Smith v. City & County of Honolulu, No. 14-17309 (9th Cir. 2018)
Annotate this CaseHonolulu police obtained a warrant to open a suspicious package, intercepted at the UPS facility; it contained 500 packets labeled “bath salts” and “Spike Max.” Initial testing indicated but did not confirm that they contained methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV), which was illegal in Hawaii. Six days later, the police made a controlled delivery to Smith’s home. After taking the delivery, Smith was arrested without a warrant. Hours later, the police effected controlled buys of MDPV at stores Smith owned. They seized evidence from the house and the stores. Later that day, an officer completed a sworn application; a state judicial determination of probable cause for extended restraint was signed on the second day following the arrest. The police received a lab report that confirmed that the substances were MDPV and informed Smith of his rights. Smith did not provide a statement and was released. Smith was never prosecuted. Smith filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983. During jury deliberations, the court received an emergency phone call indicating that the foreperson had physically threatened another juror. After individual interviews, both attorneys stipulated to the dismissal of one juror. The jury then deliberated for four hours with six, instead of seven, jurors, returning a verdict that rejected Smith's claim of unreasonable detention. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, rejecting Smith’s arguments that the verdict was against the clear weight of the evidence and that misconduct by defense counsel and witnesses painted Smith as a “bad guy.”
Court Description: Civil Rights. The panel affirmed the district court’s judgment, entered following a jury trial, and affirmed the denial of plaintiff’s post-trial motions in a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action alleging that plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated by Honolulu police officers, when following his arrest on drug charges that were subsequently dropped, he was improperly detained for approximately 47 hours. The panel held that plaintiff waived any argument that the district court erred in denying his motion for judgment as a matter of law and his motion for a new trial brought pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(b) and 60. The panel held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion for a new trial brought pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 59. The panel held that because police obtained a probable cause determination within 48 hours following his arrest, plaintiff bore the burden at trial to prove that his detention was unreasonable. The panel agreed with the district court that the jury’s verdict that plaintiff was not unreasonably detained was not against the clear weight of the evidence. The panel held that the district court did not err by rejecting three of plaintiff’s proposed jury instructions. The panel determined that the instruction pertaining to a claim for an unreasonable seizure of property was properly rejected because the claim was not presented in plaintiff’s complaint. SMITH V. CITY & COUNTY OF HONOLULU 3 A second instruction pertaining to defendants’ failure to admit plaintiff to bail was also properly rejected because, among other things, the panel was not persuaded that a jury could have found that bail was unnecessarily delayed after finding that the determination of probable cause was not unreasonably delayed. Finally, the panel held that the district court properly rejected plaintiff’s proposed instruction regarding whether plaintiff knew that the drug in his possession was illegal. The panel held that plaintiff had not established plain error arising from purported attorney and witness misconduct because any improper references made by the attorney and witness were harmless. Finally, the panel held that it was not error for the court to dismiss, with plaintiff’s agreement, a juror who had threatened another juror.
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