McMillian v. Johnson
| Decision Date | 09 July 1996 |
| Docket Number | No. 95-6123,95-6123 |
| Citation | 88 F.3d 1554 |
| Parties | Walter McMILLIAN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. W.E. JOHNSON, Tommy Herring, Tom Allen, in their individual capacities, et al., Defendants, Thomas Tate, Simon Benson, Larry Ikner, in their individual capacities, Defendants-Appellants, Association of County Commissions of Alabama Liability Self Insurance Fund, Intervenor-Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Bart Harmon, Daryl L. Masters, Kristi A. Dowdy, Kendrick E. Webb, Webb & Eley, P.C., Montgomery, AL, Jack Booker Weaver, Windell Clifton Owens, Owens, Weaver & Assoc., Monroeville, AL, William G. McKnight, Montgomery, AL, for Appellants.
Robert B. McDuff, Jackson, MS, Bryan A. Stevenson, Bernard E. Harcourt, Alabama Capital Representation Center, Montgomery, AL, for Appellee.
Appeals from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama.
Before COX and BARKETT, Circuit Judges, and PROPST *, District Judge.
Walter McMillian was convicted of the murder of Ronda Morrison and sentenced to death. He spent nearly six years on Alabama's death row, including over a year before his trial. The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals ultimately overturned McMillian's conviction because of the state's failure to disclose exculpatory and impeachment evidence to the defense. After the state dismissed the charges against McMillian, he brought this § 1983 action against various officials involved in his arrest, incarceration, and conviction. In essence, McMillian alleges that state and local officials prosecuted and punished him for a crime that they knew he did not commit.
This is an appeal from the district court's order denying several defendants' motions for summary judgment based on qualified immunity. Thus, at this stage of the litigation, we do not know to what extent McMillian's allegations of egregious official misconduct are true. Our role on this appeal is to decide the legal question of whether, if McMillian's allegations are true, the officials responsible are entitled to qualified immunity.
To put McMillian's claims in context, we describe in some detail the events leading up to his arrest, pretrial detention on death row, trial, and conviction. Many of the facts surrounding these events are hotly disputed at this, the summary judgment stage of the litigation.
Ronda Morrison was murdered in Jackson Cleaners in Monroeville, Alabama. Thomas Tate, the Sheriff of Monroe County, Larry Ikner, an investigator for the Monroe County District Attorney, and Simon Benson, an Alabama Bureau of Investigation agent, were involved in the investigation of the Morrison murder. Tate, Ikner, and Benson are the appellants on this appeal.
On June 3, 1987, Tate, Ikner, and Benson interviewed Ralph Myers, who had been arrested for the murder of a Vicky Pittman. Myers admitted to being involved in the Pittman murder and claimed that McMillian also was involved. Myers also was questioned about the Morrison murder but denied any involvement in or knowledge of the Morrison murder. He claimed that he did not shoot Morrison, that McMillian did not give him a gun or tell him to shoot Morrison, and that he did not know who killed Morrison. Also during this interview, Myers insisted on having McMillian charged with sodomy, accusing McMillian of raping him several months earlier in Conecuh County. There is evidence that Tate, Ikner, and Benson coerced Myers into falsely accusing McMillian of sodomy so that they could obtain custody of McMillian while constructing evidence inculpating McMillian in the Morrison murder. A warrant was issued for McMillian's arrest on sodomy charges.
The next day, Tate, Ikner, and Benson were called to the Conecuh County Jail at the request of a Bill Hooks. On the night of the Morrison murder, almost seven months earlier, Hooks had given a statement in which he claimed to have seen a white male with a scar on his face and a black male whom he knew as "John Dozier" leaving Jackson Cleaners in a greenish-blue pickup truck around the time of the murder. No action was taken at the time, however, because the officers did not know a "John Dozier." When interviewed by Tate, Ikner, and Benson, Hooks said that he had seen a photograph of Myers in the newspaper and he identified Myers as the white male whom he had seen at Jackson Cleaners on the day of the Morrison murder.
McMillian was arrested several days later on a highway near his home for sodomy. He was taken to the Monroe County Jail to be held until he was transported to Conecuh County. Later that day, Benson learned that Karen Kelly, a girlfriend of McMillian, wanted to speak to him at the Escambia County Jail. Tate and Ikner went with Benson to interview Kelly. She told them that on the day after Morrison's murder, McMillian confessed to her that he had killed the girl at Jackson Cleaners in Monroeville. Three days later Kelly signed a sworn statement relating what she had told Tate, Ikner, and Benson.
Based on the statements of Hooks and Kelly, capital murder warrants were issued against McMillian and Myers for the Morrison murder. McMillian then was transferred to Escambia County and charged with the unrelated murder of Pittman. Myers already had been charged in the Pittman murder.
The next day, Tate, Ikner, and Benson interviewed Myers again. Myers stated that he met McMillian on the morning of Morrison's murder, drove McMillian to Jackson Cleaners in McMillian's truck, and waited outside while McMillian went into the cleaners. He claimed that, three days later, McMillian told him that he had killed someone when he was at Jackson Cleaners. On several subsequent occasions, Myers gave statements revealing further details about what he claimed happened on the day of the Morrison murder. McMillian alleges that all of these statements by Myers were false and coerced by Tate, Ikner, and Benson.
McMillian and Myers both were moved to the Conecuh County Jail for a preliminary hearing on the sodomy charge against McMillian. The hearing was continued. McMillian was transferred to the Monroe County Jail, while Myers remained at the Conecuh County Jail. During the night, two armed men broke into the Conecuh County Jail and threatened Myers. Ikner, Benson, and an FBI agent investigated the incident. Ikner gave an oral report to the Monroe County District Attorney the next day. The District Attorney filed motions to place McMillian and Myers in the custody of the Alabama Department of Corrections to ensure their safety. A Monroe County Circuit Judge granted the motions.
The Department of Corrections (the "DOC") incarcerated McMillian and Myers on death row at the Holman Correctional Facility. McMillian alleges that Tate, Ikner, Benson, and DOC officials conspired to place him on death row not to ensure his safety but to punish and intimidate him. McMillian remained on death row until his trial approximately one year later. Myers was transferred back to the Monroe County Jail for about four months but then was returned to Holman's death row. McMillian alleges that Myers was transferred back and forth from death row depending on whether he cooperated with Tate, Ikner, and Benson's efforts to frame McMillian for the Morrison murder. While McMillian and Myers were on death row, one inmate was executed in the electric chair.
Myers was the prosecution's key witness at McMillian's trial. Neither the prosecution nor the defense called Kelly to testify. The jury convicted McMillian of capital murder. He was sentenced to death.
Eventually, Myers and several other witnesses recanted their trial testimony. In addition, McMillian learned that the state had withheld exculpatory and impeachment evidence from him. On McMillian's petition for post-conviction relief under Ala.R.Crim.P. 32, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals reversed McMillian's conviction because of the state's failure to disclose exculpatory and impeachment evidence. McMillian v. State, 616 So.2d 933 (Ala.Crim.App.1993). The state then dismissed the murder charge against McMillian and released him from prison. This lawsuit followed.
McMillian brought suit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Tate, Ikner, Benson, and various other defendants who are not parties to this appeal. In a twenty-seven count complaint, McMillian alleges violations of his federal constitutional rights, as well as pendent state constitutional and tort claims. On a motion to dismiss, the district court dismissed Monroe County, Alabama, and all official capacity claims, from the suit. 1 The court also dismissed many of the claims asserted against various defendants in their individual capacities. The remaining defendants later moved for summary judgment, asserting qualified immunity, among other defenses.
The district court granted summary judgment to various defendants on many of McMillian's claims. The court denied summary judgment, however, on a number of the claims against Tate, Ikner, and Benson. Because these claims form the basis of this appeal, we describe the district court's resolution of them on summary judgment in some detail.
In Count One, McMillian alleges that his incarceration on death row while a pretrial detainee violated his clearly established due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. McMillian alleges that Tate, Ikner, and Benson conspired with DOC officials to place and keep McMillian on death row prior to his trial. This pretrial detention on death row, McMillian avers, was for the purpose of punishing and intimidating him. The district court concluded that a genuine issue of fact exists as to whether Tate, Ikner, and Benson conspired to detain McMillian on death row for the purpose of punishing him rather than out of concern for his safety. Such a conspiracy, the court held, would violate...
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