Charles M. Martin v. Michael Fugate

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted November 7, 2024*
Decided November 13, 2024
Before
DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge
AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge
DORIS L. PRYOR, Circuit Judge
No. 24-1823
CHARLES M. MARTIN,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
MICHAEL FUGATE, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Eastern District of
Wisconsin.
No. 23-C-483
William C. Griesbach,
Judge.
O R D E R
Charles Martin, a Wisconsin prisoner, appeals the summary judgment rejecting
his claims that four correctional officers used excessive force in restraining him after he
assaulted an officer. Because no reasonable jury could find that the officers violated
Martin’s rights under the Eighth Amendment, we affirm.
* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and
record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not
significantly aid the court. F ED. R. A PP . P. 34(a)(2)(C).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

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We construe the record in Martin’s favor. See Arce v. Wexford Health Sources Inc.,
75 F.4th 673, 678 (7th Cir. 2023). While incarcerated at Green Bay Correctional
Institution, Martin assaulted Michael Fugate, the correctional officer overseeing an area
where prisoners line up to receive medication. A security camera at the prison recorded
the incident, but the recording has no audio. While Martin was waiting for his
medication, Fugate cursed at Martin and ordered him to get back in line. Martin replied,
“Watch how you talk to me. I’m not like these other dudes. I’ll get on that.” Fugate then
grabbed Martin by the shoulder to handcuff him. Martin pulled away from Fugate and
unleashed a flurry of punches, striking Fugate in the head. The two men grappled
before Fugate struck Martin in the chest with his knee and wrestled him to the floor.
Martin told Fugate, “I’m done. I’m done. I’m not resisting,” while Fugate attempted to
secure Martin’s hands behind his back. (Fugate disputes that Martin made this
statement and that Martin stopped struggling at this point.)
While Martin and Fugate were on the floor, Officer Kyle Rohde responded to the
scene after receiving a radio call about the altercation. Rohde ran down the prison’s
hallway and joined the men on the floor. He then grabbed Martin’s head with one hand
and used his other hand to assist Fugate with securing Martin’s hands behind his back.
Officer David Wisniewski also responded to the radio call. Observing that Fugate
and Rohde were attempting to secure Martin’s hands, Wisniewski grabbed one of
Martin’s arms and pulled it behind his back so that he could be restrained. Meanwhile,
Rohde continued to restrain Martin’s head.
After the officers had handcuffed Martin, Officer Joseph Lannoye helped to
secure Martin’s legs in restraints. The officers then stood Martin up and escorted him
away from the area. After the incident, Martin experienced pain in his head, dizziness,
and vomiting. He was diagnosed with a concussion several days later.
Martin sued Fugate, Rohde, Wisniewski, and Lannoye for violating his rights
under the Eighth Amendment. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. According to Martin, the officers
used excessive force in restraining him by repeatedly bouncing his head off the floor
and twisting his arm even though he had stopped resisting.
Relying in part on the video of the incident, the district court entered summary
judgment for the defendants, ruling that Martin presented no evidence from which a
jury could find that the officers had violated his rights under the Eighth Amendment.
The court explained that the only reasonable conclusion that a jury could draw from the

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No. 24-1823 Page 3
video is that the officers applied force in a good-faith effort to secure Martin, and none
of the officers intended to hurt him.
On appeal, Martin argues that the district court erred when it relied on the video
evidence of the incident because some parts of it are obstructed or unclear. Martin
argues that the district court instead should have relied on his account of events. Martin
correctly observes that video evidence “can eviscerate a factual dispute only when the
video is so definitive that there could be no reasonable disagreement about what the
video depicts.” Kailin v. Village of Gurnee, 77 F.4th 476, 481 (7th Cir. 2023) (citing Scott v.
Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 380 (2007)). Here, the video evidence shows much of the incident
between Martin and the officers, but as Martin points out, the video is obscured for
several seconds after Rohde initially grabs Martin’s head—the time during which
Martin asserts that Rohde repeatedly bounced his head off the floor. According to
Martin, a jury could find that he was not resisting when the video was obscured, and
therefore the officers violated the Eighth Amendment when they continued to restrain
him and bounced his head off the floor.
But even if we resolve these factual disputes in Martin’s favor, summary
judgment was proper. To prevail on his claim that the officers used excessive force in
violation of the Eighth Amendment, Martin must show that force was applied
“‘maliciously and sadistically’” to cause harm, rather than “‘in a good-faith effort to
maintain or restore discipline.’” See Harper v. Albert, 400 F.3d 1052, 1065 (7th Cir. 2005)
(quoting Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U.S. 1, 7 (1992)). In evaluating this subjective
requirement, courts consider “the need for an application of force, the relationship
between that need and the force applied, the threat reasonably perceived by the
responsible officers, the efforts made to temper the severity of the force employed, and
the extent of the injury suffered by the prisoner.” Id. (quoting Hudson, 503 U.S. at 7).
Martin argues that a jury could infer that the officers violated the Eighth Amendment
when they used force to restrain him even after he told them he would stop resisting.
But the officers were not required to believe him. Olson v. Morgan, 750 F.3d 708, 713
(7th Cir. 2014). And in any case, even if Martin had stopped resisting while he was
pinned to the ground, the officers used reasonable force to restore order by restraining
Martin’s arms and legs after his violent assault on an officer only moments earlier.
Further, even if Rohde hit Martin’s head on the floor while attempting to restrain
him, no evidence shows that Rohde used force maliciously or sadistically. Rohde was
the first officer to respond to the assault on another officer; he reasonably perceived an
ongoing threat when he saw Martin and Fugate struggling on the floor; and he

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deployed a technique that he had learned in his training to secure Martin’s head.
Throughout the time that Rohde used force to secure Martin’s head, Martin was not yet
handcuffed, and Rohde stopped applying force immediately after the officers had
restrained Martin’s hands. Although Martin may have suffered a concussion because of
that use of force, the undisputed evidence shows that Rohde was acting in a good-faith
effort to restrain Martin after he had assaulted an officer, not to harm him.
AFFIRMED

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