Procknow v. Curry, No. 15-2046 (8th Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CasePlaintiff filed suit alleging that officers used excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment when attempting to arrest plaintiff for an alleged parole violation. The jury ultimately returned a verdict in favor of defendants. The court concluded that the district court did not err in admitting evidence of plaintiff's convictions for impersonating a peace officer and attempted first degree murder where the conviction for impersonating a peace officer was a crime involving deception which had probative value outweighing any prejudice and where plaintiff failed to show that the use of the conviction for attempted first degree murder for impeachment purposes substantially influenced the jury's verdict. The court also concluded that the district court did not err in denying plaintiff's motion for judgment as a matter of law where the court could not say that no reasonable juror could have concluded that an officer's third application of a taser was an objectively reasonable approach to ensuring that plaintiff was incapacitated and unable to harm him or the other officers. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.
Court Description: Kelly, Author, with Shepherd and Beam, Circuit Judges] Civil case - Civil rights. In this excessive force case, the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting evidence of certain of defendant's prior convictions; admission of a prior murder conviction was also properly admitted as substantive evidence relevant to the officers' use of force in plaintiff's arrest; the district court did not err in denying plaintiff's motion for a judgment of matter of law concerning the officers' third application of a taser; given the evidence in the case, this court could not say no reasonable juror could have concluded the application of the taser was an objectively unreasonable approach to ensuring that plaintiff was incapacitated and incapable of harming the officers.
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