Shields v. Twiss

• Decision Date: 22 October 2004
• Docket Number: No. 03-51171.,03-51171.
• Citation: 389 F.3d 142
• Parties: Harold Lloyd SHIELDS; et al., Plaintiffs, Dan Baldwin, Administrator for the Estate of Harold Lloyd Shields, Deceased, Appellant, v. Carol L. TWISS; Kerr County Texas, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

389 F.3d 142

Harold Lloyd SHIELDS; et al., Plaintiffs Dan Baldwin, Administrator for the Estate of Harold Lloyd Shields, Deceased, Appellant, v. Carol L. TWISS; Kerr County Texas, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 03-51171.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

October 22, 2004.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Tommy Levi Newton, Jr. (argued), Allen, Stein & Durbin, San Antonio, TX, for Appellant.

Charles Straith Frigerio (argued), Hector X. Saenz, Law Offices of Charles S. Frigerio, San Antonio, TX, for Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas.

Before KING, Chief Judge, and BARKSDALE and PICKERING, Circuit Judges.

KING, Chief Judge:

Plaintiff Harold Shields filed this suit after officials in Kerr County, Texas dropped charges against him for the aggravated sexual assault of a child. Claiming that he never should have been charged in the first place, Shields sued Kerr County and two county employees for alleged violations of federal and state laws. During the pendency of the lawsuit, Shields attempted to stay the case to depose members of the grand jury that indicted him. The district court issued orders that: (1) quashed the depositions of the grand jurors; (2) denied Shields's requests to stay or continue the case while he sought state-court approval to depose the grand jurors; and (3) granted summary judgment on all counts in favor of the defendants. Shields appeals these rulings. For the following reasons, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

In November 1999, Kerr County Sheriff's Deputy Carol L. Twiss began investigating the sexual assault of a young girl, "K.S." During the course of the investigation, K.S. told investigators that her grandfather and uncle had molested her. She also said that two non-family members — one of whom she referred to as "Mr. M" — were involved.

Deputy Twiss suspected that Harold Lloyd Shields was Mr. M. Initially, the principal ground for suspicion appears to have been the fact that Shields was acquainted with K.S.'s grandfather. Subsequently, during an interview conducted by Deputy Twiss and others, K.S. was presented with a photographic lineup and identified a picture of Shields as resembling Mr. M. In addition, Deputy Twiss and others interviewed Shields and considered several of his responses suspicious.

Based on their investigation, Kerr County officials decided to prosecute Shields. They began by seeking a grand-jury indictment against him. As part of this process, Deputy Twiss filed an affidavit and testified before the grand jury. Ultimately the grand jury indicted Shields on three counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child. Shields subsequently surrendered to Kerr County officials, was arrested, and paid a non-refundable bond fee of $10,000 to secure his release pending trial. Before trial, however, K.S. recanted her allegations concerning Mr. M, and Kerr County dismissed the charges against Shields.

Shields now contends that Deputy Twiss failed to conduct an appropriate investigation. According to Shields, had an appropriate investigation been carried out, it would have revealed his innocence. In support of this contention, he points to a series of facts that were inconsistent with his being Mr. M. For example, due to impotence, he was unable to perform some of the acts that K.S. alleged were done to her. Additionally, he did not move to Texas until approximately two years after K.S. said that Mr. M began molesting her. Shields also contends that the photographic lineup shown to K.S. was flawed and prejudicial because only the photograph of Shields bore physical characteristics similar to K.S.'s description of Mr. M. Angered by these perceived lapses on the part of Deputy Twiss and Donnie Coleman, the Kerr County Assistant District Attorney who prosecuted him, Shields sued.¹

In September 2001, Shields filed his second amended complaint. In it, he named as defendants Deputy Twiss and Assistant District Attorney Coleman in their individual capacities.² He also named Kerr County, Texas as a defendant.

Proceeding under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Shields alleged in his second amended complaint that each of the defendants violated his constitutional rights while acting under the color of state law. Specifically, Shields asserted claims of unreasonable arrest, unreasonable detention, and malicious prosecution under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. He further averred that Deputy Twiss and Assistant District Attorney Coleman failed to conduct a reasonable investigation. Moreover, he contended that Kerr County should be held liable for these violations of his constitutional rights because it failed to supervise Deputy Twiss properly and to provide her with a manageable caseload, thereby preventing her from conducting a reasonable investigation. Similarly, he asserted that Kerr County did not properly train or supervise Deputy Twiss in the creation and presentation of photographic lineups. Finally, Shields invoked the district court's supplemental jurisdiction and pleaded four tort claims under Texas law against Twiss and Coleman: false arrest, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, and negligent investigation.

This case was originally assigned to the late Judge H.F. Garcia. During discovery, Shields sought to depose several members of the state grand jury that indicted him, ostensibly to show that the indictment they returned was faulty because exculpatory evidence had been withheld from them. The defendants moved to quash the subpoenas arguing that both federal and state law require the proceedings of grand juries to be kept secret. In response to these motions to quash, Shields moved the court for leave to file a consolidated response. In his consolidated response, Shields noted that there were no existing records of the grand-jury proceedings, and he contended that, as a result, he needed to depose the grand jurors to rebut the defendants' reliance on the indictment to preclude his constitutional claims.

On January 7, 2002, the district court issued an order granting the defendants' motions to quash and ordering Shields's counsel not to contact any member of the Kerr County grand jury that indicted Shields. This order was signed "Fred Biery [district judge] for H.F. Garcia." One day later, Judge Garcia granted Shields's motion to file a consolidated response. Concerned that the court had not considered his consolidated response when ruling on the motions to quash, Shields promptly filed a motion for reconsideration, which then-District Judge Edward Prado summarily denied.

Undeterred, Shields next petitioned a Texas state court to permit him to depose the grand jurors. He also asked the district court to stay this case pending the outcome of the ancillary state-court proceeding. Judge Biery denied Shields's request for a stay in August 2002.

Each defendant filed a motion for summary judgment in March 2003. Later that month, this case was reassigned to Judge Royal Furgeson. In July 2003, Judge Furgeson granted the defendants' motions for summary judgment.

In his decision granting summary judgment for the defendants, Judge Furgeson first held that Shields failed to create a genuine issue of fact concerning whether Deputy Twiss and Assistant District Attorney Coleman withheld information from the grand jury. Accordingly, Judge Furgeson held that the grand jury's finding of probable cause precluded Shields's Fourth Amendment claims regarding his arrest and imprisonment. Judge Furgeson further stated that even if the indictment had not been returned, Shields's claims would still fail because he did not show that Twiss and Coleman should be denied qualified immunity for acting unreasonably in determining that probable cause existed. Second, Judge Furgeson found that Shields's malicious-prosecution claim was also precluded by the grand jury's finding of probable cause. Additionally, according to Judge Furgeson, Shields's malicious-prosecution claim failed because he did not allege that either Twiss or Coleman acted with malice. Third, Judge Furgeson found that there was no authority supporting a constitutional claim for "unreasonable investigation." Fourth, Judge Furgeson found that Kerr County could not be held liable because Shields put forward no evidence of any constitutional violation. Likewise, Judge Furgeson found that Shields put forward no evidence showing that Kerr County had a policy or custom encouraging the use of unconstitutional photographic lineups. Finally, Judge Furgeson found that summary judgment in favor of the defendants was appropriate on Shields's state-law claims. In support of this conclusion, Judge Furgeson stated that Shields's failure to establish a genuine issue of fact concerning his constitutional claims doomed his state-law claims and, alternatively, that Shields had not presented evidence that Twiss and Coleman should be denied official immunity under Texas state law. Accordingly, Judge Furgeson granted summary judgment for the defendants on all counts and dismissed Shields's suit with prejudice.

After summary judgment was granted against him, Shields filed a motion for reconsideration under Rule 59. In this motion, he asked the district court to vacate its final judgment and stay the case while he appealed to the Texas Supreme Court an adverse state-court ruling regarding his request to depose the grand jurors. Judge Furgeson denied Shields's motion, noting that the district court had itself considered the discoverability of the grand jurors' testimony and refused to permit the depositions.

Following the denial of his motion for reconsideration, Shields filed the present appeal.

II. DISCUSSION

Shields raises three issues in his appeal. First, he maintains that the district court erred in quashing the depositions of the grand jurors. Second, he asserts that the district court should have granted his request for a...