re: Jury awards $18 to innocent black man who was punched, tasered and arrested

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Although the jury found constitutional violations, there was no evidence presented in court that supported the amount of damages that the Franklins were seeking. He said the Franklins asked for more than $1 million in damages.

In civil rights lawsuits, damages are usually measured by medical bills, lost wages, property damage, post-traumatic stress, psychological treatment, impairment and others, Agostino said. But in this case, no such evidence was presented, so the jury awarded the plaintiffs the default amount of $1, he said.

“You can say that they experienced a deprivation of their constitutional rights,” Agostino said.

“But other than the deprivation of constitutional rights, the jury did not find other damages that go along with that,” he said. “They did exactly what they were instructed to do. They applied the law and determined the facts.”


According to Agostino, the city did offer $15,000 to settle the case.

Johnny Ulmer, the Franklins’ attorney, was not available for comment on Monday. But he told the Star that damages for other similar cases are between $100,000 and $300,000.

“If they would have put an amount on the table that I felt was appropriate, we would have settled,” Ulmer told the Star. “What happened that night, the physical abuse that DeShawn suffered — they were slapping my clients in the face with the offer they put out there.”

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