Barricks v. Wright - Excessive Force Appeal Affirmed

PUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF AP PEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 25 - 1250 JOSHUA L. BARRICKS, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. JAMES R. WRIGHT, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of V irginia, at Roanoke. Elizabeth K. Dillon, Chief District Judge. (7:23 - cv - 005 51 - EKD - CKM) Argued: January 27, 2026 D ecided: March 3, 2026 Before WILKINSON, NIEMEYER, and AGE E, Circuit Judges. A ffirm ed by publis hed opini on. Judge Ni emeyer wrote the opinion, in w hich Judge Wilkins on and Jud ge Agee joi ned. ARGUED: Jos hua D. Goad, JOHNSON A YERS & MAT THEWS, P LC, Roano ke, Virginia, for Appellant. David Robert Berry, GENTRY LOCKE, Roanoke, V irginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Monica T. Monday, GENTRY LOCKE, Roanoke, Virginia, for Appellee.

2 NIEMEYER, Circuit Judge: In arresting Joshua Barricks fo r skateboarding on a pu blic road and for possible public intoxication in Allegh a ny County, V irginia, Sheriff’s Deputy James Wright u sed force that resulted in serious injuries to Barricks. Deputy Wright m aintains that he used “only an amount of force reasonably necessary to effect the arrest, ” wh ile Barricks argues that Wright used excessive force when he punched Barricks twelve times in the face while arresting him. After Barricks w as arrested, he was taken t o the hospital, a s he had su stain ed a facial laceration, facial bruising and sw elling, and bruising on the knees. Imaging revealed that Barricks also suffered a right frontal 6 mm intracerebral hemorrhage, closed fracture of the right orbital rim, blo od in the maxillary sinus, and several fractu res to two different parts of his jawbone. Barricks commenced this action against Deputy Wrigh t for excessive force, in violation of the Fourth Amendment, as well as fo r common law battery. Deputy Wright filed a motion fo r summary judgment, alleging that the force he used was not excessive but was only that necessary to arrest Barricks, who had fled and resisted arrest. Moreover, Deputy Wright claimed that he was entitled to q ualified immunity because he did not violate a clearl y established constitution al right and a reasonable officer in his position “could have believed his actions were justi fied.” The district court, after assess in g the record, which includ ed bodycam video, found that the relevant facts were dispute d such tha t, if the jury were to find i n Barricks’s favo r on the factual disputes, the law was clearly established that Wrigh t’s use of force w ould be excessive.

3 From the district court’s order denying his summary judgment motion, Deputy Wright filed this appeal, relyin g for jurisdiction on William s v. Strickland, 917 F.3 d 763, 768 (4th Ci r. 2019), which held that a “district court’s denial of summary judgment on th e basis of qualified immunity is a collateral order and therefore sub ject to immediate appellate review, despite being in terlocutory. ” Barricks, on the other hand, contends that Deputy Wright “may not challenge [th e district court’s] determination of what facts are disputed or protest the inferences drawn from those facts,” citing Culosi v. Bullock, 596 F.3d 195, 2 01 – 03 (4th Cir. 2010). A s he argue s, fact - relate d disputes fall outside our limited jurisdiction on interlocutory appeal, citing Hicks v. Ferreyra, 9 6 5 F.3d 302, 312 – 13 (4th Cir. 2020). While we have no jurisdiction to review the district court’s conclu sion that ther e are disputes of material fact and th at resolutio n of those disputes is n ecessary to determine qualified immunity, we can review the district court’s d enial of qualified immunity as a matter of law in the contex t of the facts taken most favorabl y to Barricks. W hen considering the facts of record in that light, we affirm. I The facts of record on which the d istrict court relied to co nclude that the re was a di sp u te of material facts are as follows. At about 9:40 p. m. on March 30, 2022, D eputy Wright was driv ing his marked Sheriff’s Department vehicle on A llegh a ny Avenue i n Covingt on, Virginia, when h e saw Barricks skateboarding on the road, headed in the opposite direction. Deputy Wright, who

4 was on the phone with his then -g irlfriend and coworker, said, “ This mother f- cker ’ s skateboar ding down the Go dd - mn road.” Deputy Wright turned his vehicle around and followed Barricks to the front of the Farm & Fuel Service Center, a local convenience and supply st ore, where he confronted Barricks. As Deputy Wright spoke to Barricks, he became suspicious that Barricks might be high on drugs. Barricks denied th at suggesti o n, directing Deputy Wright to the cashier who, Barricks said, could attest that he ha d be en playing slots all day. As D eputy Wright seemed to tak e action to grab Barrick s, Barricks jerked away and shouted, “Man, that ’ s bullsh - t dud e. Go ahead and sh oot me!” He then ran away inside the store. Barricks fle d to a back room wh ere seed and other farm equipment was stored, but he could not ex it from that room, as the rear door to the outside was locked. As Deputy Wright gave chase and arrived in the room, Barricks stuck his hands up and dropped to his knees just before Wright yelled at Barricks to sto p and get on the ground. Barricks then put his ha nds on the back of his hea d, t elling Deputy Wright that he was already on the ground. At that point, the events become unclear and disputed. Moreover, the parties differ on t heir interpret ation of Deputy Wright’s body cam video. While Barricks testified that he remembers nothing after h e got on his knees until he later woke up in the hospital, Deputy Wrigh t testified that Barricks resisted arrest. From the video, it is clear that Deputy W right pushed Barricks’s face into the floor, and w hile Wright was seeking to pu ll one of Barricks’s wrist s free from under him to hand cuff him, Barricks seemed to be resistin g. Depu ty Wright then used what he referred to as “dis traction strikes, ” which h e ex plained were st rikes that he was taught to use to d isorient

5 and confuse a nonsurrendering sub ject. The strikes were to be made with the palm or side of the hand. Barricks contends that he was surrendering, such that the strikes wer e unnecessary and that the vid eo, in any event, shows that De puty Wr ight was using his knuckle s — not his palm or side of his hand — to inflict the strikes. Barricks also contends that t he vide o shows t hat duri ng Deput y Wright’s effort to effect th e arrest, he “hardly moved” a nd only e mitted s ounds of moaning and groa ning. At one point during t he video, Barricks yell ed, “P lease, stop! ” Deput y W right was eventually able to handcuff Barrick s, and after doing so, he found a ba g on the floor of what h e believed to be methamphetamine. And s hortly thereafter, when other officers arrived and searched Barricks, they found a pocketknife. A fter completing the a rrest, Deput y Wright spoke with h is then - girlfriend, who had also arrived o n the scene, and told her, “I ’ m fine. Oth er than blood bein’ all over me.” She asked, “What ’ d you do to ‘em?” He responded, “f - cked h is face up.” Deputy Wright also texted another coworker later, who asked Wright, “W as [Barricks] the dude you jac ked up[?]” Deputy Wrigh t responded, “Yea,” referring to an earlier law enforcement encounter between him and Barricks. After reviewing these facts and the bodyca m video, the district court identified several disputed facts at the crux of the qualified immunity analysis, including (1) to what extent Barricks posed a threat to Deputy Wright; (2) whether Wright pushed Barricks to the ground after he had surrendered; (3) whether Wright used his knuckles to strike Barricks’s face; (4) wh ether and to what extent Barricks resisted a fter hitting the ground; and (5) whether parts of h is body, other than his head, were readil y available targets for

6 “distraction strikes.” The court noted that if the disputed facts we re viewed in the light most favorable to Barricks, they w ould show that he had stopped resistin g and no longer posed a thr eat when h e got on his knees and p ut his hands behind hi s back, onl y to then have Deputy Wright slam h im to the ground and punch him twelve times in the face. If a jury were to make these factual find ings, the court concluded, the law was clearly established that Deputy Wright could not use that amount of force in th os e circumstances consistent with the Fourth Amendment. II Public officials are entitled to q ualified immunity from civil damage suits insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established constitutional rights of wh ich a reasonable person wou ld have known. See Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 4 5 7 U.S. 800, 817 – 19 (19 82). And an order denying such immun ity is generally appealable as a collateral o rder. See Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 530 (1985). A principal reason for su ch order’s appealability is to protect such officials from the burdens of further pretrial proceedings and trial. Id. at 537 (O’Connor, J., concurring) (“The very pu rpose of [qualified immunity] is to protect the defendant from the burdens o f trial, and the right will be irretrievab ly lost if its denial is not immediately appealable”); s ee also White v. Pauly, 580 U.S. 73, 79 (2017) (p er curiam) (“ As an im munity from suit, qualified immunity is effe ctively lost if a case is erroneously permitted to go to trial” (cleaned up)). But a court of appeals has jurisdiction only to the extent that q ualified immunity “turns on an issue o f law.” Mitchell, 472 U.S. at 530.

7 When a district court addresses a motion for summary judgment claiming qualified immunity and concludes that disputed facts must be resolved to make that determination, it is not deciding qualified immunity as a matter of law bu t is, instead, finding that the motion cannot be granted because there are genuine disputes of material fact. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a) (authorizing summ ary judgment only if “the movant shows that th ere is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the mov ant is entitled to judgment as a m atter of law”). Thus, t h e Supreme Court has held that a d istrict court’s determinatio n that material facts are in dispute is no t appealable as a collateral order. See Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304, 313 (1995) (holding that “a district cou rt’s summary judgment order th at, though entered in a ‘qualified immunity’ case, determin es only a question of ‘evidence sufficiency’ . . . is not appealable” as it “was no t a ‘final decision’”). Acco rdingly, we have no jurisdiction over a d istrict court ’s deni al of a motion for sum mary judgment based on the ground that the record present s disputed material facts. See Culosi, 59 6 F.3d at 2 01. On the other hand, even in such circumstances, we can review a denial of qualified immunity if the facts, taken most favorably to the plaintiff, show that the pu blic official, as a matter of law, is nonetheless ent itled to such immunity. Williams, 917 F.3d at 768; see also Winfield v. Bass, 106 F.3d 525, 5 30 (4th C ir. 1997) (en banc) (“[W]e possess no jurisdiction over a claim that a plain tiff has not presented enough evidence to prove that the plaintiff’s version of the even ts actually occurred, but we hav e jurisdiction over a claim that there was no violation of clearly established law accepting the facts as the district court viewed them”).

8 In this case, the district cou rt did not adjudicate conclusively whether Deputy Wright was entitled to qu alified immunity. Rather, it co ncluded, after a lengthy and careful analysis of the facts of record, th at the motion for summary judgmen t had to be denied because disputes of material fact e xisted as to wh ether Deputy Wright used excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Th e court found disputes about several aspects of the encounter between Deputy Wright and Barricks, which, if resolved in Barricks’s favor, would support his claim of excessive fo rce. For instance, the court no ted that there was a dispute as to whether Barricks posed a threat to Deputy Wright; whether Wright push ed Barricks to the ground with force after Barricks had surrendered; whether Wright used knuckles to strike Barricks’s fac e; whether and to wh at extent Barricks resisted after hitt ing the ground; and whether parts of Barricks’s body, other than his head, were readily available targets for Wright’s “distraction stri kes.” T he district court’s assessment of the record evidence is not a matter that we can review during this interlocutory appeal. This is because the Supreme Court h as made clear that we may not review a district court’s summary judgment o rder insofar as it determines whether or not the record sets forth a genuine issue of fact for trial. See Johnson, 515 U.S. at 313, 319 – 20; see also Culosi, 59 6 F.3d at 201. Nonetheless, if we take the disputed facts as th e district court viewed them in the light most favorable to Barricks and they su pport, as a matter of law, Deputy W right’s claim that he did not violat e clearly established law, we hav e jurisdiction to grant him qualified immunity. See Winfield, 106 F.3d at 5 29 (“[W]e conclude th at we possess jurisdiction to consider an appeal fro m a decision of a district court rejecting a government

9 official’s claim of entitlemen t to qualified immunity to the extent that the offici al maintains that the official’s conduct did not violate clearly established law”). And whether Deputy Wright is entitled to qualified immunity turns on whether, as matter of law, he violated the Fourth Amendment with excessive force an d whether a reasonable officer in his position would have so known. See Mullenix v. Luna, 577 U.S. 7, 11 (2015) (“The doctrine of qualified immunity shields officials from civil liability so long as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reason able person would have known” (cleaned up)). T he Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable seizures, including those made with excessive force. Henry v. Purn ell, 652 F.3d 52 4, 531 (4 th Cir. 201 1) (en banc). Determining whether the u se of force was reasonab le or excessive requires consideration of the “circumstances of each particular cas e, including the severity of th e crime at issue, whether the suspect pose[d] an im mediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and whether he [was] actively resis ting arrest or attemp ting to evade arrest by flight.” Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (198 9). “ The question [is] whether the totality of th e circumstances justified a particular so rt of search or seizure.” Tennessee v. G arner, 471 U.S. 1, 8 –9 (1985). Moreover, the reasonableness of an officer’s use of force “must be judged from the perspective of a rea sonable officer on th e scene, rather than with th e [benefit] of hindsight.” Gra ham, 490 U.S. at 396. In making the reasonableness assessment, a court “must consider all the relevant circu mstances, including facts and events leading up to the climactic moment.” Barnes v. Felix, 605 U.S. 73, 7 6 (202 5). Moreover, “even where an initial use of . . . force is reasonable, the repeated use of force

10 may be constitutionally excessive if circumstances change in a material way.” Ha rris v. Pittman, 927 F.3d 26 6, 268 – 69 (4th Cir. 2019). I n this case, w hen viewing the disputed facts in the light most favorable to Barricks, Deputy Wright pushed Barrick s to the ground and pressed hi s head in to the cement floor after Barricks h ad surrendered by dropping to his knees an d put ting his hands be hind hi s head. Deputy Wri ght then used his knu ckles to strike Barricks twelve times in th e head, even tho ugh he had surrend ered, an d, in any event, other parts of h is b ody were available for “distraction strikes.” A nd this force was applied in the context of non - violent misdemeanors — skateboarding on a public road and possible public intoxication. Moreover, the evidence taken in Barricks’s favor also showed that there was no evidence that Barricks posed a threat to Deputy Wright with a weapon o r otherwise. In short, the facts taken most favorabl y to Barricks would show that Deputy Wright applied gratuitous and injuri ous force after Barricks had surrendered and was no longer resisting. With that version of the facts, the district court concluded that Barrick s’s constitutional rights wou ld have be en violated, identifying five cases demonstrating that the “law was clear that an officer could not use [the] amoun t of force [Deputy Wright used] to subdue a suspect on his knees and not resisting.” See Kan e v. Hargis, 987 F.2d 1005, 1006 – 08 (4th Cir. 1993) (per curiam) (affirming deni al of qualified immunity on excessive force claim where, construing the facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, she attempted to flee a traffic stop w hile intoxicated and the defendant officer reacted by pinning her to the ground a nd then r epeatedl y push ing her face into the pavement, cracking her teeth); Rowland v. Perry, 41 F.3d 167, 17 2– 74 (4th Cir. 1994) (affirming deni al of

11 qualified immunity where disputed facts, if proved by the plaintiff, would have demonstrated that the plaintiff tried to free himself from the officer’s grasp and the officer responde d by punchi ng him, thr owing him t o the ground, and using a w restli ng maneuver to wrench the plaintiff’s knee until it cracked and gave way); Smith v. Ray, 781 F.3d 95, 98, 102 (4th Cir. 2015) (affirming den ial of qualified immunity w here the record, viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, showed that the o fficer threw a nonviolent female, who was, at most, suspected o f a misdemeanor, to the ground, slamm ed his knee into her back, and wrenched h er arm behi nd her); Valladares v. Cor dero, 552 F.3d 384, 390 – 91 (4th Cir. 2009) (affirming deni al of qualified immunity where the facts, viewed in the light most favorable to the plain tiff, indicated that an officer had tw ice slammed a subdued subject’s head into a car, breaking his jaw); Yates v. Terry, 817 F.3d 87 7, 881, 887 – 88 (4th Cir. 2016) (affirmin g deni al of qualified immunity where, on the plain tiff’s facts, the officer deployed a taser against a nonviolent and compliant misdemeanant during a traffic stop). In each of these cases iden tified by the district court, the court found th at, on the plaintiffs’ version of the facts, la w enforcement officers had used excessive force against individuals who had stopped resisting, were attempting to flee, and/or were o nly “passively resisting, i.e. . . . not complying, but. . . also not attempting to fight back.” With the possible exception o f Yates, which involved the deployment of a taser, w e agree that this collection of cases clearly establish es that Deputy Wright’ s use of force would be excessive if the facts taken most fav orably to Barricks were establish ed. See Ashcroft v. Al - Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 741 (2011) (recognizing that for a law to be clearly established in the context of

12 qualified immunity, we do “not require a case directly o n point, but existing precedent must have placed the statutory or constitutional question beyond debate”). And although there may be some factual distinctions with the case currently on appeal, these cases surely provide particularized examples of constitutional violations involving t he use of excessive force “under similar circumstances” to those in the altercation between Barricks and Deputy Wright. White, 580 U.S. at 79. Accordingly, conducting the analysis based on th e facts viewed in the light most favorable to Barricks leads to the conclusion that we cannot, at this juncture, conclude that Deputy Wrigh t is entitled to qualified immunity. In sum, while we have no jurisdiction to review whether the district court co rrectly assessed the facts and properly uncover ed genuine d isputes of material fact, we do have jurisdiction to review the district court’s conclusion that the facts, when taken in the light most favorable to Barricks, show that Deputy Wright’s condu ct would have violated clearly established law and that he would not be entitled to qu alified immunity. The disputed facts, therefore, must be resolved to reach a conclusion on immunit y as a matter of law. Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s ord er denying qualified immunity. AFFIRM ED