WEBSTER v. CITY OF HOUSTON

Rehearing En Banc Denied August 9, 1984.

PER CURIAM:

We granted rehearing en banc in this case, 711 F.2d 35, to decide whether sufficient evidence exists to support a jury verdict of municipal liability under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The district court entered judgment against the City of Houston based on a jury finding that the City maintained a custom of using excessive police force. Because the district court excluded evidence and instructed the jury contrary to the standard this court has now adopted to govern municipal liability and our recent decision in Bennett v. City of Slidell, 728 F.2d 762 (5th Cir.1984) (en banc), we vacate and remand for a new trial under proper evidentiary and instructional standards.

Randy Webster, a seventeen year old Shreveport, Louisiana youth, stole a van from an auto dealership in southeast Houston, Texas by driving it through a showroom window. Almost immediately, members of the Houston Police Department began pursuit. After a dangerous, lengthy, high speed chase, the van was stopped. When Randy emerged from the van unarmed, Officers Mays and Olin began to hit him and pull his hair. In the scuffle, Officer Mays' pistol discharged. The bullet struck Randy in the head and hand. Randy died as a result of these wounds. A fellow officer provided Mays with a "throw down weapon" to place next to Randy's body to make it appear that he had been armed. All police officers at the scene who later gave statements falsely declared that Randy was armed. The internal investigation of the shooting conducted by the Houston Police Department exonerated the officers, despite the statement of at least one first hand witness, a cab driver, that Randy was unarmed. Only after the youth's parents provoked a federal investigation of the incident over a year later did the true story emerge.

Randy's parents brought suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 seeking damages from the City of Houston, the Houston Police Department, and certain named policemen. They sought to prove that the City maintained a custom of using excessive police force that caused Randy's death. The trial judge instructed the jury that they could find the City maintained such a custom "through its highranking officials," whom he defined as "the mayor, city council, the police chief or some similarly ranked official whose acts may fairly be said to represent official policy."1

To promote consistency in the adjudication of the rights of injured persons and the inhabitants of municipalities, the court en banc has agreed on the following formulation to govern the imposition of municipal liability:

The instructions in this case were prepared without knowledge of this standard and do not comply with it. Nor can the district court's instructions be squared with our recent decision in Bennett. To render a city liable actual or constructive knowledge of a "custom" must be attributable to the governing body or officials to whom that body has delegated policy-making authority.

Bennett explicated the part of the standard relating to delegation of policy making authority. A "policymaker" must be one who takes the place of the governing body in a designated area of city administration:

Bennett, 728 F.2d at 769.

The trial court's instructions are much too lax to meet our new standard. The jury should have been instructed to find whether the city council had expressly or impliedly acknowledged that the mayor or the chief of police could act in their stead to set goals and to structure and design the activities of the Houston Police Department.

The court further erred in allowing the jury to consider whether "some similarly ranked official" maintained a custom of using excessive force that overrode city policy. In the fact context of this case, the only "officials" involved were the mayor and city council on the one hand and, on the other, the Chief and a number of lesser officers of the Houston Police Department. There was no proof in this record whatsoever that any police officer subordinate to the Chief even possibly could have occupied the role of a city policymaker. Allowing the jury to speculate whether "other officers" could be policymakers was reversible error. It also hazards a violation of the prohibition against fixing municipal liability on the basis of respondeat superior.

Even though the trial court's instructions also told the jury that if a practice by city employees was "persistent and well-settled" or "regular", it could be inferred that city policymakers had authorized or approved such conduct, the court refused to permit plaintiffs to offer proof of other claimed instances of the use of excessive force by Houston police. Under our standard this case turns on whether the City maintained a practice of allowing the use of excessive police force that was "a persistent, widespread practice of city officials or employees, which, although not authorized by officially adopted and promulgated policy, is so common and well settled as to constitute a custom that fairly represents municipal policy." If actions of city employees are to be used to prove a custom for which the municipality is liable, those actions must have occurred for so long or so frequently that the course of conduct warrants the attribution to the governing body of knowledge that the objectionable conduct is the expected, accepted practice of city employees. The trier of fact must be able to charge the governing body with actual or constructive knowledge of such actions of subordinates. There was no proof of actual knowledge here. "Constructive knowledge may be attributed to the governing body on the ground that it would have known of the violations if it had properly exercised its responsibilities, as for example, where the violations were so persistent and widespread that they were the subject of prolonged public discussion or of a high degree of publicity." Bennett, 728 F.2d at 768. The judge erred in refusing to allow plaintiffs to attempt to prove other similar incidents of the use and toleration of excessive force by city policymakers in meeting the burden of showing that the custom asserted was "persistent," "widespread," "common," and "well settled."

Because of these errors, this case must be retried under the standard now established both for allowing proof of and for determining the existence of municipal custom.

VACATED AND REMANDED.

JERRE S. WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge, with whom JOHN R. BROWN, GOLDBERG, TATE and JOHNSON, Circuit Judges, join, dissenting.

In dissenting we feel it is of critical importance to spell out the full nature of this case and the law which should govern its holding.

Plaintiffs brought suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 with pendent state claims, individually and as representatives of their deceased son who had been shot and killed by a police officer. The suit was for damages and was brought against the City of Houston, (City), the Houston Police Department, (HPD), and certain named policemen. The only issue which is before this Court on appeal is the validity of the judgment the District Court entered against the City based on a jury finding of liability. A panel of this Court affirmed that judgment. Webster v. City of Houston, 689 F.2d 1220 (5th Cir.1982). Rehearing en banc was granted on the issue of whether there was sufficient evidence to support the finding.

I. The Episode

This case involves a shockingly heinous episode of police misconduct. Randall Allen Webster, 17 years old, stole a van from a Dodge dealership in southeast Houston, Texas, in the early morning of February 8, 1977. In a matter of minutes, Houston police officer Mays spotted the van and gave chase. Fellow officers Holloway and Olin, responding to Mays' radioed calls, joined in. The chase ended when Webster lost control of the van turning a corner, and it spun to a stop. The police officers left their patrol cars, ran up to the van, and ordered Webster out. Webster emerged from the van and was pushed or thrown to the ground by Mays and Olin. He had no gun and put up no resistance. Mays shot Webster once in the back of the head. The bullet passed through his head and inflicted a wound in his right hand.

Webster lay mortally wounded for some minutes where he had fallen. Other Houston police officers arrived. None of them attempted any care or first aid for the victim, who did not die until later that night while being transferred from one hospital to another. At the scene of the shooting, a plan to conceal the circumstances of the shooting was formulated. After some discussion the group of officers decided that to protect their fellow officer a weapon should be placed at Webster's side. Officer Byrd, among others, offered his "throw down" — an unregistered gun he carried in his patrol car.1 Someone laid the unloaded pistol next to Webster as he lay moribund at the scene.

Two additional police officers investigating for the Houston Police Department arrived shortly thereafter. They viewed their authority as limited to investigating the "scene." They did not interview any officer involved in the shooting nor any witnesses to it. They did not hear any comments contradicting the apparently justified incident. Initially, the story of the officers at the scene was that Webster had emerged from the van with a gun and had been shot in the struggle to subdue him. Officially, Olin and Holloway reported that Mays shot Webster as soon as the armed youth exited the van. Although several HPD patrolmen saw no gun when they arrived shortly after the shooting, not one officer came forward with that information or raised any questions when a gun was later found near Webster as he lay at the scene. An eyewitness, a taxi driver who had aided in the chase, maintained that he saw Webster emerge from the van unarmed and with his hands up. One HPD sergeant at the scene discounted his story, however. The HPD lieutenant who later investigated the matter questioned the taxi driver and eventually recommended ignoring his story. As a result of the perfunctory HPD investigation, carried out the next day, the "throw down" prevented the truth about the incident from emerging for almost a year.

John and Billie Webster, Randall's parents, were troubled by unanswered questions regarding the shooting, particularly the question of why their young son would brandish an empty gun at three armed policemen. They persuaded federal agents to investigate the shooting. The agents traced the gun found at Webster's side as having come from the HPD property room. It had been listed on the records as having been destroyed over a dozen years earlier.2 Eventually, the full story of the incident as described above was disclosed.

Webster's parents sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, asserting that the actions of several HPD officers, including Mays, Olin, and Holloway, had resulted in the deprivation of the constitutional rights of their son and under the Texas law a wrongful death. The district court entered judgment based on a jury verdict awarding the parents $2548.73 in actual damages for medical and funeral expenses and $200,000 in punitive damages from the City. The City appealed, and a panel of this Court affirmed the finding of liability, rejected the award of punitive damages, and remanded for a retrial on the issue of damages. The panel held that the jury verdict could not stand since it awarded no damages at all for the invasion of Webster's constitutional rights or for his parents' loss of his companionship and mental anguish. 689 F.2d at 1230.

II. The Deprivations of Federal Rights

The initial inquiry in any § 1983 suit is whether the plaintiff has been deprived of, in the terms of the statute, a right "secured by the Constitution and laws."3 This inquiry need not be overburdened with a lengthy analysis of what constitutional rights of Webster were invaded when he was fatally shot while unarmed and in the custody of HPD officers. Every person has a constitutional right to be free from the use of excessive force during his arrest or while in custody.4 The critical constitutional issue in holding the City of Houston and the HPD liable, however, grows out of the use of the throw down gun by HPD officers after the shooting. Further, the subsequent concealment by officers of the true circumstances of the incident, coupled with the wholly inadequate HPD investigation in a situation which obviously called for a thorough investigation, also raises the issue of the deprivation of Webster's and his parents' federal constitutional and statutory5 rights.

Following the lead of the Supreme Court, this Court has recognized that the "right of access to the courts is basic to our system of government, and it is well established today that it is one of the fundamental rights protected by the Constitution."6 This right is a substantive right under the Constitution7 with which a state may not interfere except for compelling state interests. Further, a cause of action is "property" under the Fourteenth Amendment.8 Thus, any governmental interference with the substantive right of legal process to establish or defend against a claim, absent some justifying and compelling state interest, or any governmental taking of the property right in a cause of action without due process of law, amounts to a deprivation of rights secured under the Constitution.9

One obvious purpose of a throw down weapon is to conceal from the victim or his legal representatives the fact that the use of deadly force was unwarranted.10 At least in part, this is because the shooting or killing of an unarmed person opens the possibility that the officer will be held accountable in civil tort damages for the results of his actions. Texas, like other states, affords to the victim of a needless killing and his legal representatives an action for damages under the State's wrongful death11 and survival12 statutes. The decedent, through his heirs or personal representative in a common law action under the survival statute, may recover for his physical pain and mental anguish and for other expenses incurred by his estate.13 In an action for wrongful death, parents may recover for loss of companionship and society and for mental anguish suffered as a result of the death of their child14 as well as for any pecuniary loss.15

The placing or "throwing down" of a gun or knife next to a decedent cuts off those claims that a decedent and his survivors have for redress of the injuries inflicted upon them. A fully "successful" throw down weapon episode is a flagrant concealment of the truth that the shooting was actually needless and wrong. Even if the truth is eventually exposed, the victims' chances of recovering are prejudiced from the delay. The albeit temporary taking causes "stale evidence and the fading of material facts in the minds of potential witnesses" and probably greater expense in litigating the claim.16 Mere delay alone can be a constitutional deprivation.

The victim of a wrongful shooting by a police officer also has a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for redress of substantive constitutional violations such as the use of excessive force during an arrest, the infliction of cruel and unusual punishment upon one in custody, or the taking of life without due process of law. See 18 U.S.C. § 242; United States v. Price, 383 U.S. 787, 86 S.Ct. 1152, 16 L.Ed.2d 267 (1966). A police cover-up by the use of a throw down weapon thwarts any § 1983 claim for redress and thus deprives the victim, already stripped of substantive constitutional rights, of his statutory right under § 1983 to be made whole.17 Necessarily, that deprivation of a right secured by a law of the United States under § 1983 is itself also cognizable under § 1983. Otherwise, persons with valid claims for deprivation of civil rights would be without redress for unjustified interference with such claims under color of state law. Moreover, police officers would be indirectly encouraged to conceal the circumstances surrounding police misconduct. A successful cover-up would free the police officer from the consequences of his misconduct. Even an attempted cover up that later collapses exposes him only to the liability already incurred for the original deprivations. His attempted cover up by means of the throw down gun would not be an additional violation of constitutional or other federal rights. If we do not recognize this § 1983 right, the policeman runs no risk of greater liability by attempting a cover up.

In sum, both Webster and his parents were deprived of rights secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States. Webster's constitutional right to be free from the use of excessive force during his arrest was violated when he was shot and killed by officer Mays. Further, by improperly arranging for it to appear that Webster had been armed, the police officers interfered with his pre-existing right to due process of law in the courts. Similarly, his parents' substantive rights of access to the courts and property rights under Texas wrongful death law were transgressed. Finally, the actions of the officers deprived Webster of constitutional due process and his federal statutory right to seek redress under § 1983 which arose when his substantive constitutional and statutory rights were violated under color of state law. If these deprivations can be found to be pursuant to a policy or custom of the City, the City is also liable.18

III. Municipal Liability Under Section 1983

In its Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc, the City urged that this case presents an appropriate occasion for this Court to clarify certain aspects of § 1983 municipal liability in the Fifth Circuit. The City argued that the panel so misunderstood the standards for such liability that it incorrectly found sufficient evidence to support the jury's verdict against the City. This assertion is not supported by the record.

The broad sweep of the statutory provision itself should first be emphasized:

When enacted almost 113 years ago, § 1983 was the first of four sections comprising the Civil Rights Act of 1871.19 It was reported as a bill "to enforce the provisions of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States" and was popularly known as the "Ku Klux Klan Act." The Act was part of a legislative response to the birth and spreading of violence in the South by the Ku Klux Klan and other similar groups following the Civil War. By 1871, it had become clear to Congress that the tacit complicity and deliberate inactivity of some Southern state and local officials insidiously fostered the Klan's vigilante terrorism.20 So sections 2 through 4 of the Act were targeted at suppressing the officially-condoned private terrorism of the time. Section 1, now codified as § 1983, did no more than add civil remedies to the criminal penalties already established by the earlier 1866 Civil Rights Act. It was generally an uncontroversial part of the Act.21

For ninety years the import of what is now § 1983 was largely nullified by an initial restrictive judicial interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment itself, which focused upon the "privileges and immunities" of U.S. citizens, finding them to be almost non-existent, and also upon "state action" limitations.22 Only later did the due process clause of the Amendment become the great protector of individual liberties, including those "read into" the clause from the Bill of Rights. Then, in 1961, the Supreme Court discarded its previous picture of private civil rights enforcement and started on a new canvas in Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 81 S.Ct. 473, 5 L.Ed.2d 492 (1961). There, thirteen Chicago policemen burst into the plaintiffs' home without a warrant and subjected the family to an array of physical and mental abuses. Id. at 169, 81 S.Ct. at 474. The Supreme Court reversed a lower court dismissal of the plaintiffs' § 1983 claims. It found a cause of action for invasion of the family's constitutional rights under color of state law even though the police officers acted contrary to state law. Id. at 187, 81 S.Ct. at 484.

The Court would not recognize a similar claim against the City of Chicago, however, under its reading of the legislative history of the Ku Klux Klan Act. It was unwilling to recognize a municipality as a "person" under the statute. It emphasized particularly the early rejection of the proposed amendment by Senator Sherman which would have imposed municipal liability for private deprivations of civil rights. Id. at 187-92, 81 S.Ct. at 484-86.23 Nonetheless, Monroe forged § 1983 into a vital tool for preventing deprivations of civil rights by state or local officials acting under color of state law by making such officials personally liable for compensating the victims of such invasions of personal liberty.24

Seventeen years after Monroe the Supreme Court in Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978), reevaluated its prior restrictive interpretation of § 1983 excluding municipalities from liability. In Monell, female employees of both the Department of Social Services and the Board of Education of the City of New York sued under § 1983 alleging that the Department and Board had as a matter of official policy unconstitutionally compelled pregnant employees to take unpaid leaves of absence before such leaves were medically justifiable. Although constitutional injury was presumed, plaintiffs were denied relief in the lower courts based on Monroe.25 On appeal, the Supreme Court looked to the same legislative history relied upon in Monroe and determined that the legislators who enacted the Ku Klux Klan Act 107 years before did intend that municipalities be considered "persons" under § 1983. Id. at 690, 98 S.Ct. at 2035-36. The contrary holding of Monroe was overruled. Id. at 663, 98 S.Ct. at 2022.

The Court, however, did not leave the § 1983 exposure of local governments unlimited, and the boundaries set by this holding raise the critical issue in this case. The Court announced that a city would not be liable under § 1983 for acts of its employees merely because it employed wrongdoers. There was to be no respondeat superior liability. Id. at 691, 98 S.Ct. at 2036. Although generally unpopular with legal commentators26 and "merely advisory,"27 this limitation on city liability under § 1983 has now become settled law.28

Of the utmost importance to the case before us is the distinct category of coverage of municipalities which the court based upon "custom," as opposed to specific enacted law.29 The Court recognized that "local governments, like every other § 1983 `person,' by the very terms of the statute, may be sued for constitutional deprivations brought about under governmental `custom' even though such a custom has not received formal approval through the body's official decisionmaking channels." Id. at 690-91, 98 S.Ct. at 2036. The Court said that governmental custom, like official policy, can be established by a city's "lawmakers or by those whose edicts or acts may fairly be said to represent official policy." Id. at 694, 98 S.Ct. at 2037-38. See, e.g., Wolf-Lillie v. Sonquist, 699 F.2d 864, 870 (7th Cir.1983); Berry v. McLemore, 670 F.2d 30, 32 (5th Cir.1982).

In Monell the Court quoted two prior decisions it found relevant in defining governmental custom. The first of these was Adickes v. S.H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 144, 90 S.Ct. 1598, 26 L.Ed.2d 142 (1970), a case of significant relevance to the issue before us. Adickes concerned the refusal of Kress, a private department store, to serve a racially integrated group of customers in its restaurant. The issue was whether such otherwise private conduct amounted to "state action" under § 1983. The Court reversed a directed verdict in favor of defendant Kress, declaring that a custom of state officials (i.e., of tolerating private violence or threats of violence directed towards those persons who would not conform to the practice of segregating the races at restaurants or of harassing and punishing those persons through false arrests for vagrancy) has the coercive force of law for private deprivations to be "under color of law ... or custom." "Although not authorized by written law, such practices of state officials could well be so permanent and well settled as to constitute a `custom or usage' with the force of law." Id. at 167-68, 90 S.Ct. at 1613-14.

The other case was Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway v. Browning, 310 U.S. 362, 60 S.Ct. 968, 84 L.Ed. 1254 (1940). In that case the Court held that taxing railroad and public utility property at a higher rate than other property was not discriminatory, although not expressly authorized by state law. There was no question that the Legislature could tax different classes of property at different rates. The disparate taxation was found to be so uniformly followed as to constitute a virtual amendment to the statute. Justice Frankfurter, for the Court, stated that "[s]ettled state practice ... can establish what is state law.... Deeply embedded traditional ways of carrying out state policy ... are often tougher and truer law than the dead words of the written text." Id. at 369, 60 S.Ct. at 972.

It should be emphasized, however, that "governmental" custom is not found only in practices so locally compelling as to have such coercive force of law on private citizens that private conduct becomes state action, as in Adickes, or practices so settled as to function as a de facto amendment to state law, as in Browning.30 Rather, as the Court said in Monell, "Congress included customs and usages [in § 1983] because of persistent and widespread discriminatory practices of state officials."31 This is made clear by the original setting and purpose of the statute. At the time of the passage of the Act, some local law enforcement officials were systematically refusing to enforce state criminal laws against members of the Ku Klux Klan and similar groups. State law did not sanction or permit such discrimination, and in some cases the highest state officials opposed that discrimination. But individual state employees who actually carried out the administration of the criminal law pursued the non-enforcement practices nonetheless. Thus, custom and usage in the statutory provision which is now § 1983 actually covered "persistent and widespread" practices of ordinary sheriffs and prosecutors in failing to protect the rights of citizens. Custom and usage was not limited to the acts of policymaking officials.32 This background of the adoption of the Ku Klux Klan Act is of the utmost importance to the proper resolution of the instant case.33

The Supreme Court recognized it was presenting only the faintest pencil sketch of the "full contours of municipal liability under § 1983" in Monell. It expressly deferred "further development of this action to another day." Id. at 695, 98 S.Ct. at 2038. The Supreme Court's "other day" has yet to arrive.

This Court has only begun to flesh out the skeletal contours left by Monell. We have taken a relatively restrained view of the breadth of both official policy and governmental custom. Of course, we have held a city not to be liable under § 1983 where there is no evidence that the deprivations occurred as a result of the city's policy or custom.34 Instead, for a city to be held liable we have required an identifiable causal connection between some action or inaction by the city and the asserted constitutional deprivation.35 For example, we have held that an isolated decision not to discipline an officer after a single episode of illegality could not itself supply the causal link. That single decision did not show a policy or custom authorizing or encouraging police misconduct through a persistent failure to discipline offending officers.36 Our en banc decision in Bennett v. City of Slidell, 728 F.2d 762 (5th Cir.1984) concisely stated this principle: "Isolated violations are not the persistent, often repeated, constant violations that constitute custom and policy."37

In Languirand v. Hayden, 717 F.2d 220, 227 (5th Cir.1983), we held a city not liable for the negligence or gross negligence of its police chief and other subordinate city officials in failing to train the particular officer who caused the alleged injury. There was no evidence of "at least a pattern of similar incidents in which citizens were injured or endangered by intentional or negligent police misconduct or that serious incompetence or misbehavior was general or widespread throughout the police force."38 Lacking such evidence there was no support for a conclusion that city policymakers were negligent because they knew or should have known about such customary incompetence or wrongful behavior in their police force and condoned or were consciously indifferent to it. We have declared that, "A city may well have a policy with respect to police recruitment and training that is itself unconstitutional and injurious, but occasional acts of untrained policemen are not otherwise attributed to city policy or custom." Bennett v. City of Slidell, 728 F.2d 762, 768 n. 3 (5th Cir.1984) (en banc).

Our previous decisions, however, add only a gentle wash to the Supreme Court's preliminary sketch of the developing portrait of § 1983 municipal liability. A brief look at some of the shades other courts have said they have seen in Monell is helpful.

Several courts have held that the persistent failure of senior policymaking officials to take affirmative corrective or other supervisory actions can lead to the inference of an implicit official policy on the part of the local government.39 A city's liability for conduct causing constitutional deprivations, manifested by the deliberate indifference to such conduct by its high officials, has been predicated in most cases upon a measure of actual or constructive knowledge of prior similar constitutional deprivations in similar situations.40 Thus, as does this Court, other courts find a single instance of misconduct insufficient to subject a local governmental unit to § 1983 liability,41 since "a municipality cannot be held liable solely because it employs a tortfeasor."42 Some courts have stated, however, that the particularly egregious circumstances of a single instance of brutality, and the number and rank of municipal employees involved in the injurious event, may give rise to an inference of official acquiescence or deliberate unconcern at a higher level.43

From the varied principles announced in the preceding Supreme and Circuit Court holdings and other legal commentary, we draw only those conclusions necessary to establish our view in dissent in this case. Governmental custom, the concern here, is evinced through persistent and widespread practices of ordinary municipal employees. The rank and file policemen are involved. But so is the entire HPD and its top officers. The record shows that every top police officer from the chief on down came up through the ranks from patrolman. As we evaluate the jury verdict based upon the record in this case, all members of the department were well aware of the throw down custom.44 Yet no specific steps to stop it were taken.

Further, the establishment of policies of the City of Houston regarding police work was delegated to the Chief of Police and the HPD by the mayor and city council. Mayor Hofheinz testified:

Relating to the Mayor's testimony are several statements in our en banc opinion in Bennett v. City of Slidell, supra, 728 F.2d at 769. We said:

In Bennett we also said that the governing body may:

Affirmance on the merits in this case, therefore, could well be justified on the sole ground that the Chief of Police was the policymaker by delegation because of the size and complexity of the government of Houston, as Mayor Hofheinz described.

We in dissent do not, however, rest the decision solely on the ground that the Chief of Police was the policymaker. We insist that the court correctly charged the jury that the evidence had to establish "that there existed a regular pattern of such conduct so that it may be inferred that the City of Houston, through its high ranking officials, implicitly authorized or approved such conduct ... `[H]igh ranking officials' means the mayor, city council, the police chief or some similarly ranked official whose acts may fairly be said to represent official policy." This instruction reflects the law accurately and is in full accord with our decision in Bennett.

As the per curiam opinion for the Court points out, the Court has now unanimously agreed upon a formulation to govern the imposition of municipal liability. It provides:

Further, the majority per curiam opinion sets out at greater length the critical instruction to the jury which was given in this case.

A careful reading of our recently adopted formulation with the entire instruction to the jury reveals a remarkable compliance at that earlier time with the law as we now state it. As developed in this opinion in the next part, we do have here "a persistent, widespread practice of city officials or employees" which is so common it constitutes a custom. Further, the knowledge of this custom need not be actual but can be constructive as it is in this case.

The instruction to the jury was carefully crafted to require the jury to find by a preponderance of the evidence that the city through its highranking officials maintained a custom of depriving citizens of their rights through the use of unreasonable, unnecessary, or excessive force by the police department. Further, the charge went on to tell the jury that while the custom need not be formally approved by government officials, the custom must be so persistent and well settled that it is reasonable to infer that it represents official policy.

As a further caution and limitation the jury was instructed that the plaintiffs had to establish by the evidence that there existed a "regular pattern of such conduct" so that it could be inferred that the City of Houston through its highranking officials implicitly authorized or approved such conduct. Then it defined the highranking officials as the mayor, the city council, and the police chief or similar officials.

The charge then properly went on to instruct that the governmental body may be held liable for a "pervasive pattern" of abuses if the city's "inaction or ineptitude in supervising those employees" is so great that it evidenced deliberate and conscious indifference to a substantial possibility that constitutional violations would result. This requirement was met in this record. And it can be concluded from it that the jury found that the City acquiesced or implicitly authorized the violations.

The per curiam opinion for the Court says that this jury instruction did not meet the requirements of our recently approved policy formulation. We do not agree. An evaluation of the instruction as it relates to the responsibility for custom by a city as set out in that formulation clearly complies. It is well established that instructions must be taken as a whole and must not be upset if they charged the jury fairly and effectively on the theory of the case.

The jury instructions in this case fall well within our requirements: "In reviewing a district court's instructions to the jury, we consider the charge as a whole, in view of the allegations of the complaint, the evidence presented and the arguments of counsel to determine whether the jury was misled and whether it understood the issues presented." Coughlin v. Capitol Cement Co., 571 F.2d 290, 300 (5th Cir.1978). "The test is not whether the charge was faultless in every particular but whether the jury was misled in any way and whether it had understanding of the issues and its duty to determine those issues." Houston v. Herring, 562 F.2d 347, 348 (5th Cir.1977). In Associated Radio Service Co. v. Page Airways, Inc., 624 F.2d 1342, 1358 (5th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 1030, 101 S.Ct. 1740, 68 L.Ed.2d 226 (1981), the Court said: "We are convinced from a careful reading of the entire charge that it was, in substance, correct." A thorough reading of the record and the full thrust of the jury charge shows that this charge was well within the requirements set out above.

In accordance with the original theme and purpose of the Ku Klux Klan Act, a governmental entity will be held accountable for deprivations brought about by its employees who follow a practice within the governmental department which is so common and established among a significant number of the employees in that department as to be a practice widely known and followed with relative impunity. At that point, the frequency and pattern of the practice is sufficient to support a reasonable inference that the city, through its top officials, is aware or has the responsibility to be aware that city employees engage in the practice. Such a practice is a governmental custom and is as much a part of that government as are the positive laws and actions of its policymakers. The municipality is liable because its policymaking officials — those who in their sphere of policymaking authority speak and act as the city — should know about the existence of a practice so prevalent as to be custom, and yet condone or deliberately ignore the practice and its consequences. In that way, those officials, and thus the city, join in the infliction of the ultimate injury.

The spirit and the reality of Monell make municipalities and their public officials liable for unconstitutional policies they enforce or customs they condone. 98 S.Ct. at 2041. The highest public officials of the city must not be able to escape liability by the subjective claim that they did not know of the persistent or permeating violations. Otherwise, the more the public officials abdicate responsibilities the freer they will be from liability. Eyes, ears, and mind totally closed to evil would insure against ever being held liable under Section 1983. This would be a perverse result. The jury found on adequate evidence and pursuant to proper jury instruction that the top officials of the city were involved in the persistence of the custom. That is enough.

We stress the importance of the fact that this is a case involving a custom of carrying and using throw down weapons that directly leads to the use of excessive force in arrests by covering up the use of excessive force, and the further cover up of the fact that a throw down weapon has been used. As is shown in the following part of the opinion, the existence of both of these aspects of the custom were convincingly demonstrated by the evidence in this case. Our recent en banc decision in Bennett v. City of Slidell, supra, is readily distinguishable. That case involved an isolated instance of actions taken against a citizen of the city for personal reasons by high ranking but nonpolicymaking public officials. We held in that case that no city policy was established under those facts. Bennett recognized, as we have earlier pointed out, that custom is a separate justification for holding a city and its officials responsible under Section 1983. Bennett raises the issue of the existence of an authoritative governmental policy. In contrast, this is a case which involves custom rather than policy. In Bennett, on its facts, a policy was found not to exist. In this case, on its facts, a custom was found to exist under a careful and fully adequate jury charge. The Bennett holding falls far short of controlling this case.

Finally, we stress the sub rosa nature of any custom which if widely known would be recognized by everyone but the self-served insiders as manifestly and overwhelmingly wrong. In such circumstances custom must properly be provable by evidence that a limited number of municipal employees follow the practice, or from evidence of fewer examples of such a practice. The usual high levels of persistency and pervasiveness cannot be required in these atypical cases because the risk of serious injury to the public is so great and because municipal employees would be expected to conclude, on fewer instances of such a practice or sooner after its inception, that reasonably diligent city policymakers must know about the practice and are willing to disregard it.

IV. The Custom45

A careful and full reading of the trial transcript discloses ample evidence supporting the jury's finding that a policy or custom of the City caused deprivations of Webster's and his parents' federal constitutional and statutory rights. Of course, there is testimony from top police officials and other police denying any knowledge of or condoning the use of throw downs. Several officers testified they knew discovery of use of a throw down would lead to discipline. Admittedly, the evidence shows that written HPD rules specifically forbid excessive use of force, altering the scene of a crime, and concealment of improper police activity. These rules forbid all three of the improper actions in this case. But as we have pointed out and as § 1983 has contemplated from its inception, a custom which violates the written law nevertheless can violate § 1983.

The jury had a right to believe the evidence set out before while in the process of disbelieving conflicting testimony. The jury was entitled to discredit the above self-serving testimony and believe the strong evidence to the contrary.

The carrying of throw down weapons was an established custom among HPD police officers. The practice was widely acknowledged and frequently discussed. Former police lieutenant Dillon, one of the supervisory HPD officers at the scene of the shooting, testified that every officer on the force in 1977 — "in my opinion ... one hundred percent" — understood the term "throw down." Former officer Holloway testified:

Holloway's partner, former officer Olin, agreed that they had discussed whether to carry and when to use a throw down weapon and that such weapons were "necessary evils." Former officer Estes agreed that he had learned about throw down weapons through shop talk and that they were the subject of common discussion in the force. In fact, former officer Byrd stated that "as far as the superiors, they don't directly condone it. They know it happens." This is borne out by Dillon's testimony that he had heard discussions of the use or potential use of throw down weapons among fellow officers.

It was brought out that as early as 1964 HPD instructors at the police academy, where new recruits are taught how to be officers of the law, had "casually mentioned" that an officer who happened to shoot an unarmed suspect "best have something to lay down" to protect himself.46 The jury heard testimony that the operation of the HPD property room was lax and casual. This testimony firmly supported a jury inference that officers were easily able to obtain the difficult-to-trace weapons stored there.47 Moreover, the nature and outcome of the grossly inadequate investigation of Webster's shooting, showed that officers using "throw downs" had a great likelihood of success. As brought out at trial, this investigation was in full accord with prevailing HPD policy. Yet the investigation turned up nothing suspicious about shooting a young man in the back of the head under a claim that he got out of a stolen van and pointed an unloaded gun at three armed policemen. To get the complete picture of the coverup of the use of the throw down a summary of the inadequacies of the investigation is instructive:

This evidence could properly have shouted "coverup" to the jury. Taken with other evidence it can show a custom or practice of the use of throw downs and a cover up. Only the persistence of the victim's parents and the intervention of federal authorities in this case exposed the outrageous events.

Finally, there was direct testimony that thrown down weapons were readily accessible and sometimes used. Olin agreed that in 1977 it was common knowledge that throw downs were available to police officers who might need one. Byrd concurred. Byrd further related that it was then "common knowledge" that at that time 75-80% of the officers on the force carried or had access to some form of "throw down," and that "most of the officers either carried a knife or a gun [as a throw down weapon]." (Emphasis added). The jury had the right to believe this testimony. He testified further that "[i]t wasn't unusual" for there to have been two or three officers at the scene of the Webster shooting with throw down weapons, and that the use of throw down weapons "was just common fact. It had happened before.... [I]t is common knowledge that people know about."48 His testimony was again supported by Dillon, who admitted that he had heard "over the radio and so forth" of the "Joyvies" case — a incident two years prior to Webster's shooting where a throw down weapon was used.49

From this testimony concerning the discussions of throw down weapons, their availability and use, and the casual mention of them at the police academy, the jury could properly find that there was a custom among HPD police of carrying throw down weapons. This case is a perfect example of a sub rosa practice (carrying and using throw down weapons) among city employees (police officers) which is so pervasive and persistent that it can be characterized as city custom despite broadly worded pronouncements to the contrary. The directives of the HPD were simply inadequate to ensure that the practice would not continue. In short, the customary practice here was city policy, no matter what general rules the HPD or City may have adopted or what opinions individual officers may have voiced.

Having found on the basis of adequate proof the existence of a custom condoned or deliberately ignored in practice by the city officials and the HPD, the jury also could properly conclude that this custom led to the deprivation of the federal rights of Webster and his parents. A custom among City patrolmen of carrying throw down weapons can clearly cause the use of such a weapon in certain circumstances, and the jury could reasonably find that it did here. Moreover, the jury could find that this same custom led to the use of excessive force in arresting Webster. Under exigent or heated circumstances, the knowledge that throw down weapons are readily and deliberately available to conceal wrongful conduct would be sufficient to ease a police officer's concern about the use of excessive force.50 Quite simply, the access to easy alibis for mistaken or malicious shootings of unarmed citizens could reasonably be found to have been a cause of this particular instance of wrongful police conduct.

Finally, if the City and the HPD were conscientious about terminating this opprobrious practice, the remedies were readily available. First and most important, the City could have directed the HPD to issue a specific written prohibition of the use or carrying of throw down weapons (or drugs), buttressed by appropriately severe sanctions for violators. It could have instructed the HPD to institute searching, independent investigations of asserted police misconduct and police shootings.51 It could have prohibited any condoning reference by supervisory HPD officers, especially academy instructors, to the possible use of throw down weapons. As additional steps, the City could have directed immediate discharge of anyone found guilty of carrying a "throw down." The City could have ordered the police department to give all police officers a deadline, after which any officer found to be carrying a weapon other than their regular police service revolver would be automatically discharged. This measure could have been facilitated by periodic regular inspections of the officers' automobiles and the kits which they carry. None of these requirements would interfere in the least with proper law enforcement. Finally, the failure to maintain a careful control system in the HPD property room was an invitation to the continuation of the "throw down" custom. This laxity should have been eliminated long ago so that no officer could obtain a thrown down weapon from the property room, as the weapon used in this case was obtained.

Thus there was more than substantial evidence to support the jury verdict that Webster and his parents were deprived of their federal rights under color of state law, and that such deprivations were caused by a persistent and widespread practice among certain employees of the City which amounted to governmental custom. Diligent City policymakers knew or should have known of such a widespread even though covert custom among city employees. The operation of the HPD was their responsibility. This custom could not have existed without City policymakers condoning it, deliberately ignoring it, or closing their eyes to its possible existence. Through such action or omission, the City itself was at fault, as well as were wrongdoing officers, for the constitutional and statutory deprivations. The City, consequently, properly was held liable under § 1983.

We in dissent realize that police officers face danger each day in the course of their vital, too often unappreciated work. In no way should this Court seek to limit the reasonable and precautionary protections a police department and city can lawfully institute for its patrolmen. But society must require cities and their police departments to be aware of illegal police practices which, even in the face of contrary written city policy, become so accepted as to be internally customary. It need not be emphasized that the carrying and use of throw down weapons is a particularly shameful and egregious example of such a practice. We should disapprove as strongly as possible of police departments and acquiescent city governments allowing such a practice to flourish.

V. Conclusion

This is the case the Websters proved. As a matter of post hoc rationalization this Court is demanding that after seven and one-half years, this bereaved and sorely mistreated family must retry and establish their case all over again.

If the American system of justice and judicial process demands that the jury verdict be taken away from these plaintiffs on this record, a serious weakness in our system is exposed. We in dissent do not concede such a weakness. This case was fairly and properly tried. As this opinion points out, the jury was well instructed on the responsibility of public officials including the police chief and the city council. This Court has now in the last two months formulated a well stated governing principle for holding cities and high public officials liable for civil rights violations. The statement is based upon Supreme Court precedent. The jury was more than adequately charged. But because the jury was not charged three and a half years ago in the precise way and the precise words so recently formulated, the Court holds this case must be tried again.

Under the facts well established in the evidence in this case and under the charge to the jury, the Court could properly find liability on the part of the City through the police chief because responsibility had been delegated to the police chief from the city council. The jury properly could also find responsibility on the part of the City through the city council's failure adequately to discharge its obligations to ensure that excessive force against citizens not be used by the police.

The most damaging aspect of the analysis relied upon by the Court is an encouragement to the top public officials of a municipality to close their eyes and ears to what is going on in city government — to see no evil and hear no evil. The holding of the majority of the Court when analyzed to its full conclusion encourages the top policymakers of a city to do nothing, to exercise no responsibilities. If they do nothing and pay no attention to what is being done, the Court is holding, in effect, that they and the city cannot be held responsible for civil rights violations. This cannot be the law. Abdication cannot relieve of responsibility.

This case is properly returned to the lower court for a retrial of the damage issue.52 But placing as a burden upon the shoulders of these plaintiffs the necessity to retry the case in full on the merits is an onerous burden, unjustified in the law. The majority of the Court treats far too casually a reversal for a new trial. We must not ignore the oppressive infliction of a new trial on the merits as a means merely to instruct the courts upon a more felicitous way to charge the jury in similar cases in the future. Yet that is what this Court is doing, and we must register firm and aggrieved dissent.

ALVIN B. RUBIN, Circuit Judge, with whom JOHN R. BROWN and TATE, Circuit Judges, join, dissenting:

The Bennett standard requires that, for a municipality to be charged with liability for actions taken pursuant to a custom, "actual or constructive knowledge of such custom must be attributable to the governing body of the municipality or to an official to whom that body had delegated policy-making authority." (Emphasis supplied) Lacking prescience and hence being unable to foresee that this court would, only on application for rehearing in Bennett, some three years after this case was tried, preclude municipal liability based on a custom known to officials whose policy-making authority is not delegated but inherent in their high rank, the district court charged the jury, "In this connection, `high-ranking officials' means the Mayor, City Council, the Police Chief or some similarly ranked official whose acts may fairly be said to represent official policy." He, therefore, did not require that the jury find that the "high-ranking official" be "an official to whom [the governing body of the municipality] had delegated policy-making authority."

The lack of such an instruction, however, was not the objection actually made to the charge. The objection was simply that the instruction as a whole would permit the jury to impose respondeat superior liability. Every one of my colleagues, whether in majority or dissent, agrees that § 1983 does not impose vicarious liability on a municipality. The charge did not, as I read it, permit the municipality merely to be liable by virtue solely of its employment of the tort-feasor and therefore was invulnerable to the objection actually made.

Considering the charge as a whole, as my brother Williams correctly says we must and should, I would affirm the judgment. I do not fault defense counsel for failing to predict Bennett, but neither would I reverse the district court for lacking such foresightedness or for failing to do what no one asked him to do. In short, if there be error in the clear light of hindsight, it was not plain.

I, therefore, join my brother Williams in dissent.