Tony M. Sain and Lynn L. Carpenter Win Civil Rights Case For Riverside County Sheriffs

In a recent federal civil rights trial, the firm’s first for the County of Riverside, Manning & Kass Partner Tony M. Sain and Associate Lynn L. Carpenter have achieved an inspiring victory for the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department against claims of negligence, excessive force and wrongful death. Sain and Carpenter successfully dismantled plaintiffs’ argument that, despite officers’ repeated attempts to de-escalate a tense situation involving an armed, mentally ill suspect, the deputies were negligent and used excessive force in firing on knife-wielding Matthew Tucker when he charged them.

Over the course of a six-day trial, the defense team convinced the jury that the defendant deputies had reasonably followed their training. Deputy Rosa Calderon and Deputy Michael Hamilton drew their guns in response to Matthew Tucker arming himself with a hunting knife and held their fire while giving repeated at-gunpoint commands to stop, talk, and drop the knife - despite multiple provoking, knife-armed lunges by Tucker. The jury also found that the deputies continued to hold their fire and tried to de-escalate until a knife-armed Tucker charged at the deputies, reaching arm's reach of the female deputy before they fired on him to defend her life.

Notably, plaintiffs claimed the deputies should’ve TASERed Tucker on sight, before he had even armed himself or presented a threat, because he reported wanting suicide-by-cop. However, plaintiffs' own police practices expert admitted that using a TASER on an unarmed subject would be improper escalation, and their expert also admitted that, when a subject arms himself with a knife, officers are trained to arm themselves with a gun – not a TASER or other non-lethal device.

With the help of defense experts on trajectory and crime scene reconstruction, forensic timing, suicide-by-cop psychology, and police practices, as well as the skilled hand of law & motion guru Julie M. Fleming and a huge assist from our support team (Paralegal Monique Alvarez and Assistants Irma Castellanos and Angela Thompson), the jury saw through plaintiffs' allegations and rendered a unanimous defense verdict after three hours of deliberations.