Brewster v. Mills

Background

The court considered the parties’ motions in limine—pretrial requests to restrict or allow particular evidence. The parties filed the motions and oppositions, the court held a hearing, and the court then required offers of proof concerning the motions that remained unresolved. The opinion addresses evidence for the remaining retaliation issue: whether Brewster was placed in a safety cell for complaining about harassment.

Plaintiff’s Motions

For Plaintiff’s Motion in Limine No. 2, concerning criminal and disciplinary history, the court granted the motion in part, denied it in part, and deferred it in part.

- The court denied the request to exclude Brewster’s criminal convictions. Because the convictions were less than ten years old and credibility was central to the case, defendants could use them to impeach Brewster if he testified, subject to a limiting instruction. The court directed the parties to prepare a stipulation about the convictions and a modified jury instruction. - The court did not need to rule on the 2019 booking card unless defendants later sought to use it. The court denied the request concerning the 2020 booking card, assuming defendants could establish the required foundation. The card could be used to show what defendants reviewed and relied on in making a housing-placement decision, but not to prove that the events described in the card actually occurred. - The court deferred ruling on most of the jail disciplinary history and ordered simultaneous supplemental briefing about whether the records could be admitted. The court planned to address the issue at a further pretrial conference. - The court granted the motion as to Exhibits 136 and 137 to the extent defendants offered them as substantive evidence. It held that the records were prohibited propensity evidence—evidence offered to suggest that a person acted consistently with a prior pattern—and that defendants had not shown a permitted alternative purpose. The court deferred ruling on the March 24, 2020 incident report because defendants appeared to offer it for the different purpose of explaining the deputies’ state of mind. - The court granted the motion as to all rules violations after April 17, 2020, finding that defendants’ proposed use was also impermissible propensity evidence.

The court deferred Plaintiff’s Motion in Limine No. 5, concerning alleged antigay harassment, homophobia, and racism, because defendants had not yet filed the required offer of proof. The court directed the parties to confer and clarify whether any dispute remained.

Defendants’ Motions

The court granted in part and deferred in part Defendant’s Motion in Limine No. 2, concerning other claims, complaints, allegations, and internal-affairs lawsuits involving defendants. The court stated that evidence about Deputy Mills’s conduct was relevant to the strength of Brewster’s claim that Mills had a motive to retaliate, but limited Brewster to his own testimony about the conduct and the video of Mills’s conduct. The court said Brewster could testify about his own experience of Mills’s conduct rather than merely stating that he tried to file a grievance.

The court granted the motion as to Exhibit 39, an internal-affairs interview with Brewster, because it was an out-of-court statement offered for its truth and did not qualify as a prior consistent statement. The court also granted the motion as to Exhibits 38, 40–41, 47, and 49–50, which concerned the internal-affairs investigation of Deputy Mills, because the records created hearsay, prejudice, and confusion concerns. The opinion’s list of exhibits also includes Exhibit 45 in the paragraph granting the motion, but the court separately says that it deferred ruling on Exhibit 45, the interview with Deputy Mills. That inconsistency is not resolved in the opinion. The court granted the motion as to Exhibits 48 and 54–60 and 66, concerning the internal-affairs investigation of Deputy Prado and betting, because the materials were hearsay, irrelevant, or likely to cause prejudice, confusion, or wasted time.

The court granted Defendants’ Motion in Limine No. 3. Brewster could not call Khalid Barrow or Agustin Garcia because he had not disclosed them as witnesses as required by the civil discovery rules, and he had not shown that the failure was justified or harmless. Brewster had withdrawn Meredith Osborn as a witness.

The court granted in part and denied in part Defendants’ Motion in Limine No. 4, concerning evidence about claims that had already been dismissed. The court allowed limited evidence about Deputy Mills’s conduct—Brewster’s own testimony and the video—to help the jury decide the retaliation claim, but the jury would not decide whether harassment occurred. The court excluded the other retaliatory acts identified in Brewster’s offer of proof because the case concerned only the alleged retaliation involving placement in a safety cell.

Unresolved Request and Disposition

Defendants also asked the court to dismiss Lieutenant Shannon. The court did not rule on that request. It stated that the request had to be made as a motion for judgment as a matter of law at the close of the case and would not be considered as an untimely summary-judgment motion filed shortly before trial.

The court concluded that it granted in part, denied in part, and deferred in part the parties’ motions in limine. It terminated Docket Nos. 121, 123, 124, 125, 129, and 130, and ordered the parties to file a trial stipulation and supplemental briefing on the jail disciplinary records.