Davis v. White, No. 16-1806 (8th Cir. 2017)
Annotate this CasePlaintiff filed suit against the City and three police officers, alleging that they beat him while he was handcuffed. A jury found for the officers. The Eighth Circuit affirmed and held that the district court did not clearly err by denying plaintiff's Batson challenge where the officers offered a race-neutral rationale that the district court found credible; the district court did not abuse its discretion by admitting hospital records that were cumulative and harmless; the district court did not err by excluding evidence of racist emails sent and received by an officer given the minimal probative value of the officer's bias and the potential unfair prejudice to the other defendant officers who were not associated with the emails; and the district court did not abuse its discretion by refusing to sanction the officers with an adverse inference instruction for spoliation of evidence.
Court Description: Benton, Author, with Loken and Riley, Circuit Judges] Civil case - Civil rights. The district court did not err in denying plaintiff's Batson challenge as the defendants offered a legitimate, race-neutral ground for the strike; hospital records showing plaintiff was belligerent and uncooperative when brought in for treatment after the alleged incident of excessive force were cumulative of other evidence and their admission, if error, was harmless; no error in refusing to admit evidence that an officer who failed to preserve a video had received and sent racist emails, as evidence of his bias was only minimally probative and the danger of unfair bias to the defendants, who were not associated with the emails, warranted exclusion of the evidence; the district court did not err in refusing to sanction the defendants with an adverse inference instruction concerning the destruction of the videotape.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.