U.S. District Court, Maryland, Case Summaries: July 7, 2008

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Jul 7, 2008

The second scenario outlined by the Milstead Court, however, was more analogous to the instant case. In that second situation, the officer's aim is true and his shot hits the intended target, but it turns out that the intended target was actually an innocent bystander whom the officer "believ[ed], although mistakenly, to be the suspect." Milstead, 24 F.3d at 164.

In that situation, as here, a seizure has occurred. Id. However, also as here, that seizure "is not necessarily unreasonable and therefore in violation of the Fourth Amendment." Id.

In Milstead, the court found no Fourth Amendment violation because it concluded that the officer had "probable cause to believe that his use of force was justified", id., under the "rapidly evolving circumstances, id. at 165. In the instant case, it was undisputed that the intended use of the force was justified: Purnell had the right to use his Taser to detain Henry, a suspect fleeing arrest.

The dispositive question was whether, under the circumstances and "filtered through the lens of the officer's perception," id. at 164, it was reasonable for Purnell to believe that he weapon he unholstered and fired was the Taser. If that belief was reasonable, Henry had no viable claim. As the Milstead court stated, "a mistaken understanding of the facts that is reasonable in the circumstances can render a seizure based on the understanding reasonable under the Fourth Amendment." Id. at 165.

It was apparent from the opinion in Purnell II that, in the 4th Circuit's view, the underlying facts of the Henry/Purnell incident, viewed most favorably to Henry, did not give rise to an inference that Purnell's use of his weapon was unreasonable. Otherwise, the court would have ruled (as the district court did) that regardless of additional facts that might be learned from discovery on the training issues, genuine issues of material fact existed as to the reasonableness question.

Nothing in the training that Purnell received demonstrated that the mistake he made when he shot Henry was anything other than an honest one. Accordingly, Purnell's motion for summary judgment was granted.

COMMENTARY: The training that Purnell received concerning the use of the Taser was quite minimal. During the course of training, he handled a Taser a single time, and fired it only once. Moreover, although the record revealed that, prior to the training, the Taser manufacturer knew of three incidents in which an armed officer had unholstered and fired the wrong weapon, during the course of the training there was no discussion about the possibility of erroneous weapon usage.

While it might be contended that Somerset County (Purnell's employer) and/or the Taser manufacturer were negligent in not providing greater training, they were not named as defendants by Henry.