Harris v. Clay Cnty.

• Decision Date: 25 March 2020
• Docket Number: NO. 1:18CV167 M-P,1:18CV167 M-P
• Citation: 448 F.Supp.3d 629
• Parties: Rachel HARRIS, Guardian of Steven Jessie Harris, Plaintiff v. CLAY COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI et al., Defendants
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Mississippi

448 F.Supp.3d 629

Rachel HARRIS, Guardian of Steven Jessie Harris, Plaintiff

v.CLAY COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI et al., Defendants

NO. 1:18CV167 M-P

United States District Court, N.D. Mississippi, Aberdeen Division.

Signed March 25, 2020

Carlos Eugene Moore, Moore Law Group, PC, Grenada, MS, Michael S. Carr, Carr Law Firm, Cleveland, MS, for Plaintiff.

Katherine S. Kerby, Kerby Law Firm, LLC, Columbus, MS, Mary Jo Woods, Mississippi Attorney General's Office, Robert Mark Hodges, Charles E. Cowan, Wise Carter Child & Caraway, P.A., Jackson, MS, Angela Turner Ford, Turner Law Offices, PLLC, West Point, MS, William Robert Allen, Jessica S. Malone, Allen, Allen Breeland & Allen, Brookhaven, MS, for Defendants.

ORDER

Michael P. Mills, U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE

This cause comes before the court on the motion of defendants to dismiss, pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12. Plaintiff Steven Jessie Harris (through his guardian Rachel Harris) has responded in opposition to the motion, and the court, having considered the memoranda and submissions of the parties, is prepared to rule.

This is a § 1983 action which presents difficult issues arising from the intersection of concerns regarding public safety and the protection of the constitutional rights of a (former) criminal defendant. The former defendant in question is plaintiff Steven Harris, who, after being indicted for murder and other serious offenses in 2005, spent almost eleven years in jail in spite of being found incompetent to stand trial based on a diagnosis of schizophrenia. At this juncture, no discovery has been performed in the case, and this court is left largely with plaintiff's version of the facts. This is at least partly because, under Rule 12 standards, none of the defendants have been able to introduce their version of the facts as developed in discovery.

In his brief, plaintiff describes the facts surrounding this case as follows:

On or about October 8, 2005, Harris was arrested and held in custody at the Clay County Jail, for allegedly committing several criminal acts. An order for a competency evaluation was entered on July 20, 2006, nine months after Harris was taken into custody. In violation of the July 20, 2006 order for an immediate competency evaluation, Harris was transferred to Whitfield Hospital one year after the original competency evaluation order.

The first Forensic Competency Summary Report was prepared and filed September 13, 2007. Dr. McMichael and Dr. Macvaugh, Plaintiff Steven's treating physicians at Whitfield Hospital determined that Plaintiff Steven suffered from Schizophrenia, lacking the ability to consult with his attorney, prepare a defense and understand the nature and object of legal proceedings against him. The medical staff also determined Plaintiff Steven lacked the ability to waive or assert his constitutional rights.

A fourth and final Forensic Competency Summary Report was prepared and filed September 8, 2008 after one year of inpatient treatment at Whitfield Hospital, providing the opinion that "there is no substantial probability" that Harris can be restored to competence to proceed legally in the foreseeable future.

Although a competency hearing was initially scheduled for October 14, 2008, counselors continuously agreed to continuances until Judge Howard set the competency hearing for October 12, 2010, two years after Plaintiff was deemed incompetent by mental examination. Plaintiff Steven remained in custody of the Clay County Sheriff during the two years despite the psychiatrist recommendations for long-term treatment.

As a result of the competency hearing, Judge Howard entered an order for District Attorney Forrest Allgood ("Allgood") to pursue Civil Commitment proceedings and ordered Harris to remain in custody until determination of civil commitment proceedings.

On October 12th, 2010, the Circuit Court of Clay County ordered that civil commitment proceedings be commenced against Harris. However, Special Master Thomas Storey signed an order October 20, 2010 finding that the Chancery Court lacked jurisdiction to hear this cause pursuant to Miss. Code Ann. § 41-21-63 since Plaintiff Steven had pending criminal charges. Said order attempted to transfer jurisdiction of the case back [to] the Circuit Court of Clay County.

Further, eight days after the competency hearing, Judge Howard entered an order to remove the case from the active docket and deemed that Harris was "not competent to stand trial and ordered civil commitment proceedings to comply with Mississippi Code Annotated § 41-21-63 (1972)."

Upon Plaintiff's return to the Clay County Circuit Court, Allgood intentionally refused to release Plaintiff, despite the fact that the civil commitment proceeding had been dismissed for a lack of jurisdiction and he had been deemed incompetent to stand trial.

On or about October 5, 2012, nearly 2 YEARS following the Competency Order, Defendants Allgood, who along with Defendants Eddie Scott and Laddie Huffman ("Sheriffs"), Tanya West and Pearson Liddell were all unequivocally aware that Harris still remained ... unlawfully detained following the termination of the civil commitment proceeding, filed a Motion for Mental Re-Evaluation and Treatment. (Dkt No. 90-4 Ex. E pg. 17).

Furthermore, as evidenced by the Motion for Mental Re-Evaluation and Treatment, the Defendants and each of them conspired to have Harris's competency re-evaluated in order for him to stand trial, by way of the involuntary administration of anti-psychotic drugs and chemical restraints and forced unpaid labor on an incompetent person.

With assistance of new counsel, Harris filed a motion to dismiss for lack of speedy trial on August 10th, 2016 in the Circuit Court of Clay County on the grounds that the aforementioned Court violated his constitutional rights by continuing to imprison Plaintiff, a legally incompetent person and unconvicted person under purported color of law. Harris was wrongfully imprisoned for approximately eleven years and released on August 15, 2017.

[Plaintiffs' brief at 1-3]

In summarizing the harm he has suffered, Harris argues that:

Though Harris has finally obtained his freedom, he will never regain the lost decade of his life, a decade stolen from him by the Defendants. Because he was unfit to stand trial at the time of his arrest, Defendants robbed Harris of 11 years of his adult life.

[Harris's response to West motion to dismiss at 4]. While this court is quite concerned about the procedural history of this case as described in plaintiff's brief, it is also worth noting that while he rather blandly asserts that he was accused of committing "several criminal acts" in this case, these acts included murder, aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer and kidnapping. [Indictment at 2]. Plaintiff has not been declared factually innocent of these charges, and that being the case, it is open to question whether his flat assertion that he was "robbed ... of 11 years of his adult life" will prove to be an oversimplification, or even incorrect. Indeed, the fact that Harris was accused of such serious crimes make it seem likely to this court that concerns regarding public safety, rather than a conscious decision to violate his constitutional rights, may have motivated defendants' actions in this case.

Still, the law is clear that mentally ill criminal defendants have certain rights under the U.S. Constitution, and, given the rather jarring procedural history of this case, this court can discern real concerns as to whether plaintiff was afforded those rights in this case. In his brief, plaintiff describes the relevant constitutional law in this context as follows:

A defendant in a criminal case who has not yet been convicted of the charge has a liberty interest in being free of confinement, unless there has been a determination of probable cause and pretrial detention is necessary to ensure the presence of the defendant for trial or the safety of the community. United States v. Salerno , 481 U.S. 739, 746-52, 107 S.Ct. 2095, 95 L.Ed.2d 697 (1987) ; Bell v. Wolfish , 441 U.S. 520, 534, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979) ; see also Gerstein v. Pugh , 420 U.S. 103, 95 S.Ct. 854, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1975). "[T]he criminal trial of an incompetent defendant violates due process." Cooper v. Oklahoma , 517 U.S. 348, 354, 116 S.Ct. 1373, 134 L.Ed.2d 498 (1996) .... When the prosecution of the criminal case cannot proceed because the defendant is incompetent to stand trial, the defendant may not be detained on account of the criminal charge more than a reasonable period of time to determine whether there is a substantial probability that the defendant will become competent in the foreseeable future. Jackson v. Indiana , 406 U.S. 715, 738, 92 S.Ct. 1845, 32 L.Ed.2d 435 (1972). If the defendant is not restorable – i.e., not likely to become competent within the foreseeable future – the government must either release the defendant or institute civil commitment proceedings. Id. Even if it is foreseeable that the defendant will become competent, the continued commitment of the defendant "must be justified by progress toward that goal."

[Plaintiff's brief at 6].

That brings this court to the fact that, in their various motions to dismiss, defendants rely heavily upon legal arguments which generally fail to address the basic issue of whether plaintiff's constitutional rights were, in fact, violated in this case, and, if so, what each defendant's role (or lack thereof) in those violations might have been. This fact makes this court quite reluctant to resolve this case at this early juncture, particularly since the Fifth Circuit has previously expressed concerns regarding Mississippi counties' failure to comply with their obligation to grant criminal defendants speedy trials. For example, in 2017, the Fifth Circuit reversed a grant of summary judgment in a case in which a criminal defendant in Choctaw County waited for 96 days to be brought before a judge and was effectively denied bail....