United States District Court, W.D. Kentucky, Paducah
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Thomas
B. Russell, Senior Judge.
This
matter is before the Court on Defendant James Eakes's
Original and Amended Motion for Judgment of Acquittal or, in
the alternative, for New Trial, [R. 47; 60]. The United
States of America, (“the Government”), responded
to Eakes's original motion, [R. 48]. No further pleadings
are necessary. This matter is ripe for adjudication. For the
reasons stated herein, Eakes's Original and Amended
Motion for Judgment of Acquittal or, in the alternative, for
New Trial, [R. 47; 60], are DENIED.
The
instant motion arises from a jury's conviction of Eakes
for willfully depriving an inmate, L.B., of the right be free
from cruel and unusual punishment while acting as a deputy at
the Fulton County Detention Center (“FCDC”). [R.
37 at 32.] On May 16, 2019, Eakes submitted a Motion for
Judgment of Acquittal or, in the alternative, for New Trial,
[R. 47]. Pursuant to the Court's Order, [R. 58], Eakes
filed an Amended Motion for Judgment of Acquittal or, in the
alternative, for New Trial, [R. 60], which included
transcript citations, on August 26, 2019.
DISCUSSION
Eakes
first argues for a judgment of acquittal pursuant to Federal
Rule of Criminal Procedure 29(c); then, in the alternative,
Eakes moves for a new trial pursuant to Federal Rule of
Criminal Procedure 33. [R. 60.] The Court will analyze each
argument in turn. Following this analysis, the Court will
discuss the Remmer hearing held in this case on May
24, 2019, after the Court was made aware of possible juror
misconduct.
I.
Motion for Judgment of Acquittal
In
moving for a judgment of acquittal, Eakes's burden is a
heavy one: the Court must consider the evidence in the light
most favorable to the prosecution, inquiring whether the
evidence offered at trial was sufficient to convince a
rational trier of fact beyond a reasonable doubt that all
elements of the charged crimes have been established.
United States v. Graham, 622 F.3d 445, 448 (6th Cir.
2010). However, the Court must not weigh the evidence,
consider the credibility of witnesses, or substitute its
judgment for that of the jury. United States v.
Chavis, 296 F.3d 450, 455 (6th Cir. 2002). The Court
affords the Government “the benefit of all inferences
which can reasonably be drawn from the evidence, even if the
evidence is circumstantial.” United States v.
Carter, 355 F.3d 920, 925 (6th Cir. 2004). Furthermore,
“[i]t is not necessary that the evidence exclude every
reasonable hypothesis except that of guilt.”
Id. A judgment will be reversed due to insufficient
evidence “only if [the] judgment is not supported by
substantial and competent evidence upon the record as a
whole.” United States v. Barnett, 398 F.3d
516, 522 (6th Cir. 2005).
Eakes
contends that “based on the testimony at trial, no
rational trier of fact could have concluded that Eakes
violated L.B.'s constitutional right to not be subjected
to excessive force.” [R. 60 at 2.] More specifically,
Eakes asserts that he applied force in a good faith effort to
maintain and restore discipline because he was acting in
accordance with an unwritten “Three Warning Taser
Rule” in place at the time of the incident.
[Id.] In response, the Government states that
Eakes's compliance with a policy is irrelevant to whether
he violated L.B.'s Eighth Amendment rights, and,
furthermore, the jury heard and saw ample evidence that
proved this element beyond a reasonable doubt. [R. 48 at 2.]
The
Court agrees with the Government. The Sixth Circuit has found
that a violation of an agency or department policy does not
establish a constitutional violation. See Coitrone v.
Murray, 642 Fed.Appx. 517, 522 (6th Cir. 2016)
(“This court has therefore held that a detective's
alleged violations of police department policy were not
determinative of whether the detective's use of force was
objectively unreasonable.”); Cass v. City of
Dayton, 770 F.3d 368, 377 (6th Cir. 2014) (“[t]he
Supreme Court has been cautious to draw a distinction between
behavior that violates a statutory or constitutional right
and behavior that violates an administrative procedure of the
agency for which the officials work.”); Walker v.
Davis, 643 F.Supp.2d 921, 926 (W.D. Ky. 2009),
aff'd, 649 F.3d 502 (6th Cir. 2011) (“the
fact that Davis's ‘actions may have violated [the
County's] policies' goes to ‘whether he should
be disciplined by the local police force' and not to
whether he ‘violated the Constitution[.]'”).
Also, the Court informed the parties and the jury of this
finding in the agreed upon Jury Instructions, specifically
Instruction Number 15. [R. 37 at 16 (“proof that a
defendant violated policy or acted contrary to training is
relevant to your determination of willfulness, but is not
relevant to your determination that Eakes violated L.B.'s
constitutional rights.”) (emphasis added).]
Therefore, the Court finds Eakes's compliance or
noncompliance with the unwritten policy to be irrelevant.
Additionally,
Eakes asserts that a rational trier of fact could not find
that Eakes had the requisite mental state to commit the
crime, i.e., willfulness. [R. 60 at 4.] In detail, Eakes
argues that he did not act willfully because he was
“following the same three tazer [sic] warning policy
that other deputies at the jail were following at the
time.” [Id.] In support of this argument,
Eakes cites to the testimony of three witnesses from trial.
First, Eakes quotes from the testimony of Ava Little, a
deputy jailer at FCDC. [R. 55 at 2.] Little testified that
there was an unwritten policy at the jail known as the
“Three Taser Warning Rule” in which:
Whenever an inmate is acting up and you can't get any
control of it, which I've seen a lot of that in mental or
coming down off of drugs or something like that, if you
can't talk them down, you gave them one Taser warning,
then you give them a two Taser warning, and then the three
Taser warning, and then you can shoot.
[Id. at 3.] Furthermore, Little implied in her
testimony that the taser training she received was less than
satisfactory. [Id. at 2-3.] Secondly, Eakes cites to
the testimony of Stacy Easley, also a deputy jailer at FCDC.
[R. 54 at 8.] He also testified that, under the former
jailer, there was a “Three Taser Warning Rule, ”
[Id. at 3], and that he was not aware of a written
policy on tasing, [Id. at 22]. Lastly, Eakes cites
to the testimony of Amber Morgan, a former deputy jailer at
FCDC, [R. 52 at 3], who also knew of the “Three Taser
Warning Rule.” [Id. at 31.]
In
response, the Government argues that despite the relevant
testimony concerning this unwritten policy, there was
sufficient evidence presented at trial to allow any rational
trier of fact to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that
Eakes acted willfully. [R. 48 at 3.] First, the Government
recalls that the written FCDC taser policy was presented
before the jury, as well as Eakes's signed
acknowledgement of reviewing that policy, which stated that a
taser was not to be used in a punitive manner. [R. 48 at 3
(citing Government Exhibits 3 and 4).] Secondly, the
Government points to Morgan's testimony in which she
stated that employees underwent taser training and she
“didn't think that you could tase an inmate just
for cursing at you.” [R. 52 at 55.][1] Lastly, the
Government cites the video of the incident itself, which it
claims “shows that the only reason the defendant
re-entered the victim's cell and began tasing him was to
punish the victim for cursing at him from behind the locked
door . . . .” [R. 48 at 3.] Overall, the Government
claims that “[b]ased on his training and the FCDC taser
policies, both written and unwritten, the defendant clearly
knew that tasing the victim was unlawful under the
circumstances, ” which “led the jury to find
beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant acted
willfully.” [Id. at 4.]
Considering
the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution,
the evidence offered at trial was sufficient to convince a
rational trier of fact beyond a reasonable doubt that all
elements of the charged crime were established. Once again,
the Court notes that the Court must not weigh the evidence,
consider the credibility of witnesses, or substitute its
judgment for that of the jury. The Court finds that in the
testimony, FCDC written policy, and video presented at trial,
there was substantial and competent evidence presented upon
the record as a whole to ...