Facts
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In February 2020, someone shot and killed Nicolas Robertson in Jackson, Mississippi. Two months later, law enforcement arrested Samuel Jennings for burglary and grand larceny. Once Jennings was jailed, he provided a handwritten, signed statement about the Robertson murder to Jackson Police Department Detective Jacquelyn Thomas. In that statement, Jennings wrote that Desmond Green confessed in front of him that he shot Robertson and, with assistance from others, moved Robertson’s body. Although Green said he didn’t know Robertson and was not involved, a grand jury indicted Green for capital murder in July 2020. Green was subsequently arrested and detained in Raymond Detention Center, operated by Hinds County.
In March 2022—nearly two years after the indictment and arrest— Jennings recanted his statement to Detective Thomas. Jennings admitted he had consumed methamphetamine in the one to two hours prior to his April 2020 statement to Detective Thomas; he did not know why he said Green was involved in the capital murder; he was in the hospital on the day Robertson was killed; and he had no knowledge of what happened to Robertson. He also swore he made a false statement about Green, he picked a different photo in the lineup than the detective pointed to, and he was just high and trying “to help myself get out of jail.”
On April 21, 2022, after the prosecutor moved to “remand,” the presiding judge dismissed the case. Green was released from jail after 22 months of detention.
Green then sued Detective Thomas under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, arguing Detective Thomas violated his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Of note, Green alleged that Detective Thomas withheld exonerating evidence from the grand jury, including: Robertson, after being shot in one location, was conscious when he arrived at a different location where he was later found dead; Robertson was with another man (not Green) “shortly before” the shooting; and information pertaining to Jennings’s unreliability (including drug use and criminal activity). Green also alleged that Jennings selected a photo of a different suspect in Detective Thomas’s photo lineup. Jennings’s recantation—attached to Green’s complaint provides added detail: Detective Thomas pointed to the photo of Green after Jennings had identified a different suspect. The district court denied qualified immunity. The 5th affirmed on everything except the malicious prosecution claim.
Analysis
A. Clearly established
First, Detective Thomas contends the complaint fails to identify the clearly established constitutional right that was violated, which every reasonable officer would know was a violation.
A1. False Arrest
Start with false arrest under the Fourth Amendment. Our precedents make this one simple: There can be no doubt that the right not to be arrested absent probable cause was clearly established at the time of Green’s arrest. And the requirement of probable cause prior to seizure is so foundational it is in the Fourth Amendment itself.
A2. Due Process
Next, take due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. We have clearly established the right to be free from officers’ witness interference and concealment of exculpatory evidence which results in unlawful arrest, detention, or conviction. An officer cannot avail himself of a qualified immunity defense if he procures false identification by unlawful means or deliberately conceals exculpatory evidence, for such activity violates clearly established constitutional principles. And such “unlawful means” include suggestive photo lineups, like prodding the witness to select another picture when they had chosen incorrectly.
A3. Malicious prosecution
Finally, we look at malicious prosecution under the Fourth Amendment. Because a constitutional malicious prosecution claim did not exist in our circuit at the time of Green’s arrest, Detective Thomas gets qualified immunity for that claim.
B. Constitutional violation
B1. False Arrest
To prevail in a § 1983 claim for false arrest, a plaintiff must show that . . . the officers could not have reasonably believed that they had probable cause to arrest the plaintiff for any crime. Green was arrested and jailed—for nearly two years—for Robertson’s murder. So the only element at issue is probable cause.
Detective Thomas argues that she is immunized against reasonable mistakes concerning the presence of probable cause. It is true that even law enforcement officials who reasonably but mistakenly conclude that probable cause is present are entitled to qualified immunity. But there is no such reasonable but mistaken conclusion in this case.
Here, accepting Green’s allegations as true, Detective Thomas had information which would have undercut any reasonable belief that Green murdered Robertson.
First, Jennings alleged that Green confessed to killing Robertson and moving his body. But a police report showed that Robertson, after having been shot, was alive and went to Avery Forbes’s home, where he knocked on the door and spoke with Forbes before he died at that location. Such evidence directly contradicts Jennings’s statement that Green moved Robertson’s body.
Second, officers had evidence that another individual—Brandon Summerall—had been with the deceased shortly before his death. Such evidence would offer another person of interest that could have been involved in the crime and undermine probable cause for both Detective Thomas and the grand jury to indict and arrest Green.
Third, Detective Thomas took Jennings’s initial statement and could have provided the grand jury with information about the informant’s status—jailed for burglary and grand larceny—and mental state at the time of giving the statement—high or withdrawing from illicit drugs. Such information would have diminished Detective Thomas’s ability to rely on Jennings’s statement and at least provided the grand jury with the opportunity to determine whether to rely on the informant’s statement. As a result, Green has alleged sufficient facts to show a lack of probable cause at this stage.
B2. Due process
We next turn to Green’s Fourteenth Amendment due process claim. To succeed, Green must plead specific facts regarding what exculpatory evidence Detective Thomas suppressed and concealed and what unlawful means she used to procure the identification.
As to exculpatory evidence, the same evidence that should have cast doubt in Detective Thomas’s mind regarding Green’s culpability and Jennings’s reliability is the same evidence that Green alleges was suppressed from the grand jury. And as to Jennings’s identification, Green alleges—based on Jennings’s recantation, attached to the complaint—that Jennings identified a different suspect in the photo lineup with Detective Thomas. After Jennings identified someone else, Detective Thomas prodded Jennings by pointing to another suspect: Green. This method of identification, if true, is the very type of “unlawful” and “suggestive identification procedure for which we have previously denied qualified immunity at the motion-to-dismiss stage.
Accepting his allegations as true, Green’s complaint is clear. Detective Thomas manipulated a photo lineup. She relied on uncorroborated testimony from a high—or withdrawing—jailhouse informant who was contradicted by police reports to obtain an indictment against Green. And she withheld critical information in Green’s favor from the grand jury— information which should have given Detective Thomas pause to even indict him in the first place. Green has sufficiently alleged violations of his clearly established Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
C. Independent Intermediary doctrine
Detective Thomas asserts that she is entitled to qualified immunity because a grand jury indicted Green, and thus, the independent-intermediary doctrine protects her against all of Green’s claims.
The chain of causation between the officer’s conduct and the unlawful arrest is broken only where all the facts are presented to the grand jury, or other independent intermediary where the malicious motive of the law enforcement officials does not lead them to withhold any relevant information from the independent intermediary.
The doctrine does not apply if it can be shown that the deliberations of that intermediary were in some way tainted by the actions of the defendant and that “taint” is material. An officer taints the deliberation by withholding any relevant information.
At the motion-to-dismiss stage, mere allegations of taint may be adequate where the complaint alleges other facts supporting the inference. Green’s complaint and its attachments—including Jennings’s recantation assert that Detective Thomas manipulated a photo lineup and relied on an uncorroborated statement from a jailhouse informant who was high or experiencing withdrawals. It also asserts that Detective Thomas withheld crucial, specific evidence from the grand jury which would contradict Jennings’s original statement that Green moved the deceased body, would suggest Jennings’s unreliability as a witness and in his identification of Green, and would suggest another individual was with the deceased person earlier in the day of his murder.
And Green asserted that this withheld evidence was material: No Grand Jury would have indicted Plaintiff had it been truthfully informed that Jennings’ statement was false, was contrary to the known evidence, and was given by a drug addict in a mentally-altered condition.
Accordingly, Green’s pleadings are sufficient to suggest Detective Thomas materially tainted the grand jury proceedings, and thus, the independent-intermediary doctrine does not apply.
https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/24/24-60314-CV0.pdf