Elkins v. Summit County

• Decision Date: 10 August 2010
• Docket Number: No. 09-3680.,09-3680.
• Citation: 615 F.3d 671
• Parties: Clarence ELKINS; Branden Elkins; Clarence Elkins, Jr.; Melinda Elkins, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. SUMMIT COUNTY, OHIO; Michael Kallai, Chief of Police; Peter Maurer, Sergeant; B. Davis, Detective, Defendants, Danton Adair, Officer; M. Hudak, Detective; J.L. Flaker, Detective; Don Adamson, Sergeant; Jim Weese, Detective, in their individual and official capacities, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

615 F.3d 671

Clarence ELKINS; Branden Elkins; Clarence Elkins, Jr.; Melinda Elkins, Plaintiffs-Appellees,

v.SUMMIT COUNTY, OHIO; Michael Kallai, Chief of Police; Peter Maurer, Sergeant; B. Davis, Detective, Defendants,Danton Adair, Officer; M. Hudak, Detective; J.L. Flaker, Detective; Don Adamson, Sergeant; Jim Weese, Detective, in their individual and official capacities, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 09-3680.

United States Court of Appeals,Sixth Circuit.

Argued: June 9, 2010.

Decided and Filed: Aug. 10, 2010.

ARGUED: John T. McLandrich, Mazanec, Raskin, Ryder & Keller Co., L.P.A., Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellants. Russell Ainsworth, Loevy & Loevy, Chicago, Illinois, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: John T. McLandrich, Frank H. Scialdone, Mazanec, Raskin, Ryder & Keller Co., L.P.A., Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellants. Russell Ainsworth, Jonathan Loevy, Loevy & Loevy, Chicago, Illinois, for Appellees.

Before: MARTIN, RYAN, and KETHLEDGE, Circuit Judges.

OPINION

BOYCE F. MARTIN, JR., Circuit Judge.

A jury convicted Clarence Elkins, Sr., of raping and murdering his mother-in-law, Judith Johnson, and of assaulting and raping his six-year-old niece, Brooke Sutton. The jury sentenced him to life in prison with no eligibility for parole. Seven years later, Elkins obtained DNA evidence that proved that Earl Mann, Johnson's neighbor at the time of the murder, had committed the crimes, and Elkins was exonerated. The case against Elkins was dismissed, and the State of Ohio awarded him $1,075,000 in a wrongful imprisonment settlement.

Thereafter, Elkins brought suit on a variety of state and federal claims in the United States District Court in the Northern District of Ohio against the City of Barberton, Ohio, and multiple officers and detectives who had investigated the Johnson murder. Elkins claimed that the officers failed to disclose to the prosecution a memorandum that would have exonerated him. The officers and the city moved for summary judgment on all the claims, asserting that they were entitled to qualified immunity and state sovereign immunity. The court dismissed the claims against the city and granted the officers qualified immunity on all claims except: (1) the Brady violation of Elkins' constitutional right to due process under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim; and (2) the state-law malicious prosecution and loss of consortium claims. We affirm.

I.

On June 6, 1998, Johnson was raped and murdered in her home at Barberton, Ohio. ¹ Her six-year-old granddaughter, Brooke, was also assaulted and raped. Based on Brooke's statement that the rapist looked like her uncle, Elkins, the Barberton police arrested Elkins. Shortly thereafter, he was indicted on charges of aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder, rape, and felonious assault.

On January 5, 1999, while the Elkins investigation was ongoing, Mann was arrested by the Barberton police for two “strong-arm” robberies. ² During the course of the arrest, Mann, who was drunk, asked a patrol officer, Gerard Antenucci, “Why don't you charge me with the Judy Johnson murder?” In compliance with his training that mandated reporting anything that officers believed the Detective Bureau should know about, Antenucci wrote an interdepartmental memorandum memorializing Mann's statement and directed it to the department that was investigating Johnson's murder. Antenucci later testified that he wrote the memorandum that day and placed it in a mail box that, according to department procedures, ³ was emptied each day by a member of the Detective Bureau and disseminated to the detectives working on the specific case. However, the Mann memorandum was not disclosed to Elkins or the prosecution and was never produced.

At trial, Brooke identified Elkins as the perpetrator. However, Elkins presented substantial evidence that someone else committed the crime. Elkins' then-wife, Melinda Elkins, who is Johnson's daughter, testified that Elkins had been at home with her, forty miles away from Johnson's house, at the time of the crime. Other witnesses testified to having spent time with Elkins during the evening until shortly before the murder occurred. More significantly, the officers recovered pubic hair and head hairs from Johnson's anus and Brooke's nightgown that, when subjected to DNA analysis, did not match Elkins' hair. The officers obtained hair samples from several other individuals, attempting to find a DNA match, but did not succeed. On June 4, 1999, a jury convicted Elkins on all charges and sentenced him to life imprisonment with no eligibility for parole.

In 2002, Brooke recanted her testimony, but the state did not reverse its conviction. The same year, through a series of breathtakingly improbable coincidences, ⁴ Elkins began to suspect that Mann was Johnson's murderer and was able to obtain a DNA sample from him. Subsequent testing revealed that Mann's DNA matched the DNA found at the Johnson murder scene, and after an investigation, Elkins was released from prison after serving seven years. Mann ultimately pled guilty to Johnson's murder, and the criminal case against Elkins was dismissed. The Summit County Court of Common Pleas found that Elkins was wrongfully imprisoned and the State of Ohio awarded him $1,075,000 in a wrongful imprisonment settlement.

On December 18, 2006, Elkins brought suit against multiple defendants, including the City of Barberton, Officer Danton Adair, Detective M. Hudak, Detective J.L. Flaker, Sergeant Don Adamson and Detective Jim Weese on multiple state and federal claims. The individual defendants requested summary judgment, alleging that they were protected from suits by qualified immunity and state sovereign immunity.

The district court dismissed the claims against the city and granted summary judgment to the officers on all claims but the section 1983 due process claim, the state-law malicious prosecution claim, and the derivative state-law loss of consortium claim. The court held that, in a summary judgment posture, it must infer that the detectives both received and failed to disclose the memorandum, and that the failure to disclose the memorandum violated Elkins' right to due process. It further held that Elkins had presented sufficient evidence to show that the officers acted in bad faith or were reckless in failing to disclose the memo, and therefore provided sufficient evidence to support the state-law malicious prosecution claim. The officers timely appealed.

II.

We review the district court's denial of summary judgment de novo.

Moldowan v. City of Warren, 578 F.3d 351, 373 (6th Cir.2009). “Summary judgment is proper ‘if the pleadings, the discovery and disclosure materials on file, and any affidavits show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.’ ” Id. at 373-74 (quoting Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c)). “A genuine issue of material fact exists when there are ‘disputes over facts that might affect the outcome of the suit under the governing law.’ ” Id. (quoting Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986)). “However,' [w]here the record taken as a whole could not lead a rational trier of fact to find for the non-moving party, there is no ‘genuine issue for trial.’ ” Id. (quoting Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986)). “That Defendants' motions for summary judgment were based on claims of ... qualified immunity does not affect the standard of review that applies. [This] is a legal question that this Court reviews de novo.” Id. (internal citation omitted).

III.

Elkins brings claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the officers deprived him of his constitutional right to a fair trial when they failed to disclose the Mann memorandum to the defense, evidence that Elkins claims would likely have made a substantial difference to the outcome of his trial. He also advances a state-law malicious prosecution claim and derivative loss of consortium claim. The officers respond that they are entitled to qualified immunity and state sovereign immunity on all the claims and, thus, the district court erred in denying them summary judgment on Elkins' section 1983 violation claim, and the state malicious prosecution and loss of consortium claims.

A. Section 1983 Claim 1. Qualified Immunity

In evaluating qualified immunity claims, we “[f]irst ... determine whether a constitutional violation occurred; second, we determine whether the right that was violated was a clearly established right of which a reasonable person would have known.” Moldowan, 578 F.3d at 375. ⁵ The officers claim first that they are entitled to qualified immunity on the due process claim because Elkins has not presented sufficient evidence demonstrating that the officers actually received the Mann memorandum and that, had they received it, he cannot show that the memorandum was apparently exculpatory.

Although the officers either deny having seen the memorandum or did not testify regarding the memorandum, they do not contest that Antenucci created and dispatched the memorandum to the Detective Bureau in accordance with department policies. There is also no dispute that the memorandum, if mailed, would have been delivered to the detectives assigned to the case. Evidence adduced at trial reveals that no other relevant document in the case was missing, and that the incident report regarding Mann's robbery, which was also placed into the mailbox along with the Mann memorandum, was received by the detectives and preserved. It is also uncontested that the Mann memorandum was never delivered to the prosecutor or Elkins. [4] [5] [6] Given that, when appealing a denial of qualified immunity, “the defendant must ... be willing to concede the most favorable view of the facts to the plaintiff for purposes of the appeal,” id. at 370, ⁶ we agree with the district court's conclusion that “the Court must assume...