Aguilera v. Wright Cnty.

Decision Date06 January 2014
Docket NumberNo. C 13–3034–MWB.,C 13–3034–MWB.
PartiesJose Angel AGUILERA, Plaintiff, v. WRIGHT COUNTY, IOWA; Lee E. Poppen; Jeffrey Tekippe; Victor Murillo; William Basler; Jack Seward; Eric Simonson; and Scott D. Brown, Defendants.
CourtU.S. District Court — Northern District of Iowa

990 F.Supp.2d 926

Jose Angel AGUILERA, Plaintiff,
v.
WRIGHT COUNTY, IOWA; Lee E. Poppen; Jeffrey Tekippe; Victor Murillo; William Basler; Jack Seward; Eric Simonson; and Scott D. Brown, Defendants.

No. C 13–3034–MWB.

United States District Court,
N.D. Iowa,
Central Division.

Jan. 6, 2014.


[990 F.Supp.2d 928]


Martyn S. Elberg, Elberg Law Office, PLC, Clarion, IA, for Plaintiff.

Kristopher K. Madsen, Robert M. Livingston, Stuart Tinley Peters Thorn

[990 F.Supp.2d 929]

Hughes Faust & Madsen, Council Bluffs, IA, Jeffrey C. Peterzalek, AAG, Des Moines, IA, for Defendants.


MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER REGARDING STATE DEFENDANTS' MOTION TO DISMISS

MARK W. BENNETT, District Judge.
TABLE OF CONTENTS

I.

INTRODUCTION

930
A.

Factual Background

930
B.

Procedural Background

932


II.

LEGAL ANALYSIS

937
A.

Standards For Dismissal For Failure To State A Claim

937
B.

Federal Constitutional Claims

939
1.

Count “37”: Brady and Giglio violations by the 1996 State Defendants

940
a.

Arguments of the parties

940
b.

Analysis

941
2.

Counts 1, 5, and 9: The 1983 claims against individual State Defendants

944
a.

Arguments of the parties

945
b.

Analysis

945
3.

Count 27: The 1983 claim against Brown

946
a.

Arguments of the parties

946
b.

Analysis

947
4.

Summary

947
C.

Section 1983 Conspiracy Claims

947
1.

Arguments of the parties

947
2.

Analysis

947
D.

Remaining State Tort Claims

948
1.

Arguments of the parties

948
2.

Analysis

949
E.

The “Obstruction Of Justice” Claims

952
1.

Arguments of the parties

952
2.

Analysis

952


III.

CONCLUSION

953

In 1996, plaintiff Jose Angel Aguilera was convicted of the second-degree murder of Jesus “Jesse” Garcia. Aguilera v. State, 807 N.W.2d 249, 250 (Iowa 2011). Fourteen years later, on Aguilera's second application for post-conviction relief, the Iowa Supreme Court granted Aguilera relief from his conviction, on the basis of a Brady violation.1 Specifically, the Iowa Supreme Court concluded that Aguilera was denied due process when the prosecution failed to turn over an Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) file, which contained several witness statements, prior to Aguilera's initial trial, and that the suppressed, favorable statements in the DCI file had a reasonable probability of impacting the outcome of the trial. Id. at 250 & 259. The state opted to retry Aguilera on a second-degree murder charge for the death of Garcia, but, on March 12, 2012, Aguilera entered into a plea agreement to

[990 F.Supp.2d 930]

plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter and to be sentenced to time served. Aguilera continues in custody facing deportation.

Aguilera now asserts federal constitutional claims pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and state-law tort claims against state investigators and county prosecutors involved in his initial prosecution in 1996 and against a state investigator and county and state prosecutors involved in his re-prosecution in 2012. The state defendants have moved to dismiss the claims against them for failure to state claims upon which relief can be granted.2 Aguilera concedes that his state-law tort claims for malicious prosecution and false arrest and imprisonment against the state defendants must be dismissed, because the State has not waived sovereign immunity as to those claims, but he contests dismissal of his § 1983 claims and state-law tort claims for intentional infliction of emotional distress and loss of consortium against these defendants.

I. INTRODUCTION
A. Factual Background

The parties agree to the moving defendants' summary of the factual background to this case in the moving defendants' brief in support of their Motion To Dismiss (docket no. 7–1). That summary is, in turn, based almost entirely on the Iowa Supreme Court's decision in Aguilera v. State, 807 N.W.2d 249 (Iowa 2011), on Aguilera's second application for post-conviction relief, and subsequent court orders on Aguilera's re-prosecution. The parties do not dispute my consideration of such court decisions and orders on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.3 Therefore, I will rely directly on those court decisions and orders, rather than the moving defendants' statement of facts, as well as pertinent allegations in Aguilera's Amended Complaint (docket no. 5), which must be taken as true for purposes of a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss. 4

Jesus “Jesse” Garcia died on August 18, 1996, from a gunshot wound that he sustained while he was attending a party at the home of Salvador Guido. Victor Murillo, William Basler, and Jack Seward, who were Special Agents with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI), investigated Garcia's death. As a result of their investigation, Aguilera was prosecuted on a charge of first-degree murder for the death of Garcia in the Iowa District Court for Wright County by Wright County Attorney Lee E. Poppen and Assistant Wright County Attorney Jeffrey TeKippe.

The evidence at trial showed the following:

On August 18, 1996, Aguilera attended a party that was hosted by Salvador Guido. The victim, Jesus “Jesse” Garcia, also attended, though neither had been invited. Garcia had recently moved in with Aguilera's wife, Zeidy. Guido and Lorenzo Lopez, who was also at the house that night, were the only “eyewitnesses” who testified at trial. At trial, each testified that Aguilera approached Garcia while Garcia was sitting in his Blazer. The two exchanged words and taunts, and Garcia exited the car. At that point, Aguilera pulled out a gun

[990 F.Supp.2d 931]

and shot Garcia in the chest. Although both Guido and Lopez acknowledged Garcia and Aguilera struggled over the weapon at some point, there was disagreement as to how far apart the two were when the gun went off. Guido placed the two six feet apart when the shot was fired and testified they only struggled after the shot was fired. Lopez indicated the two had struggled over the gun before or at the same time as the shot was fired. At trial, witnesses testified that Aguilera was afraid that Garcia, who had just moved in with Aguilera's wife, would attempt to kidnap Aguilera's daughter. According to their testimony, Aguilera appeared nervous and mentioned that men might be coming to harm him or take his daughter and that he needed the gun that was ultimately used to shoot Garcia for his own personal protection. Aguilera attempted to portray the shooting as either an accident, self-defense, or as a voluntary manslaughter killing, whereas the State sought a first-degree murder conviction.

Aguilera, 807 N.W.2d at 250–51 (footnote omitted) (decision on Aguilera's second application for post-conviction relief). Aguilera's defense was partially successful, in that he was convicted only of a lesser-included offense:


In December 1996, a jury found Aguilera guilty of second-degree murder, and the trial court imposed sentence in January 1997. The conviction and sentence were affirmed by the court of appeals in 1998.

Aguilera, 807 N.W.2d at 251.


Aguilera's first application for post-conviction relief, challenging jury instructions, was dismissed in 2000, and his appeal of that dismissal was dismissed for want of prosecution. Id. at 250. Then,

[i]n 2005, Aguilera filed a second application for postconviction relief, which was amended in 2007.... It was based on an alleged Brady violation and various other issues that were not appealed. The application alleged that the State failed to turn over a DCI file containing interviews with various people. The file was turned over on October 2, 2006. Two of the individuals whose interviews were included in the file testified at trial (Guido and Lopez) and four did not (Ramae Shuver, Zeidy Aguilera, Roberto Reyes, and Graciela Lucio).

Aguilera, 807 N.W.2d at 251 (footnotes omitted).


In its decision on Aguilera's second application for post-conviction relief, the Iowa Supreme Court analyzed in detail the statements of the witnesses in the DCI file; the inconsistencies between some of the witnesses' statements to police, their pre-trial deposition testimony, and their trial testimony; and the inconsistencies among the witnesses concerning where purported eyewitnesses Guido and Lopez were at the time of the shooting. See id. at 253–59. Based on this analysis, the Iowa Supreme Court concluded that “there is a reasonable probability that had these statements been turned over to the defense, the outcome of the trial would have been different. The DCI file and statements were material.” Id. at 259. Furthermore, “[b]ecause [the court] determine [d] that the suppressed, favorable statements which were not turned over by the State had a reasonable probability of impacting the outcome of the trial, [the court] f[ou]nd a Brady violation occurred in this case and Aguilera's due process rights were violated.” Id. It then reversed the lower courts' decisions, and remanded for a new trial. Id. (reversing the decisions of the district court and the Iowa Court of Appeals, which had held that, while some of the statements were not

[990 F.Supp.2d 932]

disclosed, others were, and that, while favorable to Aguilera, the undisclosed statements were not material to Aguilera's guilt).

Nowhere in its decision on Aguilera's second application for post-conviction relief did the Iowa Supreme Court determine who, specifically, was responsible for failure to turn over the DCI file to Aguilera's defense counsel.

On January 11, 2012, the Iowa District Court for Wright County set Aguilera's new trial for March 27, 2012. See State Defendants' Motion To Dismiss, Exhibit B (docket no. 7–3) (order setting new trial). Eric Simonson, Assistant Wright County Attorney and later County Attorney, and Scott D. Brown, an Iowa Assistant Attorney General (IAAG), represented the State in the 2012 new trial proceedings, and Aguilera alleges that DCI Special Agent Jack Seward was again involved in the case. On March 12, 2012, pursuant to a plea agreement, Aguilera pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, a class D felony, in the death of Garcia, and was...

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4 cases
  • Aguilera v. Wright Cnty.
    • United States
    • United States District Courts. 8th Circuit. Northern District of Iowa
    • October 6, 2014
    ...Opinion And Order Regarding State Defendants' Motion To Dismiss (docket no. 19), published at Aguilera v. Wright Cnty., Iowa, 990 F.Supp.2d 926 (N.D.Iowa 2014), this unhappy case has been brought by a state prisoner, plaintiff Jose Angel Aguilera, after the Iowa Supreme Court set aside Agui......
  • Aguilera v. Wright Cnty.
    • United States
    • United States District Courts. 8th Circuit. Northern District of Iowa
    • October 6, 2014
    ...Opinion And Order Regarding State Defendants' Motion To Dismiss (docket no. 19), published at Aguilera v. Wright Cnty., Iowa, 990 F.Supp.2d 926 (N.D.Iowa 2014), this unhappy case has been brought by a state prisoner, plaintiff Jose Angel Aguilera, after the Iowa Supreme Court set aside Agui......
  • Aguilera v. Wright Cnty., C 13-3034-MWB
    • United States
    • United States District Courts. 8th Circuit. Northern District of Iowa
    • October 6, 2014
  • Brittingham v. McConnell, 2:13CV00089 ERW
    • United States
    • United States District Courts. 8th Circuit. United States District Court (Eastern District of Missouri)
    • September 30, 2014
    ...case precedent on this very issue" [ECF No. 35 at 3]. In support of this argument, Plaintiff cites to Aguilera v. Wright County, Ia., 990 F.Supp.2d 926 (N.D. Iowa, Jan. 6, 2014),2 Aguilera, however, does not stand for the proposition contended by Plaintiff, as that decision concerned a proc......

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