Journal Staff Writer
The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston will not review an adverse ruling against the Rhode Island attorney general made by three of its members last March in the Narragansett Indian smoke-shop case.
A three-judge appellate panel had earlier reinstated a $301,000 jury award to Adam Jennings, a Narragansett Indian whose ankle was broken when state police raided a tribal smoke shop in Charlestown in July 2003.
Yesterday’s decision, while reaffirming the jury verdict and halting further appellate review of the case, opened the door for the trial judge to consider a state trooper’s motions for a new trial and for reduction of the monetary award.
“At this time, a new trial, in which all the issues can be assessed afresh, appears to us the best solution,” wrote Chief Judge Michael Boudin and Circuit Judge Sandra L. Lynch in a concurring statement.
A new trial would take into account both the demands on the time of the full Court of Appeals and “the unfortunate uncertainty about just what the jury decided,” Boudin and Lynch wrote.
They continued, “If the District Court grants the motion for a new trial and sets aside the jury verdict,” the defendant in the case, Rhode Island State Police Trooper Kenneth Jones, “will have an adequate opportunity to defend himself on a fresh record.”
In a five-day civil trial in U.S. District Court in March 2005, a jury found that Jones used excessive force during the raid in subduing Jennings, a smoke-shop worker, although the 10 jurors ruled in favor of two other troopers.
But then-Chief Judge Ernest Torres later vacated the award to Jennings, ruling that Jones had immunity from civil liability to the extent that he was exercising his duties as a law enforcement officer in a reasonable manner.
“The plaintiff’s own conduct in resisting arrest justified the use of physical force and force was applied, solely for the purpose of subduing him,” Torres wrote in August 2005.
With Lynch dissenting, two other judges on the three-member appellate panel have found that Torres erred in concluding that Jones had immunity.
As a matter of law, the judge was required to view the facts in the light most favorable to the verdict, wrote circuit judges Juan R. Torruella and Kermit V. Lipez last March.
Torres found witnesses for Jones more credible than the testimony of the plaintiffs, but the jury had concluded that Jones increased his use of force in twisting Jennings’ ankle after Jennings had stopped resisting arrest.
Last night, Michael J. Healey, spokesman for Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch, hailed the opportunity the appellate court has given the state to pursue a motion for a new trial.
“The fact that we will get another chance to defend Trooper Jones, who was only doing his job, is something we will look forward to,” Healey said.
“It’s an important case; an important principle,” he said.
“Our court argument all along was that he was acting appropriately in the line of duty and executing a court-approved search warrant,” Healey said.
Torruella, Lipez and Lynch, the appellate judges, ruled in March that Jones had abandoned his motions for a new trial and for reduction of the jury award.
Yesterday, the same judges vacated that portion of the ruling and sent the case back to Torres so that he may consider those motions.
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