Smith v. Finch

• Decision Date: 18 December 2018
• Docket Number: Case No. 1:18-CV-118-SPM
• Citation: Smith v. Finch, Case No. 1:18-CV-118-SPM (E.D. Mo. Dec 18, 2018)
• Parties: MATTHEW S. SMITH, Plaintiff, v. DEAN FINCH, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri

MATTHEW S. SMITH, Plaintiff, v. DEAN FINCH, et al., Defendants.

Case No. 1:18-CV-118-SPM

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI SOUTHEASTERN DIVISION

December 18, 2018

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

This matter is before the Court on the Motion for Summary Judgment filed by DefendantDarren Garrison and Laura Yount(Doc. 94) and the Motion for Partial Summary Judgment filed by DefendantsDean Finch and Stacy Sikes(Doc. 91).The motions have been fully briefed.The parties have consented to the jurisdiction of the undersigned United States Magistrate Judge pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636.(Doc. 73).For the reasons stated below, the motions will be granted as to Plaintiff's federal claims, and the Court will decline to exercise jurisdiction over Plaintiff's state law claims and will dismiss them without prejudice.

I.FACTUAL BACKGROUND

This case arises out of the wrongful arrest and overnight detention of PlaintiffMatthew S. Smith on October 30, 2015.Plaintiff was arrested pursuant to an arrest warrant erroneously issued by the Wayne County Circuit Clerk's Office for Plaintiff instead of for another individual with the same name.At all times relevant to this action, DefendantDarren Garrison was the Circuit Clerk of Wayne County, Missouri (Finch and Sikes' Statement of Material Uncontested Facts ("Finch SOF"), Doc. 93, ¶ 4); DefendantLaura Yount was an assistant circuit court clerk in Wayne County, Missouri (Garrison and Yount's Statement of Uncontroverted Material Facts ("Garrison SOF"), Doc. 96, ¶ 10); DefendantDean Finch was the Sheriff of Wayne County, Missouri (id.¶ 2); and DefendantStacy Sikes was a dispatcher at the Wayne County Sheriff's Department(FinchSOF, Doc. 93, ¶ 3).

A.The Underlying Offense

Sometime before October 23, 2015, an individual named Matthew S. Smith(the "1985Matthew Smith") was criminally charged with possession of a controlled substance and was released on bond.(GarrisonSOF, Doc. 96, ¶ 7.)On October 23, 2015, the prosecuting attorney for Wayne County, Missouri filed a Motion to Revoke Bond, based on the assertion that the 1985Matthew Smith had failed to comply with his bond conditions.(Id.¶ 8).In response to that request, Circuit Court Judge Randy Paul Schuller directed the Circuit Clerk's Office to issue a warrant for the arrest of the 1985Matthew S. Smith.(Id.¶ 9, 11).

According to the Probable Cause Statement and Felony Complaint, the 1985Matthew Smith has a birth date of August 15, 1985, a social security number ending in 1832, and an address on Fairview Way in Perryville, Missouri.(Plaintiff's Statement of Additional Uncontroverted Material Facts in Response to Defendant Garrison's and Yount's Motion for Summary Judgment("Pl. SOF—Garrison"), Doc. 104, ¶ 98).Although Plaintiff is also named Matthew S. Smith, his date of birth is October 6, 1961, and, at the time, he resided in St. Charles County, Missouri.(Id.¶¶ 99-100).Plaintiff's driver's license number and social security number were, naturally, also different from those of the 1985Matthew Smith.(Id.¶ 99).

B.Wayne County Warrant Procedure

During the relevant timeframe, the procedure by which the Wayne County Circuit Clerk's Office issued warrants was as follows: the prosecuting attorney would take the probable cause statement and/or felony complaint to the judge; the judge would decide that a warrant should issue;and the judge's request for a warrant to issue would be put in a basket for one of the clerks to issue a warrant.(Id.¶ 21; Deposition of Laura A. Yount, Dec. 11, 2017("Yount Dep.") 15:5-8, 19:8-20:8).A clerk would then prepare the warrant electronically using the Circuit Court's computer database and the probable cause statement.(Pl. SOF—Garrison, Doc. 104, ¶¶ 21-23).It was the policy of the Clerk's Office that the clerk issuing the warrant would compare the information in the warrant with the information in the probable cause statement to make sure they matched; the prosecutor and judge did not check the warrant for accuracy.(Id.¶¶ 28-29;FinchSOF, Doc. 93, ¶ 52;YountDep. 51:13-17).

Once the clerk prepares the warrant, it is taken across the parking lot from the Clerk's Office to the Sheriff's Department.(FinchSOF, Doc. 93, ¶ 15).When the Clerk's Office brings an arrest warrant to the Sheriff's Department, the warrant is not accompanied by the probable cause statement or other information about the person named in the warrant.(Id.).The Sheriff's Department is not provided with a photograph of the defendant.(Id.¶ 17).The person on duty in dispatch receives the warrant, initials it, and dates it.(Deposition of Stacy Sikes, Feb. 21, 2018("Sikes Dep.") 20:15-21:1).The initials indicate only that it was received, not that it was reviewed by anyone at that time.(Id. 28:4-16).If the dispatchers are not busy, they enter the warrant into the MULES¹ system immediately; otherwise, the warrant is placed in a basket and entered later, within a three-day time frame.(Id. 21:2-21).

The procedure for entering an arrest warrant into MULES requires the dispatcher to use identifying information from the warrant to run a search of Department of Revenue("DOR") records, which pulls up a driving record and driver's photograph of the individual on the arrestwarrant.(FinchSOF, Doc. 93, ¶ 10;Plaintiff's Statement of Additional Uncontroverted Material Facts in Response to Defendant Finch's and Sikes' Motion for Partial Summary Judgment("Pl. SOF—Finch"), Doc. 101, ¶ 8).The Sheriff's Department can get other information from the DOR records, such as the social security number, operator driver's license number, address, and height/weight, and they can then enter the DOR information into the MULES entry form.(Pl. SOF—Finch, Doc. 101, ¶¶ 8, 15, 51).If the information from the DOR records is inconsistent with information in the warrant, or if the searches pull up a mixture of two people's information, the Sheriff's Department will typically contact the Clerk's Office and let them know there is an issue.(FinchSOF, Doc. 93, ¶ 16. Pl. SOF—Finch, Doc. 101, ¶ 3).The Sheriff's Department does not usually use a person's address as an identifier, because people move around, and an address discrepancy would not have led a dispatcher to get more verification.(Deposition of Clalyn Leach, May 30, 2017("Leach Dep.") 79:1-18;SikesDep. 18:5-10).It is not the policy of the Sheriff's Department to verify that that the information the dispatcher enters into MULES from the warrant or from DOR records is the same as the information on the probable cause statement.(Pl. SOF—Finch, Doc. 101, ¶ 8).

If someone from the Clerk's Office brings over a new warrant and tells a dispatcher at the Sheriff's Department that the warrant is to replace a warrant that was previously delivered, then the Sheriff's Department will cancel the first warrant and any associated MULES entries.(Id.¶ 10; Sikes Dep. 21:22-22:21; 32:6-18; 35:10-19).If, however, the dispatcher receives a new warrant without being told that it is to replace an old warrant, the dispatcher will go to enter the new warrant into MULES.If the dispatcher goes to enter the new warrant and sees that there is already a warrant for the same person, she will call the Circuit Clerk for verification.However, if the two warrantsdo not appear to involve the same person, the dispatcher will go ahead and enter the new warrant.(SikesDep. 35:20-36:6).

C.The Mistaken Warrant

On October 23, 2015, Defendant Yount set out to prepare a warrant for the arrest of the 1985Matthew S. Smith pursuant to the above procedures, as directed by Judge Schuller.(GarrisonSOF, Doc. 96, ¶ 11).In preparing the warrant, Defendant Yount logged into the 42nd Judicial Circuit's database on her office computer and searched the database for "Matthew Smith," and a drop-down menu showed up that contained nine "Matthew Smiths" in the database.(Id.¶¶ 13-15).Defendant Yount then made a mistake: instead of clicking on the "Matthew S. Smith" that corresponded to the 1985Matthew Smith, she clicked on the "Matthew S. Smith" that corresponded to Plaintiff.(Id.¶¶ 16-18).Once Yount clicked on Plaintiff's name, the 42nd Judicial Circuit's computer system automatically populated a warrant form that contained Plaintiff's information instead of the information of the 1985 Smith (the "Mistaken Warrant").(Id.¶¶ 14, 19).Yount testified that she may have violated the policy requiring her to compare the warrant and the probable cause statement.(FinchSOF, Doc. 93, ¶ 53).Once the Mistaken Warrant was generated, Judge Schuller's signature and Garrison's signature were placed on the Mistaken Warrant with ink stamps.(GarrisonSOF, Doc. 96, ¶ 12;Pl SOF—Garrison, Doc. 104, ¶ 27).On October 23, 2015, the Mistaken Warrant was taken to the Wayne County Sheriff's Department to be processed.(FinchSOF, Doc. 93, ¶ 37).

The Mistaken Warrant has a received stamp on it, the initials "SS," and the date October 23, 2015, indicating that Sikes received it on behalf of the Sheriff's Department on that date.(Pl. SOF—Finch, Doc. 101, ¶ 7;Mistaken Warrant, Doc. 104-13).On October 24, 2015, the day afterit was received, a dispatcher in the Sheriff's Department entered the information from the Mistaken Warrant into the MULES system.(FinchSOF, Doc. 93, ¶ 38).²

At some point after the Mistaken Warrant was taken to the Sheriff's Department, the error in the Mistaken Warrant was discovered by someone in the Clerk's Office, and various corrected or partially corrected versions of the warrant were generated.(Doc. 104-9, Doc. 104-12, Doc. 104-14, & Doc. 104-15).However, it is unclear who discovered the mistake, when and how the mistake was discovered, when the corrected versions of the warrants were created, and what was done with those corrected versions of the warrant.The witnesses have little memory of the relevant events, and the documents in the record provide little clarity.One version of...