Sutkiewicz v. Monroe County Sheriff

• Decision Date: 09 October 1997
• Docket Number: No. 95-1674,95-1674
• Citation: 110 F.3d 352
• Parties: 46 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 948 Jordan Mark SUTKIEWICZ, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MONROE COUNTY SHERIFF, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 352

110 F.3d 352

46 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 948

Jordan Mark SUTKIEWICZ, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MONROE COUNTY SHERIFF, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 95-1674.

United States Court of Appeals,Sixth Circuit.

Argued Nov. 12, 1996.

Decided April 4, 1997.

Rehearing Denied Oct. 9, 1997.

Justin C. Ravitz (argued), Carl B. Downing (briefed), Patricia A. Stamler, Sommers, Schwartz, Silver & Schwartz, Southfield, MI, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Ernest R. Bazzana (argued and briefed), Plunkett & Cooney, Detroit, MI, Mark H. Verwys, Grand Rapids, MI, for Defendants-Appellees.

Before: MARTIN, Chief Judge; KEITH and BATCHELDER, Circuit Judges.

KEITH, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which MARTIN, C.J., joined. BATCHELDER, J. (pp. 362-64), delivered a separate dissenting opinion.

KEITH, Circuit Judge.

The Plaintiff-Appellant Jordan Mark Sutkiewicz ("Sutkiewicz") appeals the denial of his motion for a new trial pursuant to his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim against Defendants-Appellees Detective Sergeant Walter Carlson and Detective Captain Otra Lynch ("Carlson" and "Lynch"). Sutkiewicz alleged that Carlson and Lynch, under color of law, deprived him of constitutional rights guaranteed by the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. Specifically, Sutkiewicz argued that Carlson and Lynch are liable for malicious prosecution and false imprisonment under color of law. On appeal, Sutkiewicz maintains that the trial court committed numerous reversible trial errors including excluding as evidence important and probative audio tapes. For the reasons stated below, we REVERSE in part, AFFIRM in part, and REMAND to the district court for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I. STATEMENT OF FACTS

This case arose as a result of the abduction and subsequent murder of Gloria Krouse on July 10, 1981. On that day, Gloria Krouse went grocery shopping at a Kroger store located in a shopping plaza known as The Merchant's Landing in Washington Township, Michigan, near the Michigan-Ohio border. After an absence of several hours, Krouse's husband reported her missing to the police departments of Toledo, Ohio and Washington Township, Michigan.

Sometime later that same afternoon, Krouse's car was found in a field not far from the Kroger store. There were seven bags of groceries in the trunk and stains on the front seat of the car. The following day, Krouse's body was found in a wooded area in Erie Township, Michigan. Her throat was slashed and the rest of her body evidenced numerous stab wounds.

The Monroe County Sheriff's Department began a homicide investigation directed by defendant Captain Otra Lynch. Lynch assigned Detective Walter Carlson, also a defendant in this action, to head the investigation. There were a total of four police agencies, from Michigan and Ohio, who participated in the investigation.

There were no eyewitnesses to the abduction and murder. However, five people reported seeing a man near and around Krouse's car. Two of the five witnesses, Joy Lughabil and Sherry Badman, ("Lughabil" and "Badman") reported that they saw a man in Krouse's car going through her purse. Lughabil and Badman assisted in the creation of a composite drawing of the man they saw in the car. They described the suspect as a clean shaven, muscular white male, in his early twenties, with long black hair, wearing sun glasses with a black T-shirt. The other three witnesses provided similar descriptions of the suspect although with some variations. ¹

On July 21, 1981, Sutkiewicz was spotted in the field adjacent to the Merchant's Landing Shopping Plaza where Krouse's car was found. Sutkiewicz suffers from mental instability ² and has only a seventh grade education. He is apparently a vagrant who is addicted to glue. Sutkiewicz was arrested because the police believed that he fit the description of the suspect. He was taken to the Monroe County Sheriff's Department where he was interviewed by Carlson and a Detective Maurice. Sutkiewicz was advised of his rights and placed in a line-up where Badman and Hayden positively identified him as the person they saw around the car. McClanahan tentatively identified him as the person she saw near the car.

Sutkiewicz was then released from custody. Detective Carlson took him to the Calvary Baptist Mission in Toledo, managed by Reverend Charles Younts. ³ Sutkiewicz spent the following two nights at the Mission. While at the Mission, Younts recorded conversations with Sutkiewicz on two cassette tapes (the "Younts tapes"). During the taped conversations, Younts interrogated Sutkiewicz with respect to the circumstances of the Krouse murder in an attempt to procure a confession. Younts also drove Sutkiewicz to the murder site. When Younts felt that he had obtained enough information from Sutkiewicz, he called Carlson. After hearing the substance of Sutkiewicz's confessions from Younts, Carlson picked Sutkiewicz up from the Mission and took him to the police station to be interviewed and to take a lie-detector test.

Before administering the test, Detective Begin, the department's polygraph operator, again read Sutkiewicz his rights and interrogated him with respect to the Krouse murder. Begin was ultimately unable to administer the test to Sutkiewicz, because Sutkiewicz's mental instability rendered him an unfit subject for the test. However, Sutkiewicz was apparently stable enough to provide Begin 'a detailed account' of the murder. Sutkiewicz was also interrogated by Detectives Maurice and Carlson to whom he reportedly revealed details of the murder not yet known to the public, and admitted to killing Gloria Krouse.

On the basis of these confessions and the fact that Sutkiewicz was aware of facts surrounding the circumstances of the murder that had not been made public, Lynch prepared and delivered a recommendation for an arrest warrant to then Monroe County Prosecutor Michael LaBeau ("LaBeau"). Sutkiewicz was arrested and charged with the murder of Gloria Krouse. Sutkiewicz was eventually adjudged incompetent to stand trial; as a consequence, he was committed to the Center for Forensic Psychiatry (the "Center"), where he spent almost ten years.

Two and one-half weeks after Sutkiewicz was charged with first degree murder, the Sheriff's Department received information regarding an additional suspect, Thomas Gilbert ("Gilbert") of Toledo, Ohio. Within a month of the Krouse murder, Gilbert committed at least two multiple-stabbing throat-slashing murders in Northern Ohio. Two weeks after the Krouse murder, Gilbert also kidnaped, robbed, and sexually assaulted a young woman in Erie Township, Michigan, the same township in which Gloria Krouse's body was found. Captain Lynch, after having been notified of Gilbert's arrest, assigned Detectives Carlson and Maurice to investigate Gilbert as a possible suspect in the Krouse homicide. Among the evidence they discovered was a one-day Michigan fishing license that Gilbert had purchased. The fishing license was dated July 11, 1981, the day after Krouse was murdered. The license was sold to Gilbert by Fisher's Marina in Erie Township, Michigan, the same township in which Krouse's body was discovered. Moreover, the detectives also discovered that Gilbert's hand was cut and bandaged on July 11, 1981.

Carlson then began to play a greater role in the investigation. He went to Akron, Ohio, where Gilbert was detained, telling the Akron police that he considered Gilbert to be a "prime suspect" in the Krouse murder. While in Ohio, Carlson interviewed Gilbert, who all but admitted to the Krouse murder. ⁴ Carlson also interviewed several of Gilbert's friends who informed him that Gilbert often carried a "cut-off" butcher's knife tucked into a belt inside his pants. Gilbert's friends took Carlson to Gilbert's fishing spot, which was approximately thirty feet from where Krouse's body was found. They also told Carlson that after the Krouse murder Gilbert refused to return to that spot. Moreover, they directed Carlson to the Merchant's Landing, stating that Gilbert often frequented the shopping plaza because the Kroger store there had a good deli department. On September 10, 1981, Gilbert was placed in a line-up. McClanahan, who had earlier tentatively identified Sutkiewicz as the person he saw near Krouse's car, positively identified Gilbert as the person near the car in the Merchant's Landing parking lot the day Krouse was murdered. A search of the home that Gilbert shared with his girlfriend, revealed a faded pair of jeans and an olive green colored T-shirt. Carlson and Lynch stated that they documented what they learned about Gilbert and forwarded the information to LaBeau. However, none of the reports regarding Thomas Gilbert or the Sheriff's Department's investigation of the Krouse murder subsequent to the arrest and arraignment of Sutkiewicz, has ever been located in LaBeau's files.

In the meantime, Sutkiewicz continued to be detained at the Center until March 4, 1991, ten years after he was committed. At that time, a new Monroe County Prosecutor, William Frey ("Frey") was informed that Sutkiewicz was now competent to stand trial for the Krouse murder due to a sudden improvement in his mental condition caused by a change in his medication. Unable to read LaBeau's files on Gilbert, Frey sent for the Sheriff's Department's files. After reviewing those files, Frey discovered the Younts tapes. Frey declined to prosecute Sutkiewicz because, in addition to his belief that Gilbert committed the murder, he thought that Younts's interrogation of Sutkiewicz probably tainted Sutkiewicz's later confessions. In June of 1991, Sutkiewicz was permanently removed from the Center.

Sutkiewicz then brought suit against Carlson and Lynch claiming that they violated his civil rights pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Specifically, he alleged malicious prosecution and false imprisonment. The jury found in favor of Carlson and Lynch on both claims. On appeal...