Good v. Curtis
| Decision Date | 23 March 2010 |
| Docket Number | No. 09-10341.,09-10341. |
| Citation | 601 F.3d 393 |
| Parties | Donald Wayne GOOD, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Fred CURTIS, individually and in his official capacity, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
601 F.3d 393
Donald Wayne GOOD, Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
Fred CURTIS, individually and in his official capacity, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 09-10341.
United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
March 23, 2010.
COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED
Mark Steven Werbner (argued), Sayles Werbner, P.C., Dallas, TX, for Good.
Paul King Pearce, Jr. (argued), Timothy Allen Dunn, Matthews, Stein, Shiels, Pearce, Knott, Eden & Davis, L.L.P., Dallas, TX, for Curtis.
Before STEWART, DENNIS and HAYNES, Circuit Judges.
HAYNES, Circuit Judge:
Appellant's Motion for Panel Rehearing is DENIED. This opinion is substituted in place of the prior opinion, Good v. Curtis, 2010 WL 550520 (5th Cir. Feb. 18, 2010).
Appellee Donald Wayne Good brought suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Appellant Fred Curtis, alleging that Curtis violated Good's rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments when he manipulated a photographic lineup in an effort to procure a false identification from the victim in a rape case. Curtis takes this interlocutory appeal from the district court's denial of his motion for summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity. The only issue before us today is whether Curtis is entitled to qualified immunity with regard to the alleged violations of Good's Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. On this limited appeal, we conclude that the district court correctly determined that the genuine issues of fact regarding Curtis's conduct were material to the denial of qualified immunity and, therefore, DISMISS the appeal.
The facts of this case, viewed in the light most favorable to Good as the non-moving party, are as follows. On June 18, 1983,
Good's long and unfortunate path through the legal system began on June 9, 1983, when a man entered the Irving, Texas home of Jane Doe, bound her and her eight-year old daughter and forced Doe to the bedroom, where he raped her. Shortly after the man left, Doe was able to free herself and her daughter and called the Irving Police Department. The crime scene was subsequently processed for evidence. At the same time, a local hospital examined Doe and administered a rape kit. Later that day, Doe met with police and described her assailant as a white male in his twenties, six feet tall, about 190 pounds, clean shaven, with a medium to large build, blondish-brown hair, and dark tan skin tone. Based on Doe's description, a composite sketch of the perpetrator was prepared and then distributed throughout the Irving Police Department.
On June 15, 1983, Good was arrested in an unrelated incident stemming from a bond forfeiture on a prior DWI charge. Curtis, who was not assigned to the investigation of Doe's rape, had suspected Good was responsible for certain unsolved daytime burglaries in Irving. Accordingly, Curtis brought Good to his office for the purpose of interviewing him about the unsolved burglaries. During the interview, Curtis became angry with Good when he would not provide any information on the burglaries. Curtis pulled out a copy of the composite sketch in the Doe case and informed Good that he looked somewhat similar to the assailant and that, if Good did not think the picture looked like him, Curtis would "fix it" to make sure that it did.
When Good persisted in his refusal to address the unsolved burglaries, Curtis told Good he was going to get him charged with Doe's rape and took Good outside of his office to photograph him for a lineup. Curtis proceeded to take several pictures of Good. He repeatedly altered the light settings on the camera with each picture in an effort to make Good's photograph better match the "dark tan" skin tone of the suspect in the police sketch. Once satisfied with the resulting photograph, Curtis added it to a lineup and separately presented it to Doe and her daughter. Doe's daughter was unable to make an identification. Doe, on the other hand, immediately selected Good out of the lineup. She became very emotional upon seeing Good's photograph and identified him as her attacker. As a result, Good was rearrested on June 18, 1983, and charged with aggravated rape, aggravated robbery, and burglary of a habitation.
After Doe's identification of Good in the photographic lineup, a live lineup followed on July 26, 1983, conducted by the Dallas County Sheriff's Department. The participants in the lineup were given specific phrases that the perpetrator used during the home invasion to repeat during the lineup. Doe again, and her daughter for the first time, identified Good as the perpetrator.
Good's first criminal trial, in 1983, ended in a hung jury. His second trial, in 1984, resulted in a guilty verdict, but the verdict was later overturned because of prosecutorial misconduct unrelated to the photographic lineup. In 1987, the government tried Good for a third time, and he was convicted of burglary of a habitation with intent to commit rape. In each of the
In 2001, the Dallas County Criminal District Court No. 3 granted Good's motion for post-conviction DNA testing of the biological evidence from the crime scene. The DNA test ruled Good out as Doe's attacker. Based on this new finding, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted Good's state habeas petition and vacated his sentence on November 17, 2004, followed by the Dallas County Criminal District Court No. 3's dismissal of all charges on December 22, 2004.
On November 17, 2006, Good filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas against the City of Irving; the Irving Police Department; the Chief of Police for the City of Irving, individually and in his official capacity; and Curtis, individually and in his official capacity, under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for alleged violations of the First, Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and article I, section 19 of the Texas Constitution. In March 2007, the district court dismissed all claims against the Irving Police Department, the Irving Chief of Police, in his official and individual capacities, and Curtis, in his official capacity. On June 1, 2009, the district court also dismissed all claims against the City of Irving and the claims against Curtis, in his individual capacity, based on alleged violations of Good's First, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth and Ninth Amendment rights.
Still, the district court did not entirely dismiss Good's case. The district court denied Curtis's motion for partial judgment on the pleadings and motion for summary judgment as to Good's claims based on alleged violations of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments as well as article I, section 19 of the Texas Constitution because genuine issues of fact existed as to whether Curtis was entitled to qualified immunity. This interlocutory appeal followed with regard to Curtis's qualified immunity defense in connection with Good's claims under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.
"An order denying qualified immunity, to the extent it turns on an `issue of law,' is immediately appealable." Behrens v. Pelletier, 516 U.S. 299, 311, 116 S.Ct. 834, 133 L.Ed.2d 773 (1996) (quoting Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 530, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985)) (citation omitted). This jurisdiction includes interlocutory appeals from denials of motions for summary judgment. Atteberry v. Nocona Gen. Hosp., 430 F.3d 245, 251 (5th Cir.2005) (citing Behrens, 516 U.S. at 307, 116 S.Ct. 834); see also 28 U.S.C. § 1291.
The limitation of our interlocutory appellate jurisdiction to questions of law prohibits our "consideration of the correctness of the plaintiff's version of the facts." Club Retro, L.L.C. v. Hilton, 568 F.3d 181, 194 (5th Cir.2009) (quotation omitted). In other words, "the essentially legal immunity question, which we treat as an entitlement distinct from the merits of the case, is appealable only to the extent that it turns on an issue of law." Atteberry, 430 F.3d at 252 (second alteration in the original) (quotations omitted).
This means that the district court's finding that a genuine factual dispute exists is a factual determination that this court is prohibited from reviewing in this interlocutory appeal. Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304, 313, 115 S.Ct. 2151, 132 L.Ed.2d 238 (1995). But the district court's determination that a particular dispute is mater...
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