Murphy v. City of Tulsa
| Decision Date | 13 March 2018 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 15–CV–528–GKF–FHM |
| Citation | 295 F.Supp.3d 1221 |
| Parties | Michelle Dawn MURPHY, Plaintiff, v. The CITY OF TULSA, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Oklahoma |
R. Thomas Seymour, Seymour Law Firm, Thomas Richard O'Carroll, O'Carroll & O'Carroll, David Royce Keesling, Shannon Michelle McMurray, Timothy Scott Kittle, Tulsa, OK, for Plaintiff
David Edward O'Meilia, Stephan Alan Wangsgard, Gerald M. Bender, City of Tulsa, Terri Michelle McGrew, Tulsa, OK, Grant Thomas Lloyd, Lloyd Legal PLLC, Tahlequah, OK, for Defendant
This matter comes before the court on the defendant City of Tulsa's Motion for Summary Judgment [Doc. # 175]. For the reasons discussed below, the motion is granted.
On September 12, 1994, Travis Wood, the three-month-old son of Michelle Murphy, was found dead as a result of a stab wound
to the chest and incised wound to the neck. The Tulsa Police Department, headed by then Chief Ron Palmer, oversaw the investigation of infant Wood's murder. That same day, Murphy made a statement to TPD detective Michael Cook.
On September 15, 1994, Murphy was charged with murder in the first degree in the District Court in and for Tulsa County. Murphy was convicted of the charge in November of 1995 and served twenty (20) years of a sentence of life without parole. On May 30, 2014, Tulsa County District Court Judge William Kellough vacated and set aside Murphy's conviction and, on September 12, 2014, the charge against Murphy was dismissed with prejudice.
Murphy now brings this case against the City of Tulsa pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the federal civil rights statute.1
Murphy seeks section 1983 relief on the basis of two constitutional violations: (1) violation of Murphy's Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, and (2) violation of the Fourteenth Amendment due process clause's right to a fair trial.2 The City moves for summary judgment in its favor.
Before considering the City's motion for summary judgment, however, the court must first address four evidentiary issues associated with Murphy's response.
In support of its motion, the City offers eighty-three (83) material facts to which it asserts there is no dispute. These facts are divided into six categories: (1) "The Tulsa Police Department's Murder Investigation," fact nos. 1–28; (2) "Murphy's Confession And Probable Cause," fact nos. 29–36; (3) "Murphy's Confession was Given Knowingly and Voluntarily," fact nos. 37–46; (4) "Causation and Waiver," fact nos. 47–54; (5) "TPD Policies, Practices, Training, and Supervision," fact nos. 55–71; and (6) "The ‘Earlier’ Case—LaRoye Hunter," fact nos. 72–83.
Murphy's response to the motion includes over 1,000 pages of exhibits. The City subsequently moved to strike the exhibits attached to Murphy's response, arguing that the exhibits did not comply with Local Civil Rule 56.1. In an order dated August 29, 2017, the court concluded that Murphy's response failed to comply with LCvR 56.1(c) and Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c)(1) for five separate reasons. First, the court concluded that Murphy "frequently fail[ed] to ‘refer with particularity’ to those portions of the record upon which she relies," offering as an example Murphy's collective response to the City's first twenty-eight (28) statements of undisputed material facts. In response to the City's first 28 facts, Murphy responded with the statement "[t]he investigation was woefully inadequate, not ‘thorough’ or ‘constitutionally sound’ as asserted ..." and cited to 140 of her own additional statements of undisputed fact, seventeen pages of an expert report prepared on her behalf by Dr. Michael D. Lyman, and twelve pages of deposition testimony from the unnamed "scene investigator." Second, Murphy did not use a consistent format for her references. Third, Murphy referenced missing exhibits. Fourth, Murphy occasionally referred to multi-page exhibits as a whole, without reference to page and line numbers. Finally, for some of the exhibits containing excerpts of testimony, Murphy did not identify the individual whose testimony was presented. In order to correct these identified deficiencies, the court granted Murphy additional time to file an amended response that complied with LCvR 56.1(c) and Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c)(1). See [Doc. # 279].
Pursuant to Local Civil Rule 56.1(c):
LCvR 56.1(c) (emphasis added). The local rule is consistent with statements of the Tenth Circuit interpreting Fed. R. Civ. P. 56, and meant to further the purposes of Rule 56. The Tenth Circuit has stated that "on a motion for summary judgment, ‘it is the responding party's burden to ensure that the factual dispute is portrayed with particularity, without ... depending on the trial court to conduct its own search of the record.’ " Cross v. Home Depot , 390 F.3d 1283, 1290 (10th Cir. 2004) (quoting Downes v. Beach , 587 F.2d 469, 472 (10th Cir. 1978) ). This court "is not required to comb through Plaintiffs' evidence to determine the bases for a claim that a factual dispute exists." Bootenhoff v. Hormel Foods Corp. , No. CIV-11-1368-D, 2014 WL 3810329, at *2 n.3 (W.D. Okla. Aug. 1, 2014) (citing Mitchell v. City of Moore, Okla. , 218 F.3d 1190, 1199 (10th Cir. 2000) )3 ; see also Espinoza v. Coca–Cola Enters., Inc. , 167 Fed.Appx. 743, 746 (10th Cir. 2006) (); Boldridge v. Tyson Foods, Inc. , No. 05-4055-SAC, 2007 WL 1299197, at *2 (D. Kan. May 2, 2007) () (quoting Barcikowski v. Sun Microsystems, Inc. , 420 F.Supp.2d 1163, 1179 (D. Colo. 2006) ); Lucas v. Office of Colo. State Pub. Def. , No. 15-CV-00713-CBS, 2016 WL 9632933, at *5 (D. Colo. Aug. 25, 2016) ().
Due to a change in Murphy's counsel, the court granted Murphy an additional extension to file her amended response. See [Doc. # 335]. The amended response lists 197 additional material facts and again appends over 1,000 pages of exhibits which Murphy asserts preclude summary judgment. However, the amended response fails to correct several of the deficiencies previously identified by this court and, for the four following reasons, the court is persuaded that portions of Murphy's amended response do not comply with LCvR 56.1(c) and Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c)(1).
First , Murphy again fails to "refer with particularity" to those portions of the record on which she relies. By way of example, Murphy did not correct all of the insufficiencies specifically identified by this court in its August 29, 2017 order regarding Murphy's opposition to the City's first twenty-eight undisputed material facts.
As previously mentioned, City fact nos. 1–28 relate to TPD's investigation of the murder of infant Wood. Murphy purports to specifically dispute only eight (8) of these facts. Rather, at the outset of Murphy's section stating the material facts to which she asserts a genuine issue of fact exists, Murphy again includes the following:
1–28. The investigation was woefully inadequate, not "thorough" or "constitutionally sound" as asserted on p. 31 citing these facts. See Plaintiff Facts ## 15, 21, 22, 24–103 and 142–195. See also , Plt. Ex. 178, Expert Report of Michael Lyman, pp. 107–124; Plt. Exh. 148, Transcript of Noordyke, p. 16, ll. 22–24, p. 23, ll. 1–3, p. 25, ll. 2–12, l. [sic] 26, ll. 2–6, p. 27, ll. 7–12, p. 31, ll. 3–16, p. 40, ll. 2–7, p. 46, ll. 4–15, p. 52, ll. 4–8, p. 65, ll. 1–24, p. 69, ll. 3–8, p. 29, ll. 7–12.4
[Doc. # 338, p. 1 (internal footnote omitted) ]. Murphy explains that "Fact ##" refers to Murphy's additional material facts to which she asserts there is no dispute. [Doc. # 338, p. 1 n.1].
Although, unlike in her original response, Murphy identifies the scene investigator as TPD officer Noordyke and includes specific page and line references, Murphy again broadly refers to 135 of her own statements of additional undisputed material facts—each of which references one or more exhibits—as well as 17 pages of Dr. Lyman's expert report, and 13 pages of Noordyke's testimony. Similarly, Murphy cites only her own statements of additional undisputed material facts to dispute the following undisputed material facts offered by the City: 20, 23, 25, 27, 37, 385 , and 67. As previously discussed by this court, this practice requires the court to first find the referenced statements of undisputed material fact in a separate section of Murphy's response, look to the exhibits referenced in that later section, and comb through the record to find the relevant material in support of Murphy's proposition. The court is not persuaded that this burdensome procedure satisfies the particularity requirement of LCvR 56.1(c).
Second , Murphy fails to properly address many of the City's assertions of undisputed...
To continue reading
Request your trial