White v. Smith

• Decision Date: 15 October 2012
• Docket Number: No. 11–3291.,11–3291.
• Citation: 696 F.3d 740
• Parties: Carroll T. WHITE, as Personal Representative of the Estate of Joseph White, deceased, Plaintiff–Appellee Kathleen A. Gonzalez, Plaintiff v. Richard T. SMITH, in his official capacity, Defendant Burdette Searcey, Dep., in his official and individual capacities; Gerald Lamkin, Dep., in his official and individual capacities; Jerry O. Dewitt, Sheriff, in his official and individual capacities; Wayne R. Price, PhD, in his official and individual capacities, Defendants–Appellants County of Gage, Nebraska, a Nebraska political subdivision, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

696 F.3d 740

Carroll T. WHITE, as Personal Representative of the Estate of Joseph White, deceased, Plaintiff–Appellee

Kathleen A. Gonzalez, Plaintiff

v.Richard T. SMITH, in his official capacity, Defendant

Burdette Searcey, Dep., in his official and individual capacities; Gerald Lamkin, Dep., in his official and individual capacities; Jerry O. Dewitt, Sheriff, in his official and individual capacities; Wayne R. Price, PhD, in his official and individual capacities, Defendants–Appellants

County of Gage, Nebraska, a Nebraska political subdivision, Defendant.

No. 11–3291.

United States Court of Appeals,

Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: May 15, 2012.

Filed: Oct. 15, 2012.

Jennifer M. Tomka, argued and on the brief, Richard L. Boucher, Paul L. Douglas, Patrick T. O'Brien, on the brief, Lincoln, NE, for appellant.

Jeffry D. Patterson, argued and on the brief, Lincoln, NE, Robert F. Bartle, Lincoln, NE, Douglas J. Stratton, Norfolk, NE, on the brief, for appellee.

Before MURPHY, BENTON, and SHEPHERD, Circuit Judges.

SHEPHERD, Circuit Judge.

In 1989, Plaintiff Joseph White was convicted by a Nebraska jury of felony murder in the February 1985 rape and murder of Helen Wilson in Beatrice, Nebraska. The prosecution's case against White was based primarily on the testimony and confessions of White's co-defendants, Ada JoAnn Taylor, Thomas W. Winslow, James L. Dean, Kathleen A. Gonzalez, and Debra Shelden. White was sentenced to life in prison without parole and served eighteen years in prison. In 2008, DNA testing established that semen and blood found at the crime scene was left by Bruce Allen Smith, who had no connection to White or the other defendants. A reinvestigation of the case determined that Bruce Allen Smith committed the crime by himself. White's conviction was overturned, he was released from prison, his record of rape and murder was expunged, and pardons were granted to Winslow, Taylor, Dean, Gonzalez, and Deb Shelden.

White filed an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the members of the Gage County Sheriff's Office (GCSO) (collectively “Defendants”) and the various state entities involved in the investigation and prosecution of the Wilson murder.¹ White alleged that Defendants violated his due process rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments by conspiring to manufacture evidence and obtain false testimony against him. Defendants sought summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity. The district court ² denied Defendants' motion, and Defendants now appeal. We affirm.

I. Background ³

On February 6, 1985, the body of Helen Wilson was discovered in her apartment in Beatrice, Nebraska. An autopsy revealed that she had been raped and suffocated to death. The evidence also indicated that there had been a vicious struggle between Wilson and her assailant (or assailants) in Wilson's bedroom. The Beatrice Police Department (BPD) began investigating with the aid of an FBI “offender profile” that opined that the crime was likely “committed by one individual acting alone.” The BPD also believed that the crime was not motivated by robbery because Wilson's jewelry, checks, money market certificates, and over $1,000 in cash were left in the apartment. A forensic analysis of blood, semen, and hairs found at the crime scene determined that the attacker possessed type-B blood and was a “non-secretor” of type-B blood group substances in his semen. In March 1985, the BPD focused its investigation on Bruce Allen Smith and obtained blood and hair samples from him for testing. However, a lab technician erroneously informed the investigators that Bruce Allen Smith appeared to be a “secretor,” and the BPD therefore ruled out Bruce Allen Smith as a viable suspect in the Wilson homicide. The BPD failed to arrest anyone in the case.

Burdette Searcey was a former investigator with the BPD from 1977 to 1982 who was working as a farmer at the time of Wilson's murder. Shortly after the murder, Searcey grew interested in the case and offered his services as a private investigator to Wilson's daughter, who accepted. Searcey then began an independent investigation, interviewing persons who frequented the area where the Wilson homicide occurred. Searcey identified a number of persons of interest in the case, including White (also known as “Lobo”), Taylor, Winslow, Debra Brown (later Shelden), and Cliff Shelden. Searcey's theory of the case was that Wilson was murdered by multiple persons, including White, Taylor, and Winslow.

In 1987, Jerry DeWitt became sheriff of Gage County and hired Searcey as a deputy sheriff. DeWitt and then-county attorney Richard Smith held a series of meetings regarding Searcey's previous independent investigative efforts. In January 1989, DeWitt and Richard Smith authorized Searcey to commence an official investigation of the Wilson homicide. Searcey was joined in his efforts by Gerald Lamkin and Wayne Price.

In 1989, Searcey transcribed his findings from his independent investigation in 1985. According to these notes, Searcey spoke to Lisa Podendorf on April 7, 1985. Podendorf told Searcey that Taylor admitted, on the morning after the murder, that she and White were involved in the Wilson homicide. Podendorf claimed that Taylor's confession came between 7:30 and 8:00 a.m. on February 6, 1985, after Podendorf and Taylor saw police cars outside Wilson's apartment building. However, Searcey was aware that Wilson's body was not discovered until approximately 9:00 a.m. Searcey recorded a statement from Podendorf in January 1989 in which Podendorf again claimed that Taylor admitted her involvement in the crime. Although Podendorf apparently made no mention of it in 1985, she claimed in her 1989 statement that she saw Taylor, Winslow, White, and Beth Johnson get out of a car near Wilson's apartment on the night of the murder.

Searcey next interviewed Winslow, with whom he had previously spoken in 1985. Winslow told Searcey in 1985 that he had been at work on the night of the murder. Searcey later determined that Winslow did not show up to work on the night of February 6, 1985. Searcey again interrogated Winslow on February 13, 1989, while Winslow was in custody for an unrelated assault. According to Winslow, Searcey convinced him that his car had been seen in the area around Wilson's apartment and mentioned that Taylor and White were involved. In his recorded statement, Winslow told Searcey that he loaned his car, a green and brown Oldsmobile, to Taylor, White, and Cliff Shelden on the night of the murder but did not see them for the rest of evening. Cliff Shelden was in the hospital on the night of the murder and Searcey omitted Winslow's reference to Cliff in his written report.

On February 25, 1989, Searcey interviewed Taylor's former roommate, Charlotte Bishop. Bishop stated that Taylor confessed her involvement in Wilson's murder during a conversation in their apartment on the day after the crime. In Bishop's account, Taylor did not implicate anyone else. The transcript of the interview reveals that Bishop actually remembered very little about the Wilson murder. She could not remember the month or year of the crime, and recalled seeing police cars around Wilson's apartment on the night of the murder, which was factually inaccurate. Moreover, BPD Officer Sam Stevens recalled that Bishop and Taylor had been evicted from their apartment on the day before the murder, making the conversation described by Bishop impossible. Bishop also described an unrelated incident in which Taylor “filled [Bishop's] bathtub with scalding hot water and threw [Bishop] in it.” Despite the inaccuracies, Searcey subsequently used Bishop's statement when confronting Taylor about her involvement in the murder.

On March 14, 1989, Searcey prepared a sworn affidavit for an arrest warrant for Taylor and White. That same day, Searcey, DeWitt, and Richard Smith interviewed Winslow again to take a statement from him. Winslow initially stated that he, Taylor, White, and Beth Johnson went to Wilson's apartment, knocked on her door, and left when Wilson did not answer. He claimed that White and Taylor then borrowed his car to commit the crime later that evening. However, after a 44–minute break in which Winslow spoke with his attorney, the interview resumed and Winslow changed his story. Winslow then admitted that he was present during the actual murder and witnessed White and Taylor attacking Wilson. Winslow denied playing an active role in the crime, insisting that he panicked and fled the scene with Beth Johnson.

White was arrested in Alabama at his parents' house the following day. He was interrogated by Searcey, Price, and Stevens just after midnight on March 16, 1989. A transcript of this interrogation reveals that White consistently denied any knowledge of or involvement in Wilson's murder. When Searcey told White that physical evidence and witnesses placed him at the scene of the crime, White stated that these individuals were lying. When the officers asked White if he would be willing to give hair, saliva, and blood samples for testing, White readily agreed. He also volunteered to give hand and finger prints and to take a polygraph test to prove that he was telling the truth. During the interrogation, White asked to see a lawyer on three separate occasions before Searcey finally stopped questioning him. White ultimately waived extradition and agreed to return to Nebraska to “get [his] name cleared.”

Later that day, Searcey and Stevens arrested Taylor in North Carolina. Searcey and Stevens took a statement from Taylor, who confessed to being present at the Wilson murder with White and “another boy” she could not identify. However, Taylor indicated that she only made this admission because North Carolina police officers and Searcey had already convinced her that she must have been present. A transcript of Taylor's interrogation reveals that Taylor then recited a bizarre narrative of the murder that contradicted much of...