Case Summaries: Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (April 2023)

This post summarizes published criminal and related decisions released by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals during April 2023. Cases that may be of interest to state practitioners are summarized monthly. Previous summaries of Fourth Circuit decisions are available here. Officer was not entitled to qualified immunity where a reasonable jury could conclude she faced no imminent threat; ratification claim against city was properly dismissed Franklin v. City of Charlotte, 64 F.4th 519 (April 4, 2023). In this case from the Western District of North Carolina, Charlotte officers received two dispatches about a man threatening customers and staff with a gun at a local fast-food restaurant. When two officers arrived on scene, the man was outside next to a car in the parking lot. The restaurant manager was in the passenger seat of the car, apparently trying to calm the man down. The man, Franklin, was crouched down on the balls of his feet about a foot from the passenger door with his hands clasped together between his legs. The manager was apparently praying with the man and did not see a weapon in the man’s hands. The officers encircled the car and ordered the man alternatively to show his hands and to drop his weapon, which was not visible to the officers. After repeated commands to put down his gun, the man responded that he had heard the command the first time. The man, whose eyes were fixed towards the ground, did not change his position, and his “demeanor seemed [...]