Pettaway v. Barber

645 F.Supp.3d 1269

Walter PETTAWAY, as Administrator ofthe Estate of Joseph Lee Pettaway, deceased, Plaintiff, v. Cpl. Nicholas D. BARBER, et al., Defendants.

CASE NO. 2:19-cv-8-ECM-JTA

United States District Court, M.D. Alabama, Northern Division

Signed December 9, 2022

Gordon Griffin Sikes, Jr., Attorney at Law, Montgomery, AL, Horace Earl Nix, Jr., H. E. Nix, Attorney at Law, Montgomery, AL, for Plaintiff.

Allison Alford Ingram, Charles Winston Sheehan, Jr., Sydney Kay Brasfield, Ball Ball Matthews & Novak PA, Montgomery, AL, Christopher Ryan East, City of Montgomery Legal Dept., Montgomery, AL, Madelyn Kay Mauldin, Montgomery, AL, Rebecca L. Chambliss, Chambliss Law, Montgomery, AL, Robert Lee DeMoss, III, Balch & Bingham, Montgomery, AL, for Defendant Nicholas D. Barber.

Allison Alford Ingram, Charles Winston Sheehan, Jr., Sydney Kay Brasfield, Ball Ball Matthews & Novak PA, Montgomery, AL, Madelyn Kay Mauldin, Montgomery, AL, Robert Lee DeMoss, III, Balch & Bingham, Montgomery, AL, for Defendant Ernest N. Finley.

Allison Alford Ingram, Charles Winston Sheehan, Jr., Sydney Kay Brasfield, Ball Ball Matthews & Novak PA, Montgomery, AL, Madelyn Kay Mauldin, Montgomery, AL, Robert Lee DeMoss, III, Balch & Bingham, Montgomery, AL, Stacy Lott Bellinger, City of Montgomery, Montgomery, AL, for Defendant The City of Montgomery, Alabama.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

JERUSHA T. ADAMS, UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

Before the Court is Plaintiff's Motion to Strike the Confidentiality Designation for MPD Police Body Cam Video Recordings, Including the Barber Body Cam Video. (Doc. No. 392.) In the motion, Plaintiff seeks to remove all confidentiality designations from all police body camera videos that were produced in discovery in this case so that he may submit the videos as part of the public record in support of his summary judgment motion. Also before the Court is Plaintiff's Motion for Oral Argument of Plaintiff's Motion to Strike Confidentiality Designation for MPD Police Body Cam Recordings, Including the Barber Body Cam Video. (Doc. No. 419.) For the reasons stated below, the Court concludes that both motions are due to be DENIED.

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

This dispute arises from a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action against current and former Montgomery police officers who responded to a suspected burglary call at an unoccupied residence in the early morning of July 8, 2018. The body camera video from Officer Nicholas Barber ("Barber") shows him arrive at the address, assess the situation through conversation with a third party, and enter the darkened house with his canine partner to search the premises. Shortly after entry, the recording depicts the canine's attack of Joseph Lee Pettaway ("Pettaway"), officers removing Pettaway to the ground outside, the officers awaiting the arrival of an ambulance, and the steps taken by medical personnel to assist Pettaway. Pettaway later died from his injuries.

Pettaway's brother, Walter Pettaway ("Plaintiff"), as administrator of Pettaway's estate, filed this action on January 4, 2019. (Doc. No. 1.) The current operative pleading is Plaintiff's Third Amended Complaint, which names as Defendants the City of Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery Chief of Police Ernest N. Finley, Jr., and Barber.¹ (Doc. No. 205.) The Third Amended Complaint contains allegations of unlawful seizure under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, unlawful and excessive force under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, deliberate indifference to an objectively serious medical need under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, unlawful police department customs and practices under the Fourteenth Amendment, and wrongful death under Ala. Code § 6-5-410 (1975). (Doc. No. 205 at 10-26.)

Together with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency ("ALEA"),² the parties filed a Joint Motion for Entry of a Protective Order. (Doc. No. 100.) The resulting Protective Order applies to "information contained in documents produced by any party to this case, including, but not limited to, ALEA and the City, whether by subpoena or in civil discovery among parties in this case pursuant to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure." (Doc. No. 101 at ¶ 1.) In pertinent part, the Protective Order allowed parties to mark as confidential documents produced in discovery, and provided that, if the parties agreed that such materials were confidential, the materials "thereafter shall be confidential and cannot be publicly released and shall not be disclosed outside of this case absent the Court's order to the contrary." (Id. at ¶ 2(c).) The Protective Order also provided that, in the event of a disagreement as to the propriety of designating materials as confidential, "any party may then seek by appropriate motion to have the Court rule upon and resolve such disagreement about the specified information" and that, until resolution of that disagreement, the material in question "shall not be filed publicly with the Court but shall instead be filed under seal with a notation that the information is confidential and subject to this Order." (Id. at ¶ 2(f), (j).)

As discovery commenced after the entry of the Protective Order, the City produced its Confidentiality Log and responsive discovery. Included in the discovery production were several body camera recordings from Montgomery police officers at the scene of the call, including one from Defendant Barber. All of the recordings were designated in their entirety by the City as confidential. Plaintiff disputed the confidentiality designations of the recordings and filed two motions to strike the confidentiality designations. (Docs. No. 109, 132.) The motions were extensively briefed, and the parties' written submissions, court proceedings, and Orders related to them are detailed in this Court's April 14, 2021 Order. (Doc. No. 173.) Oral argument was held on the motions on October 19, 2020. (Doc. No. 22.) In the course of the proceedings on the motions to strike the confidentiality designations (Docs. No. 109, 132), the Court ordered the City to submit the entire Barber recording for its review. (Doc. No. 120.) The Court also directed the parties to meet and confer on confidentiality designations, and to file a joint status report on any agreement regarding what information and/or video images were to be deemed confidential. (Id.) The Joint Status Report filed by the parties designated several segments of the Barber recording which the parties agreed should be confidential but could not agree upon how confidentiality should be maintained. (Doc. No. 125 at ¶ 2A-D; G-H.) The City asserted confidentiality on two segments of the video to which Plaintiff either objected or found the audio incomprehensible. (Id. at ¶ 2E-F.) A final segment upon which the parties could not agree was the excerpt of sixteen minutes and 41 seconds submitted to the Court under seal in conjunction with the first motion. (Id. at ¶ 3; Doc. No. 109-1.)

By Order entered April 14, 2021, the Court denied Plaintiff's motions to strike the confidentiality designations, stating that it was "not persuaded by Plaintiff's assertion that an entire video or recording cannot be designated as confidential," and that the Court was unconvinced by Plaintiff's argument that the City had no standing to assert a claim of confidentiality on behalf of others in the videos and recordings. (Doc. No. 173 at 9.) The Court noted that Plaintiff had not identified how removing the confidentiality designation would meet any need of his or benefit him in any way. (Id.) Instead, Plaintiff argued that the public had a right to see the videos, an argument which the Court rejected on grounds that the public does not have a protected interest in accessing discovery materials. (Id. at 10.) Accordingly, the Court concluded that good cause existed to maintain the confidentiality of the recordings and videos. (Id. at 12.)

On October 5, 2022, motions for summary judgment were filed by Defendant Ryan Powell,³ Plaintiff, and all Defendants jointly. (Docs. No. 374, 376, 378.) All parties have also filed motions in limine. (Docs. No. 373, 384-86), and motions to strike (Docs. No. 386, 389). In conjunction with those motions, numerous and voluminous evidentiary materials were also submitted, the vast majority of which was filed publicly. Of the numerous exhibits submitted, the parties filed under seal only the images and footage from the police body cameras, MPD dispatch logs, and exhibits containing the substance of 911 calls. Those materials were filed under seal because they were subject to the July 30, 2020 Protective Order and (in the case of the police body camera recordings) the April 14, 2021 Order. (Docs. No. 101, 173.)

On October 17, 2022, Plaintiff filed a Motion to Strike the Confidentiality Designation for MPD Police Body Cam Video Recordings, Including the Barber Body Cam Video. (Doc. No. 358.) On October 26, 2022, Defendants filed a response to the motion. (Doc. No. 400.) On November 29, 2022, Plaintiff filed a Motion for Oral Argument of Plaintiff's Motion to Strike Confidentiality Designation for MPD Police Body Cam Recordings, Including the Barber Body Cam Video. (Doc. No. 419.) The motions are ripe for review.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

The common-law right to access, inspect, and copy judicial records is "a right grounded in the democratic process" and "an essential component of our system of justice" that is "instrumental in securing the integrity of the [judicial] process" because "[t]he operations of the courts and the judicial conduct of judges are matters of utmost public concern." Chicago Trib. Co. v. Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., 263 F.3d 1304, 1309, 1311 (11th Cir. 2001) (quoting Landmark Comm. v. Virginia, 435 U.S. 829, 839, 98 S.Ct. 1535, 56 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978)); see also Newman v. Graddick, 696 F.2d 796, 803 (11th Cir. 1983) ("The right [of public access] is important if the public is to appreciate fully the often significant events at issue in...