Tempest v. Remblad

• Decision Date: 19 July 2022
• Docket Number: 1:20-cv-00523-MSM-LDA
• Parties: RAYMOND D. TEMPEST, Jr. Plaintiff, v. RODNEY REMBLAD, et al. Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Rhode Island

RAYMOND D. TEMPEST, Jr. Plaintiff, v. RODNEY REMBLAD, et al. Defendants.

No. 1:20-cv-00523-MSM-LDA

United States District Court, D. Rhode Island

July 19, 2022

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

Mary S. McElroy, United States District Judge

This case brings to the Court's attention a state criminal prosecution which has received extraordinary notoriety in the crime annals of Rhode Island, stemming largely from the nine years it took between the death of Doreen Picard^[1] and the indictment of Raymond Tempest for murder; and not in small measure because of the extent of the bad faith prosecutorial tactics uncovered in Mr Tempest's bid for relief after serving 23 years for a murder he maintains he did not commit. Tempest v. State, No. PM20041896, 2015 WL 4389908, at *17-28 (R.I. Super. July 13, 2015).^[2]

The defendants - the City of Woonsocket, then-Chief of Police Rodney Remblad, and then-Police Detective Sgt. Ronald Pennington^[3] -- have moved to dismiss, posing the question of whether there is any recourse available to Mr Tempest for law enforcement misconduct because, after serving 23 years and 7 months for second-degree murder, he voluntarily accepted a second conviction following a successful appeal of his first conviction and failed to bring this action in time.

Mr Tempest brought this lawsuit seeking damages for many facets of the prosecution. For the reasons explained below, the Court GRANTS the Motion to Dismiss all counts except Count V.

I. BACKGROUND

This case has been written about many times. For years it was featured on websites publicizing unsolved crimes.^[4] The trial judge granting Mr. Tempest's application for post-conviction relief in 2015, did a yeoman's job in succinctly describing the now-40-year-old crime:

At approximately 3:20 on the afternoon of February 19, 1982, fifteenyear-old Lisa Wells (Lisa or Ms. Ladue) came home to the triple-decker apartment at 409 Providence Street in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. She checked the mail, walked around the exterior of the building, and entered the tenement home through the back door. En route, according to her testimony at trial, she noticed an unfamiliar maroon car parked in the driveway. When Lisa entered the building, she noticed three-year-old Nicole Laferte (Nicole) sobbing in the hallway, saying that her “mother was downstairs sick.” Lisa brushed off Nicole's actions as a cry for attention “because [she] heard some moving around downstairs” and went up to her apartment.

Mr. Heath arrived home from work ten minutes later and, like Lisa, entered the apartment building through the back. At the time he arrived, the driveway was empty. When he walked in the rear hallway on the first floor, he saw Nicole, still crying, and “[s]tanding at the door to go down into the cellar.” Mr. Heath stopped and asked Nicole what was wrong. Nicole replied that her mother was downstairs, “lying down.”

When Mr. Heath descended the stairs into the basement, he was met with a grisly scene. As he stated at trial, “there was blood everywhere[;] . . . it was on everything[,]. . . splattered ... on the pipes[,] ... on the washer and the dryer [and] on the floor.” “[L]ooking across the cellar [,] [Mr. Heath] saw a body, a person, between the washer and the dryer sitting ....[He] couldn't recognize who th[e] person was [because there] was so much blood[.]” Heath would later learn that this person was his upstairs neighbor, twenty-two-year-old Doreen Picard. Next, he looked around and saw Ms. Laferte on the left side of the basement, “lying face down in a pile of -- puddle of blood.” Sensing the urgency of the situation, Mr. Heath ran upstairs to call the police to get help for the two women who had been so brutally attacked. He also grabbed two towels, presumably hoping to render some first aid. However, when Mr. Heath returned back to the cellar, he “just looked around” and realized “the towels w[ould]n't [be] of any help [.]”

Due to the extent of the injuries sustained and the deluge of blood at the scene, first responders believed the attacks were the result of a shooting. It was only later, upon Ms. Laferte's admission to the hospital, that it was learned the wounds were the result of blunt force trauma.

Tempest I at *2 (citations to state court record omitted).

The ensuing investigation was acknowledged by the prosecution to have been “a disaster.”

Assistant Attorney General James Ryan (Mr. Ryan) stated at trial that the severe lack of physical evidence was due to the fact that “the job [i.e., the necessary investigatory procedures] didn't get done” and that “[e]very police officer from the Woonsocket Police Department seems to have been there except for the ones who should have been there.” Id. at 2066:20-23. Noting the “chaos” and “disorder” surrounding the collection of evidence, Mr. Ryan went on to say that “the end result[ ] is that the crime scene was contaminated.” Id. at 2067:14-17. Nevertheless, four days after the murder, the police were able to locate a lead pipe that Mr. Ryan would later identify as the murder weapon at trial. Despite the efforts of the Woonsocket Police Department, for nine long years no one was charged in connection with this heinous act until, on June 5, 1991, a Grand Jury indicted Mr. Tempest for the murder of Doreen Picard.

Id.

The chronology over the past four decades is important to this Court's discussion of the Motion to Dismiss.

February 19, 1982: Doreen Picard found dead at her home.

June 5, 1991: Raymond Tempest indicted for murder.

April 1992: First trial, leading to conviction of 2nd degree murder. Sentenced to 85 years in prison

January 11, 1995: RI Supreme Court affirmed, 651 A.2d 1198 (RI 1995).

April 8, 2004: Post Conviction Relief (“PCR”) filed in Providence Superior Court.

July 13, 2015: PCR granted, 2015 WL 4389908.

July 14, 2016: Grant of PCR affirmed, 141 A.3d 677 (RI 2016).

December 18, 2017: Tempest enters Alford plea to 2nd degree murder, sentenced to 23 years, 7 months' time served.

December 17, 2020: Tempest files C.A. 1:20-cv-00523 in U.S. District Court.

Law enforcement conduct throughout, encompassing the investigation, the first conviction and, allegedly, the state's continued prosecution after that conviction was vacated, gave rise to the civil action now before this Court.

II. JURISDICTION AND STANDARD OF REVIEW

Mr. Tempest claims federal question jurisdiction, invoking 28 U.S.C. § 1331.

The core of his complaint is that the defendants violated his federal constitutional rights, and he brings this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. He claims supplemental jurisdiction over three state court claims. The instant matter is a Motion to Dismiss, and the Court's function is to examine the Complaint to determine whether, with respect to each of the counts, it states a plausible claim for relief pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). To survive a Motion to Dismiss, the plaintiff must “plead[] factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged .... The plausibility standard is not akin to a ‘probability requirement,' but it asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (internal citation omitted). The reviewing court must assume the truth of all “well-pleaded facts and give the plaintiff the benefit of all reasonable inferences therefrom.” Thomas v. Rhode Island, 542 F.3d 944, 948 (1st Cir. 2008).

In this case the defendants do not contend that the Complaint lacks sufficient factual allegations or fails the standard of “plausibility.” Instead, they seek dismissal based on law: whether the malicious prosecution claims satisfy the legal elements of the cause of action, whether the due process and related claims are barred by a rule of judicial policy, and whether all claims run afoul of the statute of limitations.

III. ANALYSIS - SPECIFIC COUNTS

A. Counts I and VII - Malicious Prosecution; Count IX - Respondeat Superior

Count I sets forth a claim of constitutional-level malicious prosecution, grounded in the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Count VII sets forth a common law state tort claim of malicious prosecution. Both fail for the same reason. Also affected is that portion of Count IX which claims that the City of Woonsocket is responsible on a respondeat superior theory of liability for the malicious prosecution torts of its employees.

The constitutional and common law torts share three elements: “that ‘the defendant (1) caused (2) a seizure of the plaintiff pursuant to legal process unsupported by probable cause, and (3) criminal proceedings terminated in plaintiff's favor.'” Hernandez-Cuevas v. Taylor, 723 F.3d 91, 101 (1st Cir. 2013), quoting Evans v. Chalmers, 703 F.3d 636, 647 (4th Cir.2012) (constitutional claim); Dyson v. City of Pawtucket, 670 A.2d 233, 239 (R.I. 1996); Clyne v. Doyle, 740 A.2d 781, 782 (R.I.1999) (common law claims). In the First Circuit until very recently, a termination favorable to the plaintiff meant a disposition that at least “implie[s] innocence.” Jordan v. Town of Waldoboro, 943 F.3d 532, 545 (1st Cir. 2019) (dismissal because witness died did not imply innocence). Accord, Jones v. City of Boston, 135 Fed.Appx. 439, 440 (1st Cir. 2005) (dismissal apparently as a compromise resolution was not favorable).

While this Motion to Dismiss was pending, the United States Supreme Court decided Thompson v. Clark, __U.S.__, 142 S.Ct 1332 (Apr. 4, 2022). Rejecting the basis of the First Circuit's rule, the Court held that, as to the constitutional tort of malicious prosecution, the prosecution at issue need only have ended without a conviction. Id., 142 S.Ct. at 1335. Although the...