Lefever v. Ferguson, Case No. 14-3905
| Decision Date | 15 April 2016 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 14-3906,Case No. 14-3905 |
| Parties | ALEX LEFEVER (14-3906); VIRGINIA LEFEVER (14-3905), Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. JAMES FERGUSON, et al., Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
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COOK, Circuit Judge. More than 20 years after convicting Virginia LeFever of murdering her estranged husband, William LeFever, an Ohio trial court granted a new trial upon learning that the toxicologist whose forensic testimony implicated Virginia pleaded no contest to falsification charges for lying about his graduation date in prior proceedings. County authorities have since released Virginia from custody and declined to retry her, dismissing the underlying indictment without prejudice.
Virginia and her son Alex both sued various county officials and the relevant municipalities under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Pertinent to this appeal, Virginia asserts concealment of impeachment and exculpatory evidence in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), and challenges the district court's grants of qualified immunity on those claims to the former chief toxicologist of the Franklin County Coroner's Office James Ferguson, former Licking County coroner Dr. Robert Raker, and City of Newark detective Ken Ballantine. Alex alleges that the defendants violated his right to familial integrity by wrongfully convicting his mother and contests the district court's orders dismissing and granting summary judgment on his familial-integrity claim.
For the following reasons, we AFFIRM the district court's grants of summary judgment on qualified-immunity grounds to Ferguson, Dr. Raker, and Ballantine in Virginia's case and its denial of Virginia's summary judgment motion against Ferguson, as well as AFFIRM the dismissal of, and grants of summary judgment on, Alex's claim.
Shortly before Virginia's and William's final divorce hearing, William visited the family home for dinner. After dinner and into the following day he displayed increasingly erratic and combative behavior. Virginia eventually called paramedics claiming to have discovered several pills missing from an old Elavil (antidepressant) prescription bottle. Nonetheless, William died. Before he died of cardio-pulmonary arrest, however, he told a hospital nurse competing stories regarding the pills: (1) that he "couldn't cope any more" and took them, and (2) that Virginia forced them on him.
The Licking County Coroner's Office, led by Dr. Raker, investigated the alleged overdose and upon finding numerous bruises on the corpse—unusual for an overdose suicide—contacted Detective Ballantine. Dr. Raker ordered a forensic autopsy, which required transferring William's corpse from Licking County to the Franklin County Coroner's Office (FCCO).
Franklin County's Chief of Forensic Pathology, Dr. Patrick Fardal, performed this autopsy and Ferguson performed a toxicology analysis. Thereafter, FCCO returned William's body to Dr. Raker's custody. The initial toxicology results led Ferguson to suspect that Virginia injected William with amitriptyline, a key ingredient in the antidepressant Elavil, so Ferguson requested that Dr. Raker examine William's body for intramuscular injection sites. Dr. Raker found one suspicious injection site on William's left buttock and sent Ferguson a biopsy from that site for toxicology testing. Tests revealed amitriptyline in the suspicious injection site and in William's lower colon, indicative of both intramuscular injection and rectal administration. Ferguson also discovered two types of strychnine-poisoned rodent bait in William's colon. At the conclusion of the autopsy and toxicology analysis, FCCO issued a report concluding that William died from exposure to amitriptyline.
The Newark Police Department's investigation uncovered hypodermic needles and syringes, rodent-killing poison, and charred remains from "Smoke'em" fumigation pesticides in Virginia's home. Interviews with LeFever's young children revealed that the day before William died, Virginia lit one of the "Smoke'em" pesticides in a bedroom while he slept and then left with the children and family cat. Relying on the physical evidence, witness statements, and autopsy report, the Licking County Prosecutor obtained an indictment from a grand jury in November 1988.
Before Virginia's trial, Ferguson and Director of Forensic Toxicology Dr. Daniel Couri (also associated with FCCO) issued a supplemental toxicology report (Supplemental Report) noting that arsenic and sulfur oxides, the primary gas generated by "Smoke'em" pesticides, contributed to William's death. The Supplemental Report found arsenic in William's hair, nails, kidney, heart, and liver.
Ultimately, the Supplemental Report concluded that William "died as a consequence of multiple administration of toxic agents," with amitriptyline poisoning as the "immediate cause." In response, Dr. Raker issued a supplemental death certificate listing acute amitriptyline and nortriptyline poisoning by intramuscular injection as the primary cause of William's death, now classified as a homicide. It further recorded acute poisoning by sulfur oxide, arsenic, and strychnine via pulmonary and rectal routes, as well as chronic arsenic poisoning via an oral route as other significant conditions.
Following a bench trial, an Ohio court convicted Virginia of murder. She spent more than 20 years in prison until revelations about Ferguson's misrepresented graduation date led the court to order a new trial in November 2010. In granting the new trial, the court doubted Virginia's innocence, but nonetheless found that Ferguson's dishonesty regarding his graduation date resulted in an unfair trial.
After the Ohio trial court ordered her release from prison, Virginia sued various defendants, including Ferguson, Dr. Raker, and Ballantine, asserting claims under federal and state law. Those claims include § 1983 claims for failure to disclose evidence—evidence that Virginia now sees as valuable for impeachment and thus exculpatory under Brady—and for fabrication of evidence.
Ferguson, Dr. Raker, and Ballantine each moved for summary judgment. Virginia moved for partial summary judgment against Ferguson on her Brady claim.
In resolving these motions, the district court first denied Ferguson absolute and qualified immunity on Virginia's fabrication-of-evidence claim, allowing it to proceed. Second, it denied Virginia's motion for partial summary judgment against Ferguson on her Brady claim. Third, itgranted qualified immunity to Ferguson and Dr. Raker on Virginia's Brady claims, finding neither had a clearly established duty to disclose the evidence Virginia claims to have been exculpatory or impeaching. Fourth, it granted Ballantine qualified immunity on Virginia's Brady claims, discerning no constitutional violation.
Ferguson immediately appealed the denial of absolute immunity. This court reversed, granting Ferguson absolute testimonial immunity on Virginia's fabrication-of-evidence claim. LeFever v. Ferguson, 567 F. App'x 426, 431 (6th Cir. 2014).
Virginia now appeals the district court's grants of summary judgment on qualified-immunity grounds to Ferguson, Dr. Raker, and Ballantine on her claims for failure to disclose the evidence she claims to be impeachment/exculpatory under Brady, as well as the denial of her motion for summary judgment against Ferguson on that claim.
Following Virginia's release, her son Alex also sued Ferguson, Dr. Raker, Ballantine, and Bill Hatfield, another City of Newark police officer, alleging that their fabricated murder theories and failure to disclose exculpatory evidence violated Alex's substantive due process right to familial integrity. Alex also asserted that Licking County's, Franklin County's, and the City of Newark's policies and practices led to the violation of this right. Dr. Raker and Licking County moved to dismiss Alex's claim, and the other defendants moved for summary judgment.Ruling on Dr. Raker's and Licking County's motion, the district court dismissed Alex's claim for the violation of his right to familial integrity, finding that any injury he experienced flowed from the constitutional violations suffered by Virginia, and Sixth Circuit precedent foreclosed § 1983 actions for harm suffered by others. Granting summary judgment to the other defendants on this claim logically followed. Alex appeals.
We review the district court's grant of summary judgment de novo, affirming if the evidence demonstrates no genuine issue as to any material fact and, construing the evidence and reasonable inferences in favor of the non-movant, the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a); Wesley v. Campbell, 779 F.3d 421, 434-35 (6th Cir. 2015).
In evaluating claims for qualified immunity, this court considers whether there was (1) a constitutional violation, (2) of a clearly established right, and (3) whether the plaintiff has alleged facts supported by evidence showing that an official engaged in objectively unreasonable conduct. Moldowan v. City of Warren, 578 F.3d 351, 375 (6th Cir. 2009) (quoting Williams v. Mehra, 186 F.3d 685, 691 (6th Cir. 1999) (en banc)). Once officials raise the qualified-immunity defense, the plaintiff bears the burden to "demonstrate that the officials are not entitled to qualified immunity." Silberstein v. City of Dayton, 440 F.3d 306, 311 (6th Cir. 2006).
To establish a violation of her constitutional rights under Brady, Virginia must prove that a defendant withheld favorable exculpatory or impeachment evidence; the state suppressed that evidence; and the suppression resulted in prejudice, meaning that the suppressed evidence was...
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