Carter v. Burch

• Decision Date: 09 September 1994
• Docket Number: No. 93-2027,93-2027
• Citation: 34 F.3d 257
• Parties: William Douglas CARTER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. William T. BURCH; Vernon Beamer, Defendants-Appellees, and John R. Isom; Jeffrey Brown, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 257

34 F.3d 257

William Douglas CARTER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. William T. BURCH; Vernon Beamer, Defendants-Appellees and John R. Isom; Jeffrey Brown, Defendants.

No. 93-2027.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued May 10, 1994.

Decided Sept. 9, 1994.

ARGUED: John Saul Edwards, Roanoke, VA, for appellant. Jack L. Gould, Fairfax, VA, for appellee Burch. John J. Brandt, Slenker, Brandt, Jennings & Johnston, Merrifield, VA, for appellee Beamer.

Before NIEMEYER and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges, and ERWIN, Senior United States District Judge for the Middle District of North Carolina, sitting by designation.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge WILLIAMS wrote the opinion, in which Judge NIEMEYER and Senior Judge ERWIN joined.

OPINION

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge:

William Douglas Carter (Carter) brought this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 (1988), against Commonwealth's Attorney William T. Burch and police officer Captain Vernon Beamer, for alleged violations of his constitutional rights. Specifically, Carter claims that Burch and Beamer withheld materially exculpatory evidence before and after his criminal trial for the malicious wounding of his ex-wife, and that Burch conspired to present false testimony during the trial. The district court dismissed the Sec. 1983 action pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) against Burch based on absolute prosecutorial immunity, but denied Beamer's motion for summary judgment, allowing the claim against him to go to trial. After a two-day trial, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Carter, but awarded only $1.00 in nominal damages. The district court denied Carter's motion under Fed.R.Civ.P. 59 for a new trial and declined to amend the judgment.

In this appeal, Carter challenges, inter alia, both the district court's determination that Burch was protected by absolute prosecutorial immunity, and the court's refusal either to grant a new trial or to amend the judgment to award additional damages against Beamer. Finding no error, we affirm.

I.

The factual background of Carter's civil rights claims against Burch and Beamer stem from his criminal conviction for the malicious wounding of his ex-wife. In the early morning hours of July 31, 1987, Carole Vandergrift Carter (Vandergrift) was shot and wounded in her home outside of Middleburg, Virginia, by her own .38 pistol. Vandergrift and Carter had recently finalized a long and acrimonious divorce. Carter was arrested for the crime later that day at his cottage in Saratoga Springs, New York, and was indicted in Virginia on charges of malicious wounding and the use of a firearm during the commission of a felony.

William T. Burch prosecuted the case as Commonwealth's Attorney for Loudoun County, and a four-day jury trial was held in March 1988. At the trial, Vandergrift testified that Carter awoke her in the middle of the night, a struggle ensued, and he shot her in the head behind her right ear. The bullet exited her neck without inflicting serious injury. Carter presented an alibi defense by testifying that he had left Virginia on the evening prior to the shooting, and had travelled to Saratoga, New York. Carter's attorneys also argued that Vandergrift was an emotionally unstable person, and may have attempted to shoot herself, either to commit suicide, or to frame Carter in the shooting. After the jury returned a guilty verdict against Carter on both charges, he was sentenced to fourteen years in prison and was immediately incarcerated in the Loudoun County jail. Carter remained incarcerated until February 14, 1992, when he was released on a writ of habeas corpus, retried for the same crimes, and acquitted. His release was precipitated by the discovery of exculpatory evidence which was not provided to Carter at the time of the first trial. The events surrounding this discovery are the basis for Carter's civil rights claims.

In the fall of 1991, over three years after Carter's conviction, Douglas Poppa, a deputy sheriff of Loudoun County, contacted Carter's defense counsel and informed him of exculpatory evidence that he had told to both Beamer and Burch before Carter's trial and which had not been revealed to defense counsel. The evidence, to which he testified at the habeas corpus hearing and at Carter's second criminal trial, concerned Vandergrift's emotional state near the time of the shooting. Several months prior to the shooting, Poppa had interviewed with Vandergrift for a position as her bodyguard. He characterized her as high-strung and described a disturbing conversation he had with her during the interview. Vandergrift spoke at length about how much she hated her ex-husband, and at one point in the conversation, Poppa claimed that Vandergrift said, "I hate him so much ... I would shoot myself even if I died if I could make it look like he did it so he would spend the rest of his life in jail, ruin the rest of his life." (J.A. at 129.) Also during the interview, she showed Poppa her .38 revolver, the gun later allegedly used by Carter to wound her.

Several months after his interview with Vandergrift, Poppa testified that he heard of the shooting on the evening news and reported the events of his interview to Appellee Beamer, the head of the Criminal Investigation Division. Poppa claims that Beamer told him that "the case is wrapped up and we got the guy in New York or Canada." (J.A. at 138-39.) Beamer never disclosed, nor directed Poppa to disclose, this evidence to Burch or Carter's defense counsel.

Moreover, Poppa also testified that he told Burch about Vandergrift's statements. Although Poppa contends that his conversation with Burch occurred before Carter's first trial, according to Burch it happened several months after Carter's conviction. Burch admits, however, that when he learned of this evidence, he failed to disclose it to defense counsel. It is also undisputed that this evidence was not presented in Carter's first trial.

In the fall of 1991, several years after Carter was convicted, Poppa testified that he saw a television movie in which a woman framed a police officer for murder. This movie reminded him of the Carter case and caused him to wonder why he had never been called to testify. After discussing the evidence with a state judge Poppa contacted Carter's defense counsel and informed him of the evidence. Based on the nondisclosure of this evidence, Judge Sinclair, of the Thirty-First Judicial Circuit of Virginia, released Carter on a writ of habeas corpus, finding that Carter had proven by a preponderance of the evidence that material evidence of an exculpatory nature had not been revealed to defense counsel. Carter was tried again and acquitted.

Subsequent to his acquittal, Carter filed this lawsuit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983. He contends that Beamer and Burch violated his constitutional rights by withholding the "Poppa evidence." Carter also alleges that Burch conspired to present false testimony during his first trial. The district court dismissed Burch as a defendant based on absolute prosecutorial immunity, but allowed the case against Deputy Beamer to proceed to trial. After deliberating for approximately seven hours, the jury returned with a note: "We, the jury, cannot agree on whether or not the Poppa evidence is materially exculpatory or exculpable.... Please advise. We are deadlocked on this issue." (J.A. at 453.) The judge gave the jury an Allen charge, ¹ to which Carter objected. Approximately one-half hour later, the jury returned with a verdict in favor of Carter, and nominal damages totaling $1.00.

Because Carter had shown undisputed evidence of over $2 million in damages for the present value of his lost past and future income due to his incarceration and expenses caused by his conviction, he requested a new trial, or an increase in the award of damages to include, at least, the undisputed compensatory damages he presented at trial. ² The district court denied this motion, and although it found Carter to be a prevailing party, declined to award attorney's fees pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1988 (1988). In appealing this final judgment, Carter challenges: 1) the district court's dismissal of his claim against Burch based on absolute prosecutorial immunity; 2) the district court's denial of his motion for a new trial, or to amend judgment; 3) the district court's decision to give an Allen charge to the deadlocked jury; 4) the district court's refusal to admit as evidence Judge Sinclair's letter opinion granting Carter a writ of habeas corpus, and expert testimony interpreting that letter opinion; and 5) the district court's denial of attorney's fees. We consider each issue in turn.

II.

Carter first alleges that the district court erred when it dismissed his claim against Burch pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) based on absolute prosecutorial immunity. In reviewing the propriety of a Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal, we consider "whether the complaint, accepting the allegations as true, allows a recovery." Waterford Citizens' Ass'n v. Reilly, 970 F.2d 1287, 1290 (4th Cir.1992).

The district court granted Burch absolute prosecutorial immunity as to both of Carter's allegations. Carter contended that Burch withheld materially exculpatory evidence when he failed to turn the "Poppa evidence" over to defense counsel and that Burch conspired to present false testimony during the trial. To support the allegation that Burch conspired to present false testimony, Carter presented an affidavit from Suzanne Culver, a witness at his trial, who was staying with Vandergrift at the time of the shooting. In the affidavit, Culver stated that Burch coached her not to testify that Vandergrift had stated that she was shot with her own gun. Carter claims that this information supported his self-inflicted wound defense theory, because, given the dark of night at the time of the shooting, the only way Vandergrift would have known it was her gun was if she had used it herself.

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