Judge slashes record-setting $67 million award in fatal Austin police shooting case

statesman.com

After a man was shot and killed by Austin police in 2017, a federal judge has reduced a jury's $67 million award to his family — an amount that stunned Austin's legal community — to $8.3 million.

Skip Davis, the attorney representing the surviving family of Landon Nobles, said he was not thrilled with the drastic reduction, but the case's takeaway was still clear. "The price of police misconduct has ratcheted up," he said.

The $8 million figure still easily tops the record $3.25 million the city of Austin paid in the death of David Joseph, a naked, unarmed teenager who was having a mental breakdown when he was fatally shot by an officer in 2016. In Nobles' case, police said Nobles fired at them before they fired back.

After the jury delivered its $67 million verdict in the Nobles case in December, the city of Austin began settling many cases against Austin officers who were accused of injuring demonstrators participating in the massive protests against police brutality in May 2020. The city of Austin has so far settled seven protesters' lawsuits for a total of $14.9 million, and more than a dozen cases are still pending against the city.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Lane ordered the monetary reduction late Wednesday through a procedure called remittitur, which allows judges to correct a damage award that bucks legal precedent without having to order a new trial. Lane had previously directed the two sides to come to an agreement on a reduced number, but those negotiations were unsuccessful.

The city of Austin can still appeal Lane's decision to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a typically conservative court where Lane has said the Nobles' case might be "on real thin ice."

Nobles, 24, was shot at Sixth and Trinity streets on May 7, 2017, after officers got a report that a man had fired a gun into the air. One police officer testified that he pushed his bike into Nobles as Nobles was running, and another Austin police officer testified that Nobles then fired his gun.

"Police officers are chasing a man in the dark … and a gun goes off right in front of them," Lane said during a previous hearing.

Nobles' cousin Royie Nobles previously told the American-Statesman that Landon Nobles was running from the scene of an argument in downtown Austin on May 7, 2017, and an officer threw a bicycle at him, causing a gun Landon Nobles was carrying to go off.

The officers "fired a total of five shots, three of which struck Nobles in the back and ultimately resulted in his death," Lane wrote in his order released Wednesday.