Hensley v. Carey
| Decision Date | 16 July 1987 |
| Docket Number | No. 86-1827,86-1827 |
| Citation | 818 F.2d 646 |
| Parties | Gary HENSLEY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Bernard CAREY, Robert Stanley, Theodore Williams, et al., Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Kenneth N. Flaxman, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff-appellant.
Sharon Baldwin, Office of Corp. Counsel, Chicago, Ill., for defendants-appellees.
Before POSNER and COFFEY, Circuit Judges, and GRANT, Senior District Judge. *
Plaintiff-appellant Gary Hensley appeals the district court's grant of a summary judgment in favor of defendants-appellees Theodore Williams and Robert Stanley on his claim that Williams and Stanley allegedly conducted a suggestive lineup which resulted in Hensley being arrested and confined for a period of 111 days. We affirm.
On September 12, 1979, an unknown man followed Carol Pufpaf to her home at 4120 N. Campbell in Chicago, Illinois. While Pufpaf was entering the front door of her home, the unknown man entered the house through an unlocked rear door, confronted Pufpaf and forced her onto a bed. The assailant fled after Pufpaf and her seven year-old son started screaming. Pufpaf subsequently described the assailant as a white male with an olive complexion, dark brown hair, about 5' 9"' in height, approximately 150 pounds in weight, and about 19 years of age.
Hensley, a white male, 18 years of age, with a blond military-style haircut, with light skin, is 6' 0"' tall, weighed 165 pounds, and was a member of the United States Marine Corps on active duty in the city of Chicago. Three days after the assault, on September 15, 1979, Hensley was stopped by a Chicago police officer who questioned him and asked for identification. The following day, two police officers visited Hensley's home in the company of Chris Vandenberg, a witness who had observed a man following Pufpaf into her home. Vandenberg identified Hensley in the presence of the police officers as the man he had seen following Pufpaf. The two officers placed Hensley under arrest and conveyed him to the local police station.
During the evening of September 15, 1979 appellant Theodore Williams, a Chicago police officer, arranged for a lineup that included Hensley and five other white males. Hensley was the only person in the lineup wearing a short military-style haircut. Even though Williams was aware of this fact he and another officer, Detective John Beaumont, attempted to but were unable to locate any other white males with short haircuts, including members of the police department itself, to participate in the lineup. Appellant Robert Stanley, also a Chicago police officer, approved of the lineup, and the group was exhibited to Pufpaf. Pufpaf identified Hensley as her assailant, and Hensley was subsequently indicted on various criminal charges of burglary, attempted rape, and attempted robbery. Hensley, unable to post bond, remained in custody for 111 days while awaiting trial.
According to the prosecuting attorney assigned to the case, Pufpaf's seven-year-old son after observing Hensley at a preliminary hearing 1 stated to the mother "that is not the man," meaning that Hensley was not Pufpaf's attacker. According to police investigators, they believed Pufpaf's son had more than ample opportunity to view the assailant during the attack as he observed the assailant push his mother into the bedroom. After her son's comment, Pufpaf told the prosecuting attorney that she had not had a good look at her assailant and picked Hensley out of the lineup because of his short hair. While Pufpaf was not sure whether Hensley was her attacker after her son's comment, she maintained that her earlier description of the assailant had been accurate. At the hearing in which the state court dismissed the charges pending against Hensley, the prosecution stated:
The police re-evaluated the case and conducted a further investigation of Hensley's prior alibi that he had been elsewhere at the time of Pufpaf's attack and now convinced of Hensley's truthfulness released him on January 4, 1980.
On March 23, 1981, Hensley filed suit against Williams and Stanley pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 alleging that his constitutional rights had been violated under the Fifth, Sixth, and the due process clause of the U.S. Constitution in that the officers had conducted a suggestive lineup. Hensley originally named Bernard Carey, the Cook County States Attorney, Williams, Stanley and various other defendants in his suit but the district court dismissed all but Williams and Stanley. Hensley appeals the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Williams and Stanley.
"A grant of summary judgment is proper if there is no genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Wainwright Bank & Trust Company v. Railroadmens Federal Savings & Loan Association of Indianapolis, 806 F.2d 146, 149 (7th Cir.1986). Since the essential facts are not in dispute, we must determine whether the defendants, the moving parties, were entitled to judgment as a matter of law. "In order to determine whether the complaint [pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983] 2 has alleged a deprivation of a federally protected right, it is necessary to identify the precise right that plaintiff seeks to vindicate." Christman v. Hanrahan, 500 F.2d 65, 67 (7th Cir.1974). In his complaint, Hensley alleges that his "due process and Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights were violated by the manner in which the line-up was conducted." In Christman v. Hanrahan, 500 F.2d 65 (7th Cir.1974), we affirmed the dismissal of a complaint under Sec. 1983 and held that the plaintiff's Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights were not violated through prosecutorial misconduct which failed to result in an unfair trial. In Christman, this court rejected the suggestion that "the Due Process Clause ... provide[s] broad generalized protection against misdeeds by police or prosecution" and concluded that "the mission of the clause ... [is] avoidance of an unfair trial to the accused, and no violation ... result[s] unless the misconduct had some prejudicial impact on the defense." Id. at 67.
Hensley argues that the district court improperly granted summary judgment in favor of Williams and Stanley on his claim pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983. He maintains that defendants-appellees deprived him of his Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights because they subjected him to an unduly suggestive lineup. The appellees maintain that they were entitled to a summary judgment as a matter of law since the Constitution does not guarantee a suspect an impartial lineup. This is a case of first impression since, as the district court stated, "it appears that no court has yet passed on whether police officers may be liable under Sec. 1983 for conducting an improper lineup." 633 F.Supp. 1251, 1253 (N.D.Ill.1986).
Hensley bases his argument that his constitutional rights were violated and he should recover damages pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199 (1967), and Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U.S. 98, 97 S.Ct. 2243, 53 L.Ed.2d 140 (1977). In Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199 (1967), the United States Supreme Court held that whether a defendant's due process rights are violated through the admission of evidence at trial derived from an unnecessarily suggestive lineup or confrontation with a witness depends on the totality of the circumstances surrounding the lineup or confrontation. In Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U.S. 98, 97 S.Ct. 2243, 53 L.Ed.2d 140 (1977), the Supreme Court described its holding in Stovall "as protecting an evidentiary interest." Id. at 113, 97 S.Ct. at 2252. Thus, the procedural safeguards established in Brathwaite and Stovall protect only against the admission of unreliable evidence at trial and does not establish a constitutional right to be free of suggestive lineups as Hensley argues.
In granting summary judgment for the defendants in this case, the district court reasoned that the procedural safeguards discussed in Stovall and Brathwaite provide "no support for the plaintiff's contention that an improper lineup proceeding in itself constitutes a distinct and actionable constitutional wrong." Hensley v. Carey, 633 F.Supp. 1251, 1253 (N.D.Ill.1986). The court correctly stated that Stovall and Brathwaite "simply establish a prophylactic rule that protects a defendant's right to a fair trial by barring the admission of unreliable eyewitness identifications." Id. Stovall and Brathwaite establish a rule which bars the admission of unreliable identification evidence at trial. The rule against admission of evidence from unnecessarily suggestive lineups is a prophylactic rule designed to protect a core right, that is the right to a fair trial, and it is only the violation of the core right and not the prophylactic rule that should be actionable under Sec. 1983.
In Cerbone v. County of Westchester, 508 F.Supp. 780 (S.D.N.Y.1981), the court dism...
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