The federal appeals court in Atlanta has partially revived a civil lawsuit filed against three officers involved in the shooting death of a Black man in 2016.
A year ago, Chief U.S. District Judge Timothy Batten dismissed the lawsuit filed by Jamarion Robinson’s mother, Monteria Robinson, and his estate that argued the three officers used excessive force in violation of her son’s rights under the Fourth Amendment, which protects from unreasonable searches and seizures.
But the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday reinstated excessive use-of-force claims against two of the officers — Deputy U.S. Marshal Eric Heinze and Fulton County Detective Danny Doyle, who died in 2020. The court upheld Batten’s decision dismissing Clayton County police Officer Kristopher Hutchens from the case on the grounds of qualified immunity.
Robinson was shot 59 times, with 17 of those bullets exiting his body, authorities said.
“The district court correctly ruled that Officer Hutchens was entitled to qualified immunity. We agree with Ms. Robinson, however, that the district court erred by granting summary judgment to Officers Doyle and Heinze based on qualified immunity,” the opinion released Tuesday states.
Under that legal principle, government officials may not be held liable if there was no clearly established law at the time that said their conduct violated a constitutional right.
On Aug. 5, 2016, Robinson was inside his girlfriend’s East Point apartment when members of the Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force attempted to execute two arrest warrants, one for attempted arson and the other for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Members of the task force knocked on the door and asked Robinson to exit the apartment several times, according to court documents. When he failed to come out, the apartment door was breached. According to court documents, Heinze, Hutchens and Doyle entered and told Robinson to surrender.
Robinson appeared from the second floor and pointed a gun at the officers, prompting them to fire dozens of rounds in response. According to court documents, officers continued to shoot after he fell to the floor near the top of the stairs and then threw a flashbang grenade near him to determine if he remained a threat.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
A video recorded by a bystander does not show what occurred inside the apartment but does provide some clues into what happened after the flashbang detonated. The Court of Appeals agreed with the district court that the video cleared all three officers from any liability but only until the flashbang detonated.
According to court documents, there is no evidence that showed Hutchens fired after the flashbang exploded, but there is a dispute over whether Doyle and Heinze used excessive force by shooting Robinson after he was unresponsive.
According to court documents, a burst of gunfire was audible in the video about 20 seconds after the flashbang went off. The sound in the video is consistent with the burst noise made by the weapon Doyle was carrying that night and could be consistent with the weapon Heinze had if fired in the right sequence, according to court documents.
Robinson’s attorney, Mario Williams, said they are pleased the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals is giving them an opportunity to present their case at trial.
“They said, ‘Look, you’re going to have to face the jury on this. The jury has to determine if you shot him because we have a video that draws everything you said into question because it’s unmistakable gunfire that happened after you threw the flashbang and you said you didn’t fire your weapons,’” Williams told the AJC on Wednesday.
Williams said they feel confident about presenting the case against Heinze and Doyle’s estate to a jury.
“I feel very confident that a jury is not going to like the facts of this case in terms of what the officers have done, because we know a grand jury didn’t like it,” he said.
Although cleared in the civil lawsuit, Hutchens is still facing criminal charges in Robinson’s death.
He and Heinze are both facing charges of felony murder, aggravated assault, burglary, making false statements and violating their oath of office after being indicted by a Fulton County grand jury in October. Both entered not guilty pleas in March.
A hearing is scheduled for next week in federal court in the criminal case. The Fulton County District Attorney’s Office is prosecuting the criminal case against Hutchens and Heinze.
Hutchens, who is still employed by Clayton County police, was placed on administrative assignment with the in-service training unit but was reassigned earlier this month to non-training duty after public outcry.
— Staff writer Asia Burns contributed to this article.
