Woods v. Lecureux

• Decision Date: 08 April 1997
• Docket Number: No. 95-2017,95-2017
• Citation: 110 F.3d 1215
• Parties: 46 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1111 Margaret WOODS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Robert LECUREUX, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 1215

110 F.3d 1215

46 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1111

Margaret WOODS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Robert LECUREUX, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 95-2017.

United States Court of Appeals,Sixth Circuit.

Argued Oct. 24, 1996.

Decided April 8, 1997.

Roger K. Timm (argued and briefed), James C. Partridge, Dykema Gossett, Detroit, MI, for Margaret Woods.

E. Michael Stafford, Asst. Attorney General, Donald L. Allen (argued and briefed), Office of the Attorney General, Corrections Division, Lansing, MI, for Robert Lecureux.

Donald L. Allen (argued and briefed), Office of the Attorney General, Corrections Division, Lansing, MI, for Art Tressmer, Rick Faust, Tom Doty.

Before: WELLFORD, DAUGHTREY, and MOORE, Circuit Judges.

MOORE, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which DAUGHTREY, J., joined. WELLFORD, J. (pp. 1226-27), delivered a separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.

MOORE, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff-Appellant Margaret Woods appeals from the district court's order granting judgment as a matter of law in favor of both defendants in this § 1983 action brought on behalf of her deceased son, Larry M. Billups, who was murdered while incarcerated in the Michigan prison system. Woods contends that the defendants, Michigan prison officials, violated her son's Eighth Amendment rights by failing to prevent his murder. We affirm in part and reverse in part.

I. BACKGROUND

Larry Billups was murdered on May 15, 1989, while he was returning to his cell after breakfast at the State Prison of Southern Michigan ("SPSM"), in Jackson, Michigan. The assassins, known members of the Melanic Islamic Palace of the Rising Sun ("the Melanics"), a prison organization, stabbed Billups, also a member of the Melanics, in the neck with a prison-made knife. Billups managed to run down two flights of stairs before collapsing and ultimately bleeding to death. He had been at SPSM for only ten days. Prior to his stay there, he was incarcerated at Kinross Correctional Facility ("KCF"), in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. On April 18, 1989, while still at KCF, Billups was implicated along with several other prisoners in the assault and robbery of his roommate, Morris Barlow. Immediately after that incident, Billups was placed in a segregation unit. Because of the assault, he soon received an "increased custody transfer" to SPSM. J.A. at 704.

Appellant contends that Billups was murdered as a direct result of his involvement in the attack on Barlow. According to her, by engaging in an unauthorized assault, Billups ended up on the wrong side of the leaders ("topheads") of the Melanics, and he was then murdered pursuant to a hit contract sanctioned by one of the topheads. A document prepared by a corrections investigator with the Michigan Department of Corrections essentially confirms these contentions. See J.A. at 675, 679.

Although appellant's complaint originally named as defendants numerous Michigan prison officials, she subsequently voluntarily dismissed all of them except Art Tessmer, the Deputy Warden of Security at KCF, and John Jabe, the Warden at SPSM. The crux of appellant's argument against Tessmer is that he knew of the dangers facing Billups as a result of Billups's participation in the assault on Barlow, but, due to his deliberate indifference, failed to inform the proper authorities at SPSM of these dangers. As for Appellee Jabe, appellant contends that he knew of an unacceptably high risk to prisoners housed in 6-Block, the area in which Billups resided at SPSM, but failed to take the steps to reduce that risk.

The case proceeded to trial. After appellant rested her case, the district court granted both defendants' motions for judgment as a matter of law pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50. The court found that even if Tessmer had known of the dispute between Billups and the Melanics, his failure to act upon that knowledge "might reasonably be characterized as negligent, but certainly not as deliberately indifferent, wanton, or obdurate." District Ct.Op. at 3; J.A. at 68. In granting Jabe's motion, the court stated that "[t]here is no evidentiary basis for a jury finding deliberate indifference or wanton or obdurate behavior on the part of defendant Jabe." District Ct.Op. at 4; J.A. at 69. In addition to appealing both of these conclusions, appellant contends that the district court erred in four of its evidentiary rulings. We turn first to the evidentiary issues.

II. EVIDENTIARY ISSUES ¹

A. Exclusion of Michigan

Evidence

Appellant alleges that the district court erred by excluding various parts of the record, including documents and exhibits, from the ongoing case of United States v. Michigan. We review the district court's exclusion of this evidence for abuse of discretion. See Muzquiz v. W.A. Foote Mem'l Hosp., Inc., 70 F.3d 422, 428 (6th Cir.1995).

The Michigan case began in 1984, when the United States Department of Justice sued the State of Michigan and various state officials in their official capacities pursuant to the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act ("CRIPA"), 42 U.S.C. § 1997 (1994). The complaint challenged numerous prison conditions in the Michigan system. Contemporaneous with the filing of the complaint, the United States filed a motion to dismiss and to enter a proposed consent decree that it had agreed upon with the State of Michigan. The consent decree was subsequently entered by the district court. Since then, that case has continued because of various disputes regarding the consent decree and has, in fact, reached the Sixth Circuit numerous times. See, e.g., United States v. Michigan, No. 90-1701, 1996 WL 382238 (6th Cir. July 3, 1996); United States v. Michigan, Nos. 94-2391, 95-1258, 1995 WL 469430 (6th Cir. Aug. 7, 1995); United States v. Michigan, 18 F.3d 348 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 925, 115 S.Ct. 312, 130 L.Ed.2d 275 (1994); United States v. Michigan, 940 F.2d 143 (6th Cir.1991).

Appellant cites to several portions of the record from Michigan that she feels should have been admitted in her case against Appellee Jabe. She contends that this evidence suggests that there were unconstitutional conditions at SPSM's 6-Block and that Jabe disregarded these conditions. Although the district court did not cite a specific rule when it excluded the evidence, its remarks, which focused on the possible confusion and unfair prejudice that could result from its admittance, see J.A. at 362-63, suggest that the court relied on Federal Rule of Evidence 403. That rule provides: "Although relevant, evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury, or by considerations of undue delay, waste of time, or needless presentation of cumulative evidence." FED.R.EVID. 403.

In one of the Michigan appeals, this circuit stated:

Michigan denied the allegations [in the United States' complaint] and the issues were never adjudicated. Consequently the record fails to disclose the existence, scope, or degree, if any, of the asserted constitutional infringements.... The consent decree, as approved by the trial court, was intended to be "in resolution of all claims asserted and relief sought, and without a finding of liability or other determination on the merits."

940 F.2d at 155 (quoting the consent decree).

Given the nature of the Michigan case, if parts of the record from that dispute had been admitted in this case, the jury might have given that evidence more weight than it deserved. Moreover, the complaint in Michigan was filed three years before Jabe became the warden at SPSM, and the remaining portion of the case revolved around the implementation of the consent decree. It would be a daunting enough task for the district court (and possibly a jury) to determine from this material which deficiencies in the Michigan system were attributable to leadership after 1987, let alone to determine which of this material indicates that Jabe was deliberately indifferent to a substantial risk of serious harm. Because the Michigan material was likely to be confusing and unfairly prejudicial, and because there are no allegations that the district court otherwise restricted the evidence that could be introduced to show the risks at SPSM, the district court did not abuse its discretion by excluding all material from the Michigan litigation.

B. Exclusion of "Ultimate Issue" Testimony

Appellant asserts that the district court abused its discretion when it prohibited her expert witness, Dr. Mintzes, from using the term "deliberately indifferent" to describe Tessmer's and Jabe's conduct. Federal Rule of Evidence 704(a) provides that "testimony in the form of an opinion or inference otherwise admissible is not objectionable because it embraces an ultimate issue to be decided by the trier of fact." This court recently has stated that "Rule 704 removes the 'general proscription against opinions on 'ultimate issues' and shift[s] the focus to whether the testimony is 'otherwise admissible.' ' " United States v. Sheffey, 57 F.3d 1419, 1425 (6th Cir.1995) (quoting Torres v. County of Oakland, 758 F.2d 147, 150 (6th Cir.1985)), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 749, 133 L.Ed.2d 697 (1996).

As the advisory committee notes to Rule 704 indicate, the protections afforded by the other rules of evidence are far from hollow when ultimate issue testimony is being offered:

The abolition of the ultimate issue rule does not lower the bars so as to admit all opinions. Under Rules 701 and 702, opinions must be helpful to the trier of fact, and Rule 403 provides for exclusion of evidence which wastes time. These provisions afford ample assurances against the admission of opinions which would merely tell the jury what result to reach, somewhat in the manner of the oath-helpers of an earlier day. They also stand ready to exclude opinions phrased in terms of inadequately explored legal criteria. ...