In Gabbi Lemos v. County of Sonoma a federal appeals court has reversed an earlier panel decision barring a California woman from pursuing her excessive force claim against a sheriff’s deputy stemming from a 2015 altercation caught on camera.
Gabbi Lemos, 25, was arrested outside a high school graduation party in June of 2015, following an altercation involving her, some family members, and Sonoma County Sheriff’s Deputy Marcus Holton.Holton, who was on his routine patrol at the time, had stopped after seeing a pickup truck blocking a lane of traffic and hearing screaming, according to court documents. Holton activated his body-worn camera and began investigating what he believed at the time was a domestic dispute involving Lemos, her sister Karli Labruzzi, and her Labruzzi’s boyfriend Darien Balestrini. Labruzzi and Balestrini were in the truck, and as Holton approached so did Lemos, her mother, and a different sister.
At one point, when Holton opened the door of the truck to see whether Labruzzi had any weapons or injuries, Lemos stepped between Holton and her sister, telling him that he wasn’t allowed to do that. Things escalated, and Holton eventually arrested Lemos, forcing the 18-year-old high school graduate — who at the time weighed 105 pounds and stood five feet tall — to the ground, pinning her down.
Lemos sustained injuries to her face and claimed she incurred “thousands of dollars in medical expenses” as a result.
In November of 2015, Lemos sued the County of Sonoma, Sheriff Steve Freitas, and Holton for civil rights violations, known as 1983 claims because of the federal statute that provides a civil cause of action of deprivation of rights.
Sonoma County, simultaneously, pursued criminal charges against Lemos. The district court paused Lemos’ civil case, and in 2016 a jury convicted her of willfully resisting, delaying, or obstructing Holton, a misdemeanor.
The conclusion of Lemos’ criminal case reignited her federal civil case, but the district court dismissed on the basis of a legal theory that bars plaintiffs from suing law enforcement for civil rights violations if that plaintiff was also convicted of a crime for the same incident. The underlying idea of that theory, based on the 1994 Supreme Court decision in Heck v. Humphrey, is that a win for the plaintiff in a civil case would invalidate a criminal conviction, which presumably concluded that law enforcement’s action in the incident was legal.
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