Higgs v. District Court In and For Douglas County
| Citation | 713 P.2d 840 |
| Decision Date | 02 December 1985 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 83SA493,84SA19,s. 83SA493 |
| Parties | Ronald J. HIGGS, Petitioner, v. The DISTRICT COURT In and For the COUNTY OF DOUGLAS, the Honorable William M. Calvert, James R. Florey, Jr. and Michael Miller, Respondents. James R. FLOREY, Jr. and Michael Miller, Petitioners, v. The DISTRICT COURT In and For the COUNTY OF DOUGLAS, the Honorable William M. Calvert, and Ronald J. Higgs, Respondents. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Colorado |
Long and Jaudon, P.C., Joseph C. Jaudon, Gary B. Blum, Michael T. McConnell Robert M. Baldwin, Denver, for Ronald J. Higgs.
William M. Calvert, Colorado Springs, pro se.
Wood, Ris & Hames, P.C., F. Michael Ludwig, Jeffrey Clay Ruebel, Denver, for James R. Florey, Jr. and Michael Miller.
Duane Woodard, Atty. Gen., Charles B. Howe, Chief Deputy Atty. Gen., Richard H. Forman, Sol. Gen., John Daniel Dailey, Asst. Atty. Gen., Denver, Amicus Curiae.
Norman S. Early, Jr., Denver Dist. Atty., O. Otto Moore, Asst. Dist. Atty., Brooke Wunnicke, Chief Appellate Deputy Dist. Atty., Denver, amicus curiae for the Colorado Dist. Attys. Council.
Mary G. Allen, Denver, amicus curiae for the Colorado Crim. Defense Bar.
These consolidated original proceedings, brought under C.A.R. 21, arise out of a civil rights action initiated by Ronald Higgs pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1982) against James R. Florey, Jr., and Michael Miller, deputy district attorneys in the District Attorney's Office for the Eighteenth Judicial District, following a jury verdict acquitting Higgs of the crimes of first degree burglary, first degree sexual assault, and first degree criminal trespass. Higgs' action was based on the claim that Florey and Miller deprived him of his civil rights in the course of investigating the criminal accusations made against him. After a jury awarded Higgs $770,000 compensatory damages and $351,000 exemplary damages, the respondent court granted a new trial on damages and ruled that Florey and Miller were absolutely immune from any liability stemming from their roles in preparing affidavits in support of the warrants for Higgs' arrest and the search of his home.
In Higgs v. District Court in and for the County of Douglas, 83SA493, we granted Higgs' petition for an order directing the district court to show cause why it should not be required to vacate its order concerning absolute prosecutorial immunity, to set aside its order granting a new trial on the issue of damages, and to reinstate the jury verdict. In Florey v. District Court in and for the County of Douglas, 84SA19, we likewise issued an order, at the request of Florey and Miller, directing the district court to show cause why it should not be required to discharge its order for a new trial on damages and to dismiss Higgs' complaint or, in the alternative, to order a new trial on all issues and to limit the evidence to events that preceded Higgs' arrest. We now make the rule absolute in Higgs v. District Court and discharge the rule in Florey v. District Court.
Ronald Higgs was charged with and tried for two counts of first degree burglary, 1 two counts of first degree sexual assault, 2 and one count of first degree criminal trespass. 3 He was ultimately acquitted by a jury on all five counts. Thereafter, in December 1978, Higgs filed a civil action against several defendants, including Sandra Price who was the complaining witness in the criminal case, Edward Rossmeisl, Richard Rozycki, and Steven Smith, who were deputy sheriffs with the Douglas County Sheriff's Department, and James R. Florey, Jr., Michael Miller, and James Peters, deputy district attorneys in the District Attorney's Office for the Eighteenth Judicial District. Although the complaint alleged several claims for relief, the only claims actually submitted to the jury were a malicious prosecution claim against Sandra Price and civil rights claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1982) against Sheriff's Officers Rossmeisl, Rozycki, and Smith, and Deputy District Attorneys Florey and Miller. All other claims and parties were dismissed. 4 The essence of Higgs' malicious prosecution claim was that Sandra Price initiated and maintained the criminal action against him without probable cause and that she was motivated by malice. Higgs' § 1983 claims were based on the contention that the deputy sheriffs and deputy district attorneys, under color of state and local law, knowingly deprived Higgs of his constitutional rights guaranteed by the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution by authorizing, directing, and/or conducting an illegal and highly suggestive photo identification procedure in order to obtain a positive identification of Higgs as the perpetrator of the alleged crimes under investigation, and by preparing false and misleading affidavits in connection with an order for nontestimonial identification evidence, an arrest warrant for Higgs, and a search warrant for the search of his home.
A recapitulation of the facts leading up to the jury verdicts in Higgs' § 1983 action will provide the necessary background to the issues raised here. On April 12, 1978, Sandra Price, a resident of the Acres Green subdivision in unincorporated Douglas County, reported to the Douglas County Sheriff's office that a man, whom she later identified as Ronald Higgs, had broken into her house at approximately 11:40 a.m. that day. The intruder left when Price confronted him with a pair of sewing scissors. Sheriff's officers investigating the incident found no evidence of forced entry. The evidence later established that at the time of the alleged break-in Higgs was on his way to a luncheon appointment with his minister at a country club some twenty miles from Price's home.
On April 15, shortly after 8:00 p.m., Price reported to the Douglas County Sheriff's Office that at approximately 7:45 p.m. she had been sexually assaulted by the same man who had entered her house on April 12. She stated that her assailant, who was armed with a knife, accosted her in front of her house, forced her into her bedroom, compelled her to commit an act of oral sex, and then raped her anally.
Douglas County sheriff's officers arrived at the Price home about twenty minutes after receiving Price's call. They found no signs of forced entry into the home and no fingerprints. The officers recovered a pair of women's panties from Price's bedroom floor. Tests conducted by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation showed that this undergarment had a semen deposit which contained sperm. Officer Rossmeisl, who headed the rape investigation for the sheriff's office, took Price to Swedish Medical Center for a rape examination. Hospital personnel found no rectal trauma, no semen, and no other evidence of rape. They took samples of Mrs. Price's head hair and pubic hair for comparison with hairs found at the scene of the rape.
Price described her assailant as a white male, approximately thirty-five to forty years old, 5' 10" testimony, had never worn a ring on his little finger. Higgs did own a pickup truck at the time of the alleged assault on Price. The truck, however, had a blue roof, white hood and upper side panels, and blue lower side panels. According to Higgs and his wife, they were watching a movie at a Tamarac Square movie theatre in southeast Denver at 8:00 p.m. on April 15, 1978.
On April 17 Price reported seeing her assailant driving his pickup on Surrey Ridge Road and stated that his license plates had the prefix "RV." Higgs had purchased his pickup in April 1978 and had only a temporary registration sticker on the truck on April 17. On May 5 Price reported that she was brutally beaten and raped again by the same man who had entered her home on April 12 and sexually assaulted her on April 15. Her report to the sheriff's office described the following events. The man came into the kitchen from the garage, grabbed her by the wrist, struck her on the side of her head and neck, and dragged her through the kitchen by her shoulders. Price struck her head on the doorway between the kitchen and the living room so hard that she thought she would black out. The assailant then pushed her to the living room floor, hit her in the stomach hard enough to knock the wind out of her, and put his knee in her stomach to keep her pinned to the floor. He then raped her twice vaginally, and she was sure that he ejaculated once.
After Price reported this rape, she was taken to Swedish Medical Center for another rape examination. This examination, like the previous one, showed no physical evidence of the alleged rape and beating, no bruises or abrasions around the head, neck or stomach, no vaginal trauma, and no trace of semen. Hospital personnel again took body fluid and head and pubic hair samples. The Douglas County sheriff's investigation of the Price home revealed no fingerprints, no sign of forced entry, and, although it had snowed two to three inches that day, no footprints anywhere around the house. 5
On May 8 Higgs went to the Douglas County Sheriff's Office to be fingerprinted for a security dealer's license. Officer Rozycki recognized Higgs as a person who had been identified as a potential suspect...
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