Jimerson v. Payne

• Decision Date: 29 April 2020
• Docket Number: No. 18-3174, No. 18-2873,18-3174
• Citation: 957 F.3d 916
• Parties: Tina JIMERSON, Plaintiff - Appellee v. Dexter PAYNE, Director, Arkansas Department of Correction, Defendant - Appellant John Brown, Jr. Plaintiff - Appellee v. Dexter Payne, Director, Arkansas Department of Correction Defendant - Appellant
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

957 F.3d 916

Tina JIMERSON, Plaintiff - Appellee

v.Dexter PAYNE, Director, Arkansas Department of Correction, Defendant - Appellant

John Brown, Jr. Plaintiff - Appellee

v.Dexter Payne, Director, Arkansas Department of Correction Defendant - Appellant

No. 18-3174

No. 18-2873

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: November 12, 2019

Filed: April 29, 2020

Tina Jimerson, Pro Se.

Karen L. Daniel, Andrea L. Lewis, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, Bluhm Legal Clinic, Center on Wrongful Convictions, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellee in 18-3174.

Brooke Jackson Gasaway, Rachel Marie Kemp, Asher Steinberg, Attorney General's Office, Little Rock, AR, for Defendant-Appellant in 18-3174.

John Brown, Jr., Pro Se.

Tricia Bushnell, Rachel K. Wester, Midwest Innocence Project, Kansas City, MO, Erin Cassinelli, Lassiter & Cassinelli, Little Rock, AR, for Plaintiff-Appellee in 18-2873.

Kelly Hook Fields, Kent G. Holt, Assistant Attorney General, Asher Steinberg, Attorney General's Office, Little Rock, AR, for Defendant-Appellant in 18-2873.

Before GRUENDER, KELLY, and ERICKSON, Circuit Judges.

ERICKSON, Circuit Judge.

The Director of the Arkansas Department of Corrections ("State") appeals from the district court’s grant of habeas corpus relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 to Tina Jimerson ("Jimerson") and John Brown, Jr. ("Brown"), Arkansas prisoners serving life sentences for murder and aggravated robbery. The State argues the district court¹ erred in granting relief as to Jimerson’s Brady ² and Youngblood ³ claims. The State argues the district court⁴ erred in granting Brown relief based on multiple Brady violations; multiple Giglio ⁵ violations; the prosecution’s failure to correct false or misleading testimony as required under Napue v. Illinois;⁶ and a Youngblood violation for the "conscious shocking" and bad faith failure to preserve evidence. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the grant of habeas relief in both cases.

I. BACKGROUND

Myrtle Holmes ("Holmes") was found dead in the trunk of her car parked at her home in Fordyce, Arkansas, on September 22, 1988. On March 16, 1990,⁷ Charlie Vaughn ("Vaughn"), Brown, and Reginald Early ("Early") were charged in state court with the capital murder of Holmes. The State alleged that the three men had acted together in committing rape and robbery, and in the course of those crimes, had caused Holmes’ death under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life. Approximately one year later, Vaughn pled guilty to first-degree murder. Vaughn’s guilty plea implicated Brown and Early. Vaughn’s plea also led to Jimerson being charged as an accomplice in a separate information. The trial court consolidated the cases for trial.

Investigations undertaken on behalf of Brown and Jimerson since their convictions reveal a number of unusual issues and facts about the case, including:

• law enforcement’s undisclosed use of informant Ronnie Prescott;

• an undisclosed recorded confession by co-defendant Vaughn;

• an undisclosed photo lineup identification of Brown;

• both Jimerson and Early were represented at trial by the same attorney;

• an undisclosed close familial relationship (described by the Holmes’ family’s private investigator as "I’ll scratch your back and you’ll scratch mine") between a witness, who had been sentenced to 20 years for a drug conviction in 1989, and the Dallas County sheriff, who released the witness in 1991 under the jail trustee program;

• an undisclosed relationship between the family of informant Taura Bryant, who provided critical testimony at trial, and the Holmes’ family’s private investigator;

• witnesses that have admitted to being so heavily under the influence of drugs at the time of the murder and trial that they have no recollection of their trial testimony;

• co-defendant Early’s signed affidavit, assuming sole responsibility for the crimes; and

• an individual who was interviewed by law enforcement in 1990 and has denied under oath that he provided incriminating information contained in the interview report prepared by law enforcement.

Despite the myriad of issues contained in the record and briefing, we focus our attention on the facts giving rise to the legal issues before us. During Vaughn’s guilty plea, Vaughn told the judge that Jimerson, Brown, and Early picked him on the night of the murder because they wanted to do a robbery. Jimerson drove to Holmes’ house. Vaughn reported that none of the men had prior knowledge of Holmes and that the residence had been randomly selected. According to Vaughn, all three of the men raped Holmes and then Brown killed her. At trial, Vaughn recanted the statements he had made that formed the factual basis for his guilty plea, repeatedly testifying that he had "nothing to say." He explained his recantation by saying he made the confession because he was scared he would get the death penalty so he followed what "y’all said." He clarified that "y’all" referred to his attorney. The prosecutor read the factual basis for Vaughn’s guilty plea to the jury. Scientific evidence presented at trial was inconsistent, in part, with Vaughn’s statements about Holmes being raped. The DNA collected from Holmes’ body was from a single source. A doctor testified that the collected DNA had been compared to samples taken from Vaughn, Early, and Brown. He testified that Vaughn and Brown had been excluded as contributors, but Early could not be excluded as the contributor. No physical evidence connected Vaughn, Brown, or Jimerson to the crime.

When Jimerson was charged a couple days after Vaughn’s guilty plea, Jimerson’s attorney, who also represented Early, filed discovery motions, requesting information concerning informants and whether any informants had requested or were offered immunity, leniency, sentence or charge concessions, or other inducements. He also requested video and audio recordings of the co-defendant’s confession. In addition, he asked for "any material or information within [the prosecuting attorney’s] knowledge, possession or control, or in the hands of any law enforcement agency, that could negate the guilt of the defendant of the offense charged or could reduce the punishment therefore." The then-deputy prosecuting attorney responded that the informant referred to as "Sam" was Taura Bryant, and the only recordings were of conversations with two witnesses who were brothers and video of the crime scene. The prosecutor also said that the State had no knowledge of any informant whose information led to or assisted in making an arrest and that no offers of immunity, leniency, sentence or charge concessions, or other inducements were made to any co-defendant, potential witness, or informant other than the offer made to Vaughn.

The first trial ended in a mistrial when the jury hung on a six-to-six split. The State dropped the rape charge and amended the informations to charge Brown, Early, and Jimerson with first-degree murder and aggravated robbery. With the alleged rape off the table, no DNA evidence was presented at the second trial. A jury returned guilty verdicts for all three on both charges, and each was sentenced to life in prison. In 1994, all three judgments of convictions on both charges were affirmed on appeal. Brown v. State, 315 Ark. 466, 869 S.W.2d 9 (1994).

Neither Brown nor Jimerson filed petitions for certiorari in the United States Supreme Court, or filed with any court any other petitions, applications, or motions challenging their conviction until these habeas petitions were filed in the Eastern District of Arkansas. Jimerson filed her petition on June 30, 2015. Brown filed his petition on December 21, 2016.

Jimerson asserted in her petition that her conviction had been obtained contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause because the police and prosecution failed to disclose exculpatory or impeaching evidence prior to trial in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), and because law enforcement destroyed evidence in bad faith in violation of Arizona v. Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51, 109 S.Ct. 333, 102 L.Ed.2d 281 (1988). The allegations for these claims were based primarily on information developed through the efforts of private investigator Greg Stimis, at the direction of Jimerson’s counsel.

On January 7, 2014, Stimis went to Fordyce to obtain the case file. While there, he met with Dallas County Sheriff Ford. Sheriff Ford told Stimis about law enforcement’s use of a previously undisclosed informant to obtain Vaughn’s confession. Sheriff Ford informed Stimis that, while transporting a prisoner from Texas to Arkansas on an unrelated drug charge, the prisoner asked if there was anything he could do to help his situation. Sheriff Ford responded that law enforcement could use the prisoner’s help to get information about a murder.

When he arrived in Arkansas, the prisoner was placed in Vaughn’s jail cell. Sheriff Ford recalled that when the prisoner-turned-informant told him that he got a confession from Vaughn, the Sheriff sent the prisoner/informant back to the jail cell with a recording device. According to Sheriff Ford, Vaughn confessed again on tape. Sheriff Ford said that the prosecutor determined the recording was inadmissible and he thought that the tape "was gone," either lost or destroyed. When Stimis contacted Sheriff Ford after the January 2014 meeting to get the informant’s name, the Sheriff told Stimis he could not identify the informant. Sheriff Ford subsequently quit responding to Stimis’ email messages.

On January 27, 2014, Stimis made a Freedom of Information Act request to the Arkansas State Police ("ASP") for its files on the Holmes investigation. Approximately three weeks later, Stimis received the file, which consisted of about 210 pages of redacted documents. In that file was a one-page report of an interview occurring on March 24, 1991, with a man named Ronnie Prescott. While the report did not indicate details...