Smith v. Holtz

• Decision Date: 27 July 1999
• Docket Number: No. 99-7046,99-7046
• Parties: (3rd Cir. 2000) JAY C. SMITH, APPELLANT V. JOHN J. HOLTZ, BUREAU OF TECHNICAL SERVICES, PENNSYLVANIA STATE POLICE; RONALD F. COYLER, BUREAU OF TECHNICAL SERVICES, PENNSYLVANIA STATE POLICE; VICTOR DOVE; JOHN J. PURCELL, SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE, CENTRAL REGIONAL OFFICE, BUREAU OF CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL; WILLIAM J. LANDER, BUREAU OF CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL; PAUL YATRON Argued:
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

Page 186

210 F.3d 186 (3rd Cir. 2000)

JAY C. SMITH, APPELLANT

V.

JOHN J. HOLTZ, BUREAU OF TECHNICAL SERVICES, PENNSYLVANIA STATE POLICE; RONALD F. COYLER, BUREAU OF TECHNICAL SERVICES, PENNSYLVANIA STATE POLICE; VICTOR DOVE; JOHN J. PURCELL, SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE, CENTRAL REGIONAL OFFICE, BUREAU OF CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL; WILLIAM J. LANDER, BUREAU OF CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL; PAUL YATRON

No. 99-7046

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

Argued: July 27, 1999

Decided April 13, 2000

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania Civil No. 93-cv-01428 District Judge: Hon. James F. McClure, Jr [Copyrighted Material Omitted] Gerald J. Williams, Esq. (Argued) Williams & Cuker One Penn Center at Suburban Station 1617 JFK Boulevard, Suite 800 Philadelphia, PA 19103, and Leslie M. Fields, Esq. Costopoulos Foster & Fields 831 Market Street P. O. Box 222 Lemonye, PA 17043, for Appellant.

D. Michael Fisher, Esq. Attorney General Gregory R. Neuhauser, Esq. (Argued) Senior Deputy Attorney General Calvin R. Koons, Esq. Senior Deputy Attorney General John G. Knorr, III, Esq. Chief Deputy Attorney General Office of the Attorney General 15th Floor, Strawberry Square Harrisburg, PA 17120, for Appellees

Before: Sloviter, Nygaard and McKEE, Circuit Judges

McKEE, Circuit Judge

Jay C. Smith, the former principal of Upper Merion High School in Upper Merion, Pennsylvania, appeals from a jury verdict in favor of defendants in the civil rights suit he filed under 42 U.S.C. S 1983. The suit arose from an infamous murder and prosecution that were the subjects of books by noted author, Joseph Wambaugh, as well as Smith's criminal defense attorney. The prosecution also generated a host of criminal and civil litigation. See Smith v. Holtz, 30 F. Supp.2d 468, 471 (E. D. Pa. 1998)(collecting cases).

In 1986, Smith received three death sentences following conviction for the murder of Susan Reinert and her two children. Reinert had been an English teacher at Upper Merion High School while Smith had been the principal. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court subsequently vacated Smith's murder convictions, and remanded for a new trial because prejudicial hearsay had been improperly admitted during his trial. However, before Smith could be retried, he learned that the prosecution had not disclosed certain evidence that Smith claimed was exculpatory. The trial court found prosecutorial misconduct, but refused to bar retrial. However, on appeal of that decision, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that the double jeopardy clause of the Pennsylvania Constitution prohibited retrial, and ordered Smith's release.

Thereafter, Smith filed the instant civil rights action. He alleged that the defendants' deliberate suppression of exculpatory evidence violated the holding of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 (1963), and that he was therefore entitled to compensation for the resulting denial of his constitutional right to due process of law. The jury returned a verdict in favor of all of the defendants, and the District Court denied Smith's post-trial motions. Smith v. Holtz, 30 F. Supp.2d 468 (E. D. Pa. 1998). This appeal followed. We will affirm.

I. BACKGROUND¹

The events leading to Smith's criminal prosecution began to unfold on Monday, June 25, 1979, at about 5:20 a. m., when a police officer found Susan Reinert's nude body in the hatchback trunk of her car. "The body showed evidence that Ms. Reinert had been chained and beaten, and her nude body was left lying in the fetal position in the back of her car...." Id. at 471. At the time of her death, Reinert taught English at Upper Merion High School.

A forensic pathologist examined Reinert's body and "determined that Ms. Reinert had sustained massive hemorrhaging in the eye area and abrasions over her body. He also opined that certain prominent bruises on the back of the body... were consistent with the imprint of a chain. The cause of death was determined to be asphyxiation from an overdose of morphine, which was consistent with having been caused by criminal agency." Commonwealth v. Smith, 568 A.2d 577, 583 (Pa. 1989). The pathologist opined that Reinert's death probably occurred during the morning hours of Sunday, June 24, 1979. Id.

Mary Grove, Reinert's next door neighbor, and Ms. Grove's granddaughter, Beth Ann Brook, saw Reinert and her two young children, Michael (age 10), and Karen (age 11) on Friday, June 22, 1979, at about 9:20 p. m., on Reinert's front porch. Shortly thereafter, Ms. Grove and Beth Ann heard Reinert and her children drive away in Reinert's car. Beth Ann noticed that Karen was wearing a small green pin with a white "P". This was the last known time that anyone saw Michael or Karen Reinert. Id. at 548.

Following the discovery of Susan Reinert's body, the local and state police conducted an extensive search in an effort to locate Michael and Karen. Karen and Michael had close relationships with their father -- who was divorced from their mother -- and their paternal grandmother. Both children knew where their father and paternal grandmother lived, and both children knew how to reach them by telephone. Id. at 587. However, neither the father nor the paternal grandmother ever heard from the children after June 22, 1979.

In addition to the search by local and state police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation opened a "missing persons case" and assigned eighteen agents full-time to a nationwide search that lasted five months. However, neither the FBI nor the state or local police ever found a trace of either of the two missing children. Id. at 587.

Soon after Reinert's body was discovered, suspicion focused on William Bradfield (who was also an English teacher at Upper Merion High School), and on Smith. Police were eventually able to build a case against Bradfield, and he was charged with the murders of Reinert and her two children. In 1983, a jury convicted him of those murders, and he was thereafter sentenced to three consecutive life sentences. See Commonwealth v. Bradfield, 508 A.2d 568 (Pa. Super. 1986). Bradfield died in prison in 1998 without ever disclosing the location of the bodies of the Reinert children.

In 1986, three years after Bradfield's trial, Smith was arrested and also charged with the Reinert murders based upon evidence that he had conspired with Bradfield.² During the ensuing trial, the Commonwealth introduced evidence that Bradfield had been involved in a romantic relationship with Reinert from 1973 until the time of her death. Reinert had made Bradfield the primary beneficiary under her will, the sole beneficiary of her $730,000 in life insurance, and the guardian of her children in the event of her death. She did all this because she believed Bradfield's promise that he would marry her. However, unbeknownst to Reinert, Bradfield had a lover named Susan Myers. Bradfield told his friends and Myers that he was not interested in Reinert even though Reinert was enamored with him. Commonwealth v. Smith, 568 A.2d at 604.

As noted above, Smith was the principal of the high school where both Reinert and Bradfield taught. Smith's relationship with Reinert appeared to be strictly professional, but his relationship with Bradfield was quite nefarious. The Commonwealth's theory during Smith's prosecution was that Smith and Bradfield conspired to kill Reinert so they could share in her life insurance proceeds, and the testamentary assets that would go to Bradfield upon Reinert's death. The Commonwealth believed that Bradfield and Smith abducted Reinert and her two children pursuant to that conspiracy, and that Smith then killed them somewhere in Pennsylvania. Smith v. Holtz, 30 F. Supp.2d at 473.

According to the Commonwealth, the illicit relationship between Smith and Bradfield began shortly after Smith's arrest on charges of theft. Smith had been charged with theft from a Sears in St. David's Mall in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, in August of 1977, and Bradfield had been Smith's alibi witness at Smith's theft trial. Commonwealth v. Smith, 568 A.2d at 604. The Commonwealth theorized that Bradfield's alibi testimony had been perjured, and that Smith's motives for killing Reinert included preventing her from disclosing that his defense had consisted of perjured testimony.³

During Smith's murder trial, the Commonwealth contended that Smith and Bradfield formed their conspiracy to kill Reinhert and her children sometime after the theft trial. Although Bradfield's testimony had established Smith's alibi, the Commonwealth introduced testimony during Smith's murder trial that established that, contrary to Bradfield's alibi testimony, Smith had actually been inside the Sears store when the theft occurred. Id. That evidence was introduced at Smith's murder trial to demonstrate the nature of the relationship between Bradfield and Smith.

The Commonwealth also introduced physical evidence that linked Smith to the Reinert murders. A green pin with a white "P", similar to the one that Beth Ann Brook saw Karen Reinert wearing on June 22, 1979, was recovered from under the front seat of Smith's car. A hair similar to Susan Reinert's was found inside Smith's home, and testimony was offered to establish that fibers found on Reinert's body were similar to fibers from a carpet in the basement of Smith's home. In addition, Smith's former military reserve unit was named 79 USARCOM, and a comb imprinted with "79 USARCOM" was found in Reinert's car under her body. The prosecution also introduced a bag of identical combs that had been recovered from Smith's home. Finally, the prosecution introduced a letter that Smith had written to his wife while he had been incarcerated on the theft charges. In that letter, Smith asked her to dispose of the carpet in their home (the one with fibers similar to fibers found on Reinert's body), and clean the interior of his car (wh...