Summary
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for Des Moines officials in Monica Perkins’s claims arising from the use of a less-lethal impact round during a 2020 protest-related riot. The court held that Deputy Tart did not seize Perkins under the Fourth Amendment because the force did not objectively manifest an intent to restrain her, and that his conduct did not violate substantive due process. Because there was no underlying constitutional violation, the court also rejected Perkins’s failure-to-intervene claim against Sergeant Nydam and Officer Newman.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether Deputy Tart's firing of a less-lethal impact round at Perkins constituted a seizure under the Fourth Amendment.
- Whether Deputy Tart violated Perkins's substantive due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment by using the less-lethal impact round.
- Whether Sergeant Nydam and Officer Newman could be liable for failing to intervene in Deputy Tart's use of force.
Holdings
- Deputy Tart did not seize Perkins within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment because the force did not objectively manifest an intent to restrain her; it was intentionally deployed for the purpose of dispersing people and establishing control of the riot area.
- Deputy Tart's use of a single less-lethal impact round did not constitute a substantive due process violation because Perkins failed to show the requisite intent to harm and the conduct did not rise to the conscience-shocking level.
- Nydam and Newman were entitled to summary judgment because there was no underlying constitutional violation by Deputy Tart.
Key quotations
“The “appropriate inquiry is whether the challenged conduct objectively manifests an intent to restrain.”” (at 5)
“Deputy Tart’s conduct at issue here did not “objectively manifest[] an intent to restrain” Perkins.” (at 6)
““Only the most severe violations of individual rights that result from the brutal and inhumane abuse of official power rise” to the “conscience-shocking level.”” (at 7)
Factual background
During a May 31, 2020 protest that became a riot near Merle Hay Mall in Des Moines, law enforcement officers were ordered to clear the area and authorized to use less-lethal force. Deputy Jason Tart, operating from an armored Bearcat vehicle, fired a single less-lethal impact round that struck Monica Perkins's hand while she stood approximately sixty to seventy-five feet away in a busy four-lane road, arguing with another driver. Perkins suffered a broken finger, then retrieved her phone, returned to the vehicle, and left without further interaction with officers.
Procedural history
Perkins sued the City of Des Moines and several police and sheriff's officials after Deputy Tart struck her hand with a less-lethal impact round during a protest-related riot-clearing operation. The district court granted defendants summary judgment, concluding that Perkins was not seized under the Fourth Amendment, that Tart was alternatively entitled to qualified immunity, that Tart's conduct did not shock the conscience for purposes of substantive due process, and that the failure-to-intervene claims lacked an underlying constitutional violation. The Eighth Circuit reviewed the qualified-immunity-based summary judgment ruling de novo and affirmed.