Trial Magazine

Black v. Hicks 2020 WL 4544796 (Ohio App. Ct. Aug. 6, 2020)

While driving through East Cleveland, Ohio, Arnold Black was pulled over by patrolman Jonathan O’Leary. Off-duty officer Randy Hicks had instructed O’Leary to stop Black because Hicks thought Black’s truck resembled the vehicle of a suspected drug dealer he was investigating. O’Leary handcuffed Black, and Hicks searched Black’s vehicle for drugs, but the search yielded nothing. Black denied knowledge of any drugs, and Hicks then punched Black—who was still handcuffed—in the face without provocation and struck him repeatedly until O’Leary intervened.

Hicks called another officer to take Black to the police station, where he was held in a storage room for four days without running water or a toilet. Black testified that at one point during his detention he was offered a carton of milk and that he was allowed one phone call to his fiancée. But when his fiancée tried to visit him, she was refused entry. Eventually, a local councilwoman came to see Black after receiving reports that he was being held without probable cause and had been beaten. The councilwoman confronted then-police chief Ralph Spotts about the situation. Later that day, Black was transferred to the county jail and released.

The beating caused Black to suffer blurred vision and headaches for months, and he required surgery to treat bleeding on his brain. Black sued Hicks and other members of the police department, alleging constitutional and 42 U.S.C. §1983 violations. He was represented by Mentor, Ohio attorneys Bobby DiCello, Mark DiCello, and Justin Hawal.

O’Leary reported the beating to his supervisors, including Spotts, and told them what Hicks had done. He also testified that he filed a report detailing what happened and that his dash cam video was recording the night of the incident and would have captured what transpired. Nobody in the police department followed up on O’Leary’s report or investigated the incident.

During discovery, it came to light that all of the evidence from the incident—the report, the dash cam video, jail records, and more—had disappeared. “They took a man off the street for no reason,” Bobby DiCello said. “Police reports that would’ve documented it, including any searches that would have happened—all of it was gone.”

Unrebutted testimony at trial, including from Hicks himself, revealed a horrific practice that had become part of the department’s culture: Known as the “Jump-Out Boys,” officers on patrol for the Street Crimes Unit would seize on groups of people suspected of dealing drugs and beat them. Officers were taught to stop people on suspicion of drug possession without probable cause and to make them as uncomfortable as possible.

Promotions in the department depended on engaging in these violent tactics, Hicks testified. He also testified that these policies and procedures were well-known throughout the department and that they came from the top—namely Spotts, who had been part of the Jump-Out Boys in the 1990s.

In 2019, a jury awarded Black $50 million, including $20 million in compensatory damages and $15 million in punitive damages each against Hicks and Spotts. In August 2020, the Ohio Court of Appeals affirmed the verdict.

Counsel said the verdict was about much more than the treatment of one person—it was about a custom and practice of violence throughout the East Cleveland police department. “He wasn’t the first guy that they did this to. There’s no excuse for this. The government of East Cleveland ought to be ashamed of itself,” Bobby DiCello said. “The importance of this verdict is not in the money, it’s in the message. The powerful message that the jury sent is that this kind of conduct will not be tolerated.”

The attorneys are hopeful that this message will resonate with other police officers who witness brutality and misconduct in their departments. “I hope this decision motivates other officers to come forward when they see wrongdoing in their ranks,” Bobby DiCello said.

Kate Halloran is the senior associate editor of Trial.