Plaintiff LaBlanca Sibley’s excessive force claim against Officer Nicholas S. Riggall, arising from her arrest and detention, was based on Riggall’s use of pepper spray while she was seated in the patrol car.
Sibley retained Mr. Jeronimo Rodriguez, an expert in law enforcement practices and use-of-force standards. Riggall moved to exclude Rodriguez’s opinions and testimony. Riggall challenged Rodriguez’s qualifications, methodology, and helpfulness to the trier of fact.
Law Enforcement Expert Witness
Jeronimo “Jerry” Rodriguez served as a police officer with the Los Angeles Police Department for over 25 years, including work in the Force Investigation Division.
Since retiring as an active law enforcement officer in 2021, Rodriguez has reviewed and consulted on police and law enforcement practices as a private police consultant and audited agencies across the country and continued to train many agencies throughout the United States on police-related investigations.
Discussion by the Court
Qualifications
Riggall pointed out that Rodriguez has not “studied, personally conducted research, or authored any literature on the use of force at issue in this case.”
First, Riggall’s argument on qualifications, made conclusorily and without citations to any authority, is insufficiently developed for the Court to consider.
Regardless, Rodriguez is qualified to testify as a police practices expert generally and about the use of force specifically. Rodriguez has served as a law enforcement officer for decades. For some of those years, he conducted investigations into officers’ uses of force. Since his retirement from law enforcement, Rodriguez has worked as a police practices expert in other cases and has consulted and provided trainings on various police practices subjects.
Reliability
Riggall argued that Rodriguez’s opinions “are not based on sufficient or accurate data” because, among other things, Rodriguez supposedly “draws his opinion on the force being excessive largely upon his belief that Sibley was falsely arrested and had not been resisting or involved in any crime.”
The Court found Rodriguez’s methodology sufficiently reliable. Rodriguez described his methodology thusly: his “method for forming opinions relies on nearly forty years of experience as a police officer and trainer, collaboration with various instructors and police practices experts, and a comprehensive review of relevant evidence and materials, without making credibility judgments.”
To the extent Rodriguez allegedly relied on Sibley’s version of events, such reliance did not merit exclusion of Rodriguez’s opinions.
Assistance to the Trier of Fact
Riggall argued that Rodriguez’s opinions will not be helpful to the jury because “Rodriguez never explains, beyond his own characterization of Plaintiff’s behavior as ‘tapping merely to get an officer’s attention to plead her innocence,’ the basis for not permitting a reasonable officer to interpret Plaintiff’s behavior as violent or aggressive.” He also argued that “Rodriguez offered legal opinions in the guise of interpreting the [Lakeland Police Department’s] policy on use of force.”
However, the Court rejected this argument in part. Rodriguez’s opinions on the use of force and police practices will be helpful to the jury. Likewise, Rodriguez’s opinion on whether Riggall behaved in accordance with police procedures will be helpful to the jury.
Although most of Rodriguez’s opinions and report do not contain legal conclusions, he did characterize the use of pepper spray as “excessive.” Calling the use of force “excessive” is a legal conclusion, given the jury is tasked with deciding whether the use of force was “excessive” and, therefore, unconstitutional. As a result, the Court will not allow Rodriguez to opine that the use of force was “excessive.”
Held
The Court granted in part and denied in part the Defendant Nicholas S. Riggall’s motion to exclude the testimony of Plaintiff’s expert Jeronimo Rodriguez.
Key Takeaway
An expert is permitted to base his opinion on a particular version of disputed facts and the weight to be accorded to that opinion is for the jury.
Case Details:
| Case Caption: | Sibley V. City Of Lakeland |
| Docket Number: | 8:24cv2853 |
| Court Name: | United States District Court, Florida Middle |
| Order Date: | January 27, 2026 |
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