Owens v. Baltimore City State's Attorneys Office
2014 WL 4723803, 767 F.3d 379, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 18294 (2014)
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Rule of Law:
For a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim analogous to malicious prosecution, the statute of limitations begins to run when criminal proceedings are favorably terminated in a manner that cannot be revived, such as a nolle prosequi. Police officers are not entitled to qualified immunity for Brady violations if, by the time of their conduct, it was clearly established that suppressing material exculpatory evidence in bad faith violated a criminal defendant's constitutional rights.
Facts:
- In the early morning hours of August 2, 1987, Colleen Williar was raped, robbed, and murdered in her Baltimore City apartment.
- The following day, James Thompson contacted police about a reward, initially claiming he found a knife, but later, in response to questioning from Officers Pelligrini, Dunnigan, and Landsman, asserted he retrieved it at James Owens's behest.
- Police arrested Owens based on Thompson's statement, and a grand jury then indicted Owens for Ms. Williar’s murder, rape, and burglary, despite a fruitless search of Owens's apartment for physical evidence.
- On the eve of Owens's trial, Assistant State’s Attorney (ASA) Marvin Brave questioned Thompson's veracity, leading Thompson to retract his statement and offer a third version of events, claiming Owens returned a bloody knife to him; ASA Brave only presented this third version to the jury, withholding earlier accounts from defense counsel.
- Mid-trial, ASA Brave ordered testing of a pubic hair found on Ms. Williar’s body, which matched Thompson, not Owens, suggesting Thompson’s involvement.
- ASA Brave instructed Officers Pelligrini, Dunnigan, and Landsman to reinterrogate Thompson, who, over two hours and under pressure, changed his story five additional times, offering widely varying accounts of his and Owens's involvement in the crimes.
- The Officers only disclosed Thompson's final, most incriminating version to ASA Brave, intentionally withholding the multiple inconsistent accounts and the discovery of Thompson's pubic hair at the scene; ASA Brave then falsely represented to the court that no match had been made between the hair sample and a suspect.
- The jury convicted Owens of burglary and felony murder, and the trial court sentenced him to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Procedural Posture:
- James Owens filed an unsuccessful appeal and, over the course of the next two decades, several unsuccessful state-court petitions for post-conviction relief.
- In 2006, a state court granted Owens’s request for post-conviction DNA testing.
- Some months later, the results were returned and indicated that Owens’s DNA did not match the blood and semen evidence found at the scene of the crime.
- On June 4, 2007, a state court granted Owens’s “petition to reopen his Post Conviction Proceeding” and ordered that “Petitioner shall be granted a new trial.”
- Owens remained in state prison awaiting retrial for sixteen months.
- On October 15, 2008, the State’s Attorney entered a nolle prosequi, dropping the charges against Owens, and he was ordered released from incarceration.
- On October 12, 2011, Owens filed an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in district court against the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office, ASA Brave, the Baltimore City Police Department (BCPD), and Officers Pelligrini, Dunnigan, and Landsman, alleging constitutional violations for intentionally withholding exculpatory and impeachment evidence.
- All defendants moved to dismiss the complaint; Owens voluntarily dismissed the claims against the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore.
- The district court, in an oral ruling, dismissed the claims against the other defendants on statute-of-limitations grounds, determining the limitations period commenced when the state court granted Owens a new trial in 2007.
- Alternatively, the district court ruled that the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office was entitled to sovereign immunity, the individual Officers and the BCPD were entitled to qualified immunity, and Owens’s complaint failed to state a claim against the BCPD.
- Owens noted a timely appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
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Issue:
1. Does the statute of limitations for a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim alleging a Brady violation begin to run when a criminal conviction is vacated and a new trial is granted, or when the underlying criminal proceedings are finally terminated by a nolle prosequi? 2. Is the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office an entity amenable to suit under Maryland law for a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim? 3. Are police officers entitled to qualified immunity from a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim for suppressing material exculpatory evidence in bad faith when the conduct occurred in 1988? 4. Has a plaintiff stated a plausible 42 U.S.C. § 1983 Monell claim against a municipal police department by alleging a custom of condoning the knowing suppression of exculpatory evidence, supported by references to "reported and unreported cases" and "successful motions" demonstrating such a practice?
Opinions:
Majority - Diana Gribbon Motz, Circuit Judge
1. No, the statute of limitations for Owens’s § 1983 Brady-like claim did not begin to run until the nolle prosequi was entered on October 15, 2008. Federal law governs the accrual date for § 1983 claims, directing courts to look to the common-law tort most analogous to the claim—here, malicious prosecution. Malicious prosecution claims accrue when proceedings are favorably terminated “in such manner that [they] cannot be revived,” a condition a new trial does not meet, but a nolle prosequi does. This “distinctive rule” for accrual, recognized in Wallace v. Koto, overrides the general discovery rule and aligns with Heck v. Humphrey’s policy against conflicting judgments. 2. No, the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office is not an entity amenable to suit under Maryland law. Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 17(b), Maryland law determines an entity’s capacity to be sued. Citing Boyer v. State, the court found no constitutional or statutory provision in Maryland creating a “State’s Attorney’s Office” as a unique legal identity, separate from the constitutional officer of the “State’s Attorney.” A statute’s title referring to an “Office of the State’s Attorney” merely denotes the position, not a suable entity. 3. No, Officers Pelligrini, Dunnigan, and Landsman are not entitled to qualified immunity. Owens plausibly alleged a violation of his clearly established constitutional rights under Brady v. Maryland by claiming the officers acted in bad faith to suppress material exculpatory evidence. The right of criminal defendants to disclosure of material exculpatory evidence by police officers was clearly established by 1988 through Brady (1963) and Fourth Circuit precedent, including Barbee v. Warden (1964), United States v. Sutton (1976), and Boone v. Paderick (1976). These cases established that police are part of the prosecution and their withholding of exculpatory or impeachment evidence violates due process, a principle reaffirmed by Goodwin v. Metts (1989), which held this right was clearly established by 1983. 4. Yes, Owens has stated a plausible claim against the Baltimore City Police Department (BCPD). Municipalities are “persons” under § 1983 and do not enjoy qualified immunity. Under Monell v. New York City Department of Social Services, a municipality is liable for its own illegal acts, specifically when they result from a custom, policy, or practice that violates constitutional rights. Owens alleged a “custom by condonation” where the BCPD failed to stop a widespread pattern of officers knowingly suppressing exculpatory evidence. His allegations of “reported and unreported cases” and “successful motions” demonstrating this practice provide sufficient factual content to make the claim plausible and survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, consistent with Haley v. City of Boston.
Dissenting - Wynn, Circuit Judge
No, the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office is an entity amenable to suit under Maryland law. The Maryland Constitution establishes specific provisions for “the State’s Attorney for Baltimore City,” including the power to appoint staff and references to “the office of the State’s Attorney” for expenses, indicating its existence. The Maryland Criminal Procedure Code also references the “Office of the State’s Attorney.” Judge Wynn distinguishes Boyer v. State, arguing it only concluded the Charles County 'Sheriffs Department' was not a legal entity due to lack of specific constitutional or statutory establishment, not that all “offices” are non-suable. The General Assembly’s silence on creating a statutory office simply implies the Constitution already did so. He would remand for a full consideration of sovereign immunity.
Concurring-in-part-and-dissenting-in-part - Traxler, Chief Judge
1. Yes, Owens’s Brady claims were untimely. While federal law governs accrual, the standard rule is that a claim accrues when the plaintiff knows or has reason to know of the injury. Owens knew of the exculpatory evidence by October 1989 at the latest, or certainly by June 2008 when his counsel detailed it in a motion for retrial. Although malicious prosecution requires favorable termination, the purpose of that requirement (to avoid conflicting judgments about guilt) is satisfied for a Brady claim when a new trial is granted because the Brady violation (deprivation of a fair trial) is complete and the remedy (new trial) is granted, regardless of ultimate innocence. Therefore, the claims accrued when the conviction was vacated and a new trial granted in June 2007, making the October 2011 filing untimely. 2. Yes, the district court correctly determined individual officers were entitled to qualified immunity. It was not “clearly established” by early 1988 that a police officer’s failure to disclose exculpatory evidence made the officer potentially liable for a constitutional violation. Prior cases like Barbee, Sutton, and Boone merely established that an officer’s knowledge of exculpatory evidence is imputed to the prosecutor for Brady purposes, not an independent constitutional duty on the officers themselves. Decisions like Goodwin (1989) and Carter (1994) post-dated the officers’ conduct and could not provide notice. The sharp disagreement among judges in subsequent en banc Jean v. Collins decisions (1998, 2000) about the scope of such a duty further demonstrated that the right was not clearly established at the time of the alleged violation in 1988.
Analysis:
This case clarifies several critical aspects of Section 1983 litigation. First, it firmly establishes that the accrual date for a Brady-like § 1983 claim is tied to the final termination of criminal proceedings (like a nolle prosequi), not merely the grant of a new trial, by applying the “distinctive rule” of common-law malicious prosecution. Second, it reaffirms that police officers have a clearly established constitutional duty under Brady to disclose material exculpatory evidence, dating back to well before 1988, rejecting arguments that prior precedent only imputed knowledge to prosecutors. Finally, it outlines the pleading standard for Monell claims against municipalities, indicating that general allegations of widespread misconduct, supported by references to existing cases, can be sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss.
