Jean v. Collins

• Decision Date: 17 September 1998
• Docket Number: No. 95-7694,95-7694
• Citation: 155 F.3d 701
• Parties: Lesly JEAN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Delma COLLINS, Chief of Detectives of the City of Jacksonville, Individually; James Shingleton, Police Officer with the City of Jacksonville, North Carolina, Police Department, Individually, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 701

155 F.3d 701

Lesly JEAN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Delma COLLINS, Chief of Detectives of the City of Jacksonville, Individually; James Shingleton, Police Officer with the City of Jacksonville, North Carolina Police Department, Individually, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 95-7694.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued Dec. 2, 1997.

Decided Sept. 17, 1998.

ARGUED: Richard Brooks Glazier, Beaver, Holt, Richardson, Sternlicht, Burge & Glazier, P.A., Fayetteville, North Carolina, for Appellant. Kenneth Ray Wooten, Ward & Smith, P.A., New Bern, North Carolina, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Rebecca J. Britton, Beaver, Holt, Richardson, Sternlicht, Burge & Glazier, P.A., Fayetteville, North Carolina, for Appellant. John R. Green, Jr., Ward & Smith, P.A., New Bern, North Carolina, for Appellees.

Before WILKINSON, Chief Judge, and WIDENER, MURNAGHAN, ERVIN, WILKINS, NIEMEYER, HAMILTON, LUTTIG, WILLIAMS, MICHAEL, and MOTZ, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by published opinion. Chief Judge WILKINSON wrote the majority opinion, in which Judges WIDENER, WILKINS, NIEMEYER, LUTTIG, and WILLIAMS joined. Judge MURNAGHAN wrote a dissenting opinion. Judge ERVIN wrote a dissenting opinion, in which Judges MURNAGHAN, HAMILTON, MICHAEL, and DIANA GRIBBON MOTZ joined. Judge HAMILTON wrote a dissenting opinion, in which Judge MURNAGHAN joined.

OPINION

WILKINSON, Chief Judge:

We granted en banc review in this case to determine whether the district court properly dismissed Lesly Jean's section 1983 claim against Jacksonville, North Carolina police officers Delma Collins and James Shingleton. The complaint alleged their failure to disclose exculpatory evidence during Jean's criminal trial for rape and first degree sexual offenses. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Collins and Shingleton, holding they were entitled to qualified immunity. To the extent Jean claims the officers failed to disclose evidence directly to defense counsel, we hold that the officers are entitled to absolute immunity. To the extent Jean contends Collins and Shingleton failed to turn over evidence to the prosecutor, the officers are protected by qualified immunity. We thus affirm the judgment of the district court.

I.

On July 21, 1982, at approximately 3:00 a.m., a stranger entered the house and bedroom of Alice Kathleen Wilson and forcibly raped her. Soon after the incident was reported to the Jacksonville police, the department announced the suspect's physical description--black male wearing a blue shirt, blue shorts, and white tennis shoes--to its officers via radio transmission. At approximately 4:40 a.m., Officer James Shingleton spotted a man walking along a local highway who matched the basic description from the radio dispatch. Shingleton activated the blue lights on his patrol car, exited the vehicle, and stopped the person. Shingleton questioned him, instructed him to place his hands on the fender of the car, and told him he was a suspect in a rape. At that point, the suspect fled into the adjacent woods; the encounter lasted approximately one minute and a half. Later that morning, Shingleton described the person he confronted as black, five feet ten inches tall, weighing 170 pounds, with close-cut hair and a mustache, and wearing blue shorts, a blue shirt with writing, white knee-high socks, and white tennis high-tops.

Meanwhile, Wilson was transported to the hospital for treatment and then to the police station to make a statement. She described her attacker as a black male, muscular, five feet eight inches tall, weighing about 165 or 170 pounds, with a marine haircut, kinky hair, no facial hair, and wearing dark shorts that were probably navy blue, white crew socks, and high-top sneakers. Wilson also met with a sketch artist to produce a composite of the suspect. A photograph of her composite was distributed to the Jacksonville Police Department. Afterwards, the same sketch artist also met with Shingleton but was unable to develop a reliable composite due to the incomplete nature of the officer's observations.

The following day, July 22, 1982, Detective Steve Smith, the lead investigator on the case, asked Captain Delma Collins to hypnotize Shingleton in order to garner further details about the person he stopped the morning of the crime. The hypnotic session was recorded on audio tape and its results were noted in a hypnosis information worksheet. Shingleton's memory of the possible suspect changed in at least three respects: he now believed that the tee shirt design was instead a sweat mark, he remembered that the person in fact did not have a mustache, and he recalled blue stripes on each of the person's socks. Detective Smith recorded in his notes: "As a result, his description matches the one given by victim."

On July 26, 1982, Chief of Police Roger Halbert was in a Dunkin Donuts and noticed appellant Jean, a marine stationed at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville. Halbert believed Jean matched the composite of the suspected rapist. Halbert radioed the police department and asked that Shingleton be sent to the restaurant. When he arrived, Shingleton identified Jean as the man he had seen on the morning of the rape and accordingly arrested him. Detective Smith then interviewed Jean and, after receiving his consent, searched Jean's locker and laundry bag at the marine base. Smith seized a pair of white high-top tennis shoes, dark blue athletic shorts with white stripes, and a blue tee shirt. Jean was fingerprinted, photographed, and then released.

The following day, July 27, 1982, Smith asked Wilson to come to the police station to view a photo lineup that included Jean's photo. After viewing the lineup, Wilson was unable to make a positive identification. The next day, Wilson called Smith at the police station requesting to look at the photos again because one of them had made her feel sick. After observing the photos a second time, Wilson picked out Jean's photo as the one that made her sick and stated that another of the photos looked "haunty." Again, however, she could not make a positive identification.

On July 30, 1982, upon the recommendation of Detective Smith, Captain Collins hypnotized Wilson in an effort to determine whether she could remember anything more about the photo that made her feel sick. Wilson's prehypnotic memories were recorded on a prehypnosis information worksheet, the session was recorded on audio tape, and new information was noted on another worksheet. At least three new pieces of information emerged during the session: Wilson believed her attacker had an accent, possibly Puerto Rican, and she recalled white shoelaces and a Nike emblem in connection with the attacker's shoes. Collins and Smith deemed the session to be unproductive due to the paucity of new details.

In the following two months, Wilson was asked to listen to voice identification recordings and view a live lineup. On August 4, 1982, after listening to several voice exemplars numerous times, Wilson stated that Jean's voice sounded like the one from her bedroom. Although Smith initially assumed she did not make a positive identification that day, Wilson later called him and explained that her statement was intended as a positive identification. She then confirmed again that Jean's voice exemplar was the voice of the man who had raped her. On September 17, 1982, Wilson was asked to view a live lineup consisting of three persons, including Jean. Wilson identified Jean as the person who had raped her and the police placed him under arrest.

Jean was indicted in October 1982 for rape and first degree sexual offenses. Despite timely discovery requests, the prosecutor did not disclose the fact that witnesses had been hypnotized until Wilson's testimony at trial. The prosecutor also did not disclose the recordings of the hypnotic sessions, despite general pretrial discovery requests and a more specific request for such recordings by defense attorneys at trial. The jury, however, was made aware of Wilson and Shingleton's hypnoses, as defense counsel cross-examined both witnesses on that point.

On December 5, 1982, Jean was convicted on all counts and sentenced to two consecutive life terms. After his direct appeals and applications for state postconviction relief proved unsuccessful, Jean filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. In Jean v. Rice, 945 F.2d 82 (4th Cir.1991) (per curiam), we reversed that court's denial of his petition, holding that the government's failure to disclose the audio recordings and the accompanying reports of the hypnotic sessions was a violation of the principles announced in Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963). Accordingly, we vacated Jean's conviction. The state declined to retry Jean, and he was released from prison.

On May 20, 1994, Jean filed the present complaint against Collins and Shingleton in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, alleging Fourth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause violations under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and supplementary state-law claims. The district court dismissed Jean's state causes of action, holding that one failed to state a claim and that the others were barred by the applicable statute of limitations. In a later order, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of Collins and Shingleton on Jean's section 1983 claims, holding the police officers were protected by qualified immunity. Jean appealed the district court's summary judgment order only with respect to his due process claim. A panel of this court reversed the decision of the district court. Jean v. Collins, 107 F.3d 1111 (4th Cir.1997). Thereafter, a majority of the judges in active service voted to rehear this appeal en banc.

II.

Initially we note that Jean's due process claim, alleging suppression of exculpatory evidence,...