Roylin Beale v. Deputy Madigan

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 14-7394

ROYLIN JUNIUS BEALE,

Plaintiff - Appellant,

DEPUTY J. P. MADIGAN; OFFICER R. BLOW; OFFICER HARLESS;
OFFICER PEELE; OFFICER CORPREW,

Defendants - Appellees,

and

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS,

Defendant.

On Remand from the Supreme Court of the United States.
(S. Ct. No. 14-9707)

Submitted: August 24, 2016 Decided: August 26, 2016

Before SHEDD, WYNN, and THACKER, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Roylin Junius Beale, Appellant Pro Se. Scott Christopher Hart,
SUMRELL, SUGG, CARMICHAEL, HICKS & HART, PA, New Bern, North
Carolina, for Appellees.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:

Roylin Junius Beale filed a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (2012) action

alleging that prison officials used excessive force against him

while he was a pretrial detainee at the Pitt County Detention

Center and that they were deliberately indifferent to his

resulting medical needs. The district court granted Defendants’

motion for summary judgment. We affirmed the court’s order.

See Beale v. Madigan, 589 F. App’x 107 (4th Cir. 2014) (per

curiam). On October 5, 2015, the Supreme Court granted Beale’s

petition for a writ of certiorari, vacated the judgment, and

remanded to this court for further consideration in light of

Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 135 S. Ct. 2466 (2015). We have

received the parties’ supplemental briefs, and this matter is

ripe for disposition.

In Kingsley, the Supreme Court held that a pretrial

detainee asserting an excessive force claim must demonstrate

“only that the force purposely or knowingly used against him was

objectively unreasonable.” 135 S. Ct. at 2473. In determining

whether the force was objectively unreasonable, a court

considers the evidence “from the perspective of a reasonable

officer on the scene, including what the officer knew at the

time, not with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.” Id. (citing

Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989)). Considerations

such as the following may bear on the reasonableness or

2
unreasonableness of the force used: the relationship between the

need for the use of force and the amount of force used; the

extent of the plaintiff’s injury; any effort made by the officer

to temper or to limit the amount of force; the severity of the

security problem at issue; the threat reasonably perceived by

the officer; and whether the plaintiff was actively resisting.

Kingsley, 135 S. Ct. at 2473. Moreover, it is appropriate to

determine whether the force used was objectively reasonable in

“full context,” as a segmented view of the events “misses the

forest for the trees.” Smith v. Ray, 781 F.3d 95, 101 (4th Cir.

2015) (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted).

Viewed from this legal lens, in the light most favorable to

Beale to the extent supported by the record, we conclude that

the officers’ actions did not amount to excessive force and that

the district court, therefore, properly granted summary judgment

to the Defendants. Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s

order. 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