Law enforcement fume for a justifiable reason in the event of an animal or baby being stuck in an automobile with no ventilation when it is hot. Experts reported that infants could die in half an hour or so in those situations. Anyhow, a man named Douglas Hardin claimed that two SoCal cops tortured him similarly in July five years ago.
Hardin claimed that the Garden Grove Police Department’s officers did the following to him and neglected his requests for help.
- Put such tight handcuffs on him that it not only cut his wrists but also sprained them
- Put a restraint device over the head
- Locked him at the rear of their patrol vehicle with windows shut when the temperatures of the day touched triple digits
As per the lawsuit made against cops Lino Santana and Chasen Contreras, the police force utilized against Hardin after they arrested him was unreasonable in the situation. Those cops utilized the handcuffs in the form of a weapon that showed police brutality, too. The lawsuit also described the choice to leave Hardin in the vehicle parked near the station without ventilation, and when handcuffs were cutting the man’s wrists, as excessive force.
Police abuse-related cases are still not uncommon in SoCal. Anyhow, it was uncommon for Hardin to get a courthouse win over Caroline Byrne and Lois Bobak from Costa Mesa’s law firm Woodruff, Spradlin & Smart. For your information, Woodruff, Spradlin & Smart has successfully defended government entities on many occasions in the past. It was also uncommon since Hardin was a non-attorney plaintiff and was representing himself out of prison.
In OC’s Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse, Hardin prevailed over the law group’s attempt to kill his lawsuit against their client before it could reach a jury in LA. For your information, LA’s juries are much less accommodating to alleged cases of police mischief as compared to Orange County.
Byrne and Bobak questioned whether the handcuff issue was legitimate or not in a mocking way. Meanwhile, federal judge John McDermott argued that Hardin’s complaint should be no triable matter for an American jury to judge as the plaintiff’s wrists were unbroken. They also stated that the two officers reasonably feared whether Hardin might hurt them or himself if they made the handcuffs less tight. Interestingly, as per their argument, Hardin was self-abusive and not cooperative following his arrest. The attorneys also argued that Santana and Contreras should get immunity for what they did due to their police status.
The attorneys observed that handcuffing could account for excessive force in the following situations.
- If it was too tight
- When the evidence showed that not loosening or not removing the cuffs was objectively not reasonable
The judge accepted a few of their arguments, which included that the cops did not delay medical attention so much that it violated Hardin’s constitutional rights. Anyhow, the judge did not believe the officers’ rationale for stopping the legal case before its trial. As for the judge, the act of the two officers declining to loosen Hardin’s handcuffs deserved the jury’s consideration.
During the plaintiff’s apprehension, handcuffing them in a too-tight and pain-inducing way may violate their Fourth Amendment rights. That may happen especially when they complain that the cuffs are excessively tight and request law enforcement to make those loose.
Anyhow, McDermott ruled that locking Hardin in that scorching area and disregarding his requests for about 30 minutes deserved to be dismissed. As for the judge, courts generally ruled the following.
- That confining someone in a scorching police vehicle constituted excessive force if their exposure was continued for a longer-than-usual time.
- That police force would not be excessive if the confinement thereof lasted no more than 30 minutes.
The cops were expecting federal judge Philip Gutierrez to overrule McDermott and then demand the whole case dismissed in advance of a trial. For your information, Gutierrez was the presiding judge in this matter two years ago.