Filed: Sep. 08, 2016
Latest Update: Mar. 03, 2020
Summary: UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 15-2581 RAMEZ GHAZZAOUI, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, MARYLAND; OFFICER DWAYNE RAIFORD; CORPORAL DOYLE HOLQUIST, Defendants – Appellees, and ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT, Defendant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore. J. Frederick Motz, Senior District Judge. (1:14-cv-01410-JFM) Submitted: August 26, 2016 Decided: September 8, 2016 Before NIEMEYER,
Summary: UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 15-2581 RAMEZ GHAZZAOUI, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, MARYLAND; OFFICER DWAYNE RAIFORD; CORPORAL DOYLE HOLQUIST, Defendants – Appellees, and ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT, Defendant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore. J. Frederick Motz, Senior District Judge. (1:14-cv-01410-JFM) Submitted: August 26, 2016 Decided: September 8, 2016 Before NIEMEYER, ..
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UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 15-2581
RAMEZ GHAZZAOUI,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
v.
ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, MARYLAND; OFFICER DWAYNE RAIFORD;
CORPORAL DOYLE HOLQUIST,
Defendants – Appellees,
and
ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT,
Defendant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
Maryland, at Baltimore. J. Frederick Motz, Senior District
Judge. (1:14-cv-01410-JFM)
Submitted: August 26, 2016 Decided: September 8, 2016
Before NIEMEYER, SHEDD, and HARRIS, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded by unpublished
per curiam opinion.
Ramez Ghazzaoui, Appellant Pro Se. Hamilton F. Tyler, ANNE
ARUNDEL COUNTY OFFICE OF LAW, Annapolis, Maryland, for
Appellees.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:
Ramez Ghazzaoui filed a complaint asserting claims under
42 U.S.C. § 1983 (2012), the Maryland Declaration of Rights, and
Maryland tort law, against Anne Arundel County, Maryland,
Officer Dwayne Raiford, and Corporal Doyle Holquist
(collectively, “Defendants”), arising out of an altercation in
Ghazzaoui’s home. Ghazzaoui appeals the district court’s orders
granting Defendants’ motion for summary judgment and denying his
motions for recusal and reconsideration. We affirm the district
court’s orders in part, vacate in part, and remand for further
proceedings.
I.
We “review[] de novo [a] district court’s order granting
summary judgment.” Jacobs v. N.C. Admin. Office of the Courts,
780 F.3d 562, 565 n.1 (4th Cir. 2015). “A district court ‘shall
grant summary judgment if the movant shows that there is no
genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is
entitled to judgment as a matter of law.’”
Id. at 568 (quoting
Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a)). “A dispute is genuine if a reasonable
jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party.”
Id. at
568 (internal quotation marks omitted). In determining whether
a genuine issue of material fact exists, “we view the facts and
all justifiable inferences arising therefrom in the light most
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favorable to . . . the nonmoving party.” Id. at 565 n.1
(internal quotation marks omitted). However, “the nonmoving
party must rely on more than conclusory allegations, mere
speculation, the building of one inference upon another, or the
mere existence of a scintilla of evidence.” Dash v. Mayweather,
731 F.3d 303, 311 (4th Cir. 2013).
The district court grouped Ghazzaoui’s claims in two parts.
It first considered Ghazzaoui’s state law claims and his § 1983
false arrest claims. The district court concluded that
Ghazzaoui’s convictions in the state district court, even though
overturned on appeal, conclusively established probable cause,
foreclosing the § 1983 and false arrest claims. Next, the
district court considered Ghazzaoui’s excessive force claims.
While recognizing that the parties disputed what happened, the
court concluded that insufficient evidence supported Ghazzaoui’s
version of events.
We first address Ghazzaoui’s excessive force claims. “A
claim that a police officer employed excessive force is analyzed
under the Fourth Amendment under an objective reasonableness
standard.” Smith v. Ray, 781 F.3d 95, 100-01 (4th Cir. 2015)
(internal quotation marks omitted). “The officer’s actions do
not amount to excessive force if they are objectively reasonable
in light of the facts and circumstances confronting him, without
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regard to his underlying intent or motivation.” Id. at 101
(alterations and internal quotation marks omitted). “In
considering the reasonableness of an officer’s actions, we must
consider the facts at the moment that the challenged force was
employed.”
Id.
Assessing the reasonableness of the officer’s conduct
requires balancing the “nature and quality of the intrusion on
the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests” against the
“governmental interests at stake.”
Id. (internal quotation
marks omitted). This court pays careful attention to the facts
of each case and “three factors in particular: the severity of
the crime at issue, whether the suspect poses an immediate
threat to the safety of the officers or others, and whether he
is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by
flight.”
Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). The ultimate
question is “whether the totality of the circumstances justifies
a particular sort of seizure.”
Id. (alterations and internal
quotation marks omitted).
We conclude that the district court erred in granting
summary judgment to Raiford because, when viewing the evidence
in the light most favorable to Ghazzaoui, a genuine dispute of
material fact exists. While Raiford contends that Ghazzaoui
poked him with a pen and disregarded several orders to sit down,
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Ghazzaoui contends he did not strike Raiford, who gave him no
orders to sit down. Ghazzaoui further contends that Raiford
threw him into a wall and smashed his head into the floor
multiple times, while Raiford contends that they fell to the
floor during their struggle, but that he did not throw Ghazzaoui
into the floor and wall. “Where the determination of what
actually happened depends on an assessment of the credibility of
the respective witnesses, this assessment is a disputed issue of
fact that cannot be resolved on summary judgment.” Zoroastrian
Ctr. & Darb-E-Mehr of Metro. Wash., D.C. v. Rustam Guiv Found.
of N.Y., 822 F.3d 739, 751 (4th Cir. 2016) (alterations and
internal quotation marks omitted). Moreover, photographs of
Ghazzaoui’s injuries are consistent with his account of the
incident. Thus, we conclude that if a jury were to credit
Ghazzaoui’s version of events, it could reasonably return a
verdict in his favor.
However, we conclude that the district court properly
granted summary judgment to Holquist on the excessive force
claim. The evidence showed that Holquist did not see the
beginning of the altercation and only assisted Raiford in
handcuffing Ghazzaoui when it appeared that Ghazzaoui was
actively resisting arrest. We conclude that no reasonable jury
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could find on these facts that Holquist used excessive force
against Ghazzaoui.
Turning to the remainder of the district court’s summary
judgment order, under Maryland law, for a plaintiff to succeed
on a false arrest, false imprisonment, or malicious prosecution
claim, he must establish the absence of probable cause for his
detention or prosecution. See State v. Roshchin, 130 A.3d 453,
459 (Md. 2016); Montgomery Ward v. Wilson,
664 A.2d 916, 922
(Md. 1995). A § 1983 false arrest claim also requires a
plaintiff to establish “that the defendant (1) caused (2) a
seizure of the plaintiff pursuant to legal process unsupported
by probable cause, and (3) criminal proceedings terminated in
plaintiff’s favor.” Evans v. Chalmers,
703 F.3d 636, 647 (4th
Cir. 2012); see also Brooks v. City of Winston-Salem,
85 F.3d
178, 183 (4th Cir. 1996).
“Under Maryland law, a conviction determines conclusively
the existence of probable cause, regardless of whether the
judgment is later reversed in a subsequent proceeding.”
Asuncion v. City of Gaithersburg, No. 95-1159, 1996 WL 1842, at
*2 (4th Cir. Jan. 3, 1996) (unpublished) (citing Zablonsky v.
Perkins,
187 A.2d 314, 316 (Md. 1963)). Maryland recognizes an
exception, however, if “the conviction was obtained by fraud,
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perjury or other corrupt means.” Zablonsky, 187 A.2d at 316
(internal quotation marks omitted).
We conclude that the district court erred in granting
summary judgment to Defendants on these claims because, when
viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Ghazzaoui, a
reasonable jury could find that Raiford committed perjury before
the state district court. Raiford’s account of the incident
conflicts not only with Ghazzaoui’s version of events, but also
with Holquist’s. Moreover, objective evidence lends further
credibility to Ghazzaoui’s and Holquist’s versions of the
events. The photographs of bruises on Ghazzaoui’s arm and red
marks on his face are also consistent with his account.
Additionally, the surveillance video in Ghazzaoui’s bedroom
calls into question Raiford’s description of the beginning of
the encounter. When viewing these facts in favor of Ghazzaoui,
we conclude a reasonable jury could find that Raiford committed
perjury before the state district court. Thus, the district
court erred in granting summary judgment on this basis.
II.
Ghazzaoui raises two other issues on appeal. First, he
contends that the district court failed to rule on all of his
claims. We agree with this contention in part, noting that the
district court’s summary judgment memorandum contains no
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reasoning addressing Ghazzaoui’s claim that Holquist conducted
an unreasonable search of his bedroom. Moreover, the district
court’s reasoning as to the false arrest and excessive force
claims does not dispose of Ghazzaoui’s claim that a subsequent
search was unreasonable. Cf. Covey v. Assessor of Ohio Cty.,
777 F.3d 186, 197 (4th Cir. 2015) (“[C]ivil claims based on
unreasonable searches do not necessarily imply that the
resulting criminal convictions were unlawful.”). Accordingly,
we think it prudent to allow the district court to address this
claim in the first instance on remand.
Second, Ghazzaoui contends that the district court erred in
denying his motion for recusal and asks that a different judge
be assigned to his case. We review the denial of a recusal
motion for abuse of discretion. Kolon Indus. Inc. v. E.I.
DuPont de Nemours & Co., 748 F.3d 160, 167 (4th Cir. 2014).
“[J]udicial rulings and opinions formed by the judge on the
basis of facts introduced or events occurring in the course of
the current proceedings, or of prior proceedings[,] almost never
constitute a valid basis for a bias or partiality motion.”
Belue v. Leventhal,
640 F.3d 567, 573 (4th Cir. 2011) (internal
quotation marks omitted). We conclude that the district court
did not abuse its discretion in denying this motion, as
Ghazzaoui’s allegations of bias and corruption are conclusory,
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and merely reflect his disagreement with the district court’s
rulings.
III.
Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s orders in part,
vacate them in part, and remand for further proceedings. We
dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal
contentions are adequately presented in the materials before
this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED IN PART,
VACATED IN PART,
AND REMANDED
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