Griffin v. Balt. Police Dep't

• Decision Date: 27 October 2015
• Docket Number: No. 14–1494.,14–1494.
• Parties: Wendell GRIFFIN, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. BALTIMORE POLICE DEPARTMENT ; Jerry Landsman; Donald Kincaid; Edward Brown, Defendants–Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

804 F.3d 692

Wendell GRIFFIN, Plaintiff–Appellant

v.BALTIMORE POLICE DEPARTMENT ; Jerry Landsman; Donald Kincaid; Edward Brown, Defendants–Appellees.

No. 14–1494.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: Sept. 17, 2015.

Decided: Oct. 27, 2015.

ARGUED:Charles N. Curlett, Jr., Levin & Curlett LLC, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellant. Daniel C. Beck, Baltimore City Law Department, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellees. ON BRIEF:Sarah F. Lacey, Levin & Curlett LLC, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellant. George A. Nilson, City Solicitor of Baltimore City, Suzanne Sangree, Chief, Glenn Marrow, Deputy Chief, Police Legal Affairs Division, Baltimore City Law Department, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellees.

Before WILKINSON, AGEE, and HARRIS, Circuit Judges.

Opinion

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge WILKINSON wrote the opinion, in which Judge AGEE and Judge HARRIS joined. Judge HARRIS wrote a separate concurring opinion.

WILKINSON, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiff Wendell Griffin seeks damages for police and prosecution withholding of evidence in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), during his 1982 murder trial. The district court dismissed his case, holding it barred by Heck v. Humphrey, which prohibits § 1983 claims for damages that would “necessarily imply the invalidity” of a plaintiff's prior conviction. 512 U.S. 477, 487, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994). For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

I.

On March 8, 1982, Griffin was convicted by a jury in Baltimore City Circuit Court for the April 22, 1981 murder of James Williams Wise and also for a related weapons charge. He was sentenced to life in prison. The Maryland Court of Special Appeals affirmed Griffin's convictions on April 4, 1983, and the Maryland Court of Appeals denied Griffin's petition for certiorari on April 11, 1984.

Griffin filed a pro se petition for state post-conviction relief, but it was withdrawn without prejudice on February 23, 1993. He then filed another petition, this one claiming that he received ineffective assistance of counsel, on April 19, 1995. The Baltimore City Circuit Court denied this petition on December 13, 1996.

On October 31, 1997, over fifteen years after his conviction, Griffin sought federal habeas relief in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland. The petition was denied on June 11, 1998, and this court declined to issue a certificate of appealability. Griffin v. Sizer, 161 F.3d 2 (4th Cir.1998).

Over a decade later, on June 10, 2010, Griffin filed a pro se petition seeking post-conviction DNA testing of certain evidence pursuant to Md.Code, Crim. Proc. § 8–201. In response to this petition, the court appointed Griffin counsel, who filed a Maryland Public Information Act request seeking records from the Baltimore City Police Department. These documents allegedly revealed that Baltimore City Police Department detectives withheld from the defense exculpatory evidence, including exculpatory photo-arrays, exculpatory witness statements, proof of a break in the chain of custody over keys found at the crime scene, and evidence that tended to inculpate another person.

On August 4, 2011, the Baltimore City Circuit Court conducted an evidentiary hearing to consider Griffin's arguments. It found that Maryland had conducted a reasonable search for evidence secured in connection with Griffin's case, and it indicated that it would address the question of whether any withholding of evidence was intentional at a later hearing.

On February 2, 2012, Griffin again moved for state post-conviction relief. Then, on May 23, 2012, the Baltimore City Circuit Court granted Griffin's unopposed motion to modify his sentence to time served. Griffin was placed on three years of unsupervised probation, but the probation was terminated early on December 19, 2012.

Griffin, no longer in custody, sued the Baltimore City Police Department and three of its former detectives for damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The United States District Court for the District of Maryland, noting that Griffin had “ample opportunity to seek federal review ... prior to his release from incarceration,” J.A. 108, dismissed his claims pursuant to the bar set forth in Heck v. Humphrey. This appeal followed.

II.

We shall briefly review at the outset the principles underlying Heck before proceeding to the core of Griffin's claim. In Heck, the Supreme Court identified two potential problems lying at the intersection of the major statutory schemes relevant to prisoner litigation: habeas corpus and § 1983. The first problem goes to consistency. If a § 1983 plaintiff could win damages premised on the wrongfulness of a still-valid conviction, there would be “two conflicting resolutions” of a single controversy. Heck, 512 U.S. at 484, 114 S.Ct. 2364. All things considered, it would be best not to have law at odds with itself.

The second problem goes to the proper observance of Congress's specified means of federal post-conviction review. Habeas corpus, and not § 1983, is the exclusive federal remedy for state prisoners seeking actual release from confinement. Preiser v. Rodriguez 411 U.S. 475, 487–90, 93 S.Ct. 1827, 36 L.Ed.2d 439 (1973). Congress has limited this remedy, moreover, by requiring habeas petitioners to exhaust their claims in state forums and by limiting a federal court's ability to review a state court's adjudication of the merits of a claim. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254. If, however, a § 1983 plaintiff could win damages premised on a still-valid conviction, then that plaintiff could circumvent these limitations and mount “a collateral attack on [a] conviction through the vehicle of a civil suit.” Heck, 512 U.S. at 484, 114 S.Ct. 2364.

The Supreme Court attempted to forestall these two problems by prohibiting § 1983 claims implicating issues more appropriately resolved via federal habeas corpus or state post-conviction relief. Specifically, the Court held that

to recover damages for ... harm caused by actions whose unlawfulness would render a conviction or sentence invalid, a § 1983 plaintiff must prove that the conviction or sentence has been reversed on direct appeal, expunged by executive order, declared invalid by a state tribunal authorized to make such determination, or called into question by a federal court's issuance of a writ of habeas corpus, 28 U.S.C. § 2254.

Id. at 485, 114 S.Ct. 2364. Through what has become known as the “favorable termination requirement,” Nelson v. Campbell, 541 U.S. 637, 646–47, 124 S.Ct. 2117, 158 L.Ed.2d 924 (2004), the Court ensured that § 1983 litigation would not result in inconsistent judgments or retrials of old state convictions through pathways other than those delineated by Congress.

Heck itself makes clear, however, that § 1983 actions that do not “necessarily” imply the invalidity of a prior conviction “should be allowed to proceed, in the absence of some other bar to the suit.” Heck, 512 U.S. at 487, 114 S.Ct. 2364. The need to avoid inconsistent judgments and prevent litigants from evading the procedural requirements of federal habeas corpus is not present when a § 1983 claim would not actually undermine a valid conviction. In Skinner v. Switzer, for example, the Court held that Skinner's suit for DNA testing was cognizable under § 1983, because the testing would not “necessarily” undermine the validity of his conviction. 562 U.S. 521, 534, 131 S.Ct. 1289, 179 L.Ed.2d 233 (2011). It might instead only incriminate him further. Id.

While § 1983 suits seeking DNA testing may proceed around the Heck bar, § 1983 actions based on Brady claims may not. Skinner itself makes this distinction clear. “Unlike DNA testing, which may yield exculpatory, incriminating, or inconclusive results, a Brady claim, when successful postconviction, necessarily yields evidence undermining a conviction: Brady evidence is, by definition, always favorable to the defendant and material to his guilt or punishment.” Skinner, 562 U.S. at 536, 131 S.Ct. 1289 ; see also Brady, 373 U.S. at 87, 83 S.Ct. 1194 (“We now hold that the suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused upon request violates due process where the evidence is material.”). The Court's careful explanation of this distinction prevents us from allowing its decision in Skinner to “spill over to claims relying on Brady. ” Skinner, 562 U.S. at 536, 131 S.Ct. 1289.

What we have here, then, are § 1983 claims predicated on alleged Brady violations which would, if proven, necessarily imply the invalidity of Griffin's convictions. And those convictions have not been “reversed on direct appeal, expunged by executive order, declared invalid by a state tribunal ... or called into question by a federal court's issuance of a writ of habeas corpus.” Heck, 512 U.S. at 487, 114 S.Ct. 2364. Under Heck, therefore, they may not be collaterally attacked through § 1983 now.

That Griffin is no longer in custody does not change this result. The Heck bar is “not rendered inapplicable by the fortuity that a convicted criminal is no longer incarcerated.” Id. at 490 n. 10, 114 S.Ct. 2364. This rule prevents would-be § 1983 plaintiffs from bringing suit even after they are released from custody and thus unable to challenge their conviction through a habeas petition. Were the rule otherwise, plaintiffs might simply wait to file their § 1983 actions until after their sentences were served, and thereby transform § 1983 into a new font of federal post-conviction review.

Successful resolution of Griffin's § 1983 claims would necessarily undermine the validity of Griffin's prior convictions. Griffin's claims would appear therefore to fall within the core of the Heck bar.

III.

Griffin argues, however, that he is not subject to Heck even though his claims would necessarily undermine his convictions. He points to Wilson v. Johnson, which recognizes an exception to the Heck bar in cases where a litigant “could not, as a practical matter, [have sought] habeas relief”...