Lefebure v. D'Aquilla
Decision Date | 05 October 2021 |
Docket Number | No. 19-30989,No. 19-30702,19-30702,19-30989 |
Citation | 15 F.4th 650 |
Parties | Priscilla LEFEBURE, Plaintiff—Appellee, v. Samuel D'AQUILLA, 20th Judicial District, Individually and in His Official Capacity as District Attorney, Defendant—Appellant. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Jack Rutherford, Rutherford Law, Los Angeles, CA, for Plaintiff-Appellee.
Ralph Roger Alexis, III, Esq., Glenn B. Adams, Porteous, Hainkel & Johnson, L.L.P., New Orleans, LA, C. Frank Holthaus, Baton Rouge, LA, for Defendant-Appellant.
Sara A. Johnson, New Orleans, LA, Retired Federal Judges.
Before Owen, Chief Judge, and Graves and Ho, Circuit Judges.
ON PETITION FOR REHEARING EN BANC
Treating the Petition for Rehearing En Banc as a Petition for Panel Rehearing, the Petition for Panel Rehearing is denied. No member of the panel nor judge in regular active service of the court having requested that the court be polled on Rehearing En Banc ( FED. R. APP. P. and 5TH CIR. R. 35), the Petition for Rehearing En Banc is denied.
We withdraw the court's prior opinion of February 9, 2021, and substitute the following opinion.
* * *
If anyone deserves to have her day in court, it is Priscilla Lefebure. The allegations in her complaint are sickening: Barrett Boeker, her cousin's husband, raped and sexually assaulted her on multiple occasions at his home on the grounds of the Louisiana state prison where he serves as an assistant warden. Boeker then conspired with the district attorney, Samuel D'Aquilla (as well as his own counsel, who happens to be a relative of D'Aquilla’s), to ensure that he would not be investigated or prosecuted for his crimes. In response, Lefebure filed this suit against D'Aquilla (as well as Boeker and others) on various constitutional and statutory grounds.
It is difficult to imagine anyone who deserves justice more than Priscilla Lefebure. But her claim against D'Aquilla runs into a legal obstacle that the panel has no discretion to ignore. Supreme Court precedent makes clear that a citizen does not have standing to challenge the policies of the prosecuting authority unless she herself is prosecuted or threatened with prosecution. See Linda R.S. v. Richard D ., 410 U.S. 614, 617–19, 93 S.Ct. 1146, 35 L.Ed.2d 536 (1973).
Under this established principle of standing, each of us has a legal interest in how we are treated by law enforcement—but not a legally cognizable interest in how others are treated by law enforcement. So people accused of a crime have an obvious interest in being treated fairly by prosecutors. And victims of crime have a strong interest in their own physical safety and protection. But victims do not have standing based on whether other people—including their perpetrators—are investigated or prosecuted.
Every court to have addressed this question prior to this case agrees that a crime victim may not challenge a prosecutor's failure to investigate or prosecute her perpetrator. Neither Lefebure nor the amicus brief filed in her support cite any authority to the contrary. In sum, we have no choice but to reverse and remand with instructions to dismiss the complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction as to D'Aquilla.
We accept, as we must at the motion to dismiss stage, the allegations contained in Lefebure's complaint as true. They are as follows:
Forced to evacuate her home in Baton Rouge due to flooding, Lefebure resided temporarily with her cousin and her cousin's husband, Boeker. Their home is located on the grounds of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, where Boeker serves as an assistant warden.
Boeker raped and sexually assaulted her on multiple occasions there. First, he raped her in front of a mirror, where he made her watch, while telling her that no one would hear her scream. Later, he sexually assaulted her with a foreign object, after picking the lock of the room where she was attempting to hide. Afterward, she tried to lock the door again, but he again proceeded to pick the lock and blocked her escape.
A few weeks later, Boeker was arrested for second degree rape. But no indictment was ever brought.
That's because, shortly after his arrest, Boeker met on multiple occasions with D'Aquilla, the district attorney for Louisiana's 20th Judicial District, along with Boeker's defense counsel, a relative of the district attorney, and Austin Daniel, West Feliciana Parish Sheriff. At those meetings, they conspired to protect Boeker from investigation and prosecution. They agreed that Boeker was telling the truth and that Lefebure was lying.
Furthermore, Boeker falsely represented to others that he was being investigated by D'Aquilla and Daniel, according to the complaint, "so as to hide the conspiracy and ensure he would not face criminal liability for raping Ms. Lefebure."
Lefebure filed suit against D'Aquilla and the others, seeking damages and declaratory and injunctive relief. With respect to D'Aquilla, she brought various claims under (1) the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, as well as Article I, Section 3 of the Louisiana Constitution (Right to Individual Dignity); (2) the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, as well as Article I, Section 2 of the Louisiana Constitution (Right to Due Process); (3) 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985 for civil conspiracy to violate civil rights; and (4) 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for abuse of process.
D'Aquilla filed a motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6) for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, and asserted various defenses.
The district court granted in part and denied in part D'Aquilla’s motion to dismiss. Lefebure v. Boeker , 390 F. Supp. 3d 729, 768 (M.D. La. 2019). It denied the motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(1), finding that Lefebure had standing. Id. at 746. It also dismissed some of her claims, and rejected many of D'Aquilla’s asserted defenses as to her other claims. Id. at 747–50, 758, 763, 767–68.
The district court certified the order for interlocutory appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b). D'Aquilla moved in this court for leave to appeal from the interlocutory order. This court granted the motion.
On appeal, counsel for Lefebure declined multiple opportunities to file a response brief. Counsel made four requests to extend the briefing deadline, between June and August 2020. This court granted each of those requests. After all those deadlines came and went, this court gave counsel further opportunity to file a brief out of time within ten days. Counsel declined to respond to our request or file a brief in this appeal, so the case was submitted with only D'Aquilla’s brief. Counsel's failure to submit a brief "does not preclude our consideration of the merits" of D'Aquilla’s appeal. Hager v. DBG Partners, Inc. , 903 F.3d 460, 464 (5th Cir. 2018). It merely forfeits the appellee's right to oral argument. See FED. R. APP. P. 31(c) ().
Following our initial decision in this case, counsel apologized for his previous oversights and sought rehearing en banc, supported by an amicus brief by three retired federal judges led by Alex Kozinski.
We review questions of subject matter jurisdiction de novo. Jones v. United States , 625 F.3d 827, 829 (5th Cir. 2010). We now withdraw our earlier opinion in this matter and substitute this opinion in order to explain why the arguments presented in the petition for rehearing en banc and amicus brief are foreclosed to this court as a matter of Supreme Court precedent.
"Over the years, our cases have established that the irreducible constitutional minimum of standing contains three elements." Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife , 504 U.S. 555, 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992). "First, the plaintiff must have suffered an ‘injury in fact.’ " Id. "Second, there must be a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of." Id. "Third, it must be ‘likely,’ as opposed to merely ‘speculative,’ that the injury will be ‘redressed by a favorable decision.’ " Id. at 561, 112 S.Ct. 2130 (quoting Simon v. Eastern Kentucky Welfare Rights Organization , 426 U.S. 26, 38, 43, 96 S.Ct. 1917, 48 L.Ed.2d 450 (1976) ).
Lefebure seeks to hold the prosecutor accountable for injuries she suffered from her assailant. No one doubts, of course, that crime victims suffer an injury in fact. See Linda R.S. , 410 U.S. at 618, 93 S.Ct. 1146 (). And Lefebure suffered one of the most horrific crimes imaginable. But longstanding Supreme Court precedent confirms that a crime victim lacks standing to sue a prosecutor for failing to investigate or indict her perpetrator, due to lack of causation and redressability. See id. ().
As Justice Marshall wrote for the Court in Linda R.S. , even "if appellant were granted the requested relief, it would result only in the jailing of the child's father." Id. at 618, 93 S.Ct. 1146 (emphasis added). As the majority concluded, it is "only speculative" that "prosecution will ... result in [the deterrence of crime]"—"[c]ertainly the ‘direct’ relationship between the alleged injury and the claim sought to be adjudicated ... is absent." Id. Accordingly, "[t]he Court's prior decisions consistently hold that a citizen lacks standing to contest the policies of the prosecuting authority when he himself is neither prosecuted nor threatened with prosecution." Id. at 619, 93 S.Ct. 1146.
In reaching this holding, the Court repeatedly emphasized "the special status of criminal prosecutions in our system." Id. See also , e.g. , id. at 617, 93 S.Ct. 1146 ( ). It is a bedrock principle of our system of government that the decision to prosecute is made, not by judges or crime victims, but...
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