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00SL2
F L I N T O I D
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mlive.com
Another View: Reopen Flint City Jail with 2-mill tax to ensure there are consequences for all crimes
Published: Sunday, April 17, 2011, 1:15 PM
Community Voice | Flint Journal Letters By Community Voice | Flint Journal Letters The Flint Journal
By Dayne Walling
On May 3, we have an opportunity to create a safer community. We have an opportunity to put more criminals behind bars and keep our police working. We have an opportunity to enhance the quality of life for citizens all across this city.
There are ongoing public safety challenges in our community for which there are no easy solutions. However, on May 3 we have an opportunity to send a message to criminals that lawlessness in this community will no longer be tolerated. There will be consequences for even the smallest misdemeanor crimes when the Flint City Jail is opened with new millage funds.
A yes vote on the jail millage means there will be funds dedicated to operating the city jail for the first time in Flint. These funds are not subject to budget cuts. The 2-mill proposal would add about $40 a year on the tax bill of an average homeowner in Flint.
When the city jail is open, crime goes down. It is a proven fact. It serves as a holding facility for up to 72 hours for offenders. The city jail is the consequence for those involved in prostitution, loitering, illegal scrapping, breaking and entering and other misdemeanor crimes.
Right now, when our police officers arrest someone accused of these crimes, in most cases they are given an appearance ticket and released. Too often these same offenders go out and continue committing these crimes.
It is time that law-abiding citizens who care about this community take a stand. Violent offenders are housed at the Genesee County Jail, and there has to be a place for other offenders. Opening the city jail is our opportunity to get these offenders off our streets and break the cycle of increasing lawlessness. When there are consequences for law-breaking, our community will be better off.
When you go to the polls on May 3, think about the opportunity we have to begin to turn the corner on our public safety challenges. Opening the city jail does not mean that crime in Flint will cease to exist. We still have a long way to go to address crime fueled by drugs, guns and domestic violence in our community.
However, opening the city jail will reduce crime that could lead to more violent crime if not addressed. Opening the city jail is an invaluable resource for our police officers. Opening the city jail will help our officers get more lawbreakers off our streets. Opening the city jail is good for Flint and its residents.
On May 3, say yes to a safer Flint by voting yes on the jail millage.
– Dayne Walling is mayor of the city of Flint.
© 2011 MLive.com. All rights reserved.
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Source:
http://www.mlive.com/opinion/flint/index.ssf/2011/04/another_view_reopen_flint_city.html
Last edited by 00SL2 on Sun Apr 17, 2011 1:15 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Sun Apr 17, 2011 1:08 pm |
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00SL2
F L I N T O I D
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One problem with this is that it only holds perpetrators for 72 hours.
Another problem is that I doubt there are enough homeowners paying taxes to fund this proposal. |
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Sun Apr 17, 2011 1:10 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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The jail was useful for stings on prostitution and other crimes. There was a belief in the community that out of town operations came to Flint because there were no consequences. Prostitutes only got appearance tickets.
Many misdemeanor warrants are never followed up on because there is no place to house the offenders. This is a constant source of frustration for officers who stop these individuals and find multiple warrants and the jail cannot or will not take them.
A notorious case in Flint involved Steverson Davis, who allegedly broke out windows at the Rescue Mission. The jail refused to lodge him, although he was obviously intoxicated, and he threatened to return to the mission.
Here the story gets murky. Either he requested to go to a relatives house near Bray and Carpenter or the cops just dumped him there so he would have further to walk back to the mission. This had been a practice used by other officers in the past.
The man walked into the path of an auto and was struck and paralyzed. He sued the city. This case played a role in the removal of then Ombudsman Buchanan.
Do we need a lock up? I believe so, but the problem then becomes how do we fund it? Crimes numbers were down for the time the lockup was in operation and we may never know if the lockup brought this about.
Why has the cost of maintaining the lockup declined? It was greater under Williamson.
The sheriff believes and has stated the lockup will increase the numbers in his jail. The county did not build a jail large enough. How many Flint residents are among the people who need to be housed in the county jail and does the city overburden the system? |
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Sun Apr 17, 2011 7:12 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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With a lockup this case could have been prevented!
143 F.3d 1021: Steverson Davis, Plaintiff-appellee, v. Patrick Brady and Shawn Murphy, Defendants-appellants
Share | United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit. - 143 F.3d 1021
Argued March 13, 1998.Decided May 8, 1998.Rehearing and Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc Denied June 29, 1998
George R. Hamo (argued and briefed), Flint, MI, John L. Cote, Willingham & Cote, East Lansing, MI, for Plaintiff-Appellee.
Frederick L. Schmoll, III (argued and briefed), Michael J. Gildner, Gault Davison Law Offices, Flint, MI, for Defendants-Appellants.
Before: KEITH, SUHRHEINRICH, and DAUGHTREY, Circuit Judges.OPINION
DAUGHTREY, Circuit Judge.
1 Defendant police officers Patrick Brady and Shawn Murphy appeal the district court's denial of summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds. The plaintiff, Steverson Davis, alleges that the defendants violated his substantive due process rights by placing him at risk of harm when they abandoned him in an inebriated condition on an unfamiliar highway. The district court found that the record presented a claim sufficient to defeat summary judgment, including the establishment of a duty not to subject Davis to danger, and that the defendant officers acted with deliberate indifference to the threat of injury to Davis. We agree and affirm.
2
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Having consumed a substantial amount of Thunderbird wine and a half-pint of vodka, Davis attempted to enter the Carriage Town Mission in Flint, where he had been living. The mission staff refused him entry due to his inebriated condition. Davis became violent and broke some of the mission's windows. The mission staff called the police.
4 Officers Murphy and Brady responded to the call. At 6:48 that evening, they arrested Davis for intoxication and disorderly conduct and brought him to the Flint police station. Davis was subsequently transferred to the county jail, but that facility was full. The desk sergeant therefore instructed Officers Murphy and Brady to "release Davis at the county jail if he was not so drunk that he would be a hazard to himself." No permission to transport Davis was requested by the officers nor given by their sergeant. Disregarding these instructions, the officers handcuffed Davis and placed him back in the squad car.
5 The officers then drove Davis to Bray Road in Genesee Township, which was located outside the city limits of Flint, and let Davis out of the squad car at the entrance to Bluebell Beach. Bray Road is a 55-mile-per-hour speed limit area, with few street lights and no sidewalk. The officers insist that they released Davis at this location at Davis's request, but Davis denies making such a request, and contends that the officers brought him to Genesee Township to "teach [him] a lesson." In his account of the situation, the officers threw him out of the car, forced him to the ground, called him a "smart ass," and told him to find his own way back into the city.
6 After the officers left, Davis headed for some nearby houses, where he asked one of the residents to call the police. Genesee Township Police Officer Bruce Carlson responded to the call at 9:03 p.m. According to Officer Carlson, he offered to give Davis a ride or to call someone for him, suggesting an ambulance, a taxi, and a friend or relative. Officer Carlson insists that Davis rejected assistance, calling him "just another damn white officer." In contrast, Davis maintains that he asked Officer Carlson for a ride back to Flint and that Carlson refused. Officer Carlson testified that he did not have sufficient contact during this time to ascertain whether Davis was drunk.
7 Officer Carlson left at 9:12 p.m., and Davis was hit by a car approximately seven minutes later, sustaining serious permanent injuries. One of his legs was amputated, and he is now a semi-quadriplegic.
8 Officers Brady and Murphy contend that Davis was sober when they released him on Bray Road. However, the parties have stipulated that Davis's blood alcohol level was still .176 at 10:00 p.m., when he arrived at the hospital after the accident. A toxicologist testified that at the time Davis was released on Bray Road, his blood alcohol would have been between .191 and .206, and that at that level, he would have shown signs of perception impairment, disorientation, confusion, and lack of coordination. In addition, other witnesses who saw Davis on Bray Road testified at trial that he was staggering, slurring his words, seemed drunk, and could hardly stand up.
9 Davis filed a lawsuit against Officers Brady and Murphy for alleged violations of his civil rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The officers moved for summary judgment, which was granted in part and denied in part. The officers now appeal the district court's denial of summary judgment.
10
STANDARD OF REVIEW
11 A denial of summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds is reviewed de novo. Washington v. Newsom, 977 F.2d 991, 993 (6th Cir.1992), cert. denied, 507 U.S. 1031, 113 S.Ct. 1848, 123 L.Ed.2d 472 (1993). When analyzing a qualified immunity issue, we must first determine whether the plaintiff has shown a violation of a constitutionally protected right. Megenity v. Stenger, 27 F.3d 1120, 1124 (6th Cir.1994). If so, the second step is to determine whether the right is so "clearly established" that a "reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right." Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3039, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987).
12
DISCUSSION
13 Davis alleges that the officers violated his right to "substantive due process" under the Fourteenth Amendment when they deposited him on a dark, busy highway. Because Davis seeks to hold the officers liable in their individual capacities under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, he must show not only that the officers' actions were unconstitutional, but also that they should have known at that time that they were violating his rights. "[G]overnment officials performing discretionary functions generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). "It is not necessary that the very action have been previously held unlawful but, given the preexisting law, the unlawfulness of the conduct must have been apparent." Barton v. Norrod, 106 F.3d 1289, 1293 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 118 S.Ct. 341, 139 L.Ed.2d 265 (1997) (citation omitted).
14 We must therefore determine whether the individual officers violated law that was clearly established in 1994 when they abandoned Davis on the dark, busy highway. When, as here, a plaintiff alleges that state actors violated substantive due process by placing him at risk of harm from a third party, the court is presented with two distinct, though interrelated inquiries:
15
First, in order to find for the plaintiff, the court must conclude that the plaintiff and the state actors had a sufficiently direct relationship such that the defendants owed [him or] her a duty not to subject [him or] her to danger. Second, the court must also conclude that the officers were sufficiently culpable to be liable under a substantive due process theory.
16 Stemler v. City of Florence, 126 F.3d 856, 866 (6th Cir.1997), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 118 S.Ct. 1796, 140 L.Ed.2d 936 (1998).
17
A. Taking Davis Into Custody Established a Duty
18 With respect to the first question, we start from the proposition that although the state does not owe its citizens a constitutional duty to keep them from harm in all circumstances, such a duty will arise when the state has acted to deprive an individual of certain indicia of liberty:
19
When the State by the affirmative exercise of its power so restrains an individual's liberty that it renders him unable to care for himself, and at the same time fails to provide for his basic human needs--e.g., food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and reasonable safety--it transgresses the substantive limits on state action set by the Eighth Amendment and the Due Process Clause. The affirmative duty to protect arises not from the State's knowledge of the individual's predicament or from its expressions of intent to help him, but from the limitation which it has imposed on his freedom to act on his own behalf.
20 DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dep't of Soc. Servs., 489 U.S. 189, 200, 109 S.Ct. 998, 1005-06, 103 L.Ed.2d 249 (1989) (citation omitted).
21 In the present case, Davis's complaint alleges--and the record can reasonably be read to show--that after taking Davis into custody, the defendant officers dropped Davis off on a dark, busy highway and left him there against his will. In so doing, the defendant officers took the affirmative act of restraining Davis's freedom to act on his own behalf, and consequently imposed upon themselves a duty to ensure that they were not placing him in danger.
22 The defendants rely on Foy v. City of Berea, 58 F.3d 227 (6th Cir.1995), to argue that they did not infringe upon Davis's liberty. In Foy, the plaintiff had been drinking in a dormitory with his friends. After receiving a complaint, the police came to the dormitory and told them, "Get in your car and get out of here or somebody is getting arrested." Id. at 228. Although the police had told them only to leave the premises, the plaintiff and his friends decided to take a lengthy drive from Berea, Kentucky, to Crestline, Ohio. Forty-five minutes into that journey, the driver crashed the car, killing Foy. Id. This court held that the defendant police officers had not violated Foy's right to substantive due process, since there was no restraint on his liberty that had caused him to take the trip that resulted in his death. Id. at 230. Foy, however, is inapposite. The distinguishing factor between Foy and this case is that the officers never took the men in Foy into custody and, therefore, never assumed a duty to provide for their safety.
23 The defendant officers argue that they owed no duty of care to Davis because his injuries occurred after they released him from custody and they did nothing to prevent Davis from caring for himself. The defendant officers cite DeShaney, 489 U.S. at 201, 109 S.Ct. at 1006, for this proposition. In DeShaney, the mother of a child who had been beaten by his father brought a civil rights action against social workers and local officials who had received complaints that the child was being abused by his father but had not removed him from his father's custody. The Supreme Court held that the state had no constitutional duty to protect the child because "the harms [the child] suffered did not occur while he was in the State's custody, but while he was in the custody of his natural father ..." Id. The Supreme Court held that "in the substantive due process analysis, it is the State's affirmative act of restraining the individual's freedom to act on his own behalf--through incarceration, institutionalization, or other similar restraint of personal liberty--which is the 'deprivation of liberty' triggering the protections of the Due Process Clause, not its failure to act to protect his liberty interests against harms inflicted by other means." Id. at 200, 109 S.Ct. at 1006. Even though the state had previously taken the child into custody, the Supreme Court held that "the State does not become the permanent guarantor of an individual's safety by having once offered him shelter." Id. at 201, 109 S.Ct. at 1006.
24 DeShaney, however, is not dispositive here. Language in that opinion suggests that the state may owe a duty to individuals in certain non-custodial settings:
25
While the State may have been aware of the dangers that Joshua faced in the free world, it played no part in their creation, nor did it do anything to render him any more vulnerable to them. That the State once took temporary custody of Joshua does not alter the analysis, for when it returned him to his father's custody, it placed him in no worse position than that in which he would have been had it not acted at all; the State does not become the permanent guarantor of an individual's safety by having once offered him shelter.
26 489 U.S. at 201, 109 S.Ct. at 1006. Significantly, we have previously suggested that this language in DeShaney stands for the proposition that "a duty to protect can arise in a noncustodial setting if the state does anything to render an individual more vulnerable to danger." Gazette v. City of Pontiac, 41 F.3d 1061, 1065 (6th Cir.1994). Unlike the situation in DeShaney, moreover, the defendant officers in this case placed Davis in a more dangerous situation than he was prior to their interference, when they drove him outside the Flint city limits and abandoned him on a dark and dangerous highway in an unfamiliar area.
27 Likewise, the defendant officers' contention that the release of Davis from their custody terminated their duty is unavailing. The holding in Stemler, 126 F.3d at 867-868, established that an officer's duty exists even after the custodial relationship has ended. In Stemler, this court determined that police officers violated a woman's substantive due process rights when they took her from a car in which she had been riding and placed her in a truck driven by her abusive, intoxicated boyfriend, who wrecked shortly thereafter. The court found that the woman was deprived of her liberty (and ultimately her life) without due process when the police threatened to arrest her if she did not leave with her boyfriend and, subsequently, physically placed her in his truck. Even though the woman was out of police custody when she was killed, we held that the police had a duty to protect her by focusing on the fact that she was in the officers' custody at the time she was forced into the truck. Id. at 869.
28 Just as the police in Stemler had a duty to the plaintiff because they put her in harm's way, the defendant officers here owed Davis a duty. Based on Stemler, the fact that Davis's injuries resulted after the defendant officers released him from custody is not controlling. What is key is that the defendant officers put Davis in a situation, while in custody, and allegedly against his will, that caused his injuries.
29 Finally, the defendant officers assert that in 1994 there was no clearly established right not to be abandoned by the police and rely on Walton v. City of Southfield, 995 F.2d 1331, 1337 (6th Cir.1993), to support this assertion. Walton, however, is inapposite. The plaintiffs in Walton were child passengers in a car driven by a woman who was arrested. The children were left to find a way home on their own. The court held that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity because DeShaney did not recognize a passenger's clearly established right not to be abandoned by the police after the arrest of the driver of the vehicle in which they were riding. Id. at 1337. The court also stated, however, that DeShaney did not foreclose the possibility that such a right existed if "abandonment in a forlorn place" was connected with the state's restraint of an individual's personal liberty. Id.
30 Unlike the children in Walton, Davis was in custody when he was abandoned. Because the defendant officers had custody of Davis, they owed him a duty of protection that was violated when they abandoned him, in the words of Walton, in a "forlorn place."
31
B. Defendants Violated Their Duty to Davis by Exhibiting Deliberate Indifference
32 The determination that the officers owed Davis a duty of care does not end the court's inquiry, for it must also assess what duty of care they owed, and whether they breached that duty.
33 In cases such as this one, where the plaintiff suffered injury as a result of being placed in the state's custody, it has consistently and uncontroversially been the rule that a constitutional claim arises when the injury occurred as a result of the state's deliberate indifference to the risk of such an injury. See Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 834, 114 S.Ct. 1970, 1977, 128 L.Ed.2d 811 (1994); Wilson v. Seiter, 501 U.S. 294, 303, 111 S.Ct. 2321, 2326-27, 115 L.Ed.2d 271 (1991); Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 106, 97 S.Ct. 285, 292, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976). Although each of these cases involved an Eighth Amendment claim raised by a prisoner, we have repeatedly held that at least the same standard applies to substantive due process claims raised by other persons in the custody of the state. See, e.g., Durham v. Nu'Man, 97 F.3d 862, 869 (6th Cir.1996) (patient at state mental hospital), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 1337, 137 L.Ed.2d 496 (1997); Lintz v. Skipski, 25 F.3d 304, 306 (6th Cir.1994) (children in state foster home); Heflin v. Stewart County, 958 F.2d 709, 713-14 (6th Cir.1992) (pretrial detainee); Meador v. Cabinet of Human Resources, 902 F.2d 474, 476 (6th Cir.1990) (children in state foster home).
34 In the present case, Davis's complaint, as well as the evidence in the record, when read in the light most favorable to Davis, supports a claim that the defendant officers acted with deliberate indifference to the threat of injury to him. They knew, or reasonably should have known, that Davis was drunk and unable to care for himself. Independent witnesses testified under oath that Davis was staggering after the defendant officers released him, slurring his words, seemed drunk, and could hardly stand up. It was stipulated at trial that Davis's blood alcohol level was .176 percent at 10:00 p.m. when he arrived at the hospital after the accident. Additionally, a toxicologist placed his blood alcohol level at the time of the improper police release at approximately .20 percent. At such a level, expert testimony indicated, Davis would have had perception impairment, disorientation, confusion, and lack of coordination. Nevertheless, the defendant officers chose to act affirmatively to place Davis in harm's way.
35
CONCLUSION
36 When a plaintiff alleges that state actors violated substantive due process by placing him at risk of harm from a third party, he must demonstrate, first, that the defendants owed him a duty not to subject him to danger and, second, that the defendants violated this duty by exhibiting deliberate indifference to the plaintiff's well-being. In this case, the taking of Davis into custody triggered the defendant officers' duty to protect Davis. There is sufficient evidence in the record to demonstrate that the defendant officers violated this duty when they exhibited deliberate indifference to Davis's well-being by abandoning him, in his inebriated state, on an unfamiliar, dark, and busy highway. Accordingly, we AFFIRM the district court's denial of the defendant officers' motion for summary judgment and REMAND the case for further proceedings.
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Sun Apr 17, 2011 7:29 pm |
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Dave Starr
F L I N T O I D
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| I have no faith in Walling or any other inhabitant of city hall to use any funds for their intended purpose. Voting NO. |
_________________
I used to care, but I take a pill for that now.
Pushing buttons sure can be fun.
When a lion wants to go somewhere, he doesn’t worry about how many hyenas are in the way.
Paddle faster, I hear banjos. |
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Mon Apr 18, 2011 7:45 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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quote:
Dave Starr schreef:
I have no faith in Walling or any other inhabitant of city hall to use any funds for their intended purpose. Voting NO.
You are probably right as walling would put one of his appointees in charge of the jail! |
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Mon Apr 18, 2011 7:41 pm |
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FairPlay
F L I N T O I D
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| Raising taxes is a bad idea. The City is spending taxes unwisely, now they need more? JUST SO WE CAN HAVE A JAIL??? |
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Wed Apr 20, 2011 5:59 pm |
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Ted Jankowski
F L I N T O I D
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| I would vote for a tax increase to BUILD a jail and to run a jail. Those who feel it has little impact haven't followed crime in Flint. This would cut crime in half in six months. If it was permanently put in place and those tax dollars used only for the Jail. I'd be all for it. I'd vote and support it. but I know Flint government. I'm not convinced yet that this tax would be used as designated. Just like the Neighborhood policing and Parks Tax. I'm not convinced that this tax is being used appropriately. |
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Thu Apr 21, 2011 3:18 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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| Walling is now sending out robo calla to support the millage. |
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Thu Apr 21, 2011 6:35 pm |
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cleartheair
F L I N T O I D
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| I initially thought this was a good idea, but after thinking about it, I would be willing to bet that the money will go astray and end up Paying "Boat Anchor" Montle's paycheck, therefore I will not be voting for it. |
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Thu Apr 21, 2011 8:58 pm |
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tmonahan01
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| my first impression is to vote in favor. I am paying a lot less in taxes just cause the houses value is so very low so I would be willing to increase the tax base to make up for the lost revenue. I was and still am convinced the language doesn't allow the misappropriation to other city services so it would go to the operation of jail. That said, some comments have changed my tune. I do believe that the current mayor, who will most likely get re-elected since no other candidate has come forward even though many have taken out petitions, will assign some crony he is beholden to to run it into the ground. I lost faith in the mayor very early in his term. Actually it was as soon as he made Eason, an absolutely horrid choice, the city administrator. He will do the same with who ever he "assigns" to run the jail. I am not willing to fund a political payback period! So, at this time, my vote will also be no but would revisit it if we get a new administration. One that doesn't need on the job training! |
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Fri Apr 22, 2011 8:05 am |
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Ted Jankowski
F L I N T O I D
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quote:
cleartheair schreef:
I initially thought this was a good idea, but after thinking about it, I would be willing to bet that the money will go astray and end up Paying "Boat Anchor" Montle's paycheck, therefore I will not be voting for it.
THat is exactly my concern. |
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Fri Apr 22, 2011 1:05 pm |
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Crowfeeder
F L I N T O I D
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I agree.If an new administration gets in I would favor a small income tax hike to fund the city jail.Not befor.
I too lost faith in this Mayor early on.This summer will be a test of us all. |
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Fri Apr 22, 2011 1:32 pm |
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Ted Jankowski
F L I N T O I D
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| It's not faith in the Mayor I've lost. It;s the System. If there is something in the Tax that says we get it back if the Jail closes I'd be for it. |
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Sat Apr 23, 2011 12:44 pm |
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ronald barry robinson
F L I N T O I D
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| VOTE NO - SEE MY POST ON 2011 BALLOT PROPOSAL |
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Sun Apr 24, 2011 11:04 pm |
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