The federal judge overseeing an excessive force case that resulted in last week’s $100 million jury verdict against the city of Atlanta and one of its police officers has publicly reprimanded the city’s attorneys for withholding key evidence from the plaintiff’s lawyers, according to a court filing on Tuesday.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens’ administration has yet to comment publicly on what some legal observers are calling one of the largest police misconduct jury verdicts ever in the country. The case stems from an incident involving an Atlanta police officer who in 2018 chased and tased a 65-year-old panhandler near downtown Atlanta. That episode left the man, Jerry Blasingame, paralyzed from the neck down when he fell down an embankment and struck his head on concrete.
United States District Judge Steve C. Jones said last week in open court in Atlanta that the city’s attorneys violated discovery rules by failing to provide Blasingame’s legal team with documents showing that Officer Jon Grubbs had been disciplined for having his body camera in the wrong recording mode during the encounter.
Ven Jones, who represents Blasingame, said part of their case hinged on whether the officer was disciplined. The judge made his comments before the jury deliberated and awarded its judgment.
“The Court finds that Defendants (City of Atlanta and Jon Grubbs) committed a significant discovery violation by failing to produce the relevant documents,” the judge wrote in a ruling filed Tuesday. “That error has harmed Plaintiff (Jerry Blasingame) and impaired his counsel’s ability to prepare for and present his case at trial.”
The verdict, which was read in court on Friday, has garnered national attention. While several motions remain that could alter the final dollar amount awarded in the case — and while it remains uncertain how the sanctions will impact the overall outcome — experts say it’s sure to draw the attention of municipalities and police agencies as they hire and discipline their officers.
The incident that injured Blasingame happened the afternoon of July 10, 2018 near Windsor Street, south of downtown, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court in 2019. The filing said Blasingame, who was unarmed, was on the street and asking people for money, when Grubbs and another officer arrived and saw the man talking with a driver.
When Grubbs got out of an APD patrol car and told Blasingame to stop, Blasingame moved out of the street and ran, the lawsuit alleged. At some point, Grubbs ran at Blasingame and deployed his Taser on Blasingame, causing him to “fall and seriously injure himself.”
“Due to the tase and subsequent fall, Mr. Blasingame became unconscious and was bleeding profusely from his head,” the lawsuit said. Grubbs called for medical assistance, and Blasingame was taken to the trauma center at Grady Memorial Hospital.
In his deposition in January 2021, Grubbs, who is Black, said he had not been disciplined over the incident. Johnson said the lack of punishment for the officer indicated the city’s unwillingness to hold one of their own accountable.
“But unbeknownst to us, two months after his deposition, they issued discipline for failing to use his bodyworn camera appropriately,” Johnson told the AJC. “The city never told us about that.”
Johnson said he was not aware until Grubbs was on the stand during trial that he had been disciplined over the body camera. He orally requested a default judgment, which is granted in cases where one party fails to meet a required action in order to participate in a case.
Craig Jones, a civil rights law attorney who practices in Georgia, reviewed the case for the AJC. He said the failure to provide that evidence before trial deeply complicates the case and could be used to show that the city’s attorneys, who also represented Grubbs, had a conflict of interest.
“It shows that there’s a conflict between the city — between any city — and the officers in these kind of cases,” said Jones, who is not related to the judge.
Jones said the case underscores the importance of having separate lawyers representing cities and officers in these cases.
“Unfortunately, one remedy for that would be to reverse the judgment on appeal, which would be a perversion of justice because it would punish the plaintiff for the sins of the defendant,” Jones said.
The judge determined the error was “not willful or made in bad faith” and denied a motion for the default judgment. However, he reprimanded the attorneys in front of the eight-person jury, which was comprised of three Black people, four white people and one person whose origin was unclear. The judge also took measures to clarify for the jury that the misinformation they had heard about Grubbs’ punishment was not the fault of Blasingame’s attorneys. He also said he is considering a monetary sanction.
“The Court does not by any means condone Defendant’s counsel’s inattention,” the judge wrote. “Counsel’s failure to produce these central documents during discovery or to inform Plaintiff’s counsel about the disciplinary proceeding cannot be excused. But the Court finds that this error was a result of negligence, not bad faith.”
Mario Williams, a civil rights attorney in Atlanta, said the verdict makes him optimistic about the prospect of officers being held accountable.
“(This verdict) says ‘get your act together. Start disciplining your officers. Start making sure training is actually being done and start having some accountability for how your officers are treated,’” said Williams, who is part of the legal team representing Jamarion Robinson’s family.
Robinson died after he was shot more than 70 times in 2016 while Atlanta officers and others on a regional fugitive task force were attempting to arrest him on a fugitive warrant.
Professor Gloria J. Browne-Marshall, a Constitutional law scholar and visiting professor at Harvard Kennedy School, said the jury verdict in Blasingame’s case has national significance because it is one of the largest ever awarded in a police misconduct case.
The size of the award is example of jurors sending a clear signal to politicians and police agencies that excessive force is unacceptable and there needs to be change. She cited another example earlier this year where a jury in Denver awarded $14 million jury award in a case where police were accused of excessive force against protestors in the aftermath of the George Floyd case.
“The juries now have the power to send a message,” she said. “They want change. They want police accountability….For me this jury is sending a message to police departments, not just in Atlanta, but police departments generally, that this form of abuse will not be tolerated.”
