Gomez v. Atkins

• Decision Date: 11 July 2002
• Docket Number: No. 01-2112.,01-2112.
• Citation: 296 F.3d 253
• Parties: Isidro GOMEZ; Linda L. Gomez, Wife, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. W.J. ATKINS, in his official and individual capacity, Defendant-Appellant, and Earl Moose Butler, Sheriff of Cumberland County, in his official and individual capacity; H.R. Collins, in his official and individual capacity; Jerry D. Webster, in his individual capacity; Western Surety Company; Debra Koenig, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

296 F.3d 253

Isidro GOMEZ; Linda L. Gomez, Wife, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. W.J. ATKINS, in his official and individual capacity, Defendant-Appellant, and Earl Moose Butler, Sheriff of Cumberland County, in his official and individual capacity; H.R. Collins, in his official and individual capacity; Jerry D. Webster, in his individual capacity; Western Surety Company; Debra Koenig, Defendants.

No. 01-2112.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued April 2, 2002.

Decided July 11, 2002.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

ARGUED Reginald B. Gillespie, Jr., Faison & Gillespie, Durham, North Carolina, for Defendant-Appellant. Carl Wesley Hodges, II, Shipman & Associates, L.L.P., Wilmington, North Carolina, for Plaintiffs-Appellees. ON BRIEF William C. Morgan, Jr., The Brough Law Firm, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, for Defendant-Appellant. Gary K. Shipman, Shipman & Associates, L.L.P., Wilmington, North Carolina, for Plaintiffs-Appellees.

Before WILKINSON, Chief Judge, KING, Circuit Judge, and HAMILTON, Senior Circuit Judge.

Vacated and remanded by published opinion. Judge KING wrote the opinion, in which Chief Judge WILKINSON and Judge HAMILTON joined. Judge HAMILTON wrote a separate concurring opinion.

OPINION

KING, Circuit Judge.

Appellee Isidro Gomez ("Isidro") initiated this proceeding in the Eastern District of North Carolina under the provisions of 42 U.S.C. § 1983. He contended that Sergeant W.J. Atkins of the Cumberland County Sheriff's Department (the "Sheriff's Department") violated his constitutional rights by causing him to be charged and arrested, without probable cause, for the murder of his wife. He also asserted various related state law claims. Sergeant Atkins sought summary judgment in the district court, claiming qualified immunity. When the court declined to recognize his immunity claim, he filed this interlocutory appeal. As explained below, we vacate and remand for dismissal.

I.

In July 1980, Rickie Jean Gomez, Isidro's first wife, was murdered in Fayetteville, North Carolina.¹ In the latter half of 1980, the Sheriff's Department conducted a lengthy investigation of the crime, but it bore no fruit and lapsed into inactivity (the "Initial Investigation"). The investigation of the unsolved homicide was resurrected in 1995, and a follow-up investigation (the "Follow-up") was conducted under the auspices of Sergeant Atkins. A few months later, in May 1996, Isidro, who had remarried in 1981, was charged with the murder of his first wife. Following proceedings in the Cumberland County District Court, Isidro was indicted for first degree murder. The indictment was subsequently dismissed, and this civil litigation ensued. The factual predicate for these proceedings is explained more fully below.

A.

In its Initial Investigation, the Sheriff's Department learned that Rickie Jean had married Isidro in 1968 and that the couple made their home in Fayetteville. By 1979, Isidro and Rickie Jean were experiencing marital problems and they were, at times, living separately. In July 1980, Isidro sought a reconciliation, and they met at her sister's home in Atlanta, Georgia, on Friday, July 11, 1980. At the end of the weekend, on July 13, 1980, Isidro and Rickie Jean departed Atlanta on their return to Fayetteville. After travelling only seven or eight miles, Isidro's vehicle broke down. Because the necessary repair parts were unavailable, Isidro asked a friend, James Horton, to pick them up and tow the car to Horton's home in an Atlanta suburb. Horton and his wife then invited the couple to spend the night, but Rickie Jean declined because she was scheduled to work in Fayetteville the next day. Thus, after dinner, Isidro and Horton transported Rickie Jean to the Atlanta airport, and she returned to Fayetteville by plane. Isidro spent Sunday evening in Georgia with the Hortons.

On Monday morning, July 14, 1980, Horton's wife took Isidro to obtain parts for the repair of his car. Isidro then made the necessary repairs and, between 10:00 and 10:30 a.m., he departed for Fayetteville. The distance between the Hortons' home near Atlanta and the Gomez home in Fayetteville is approximately 376 miles. At about 6:20 p.m., Rickie Jean's supervisor at Piedmont Airlines (her employer), called Isidro at the Gomez home, advising him that, although Rickie Jean had arrived in Fayetteville on a Sunday-evening flight, she had not reported for work Monday morning.

Around 7:00 p.m. on July 14, 1980, after consulting with a neighbor, Isidro called the local police and reported that Rickie Jean was missing. Law enforcement officers arrived at the Gomez home a few minutes later, and a crime scene investigation was conducted. There were no signs of robbery or forced entry into the home, but the investigators discovered blood in and around the master bedroom, a large blood stain on the underside of the mattress, and bloody shoe prints in the driveway. Upon removing the blood-soaked mattress from the bedroom, investigators noticed that Isidro was not distraught, and that he seemed unconcerned that his wife was missing and possibly dead. That evening, Isidro went to the County Law Enforcement Center to be interviewed.

At approximately 10:20 the next morning, July 15, 1980, deputies located Rickie Jean's car, with her dead body inside, in a wooded area about a mile from the Gomez home. She was wearing a nightgown, and the investigators found bed linen from the master bedroom in her car. An autopsy revealed that Rickie Jean had been badly beaten and stabbed in the chest. The time of her death was established as being six to thirty-six hours prior to the discovery of her body, i.e., between 10:00 p.m. on Sunday, July 13, and 4:00 a.m. on Tuesday, July 15, 1980.

During the Initial Investigation, Isidro provided the Sheriff's Department with blood and hair samples. Tests on the evidence found at the Gomez home revealed the presence of both Types O and A blood, the types of Rickie Jean and Isidro, respectively. Blood found under Rickie Jean's fingernails was the same type as Isidro's. Loose hairs found on Rickie Jean's body were "microscopically consistent" with Isidro's hair. Investigators also discovered that Rickie Jean had advised several of her friends that Isidro had previously subjected her to physical abuse and beatings, and that he had threatened to kill her.

Throughout his interviews with the Sheriff's Department, Isidro maintained that he had not arrived home in Fayetteville until 6:00 p.m. on July 14, 1980, and that Rickie Jean's car was not there when he arrived. Shortly thereafter, according to Isidro, he noticed small blood stains in the house. After receiving a phone call from Rickie Jean's supervisor, Isidro called friends and relatives in an effort to locate Rickie Jean. Then, upon going outside to the driveway, he first noticed a large brownish stain which turned out to be blood. Isidro denied that he was involved in the death of Rickie Jean, maintaining that it was impossible for him to have returned from Atlanta in time to commit the murder and dispose of her body. On July 18, 1980, Isidro was subjected to a polygraph examination on the matter, which he failed.

After the Initial Investigation, no charges were brought in connection with the murder of Rickie Jean. In May 1981, ten months after the murder, Isidro married his current wife and, because of a job transfer, moved to Michigan. Due to subsequent transfers, Isidro and his new wife, Linda, moved to Kentucky and finally to Virginia. All the while, the homicide investigation of Rickie Jean's death remained pending and unsolved in the Sheriff's Department.

B.

In 1994, fourteen years after the murder of Rickie Jean, Earl "Moose" Butler was elected Sheriff of Cumberland County. After taking office, Sheriff Butler directed Sergeant Atkins to review the County's unsolved homicide cases, including that of Rickie Jean. In November 1995, after reviewing the file on the Initial Investigation, Atkins travelled to Virginia and interviewed Isidro. Isidro relayed to Atkins essentially the same version of events he had provided the Sheriff's Department in 1980. Over the next six months, Atkins also interviewed relatives, friends, and co-workers of Rickie Jean, both in person and by phone. In all, he obtained the oral and written statements of at least seventeen persons. Numerous individuals advised Atkins that Rickie Jean claimed that Isidro had physically abused her, and that he had threatened to kill her. For example, Sabrina Ross, a friend of Rickie Jean, reported to Atkins that on one occasion Isidro "had choked [Rickie Jean], threw her on the floor and slapped her in the face," and that in a separate incident he "threw her against the wall and caused her to [miscarry] their first child." Ross also stated that Isidro repeatedly told Rickie Jean that he would kill her. Another witness informed Atkins about seeing bruises "around [Rickie Jean's] neck, her ribs, arms, and on her back." Additionally, her friends informed Atkins that Rickie Jean and Isidro were each engaged in extramarital love affairs. According to a person who spoke with Rickie Jean the night before she left to meet Isidro in Atlanta, she was planning to tell him about a romantic relationship with another man. Atkins also learned that Rickie Jean and Isidro were engaged in a dispute over the custody of their two children. And one witness informed Atkins that Isidro had said "he would kill [Rickie Jean] before she got the kids."

In April 1996, at Atkins's request, Isidro provided new blood and hair samples to the Sheriff's Department, and it conducted DNA testing. The Laboratory Corporation of America ("LabCorp") then compared the DNA material found under Rickie Jean's nails with Isidro's DNA profile, but the results failed to inculpate Isidro (the "LabCorp DNA Report").

C.

Based on both the Initial Investigation and the Follow-up conducted in 1995 and 1996, Sergeant Atkins then drafted a...