Shari Ferreira, individually v. Paul Penzone; County of Maricopa; Jeffrey Alvarez

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
SHARI FERREIRA, individually and as
beneficiary of and successor in interest to
the estate of: deceased Zachary Daughtry,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
PAUL PENZONE; COUNTY OF
MARICOPA; JEFFREY ALVAREZ,
Defendants-Appellees.
No. 18-16109
D.C. No. 2:15-cv-01845-JAT
MEMORANDUM*
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Arizona
James A. Teilborg, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted December 5, 2019
San Francisco, California
Before: SILER,** CLIFTON, and BYBEE, Circuit Judges.
FILED
DEC 23 2019
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
** The Honorable Eugene E. Siler, United States Circuit Judge for the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, sitting by designation.

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Plaintiff-Appellant Shari Ferreira appeals following a jury trial in her civil
case against Maricopa County and two of its officials. After her son, Zachary
Daughtry, a pretrial detainee in a Maricopa County jail, was killed by his cellmate,
she alleged that the defendants had deprived him of a constitutional right under
42 U.S.C. § 1983 and were grossly negligent under Arizona state law. The jury
found the defendants not liable for Daughtry’s death. Ferreira appeals several
rulings by the district court excluding evidence, as well as its failure to grant her
motion for a mistrial. We affirm.
We review a district court’s evidentiary rulings for an abuse of discretion.
See, e.g., Wagner v. Cty. of Maricopa, 747 F.3d 1048, 1052 (9th Cir. 2013). A
district court abuses its discretion if its ruling is “illogical, implausible, or without
support in inferences that may be drawn from the record.” United States v.
Hinkson, 585 F.3d 1247, 1262 (9th Cir. 2009). To reverse on the basis of an
erroneous evidentiary ruling, we must conclude not just that the district court
abused its discretion, but also that the error was prejudicial. See Wagner, 747 F.3d
at 1052.
The district court excluded factual findings made by a different judge in a
separate, longstanding litigation against various Maricopa County officials—as
well as details about an expert report submitted in that case—finding them to be
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too general to support Ferreira’s theory of liability. It also excluded information
about the previous deaths of inmates in Maricopa County jails, finding them to be
too dissimilar from Daughtry’s case to be admissible under Fed. R. Evid. 403.1 It
also sustained objections to questions to witnesses about whether the defendants
conducted internal reviews after Daughtry’s death, and to admission of a
photograph of Daughtry’s cell taken after his death. After considering the reasons
given by the district court for its rulings, we conclude that the court did not abuse
its discretion.
We also review a district court’s denial of a motion for mistrial for an abuse
of discretion. United States v. Segal, 852 F.2d 1152, 1155 (9th Cir. 1988). In
closing, defendants’ counsel made comments about the approach of Ferreira’s
attorneys that were inappropriate, ad hominem, and possibly false. The district
court declined to grant Ferreira’s motion for a mistrial based on these remarks,
noting that her attorneys had made statements about the conduct of the defendants’
lawyers during trial that might have been similarly inappropriate. Trial courts are
in a “better position than we to gauge the prejudicial effect of improper
comments.” Mateyko v. Felix, 924 F.2d 824, 828 (9th Cir. 1990). After reviewing
1 On appeal, Ferreira has moved for the panel to take judicial notice of the
fact of two jury verdicts in two cases resulting from the inmates’ deaths. We deny
the motion.
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the record, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in so
ruling.
AFFIRMED.
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