim of wrongful death. The district court granted summary judgment to the defendants in relation to these causes of action. Mrs. Roell appealed the summary judgment under her § 1983 and ADA claims.

Ruling and Reasoning

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the district court's decision, 2 to 1. The district court had held that, with respect to the § 1983 claim, the deputies were entitled to qualified immunity, rendering the sheriff and Hamilton County not liable as well. In considering this appeal, the appellate court ruled on two matters: the defense claim of qualified immunity, and the use of excessive force. This immunity defense “protects government officials ‘from liability for civil damages in regard to their conduct that does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known’” (Roell, p 480). The defense requires two elements: whether the officer violated the plaintiff's constitutional rights under the Fourth Amendment, and whether that right was clearly established at the time of the incident.

For the § 1983 claim, the appellate court relied on Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989), employing a three-factor objective reasonableness test: severity of the crime, immediacy of threat, and resisting arrest. The court emphasized that “[t]he ‘reasonableness’ of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight” (Roell, p 486, citing Graham, p 396). The court cited Ohio's definition of a deadly weapon: “any instrument, device or thing capable of inflicting death and designed or specially adaptable for use as a weapon, or possessed, carried, or used as a weapon” (Roell, p 480).

Because Mr. Roell was experiencing acute mental illness, the deputies were required to consider his diminished capacity in deciding whether to use force. But no case law precludes the use of all force against someone with diminished capacity. Therefore, the court ruled, the deputies acted reasonably, and some degree of force was justified given the circumstances.

Next, the court considered whether Mr. Roell's Fourth Amendment rights were established at the time of his arrest; specifically, whether a reasonable officer would have been aware that using force on an individual with diminished capacity, despite posing a threat to others, would have been excessive. Here, the court sided with the defendants' qualified immunity. To address Hamilton County's accountability under § 1983, the court recognized that a county cannot be liable for this claim unless a constitutional violation by its officers is established.

The court also affirmed the ruling that Mrs. Roell failed to establish a viable claim under the ADA because she did not produce any evidence that the defendants intentionally discriminated against Mr. Roell due to his mental illness. Mrs. Roell argued that steps to de-escalate the situation should have been taken, but whether Title II of the ADA applies in the context of an arrest had not been addressed by the courts. Notwithstanding, based on the facts of the case, such as the deputies facing challenging circumstances while attempting to restrain Mr. Roell, Hamilton County was entitled to summary judgment; the proposed accommodations, such as verbal de-escalation, were unfeasible given Mr. Roell's hostile presentation.

Dissent

Judge Moore dissented on the matter of granting summary judgment to the three sheriff's deputies in Mrs. Roell's § 1983 claim. The essence of her reasoning was: “If it is apparent to officers that an individual is unarmed and mentally unstable, then the officers must de-escalate and may not use as much force as would be permissible when confronted with an individual who was either mentally stable or armed” (Roell, p 490). Summary judgment is not appropriate, she continued, when facts are ambiguous; for example, whether Mr. Roell was armed with a weapon and the degree of his aggressiveness.