Bivens v. Forrest Cnty., CIVIL ACTION NO. 2:13-CV-8-KS-MTP
| Decision Date | 30 March 2015 |
| Docket Number | CIVIL ACTION NO. 2:13-CV-8-KS-MTP |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Mississippi |
| Parties | PHILLIP BIVENS, et al. PLAINTIFFS v. FORREST COUNTY, et al. DEFENDANTS |
For the reasons provided below, the Court grants in part and denies in part the Motions to Dismiss [94, 97, 99, 102, 107, 119, 129, 147] filed by Defendants Terry Martin, Herbert Hart, Joe Hopstein, Henry "Red" Brown, Jim Erwin, the Estate of R. E. "Eddie" Clark, the Estate of Earnest "Arlon" Moulds, and the Estate of Larry James.
The Court also dismisses without prejudice Plaintiffs' claims against Defendant Wayne R. Taylor in his individual capacity and denies his Motion to Dismiss [105] as moot. Finally, the Court dismisses without prejudice Plaintiffs' claims against Defendant Gene Walters in his individual capacity.
The parties shall, within one week of the entry of this order, contact the chambers of Magistrate Judge Mike Parker to schedule a case management conference.
This is a civil rights suit. Plaintiffs Phillip Bivens, Bobby Ray Dixon, and LarryRuffin2 - three African-American men - allege that they were wrongfully arrested, convicted, and imprisoned for the rape and murder of a white woman. They allege that Defendants coerced their false confessions through violence and threats of violence, fabricated evidence, ignored potentially exculpatory evidence, and otherwise conspired to prosecute them without probable cause - all motivated by racial animus.
On May 4, 1979, E.P., a young white housewife in Forrest County, Mississippi, was raped and murdered in her home. Her 4-year-old son, L.P., witnessed the crime. Within days, the Forrest County Sheriff's Department ("FCSD") and Hattiesburg Police Department ("HPD") formed a task force to find the perpetrator. Defendant Gene Walters (Sheriff, FCSD) named Defendant Earnest "Arlon" Moulds (Chief Investigator, FCSD) the task force's head investigator. Defendants Joe Hopstein (Chief Criminal Deputy Sheriff, FCSD), Terry Martin (Sheriff's Deputy, FCSD), Henry "Red" Brown (Sheriff's Deputy, FCSD), R E. "Eddie" Clark (Sheriff's Deputy, FCSD), Herbert Hart (Sheriff's Deputy, FCSD; Chief Jailer, Forrest County Regional Jail), and Raymond Howell (Officer, HPD) were assigned to or assisted the task force.
Each officer's investigative activities were recorded in notes and submitted to Moulds, and officers assigned to or assisting the task force regularly met to discuss the investigation. Defendants initially knew that the victim's child stated a single, "bushy-haired" African-American man had committed the crime; that fingerprints, footprints,tire prints, hair, and bodily fluids were left at the crime scene; and that the murder weapon and a bloody towel had likely been removed from the scene by the perpetrator. The victim's husband provided Defendants a list of men matching his son's description who knew the victim and/or her family. The list included Andrew Harris, the man whom DNA evidence eventually proved committed the crime.
Defendants focused their investigation on Ruffin despite exculpatory statements from his friends, family, and a bar owner who provided him an alibi. Defendants obtained false inculpatory statements from two residents of the Restitution Center where Ruffin lived. One of the informants was Defendant Clark's cousin, Andy DeFatta. Clark visited DeFatta at his mother's house and eventually brought him in to provide a statement implicating Ruffin. Defendants Clark, Hoptstein, Moulds, and Martin allegedly provided DeFatta with nonpublic facts about the crime, and Defendants Moulds and Martin signed DeFatta's statement as witnesses. DeFatta purportedly suggested that they speak with another Restitution Center resident, Cris Williams. Defendants Moulds, Hopstein, and Martin questioned Williams, and he eventually signed a statement implicating Ruffin, which Moulds signed as a witness.
After obtaining the false statements, Defendants Moulds and Howell arrested Ruffin and brought him in for questioning. Plaintiffs alleged that through the night of May 29, 1979, and into the morning of May 30, 1979, Defendants Hopstein, Hart, Brown, Clark, Martin, Howell, and Moulds coerced a false confession from Ruffin by beating him, threatening him, and depriving him of food and sleep. Defendants purportedly supplied Ruffin with factual details regarding the victim and her home.On May 30, Defendant Walters publicly announced that the task force had arrested Ruffin for the rape/murder. Defendants Brown, Clark, Erwin, and Taylor continued to beat Ruffin and coerce additional statements from him for several nights after his initial false confession. Defendants Hopstein, Brown, and Howell allegedly bragged to Defendant Walters, in the presence of jail trustees, about beating Dixon. They warned the trustees to remain silent regarding what they had heard.
Defendants failed to investigate or corroborate some of the details discovered during their investigation and interrogation of Ruffin. For example, Defendants discovered that Ruffin did not own a pair of shoes that matched the footprints discovered at the crime scene; that his fingerprints did not match those found at the crime scene; that he did not own or have access to a car matching a description provided by witnesses; and that his hair was shorter than the attacker's, according to testimony by the victim's child. Regardless, they arrested him, charged him, and he was eventually indicted for the subject crime.
Defendants Moulds, Hopstein, Clark, Brown, Martin, Hart, and Howell continued to investigate, looking for potential accomplices - despite the witness's statement that there had been a single attacker. In September 1980, over fifteen months after arresting Ruffin, the task force arrested Dixon, a mentally handicapped African-American man, for missing a work detail from a prior conviction. Dixon had previously been arrested with Ruffin for minor theft. Dixon initially denied having been involved in the rape/murder, or knowing anything about it. But officers - including Brown, Hopstein, and Howell - interrogated, beat, and threatened him untilhe provided a false confession of watching Ruffin rape and murder E.P., based on information officers provided him. He also falsely implicated Bivens. Officers - including Defendants Brown, Hopstein, and Howell - allegedly continued to beat Dixon repeatedly over the next several weeks, threatening to kill him if he did not plead guilty. He eventually pleaded guilty, and he received a sentence of life in prison in exchange for his testimony against Ruffin. Defendants Hopstein, Brown, and Howell allegedly bragged to Defendant Walters, in the presence of jail trustees, about beating Dixon. They warned the trustees to remain silent regarding what they had heard.
In October 1980 - over sixteen months after arresting Ruffin - Defendant Hart and others obtained an extradition order based on upon Dixon's false statement, arrested Bivens at his home in California, and escorted him back to Mississippi. During the flight, Hart interrogated Bivens. Once in Hattiesburg, Defendant Walters allegedly threatened Bivens while brandishing a knife, and officers interrogated and threatened him until he agreed to provide a false confession containing facts provided to him. Moulds and Hopstein videotaped the false confession.
In 2010 and 2011, Ruffin, Dixon, and Bivens were exonerated by DNA testing on semen recovered from the victim's body. The DNA matched Andrew Harris, an African-American man on the list of possible suspects provided to Defendants in 1979 by the victim's husband. Ruffin died in 2002, while still in prison. Dixon died in 2010, three months after he was released from prison on medical parole and five weeks before his exoneration. Bivens died in August 2014 [163], after this civil case had been filed. Ruffin, Dixon, and Bivens collectively spent eighty-three years in Parchman fora crime which they did not commit.
Plaintiffs asserted a wide variety of claims under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985, and Plaintiff Ruffin's children - Laturas Smith and Carrie Strong - asserted their own Section 1983 claim. Plaintiffs named Forrest County, the City of Hattiesburg, and several individuals as Defendants. The individual Defendants filed Motions to Dismiss [94, 97, 99, 102, 105, 107, 119, 129, 147] pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) and on the basis of qualified immunity. The Court ordered [156] Plaintiffs to file a Rule 7(a) Reply as contemplated by Schultea v. Wood, 47 F.3d 1427, 1430-32 (5th Cir. 1995) (en banc). Plaintiffs filed the Reply [165], Defendants filed supplemental Responses [167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175], and Plaintiffs supplemented [178] their Reply. Defendants' Motions to Dismiss are ripe for review.
To survive a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), "a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. LLC v. La. State, 624 F.3d 201, 210 (5th Cir. 2010) (punctuation omitted). "To be plausible, the complaint's factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level." Id. (punctuation omitted). The Court must "accept all well-pleaded facts as true and construe the complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff." Id. But the Court will not accept as true "conclusory allegations, unwarranted factual inferences, or legal conclusions." Id. Likewise, "a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do." PSKS, Inc. v. Leegin Creative Leather Prods., Inc., 615 F.3d 412, 417 (5th Cir. 2010)(punctuation omitted). "While legal conclusions can provide the framework of a complaint, they must be supported by factual allegations." Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 679, 129 S. Ct. 1937, 1950, 173 L. Ed. 2d 868 (2009).
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