Rodriguez v. Holmes
| Decision Date | 24 June 1992 |
| Docket Number | No. 91-8090,91-8090 |
| Parties | Eugenio L. RODRIGUEZ, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Mike HOLMES, et al., Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Eugenio L. Rodriguez, pro se.
Richard Andrew Bonner, Shafer, Davis, McCollum, Ashley, O'Leary & Stoker, Odessa, Tex., for Holmes, et al.
Jo Anne Bernal, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Jim Mattox, Atty. Gen., Austin, Tex., for Montemayor.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas.
Before WILLIAMS, DUHE, and EMILIO M. GARZA, Circuit Judges.
Eugenio L. Rodriguez appeals from the district court's dismissal under Fed.R.Civ.Pro. 12(b)(6) as time-barred his civil rights complaint filed pro se and in forma pauperis pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for declaratory and injunctive relief as well as for compensatory and punitive damages. We have in this case a pro se litigant who was caught by the repeal of a tolling statute, who scrupulously followed to his detriment the dictates of the district court and of this Court, and who exhausted his state habeas remedies before filing his federal civil rights suit. Under the unusual circumstances of this case, we reverse and remand for the district court to consider on the merits his potentially valid claim.
In November 1986, Rodriguez, an inmate at the Texas Department of Corrections, filed a civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against former Ector County District Attorney Mike Holmes, Ector County Sheriff Bob Brookshire, former Texas Ranger Pedro Montemayor, and former criminal investigator Monnie Weddel. Rodriguez alleged that, on February 13, 1983, while in custody in Eddy County, Carlsbad, New Mexico, on counts of aggravated robbery, appellees Montemayor and Weddel "visited" Rodriguez to investigate his involvement in various other crimes, primarily murders. Subsequently, over the next several weeks, he was brutally beaten, either illegally extradited or kidnapped from New Mexico and transferred to Ector County, Odessa, Texas, placed in isolation cells, kept from communicating with an attorney, and denied basic necessities, adequate medical care, as well as assistance. He asserts that all this misconduct was for the sole purpose of obtaining a confession used to convict him of a murder in Ector County. 1
Throughout the course of his many procedural filings, Rodriguez has presented a litany of claims: (1) brutality and/or unnecessary use of excessive force and battery; (2) false arrest; (3) false imprisonment; (4) malicious prosecution; (5) denial of counsel; (6) corruption and/or gross negligence and/or abuse of state seal and office; (7) denial of medical attention; and (8) kidnapping and/or illegal extradition from one state into another. On this appeal, Rodriguez has refined his claims to place emphasis on false arrest, false imprisonment, and malicious prosecution. He asserts violations of the Fourth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. 2 We recognize that these are the allegations of a pro se complaint so they "must be read in a liberal fashion," and " 'however inartfully pleaded' must be held to 'less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted by lawyers.' " Richardson v. Fleming, 651 F.2d 366, 368 (5th Cir.Unit A 1981) (quoting Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 106, 97 S.Ct. 285, 292, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976)).
On July 31, 1987, the district court concluded that the basis of Rodriguez' section 1983 claim went to the constitutionality of the state-court conviction and dismissed the complaint without prejudice. It found that the action was in effect a habeas corpus action under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 necessitating the exhaustion of state remedies. 3 On December 29, 1987, this Court affirmed the district court's dismissal in an unpublished, per curiam opinion.
Our inquiry has produced the following pivotal procedural events following our December 29, 1987, affirmance. 4 This pro se litigant first began the legal maze by following our 1987 mandate and filing a post-conviction application for writ of habeas corpus with the Judicial District Court of Ector County, Texas, the convicting court. On September 21, 1987, the state court denied the application without written order. On January 6, 1988, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals also denied Rodriguez' habeas application without a written order. On May 6, 1988, Rodriguez then applied for federal habeas corpus. On January 5, 1989, the federal district court denied his petition for relief, finding that Rodriguez had presented no basis for overcoming the strong presumption that his guilty plea was made knowingly and voluntarily.
Also, in December 1988, Rodriguez had sought permission to "refile" his section 1983 action based on "new discoveries" and to have counsel appointed. On February 21, 1989, the district court denied his motion. It found that Rodriguez' claims were not sufficiently related to the previous civil suit which was in the nature of a suit for habeas relief. The court also denied his request for counsel. The district court, nonetheless, stated that Rodriguez was free to proceed under a new civil rights suit for the redress of any violations of his constitutional rights.
At about the same time of these federal court actions, on January 23, 1989, the convicting state court apparently sua sponte held an evidentiary hearing with regard to newly discovered evidence in the murder to which Rodriguez had confessed. The evidence was that another person, Juan Balderrama, had confessed to the same murder. At the conclusion of the hearing, the court issued its finding that a new trial should be granted based on the new evidence. On May 3, 1989, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, however, denied the trial court's recommendation without written order. Still seeking relief, Rodriguez returned to the federal district court and filed another federal habeas corpus application asserting three central claims: (1) Ector County Sheriff's Department threatened and forced Rodriguez into making false statements admitting his guilt and entering a plea of guilty; (2) newly discovered evidence established that he did not commit the offense; and (3) counsel ineffectively assisted Rodriguez when counsel allowed him to plead guilty to an offense based on a poorly investigated confession.
On October 16, 1989, the district court found that Rodriguez had exhausted his potential state remedies. Further, the court concluded that reviewing the evidence in a light most favorable to the prosecution, a rational trier of fact could have found that a new trial was necessary in the interests of justice. The district court remanded the case to the convicting court for retrial of Rodriguez' Ector County murder conviction or dismissal of the indictment. 5
The state trial court dismissed the prosecution on November 30, 1989. The state averred that it "no longer wishe[d] to prosecute [Rodriguez], as another defendant has plead guilty to the murder of Ocie Smith Speed." Rodriguez then initiated the current section 1983 case by presenting his application for leave to proceed in forma pauperis in the district court. After the district court granted Rodriguez leave to proceed in forma pauperis, the court on May 29, 1990 filed his complaint. 6
On November 26, 1990, appellees filed a motion under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) seeking dismissal of Rodriguez' claims under section 1983 on the basis that the two-year statute of limitations had expired prior to the filing of Rodriguez' suit. The motion also asserted that the pendent state law claim of malicious prosecution should be dismissed for lack of an independent jurisdictional basis, and that the appellees were entitled to either absolute or qualified immunity. Rodriguez' response to their motion to dismiss relied primarily upon his belief that he was under a disability for statute of limitations purposes due to incarceration.
On February 1, 1991, the district court, agreeing with the appellees' contention that the requisite statute of limitations period had expired, dismissed the action as time-barred. The court held that to be timely, the complaint would have had to have been filed within two years of September 1, 1987, the date on which Texas abrogated the rule tolling limitations for imprisoned persons. Although the court relied on its prior admonition to Rodriguez in February 1989 that he could file a new section 1983 action, it did not mention that it had not granted Rodriguez habeas relief relative to his murder conviction until October 16, 1989. On January 7, 1991, Rodriguez, pro se and in forma pauperis, appealed.
Because no specified federal statute of limitations exists for section 1983 suits, federal courts borrow the forum state's general or residual personal injury limitations period. See Owens v. Okure, 488 U.S. 235, 109 S.Ct. 573, 582, 102 L.Ed.2d 594 (1989); Burrell v. Newsome, 883 F.2d 416, 418 (5th Cir.1989). In Texas, the applicable period is two years. Tex.Civ.Prac. & Rem.Code Ann. § 16.003(a) (Vernon 1986). Further, federal courts considering the timeliness of inmates' section 1983 actions apply the states' tolling provisions to statutory limitations periods. Hardin v. Straub, 490 U.S. 536, 109 S.Ct. 1998, 2003, 104 L.Ed.2d 582 (1989); Jackson v. Johnson, 950 F.2d 263, 265 (5th Cir.1992) (per curiam). Until 1987, Tex.Civ.Prac. & Rem.Code Ann. § 16.001 () provided that imprisonment was a disability which tolled the running of the two-year statute of limitations. Effective September 1, 1987, the statute was amended to eliminate the legal disability for tolling purposes in Texas. Tex.Civ.Prac. & Rem.Code § 16.001 (West Supp.1992). For prisoners, limitations then tolled commenced running on September 1, 1987. Ali v. Higgs, 892 F.2d 438, 439 (5th Cir.1990). Also, the limitations period now begins to run when a cause of...
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