Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-03-03650/USCOURTS-ca8-03-03650-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Michael Butera
Appellee
William Jadlowski
Appellee
Felands Marion
Appellee
Omaha Police Department
Appellee
Jeremy Sheets
Appellant

Document Text:

1

The Honorable Joseph Bataillon, United States District Judge for the District

of Nebraska.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 03-3650

___________

Jeremy Sheets, *

*

Appellant, *

*

v. * Appeal from the United States

* District Court for the District

Michael Butera, Lieutenant, acting * of Nebraska.

in his individual capacity; *

William Jadlowski, Sergeant, acting *

in his individual capacity; *

Felands Marion, Officer, acting in his *

individual capacity; Omaha Police *

Department, *

*

Appellees. *

___________

Submitted: June 17, 2004

Filed: November 9, 2004

___________

Before SMITH, BEAM and COLLOTON, Circuit Judges.

___________

BEAM, Circuit Judge.

Jeremy Sheets appeals from the district court's1

 grant of summary judgment to

Appellees. 

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Without more, there was sufficient probable cause at this point in the

investigation to arrest Sheets.

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I. BACKGROUND

The September 1992 murder of Kenyatta Bush remained unsolved for four

years. Although the police located her body in a ditch in Washington County,

Nebraska, almost two weeks after she was reported missing, no arrests were ever

made. However, in 1996, Barb Olson told police that Adam Barnett told her son-inlaw that Barnett and Sheets were involved in Bush's murder. Omaha police personnel

then obtained the statements of Olson's daughter and son-in-law, Richelle and Jason

LaNoue, and Richelle agreed to wear a wire and secretly tape a conversation with

Barnett. During that taped conversation, Barnett admitted that he drove the car used

in the murder of Kenyatta Bush, and implicated Sheets in the murder.2

Police arrested Barnett on September 27, 1996. Once in custody, Officers

Butera and Jadlowski read Barnett his Miranda warnings and interviewed him for

about one hour regarding the events surrounding Bush's disappearance and murder.

During questioning, Barnett denied personal involvement in the murder and said that

Sheets killed Bush. Barnett then asked for an attorney and questioning ceased. 

The court then appointed an attorney to represent Barnett. The attorney arrived

at the police station and spoke privately with Barnett before police formally booked

Barnett for homicide. After multiple meetings with his attorney, and with his attorney

present, Barnett made another statement to the police, regarding his involvement in

the murder. In that statement, Barnett admitted to increased involvement in the

murder. He stated that Bush agreed to drive around and smoke marijuana with him

and Sheets. He further stated that he was briefly separated from the other two and

that when he returned, he found Sheets holding Bush down, stabbing her. After that

statement, Barnett's attorney negotiated a plea agreement with the county attorney in

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which Barnett agreed to make a full and truthful statement to the officers, to testify

truthfully at trial, to cooperate with law enforcement requests to tour the various

crime scenes and to contact Jeremy Sheets in Maine. In exchange, Barnett would

plead guilty to second-degree murder. 

After the negotiated plea agreement, Barnett made one final, audiotaped

statement to Officers Butera and Jadlowski on September 28. In that statement

Barnett said that he and Sheets actually abducted Bush and that Barnett held her down

as Sheets sexually assaulted her and then killed her with a knife. The information

Barnett provided in this statement was not generally known to the public and was

corroborated by other evidence the officers had collected. 

Barnett was incarcerated in the Washington County Jail and there is some

evidence that he recanted his statements while in jail. Sheets's trial record also

showed, however, that while in jail, Barnett said to his uncle that "him and Jeremy

were responsible for this crime." He also told his uncle that he helped Jeremy get

Bush to the car, that he drug her down the lane, and that he held her down while

Sheets raped her. On November 13, 1996, Barnett killed himself in his jail cell.

At Sheets's trial, the prosecution played Barnett's audiotaped confession in its

entirety for the jury over Sheets's objections. Sheets presented evidence that his

friendship with Barnett was strained by the time Barnett gave his confession and

noted all of the inconsistencies in each of Barnett's consecutive statements to police

after his arrest. Sheets also presented evidence that Barnett recanted his confession

while in jail on several occasions. Officer Butera, however, testified that some of the

details provided by Barnett in his confession could not have been known by the

general public. For example, an uninvolved individual would not have known that

Bush had been sexually assaulted, or that little blood was found on her body. The

jury convicted Sheets of first-degree murder and use of a knife to commit a felony.

A three-judge panel sentenced him to death. On appeal, the Nebraska Supreme Court

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reversed Sheets's conviction based upon the use of Barnett's taped confession at trial.

State v. Sheets, 618 N.W.2d 117 (Neb. 2000). The prosecutors did not retry Sheets

for Bush's murder. 

In this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action, Sheets seeks redress for injuries he claimed

resulted from constitutional violations committed by Omaha Police Department

personnel. In particular, Sheets claims the officers violated the Fourth and Fourteenth

Amendments by coercing or fabricating Barnett's confession and using that

confession to establish probable cause for Sheets's arrest. Having determined that

Appellees were entitled to qualified immunity, the district court denied as moot

Sheets's appeal of the magistrate judge's order denying his motion to compel, as well

as Sheets's motion for continuance to respond to the motion for summary judgment,

and granted summary judgment in favor of Appellees. On appeal, Sheets argues that

further discovery would allow him to establish the constitutional violations, and thus

the district court erred by granting summary judgment to Appellees while the motion

to compel was pending. 

For the reasons set forth below, we affirm the district court. 

II. DISCUSSION

A. Qualified Immunity

We review a grant of summary judgment de novo, applying the same standard

as that applied by the district court. Jefferson v. City of Omaha Police Dep't, 335

F.3d 804, 805 (8th Cir. 2003), cert. denied, 124 S. Ct. 1409 (2004). Under Federal

Rule of Civil Procedure 56(c), summary judgment is to be granted "if the pleadings,

depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the

affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that

the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." This rule "mandates

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We do not address Sheets's claim under the Eighth Amendment, as he does not

argue it on appeal.

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the entry of summary judgment, after adequate time for discovery and upon motion,

against a party who fails to make a showing sufficient to establish the existence of an

element essential to that party's case, and on which that party will bear the burden of

proof at trial." Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322 (1986). A principal

purpose of the summary judgment rule is to isolate and dispose of factually

unsupported claims or defenses. Id. at 323-24. 

The district court held that the individual officers were entitled to qualified

immunity. "Qualified immunity is 'an entitlement not to stand trial or face the other

burdens of litigation.'" Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 200 (2001) (quoting Mitchell

v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 516 (1985)). A court required to rule upon the qualified

immunity issue must consider first the threshold question of whether, construed in the

light most favorable to the party asserting the injury, the facts alleged show the

officer's conduct violated a constitutional right. Id. at 201. "If no constitutional right

would have been violated were the allegations established, there is no necessity for

further inquiries concerning qualified immunity." Id. "When applying this inquiry

at the summary judgment stage, the official's conduct must be viewed through the

prism of Rule 56–that is, we must take as true those facts asserted by plaintiff that are

properly supported in the record." Tlamka v. Serrell, 244 F.3d 628, 632 (8th Cir.

2001). Only if a violation could be made out on a favorable view of the parties'

submissions, do we take the next step and ask whether the right was clearly

established. Saucier, 533 U.S. at 201. In this case, we do not get to the second step.

In his complaint, Sheets alleges violations under the Fourth, Eighth, and

Fourteenth Amendments.3

 On appeal, Sheets claims that the officers violated the

Constitution during their interrogation of Barnett by employing the following tactics

in their pursuit of Barnett's confession: (1) improperly using threats and promises, (2)

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making threats involving family and friends, (3) misrepresenting evidence, (4)

playing "false friend," and (5) psychologically coercing Barnett. Sheets further

argues that the officers relied upon Barnett's confession even after they should have

known it was false, and, as a result, the confession did not give rise to probable cause

to arrest Sheets. We disagree. The evidence presented at summary judgment did not

establish a constitutional violation. 

1. Fourth Amendment

Under the Fourth Amendment, which guarantees "[t]he right of the people to

be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches

and seizures," the relevant inquiry is whether the officers had probable cause to arrest

Sheets. U.S.CONST. amend. IV; Smithson v. Aldrich, 235 F.3d 1058, 1062 (8th Cir.

2000). Probable cause is to be determined upon the objective facts available to the

officers at the time of the arrest, and exists if "'the totality of facts based on

reasonably trustworthy information would justify a prudent person in believing the

individual arrested had committed . . . an offense' at the time of the arrest." Id.

(alteration in original) (quoting Hannah v. City of Overland, Mo., 795 F.2d 1385,

1389 (8th Cir. 1986)). 

We agree with the district court that Sheets did not present sufficient evidence

of any Fourth Amendment violation. At the time of Sheets's arrest, the police had

uncontroverted, unrebutted statements by Barnett, a claimed accomplice, made in the

presence of his attorney after hours of consultation with that attorney, and made after

a plea agreement with the county attorney, that clearly indicated Sheets killed Bush.

Appellees also gave considerable weight to Barnett's statement because he furnished

details of the murder that only someone involved in the murder would know: the

physical evidence was consistent with a sexual assault (a fact not released to the

public), Bush's injuries were consistent with Barnett's account of the murder, and

physical evidence supported Barnett's account that Bush had been killed while on her

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back and had been transported in the trunk of a car in the same position. Given the

objective facts available to the police at the time of Sheets's arrest, they had probable

cause to conclude that Sheets had committed, or was somehow involved in, Bush's

murder. 

The fact that Barnett's statements to the police changed somewhat over time,

becoming more and more inculpatory each time, does not negate the existence of

probable cause here. We agree with the district court that "[i]t seems plausible, or

even likely, that, for multiple reasons a suspect would come to a gradual awareness

of the need to assume responsibility for a crime." The evidentiary value or

admissibility of the statements is not at issue. Based upon the facts known to the

officers at the time of Sheets's arrest, construed in the light most favorable to Sheets,

there is no evidence that supports a Fourth Amendment violation. 

2. Fourteenth Amendment

"The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees '[s]ubstantive due process [, which]

prevents the government from engaging in conduct that shocks the conscience or

interferes with rights implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.'" Moran v. Clarke,

296 F.3d 638, 643 (8th Cir. 2002) (alterations in original) (quoting Weiler v. Purkett,

137 F.3d 1047, 1051 (8th Cir. 1998) (en banc)). Like the district court, we construe

Sheets's claims challenging the officers' behavior during Barnett's interrogation as a

substantive due process claim. According to Sheets, the officers coerced Barnett's

confession and the officers knew Barnett's confession was false. 

In determining whether a substantive right protected by the Due Process

Clause has been violated, it is necessary to balance the liberty of the

individual and the demands of an organized society. . . . At the outset,

we identify the individual liberty interests at stake and the established

demands of an organized society at issue. We then analyze,

qualitatively, whether the interests asserted are sufficiently important for

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substantive due process consideration. Ultimately, within this context,

we assess whether the government's contested actions are conscience

shocking.

Id. at 643-44 (internal quotations and citations omitted).

The contested actions in this case are the interrogation tactics employed by the

officers. Sheets claims that the officers coerced Barnett using methods to "railroad

one innocent man into a false confession that implicated another innocent man." We

disagree. 

It is unnecessary for us to conduct an inquiry into the alleged liberty interest

at stake or the particular demand of an organized society at issue because the behavior

alleged in this case does not rise to the level of conscience-shocking behavior that

may sustain a substantive due process claim. "[C]onduct intended to injure in some

way unjustifiable by any government interest is the sort of official action most likely

to rise to the conscience-shocking level." County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S.

833, 849 (1998). "[T]he threshold question is whether the behavior of the

governmental officer is so egregious, so outrageous, that it may fairly be said to shock

the contemporary conscience." Id. at 848 n.8. The alleged "coercion" in this case,

if there was any at all, certainly does not rise to this level of egregiousness. 

In reviewing police tactics to obtain a confession under the Due Process

Clause, we focus on the crucial element of police overreaching. Colorado v.

Connelly, 479 U.S. 157, 163 (1986). However, even though the police use

overreaching tactics such as the use of threats or violence, or the use of direct or

indirect promises, such promises or threats will not render the confession involuntary

unless it overcomes the defendant's free will and impairs his capacity for self

determination. Smith v. Bowersox, 311 F.3d 915, 922 (8th Cir. 2002), cert. denied,

124 S. Ct. 233 (2003). Ours is a totality-of-the-circumstances inquiry. We consider,

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among other things, the degree of police coercion, the length of the interrogation, its

location, its continuity, and the defendant's maturity, education, physical condition,

and mental condition. Id. 

Here, not only does the specific conduct contested by Sheets fail to rise to the

conscience-shocking level, there is no evidence that the conduct of the officers

overcame Barnett's free will and impaired his capacity for self determination. See id.

Contrary to Sheets's argument, telling Barnett that people had come to the police with

information that he and Sheets were involved in the murder, and that Sheets would

be interviewed at some time, does not amount to a threat that could lead to a false

confession. Nor does pointing out to Barnett that he was a twenty-one-year-old man

with a young family and that the way he handled the current situation would affect

how his family viewed him in the future, nor that the police already had enough

evidence to know of Barnett's involvement but that he just needed to better explain

how and why the murder happened. These tactics simply do not amount to

unconstitutional coercion. It goes without saying that the interrogation of a suspect

will involve some pressure. The very purpose is to elicit a confession. United States

v. Santos-Garcia, 313 F.3d 1073, 1079 (8th Cir. 2002). 

Barnett's audiotaped confession took place after he was Mirandized and in the

presence of his attorney, with whom Barnett had spent considerable time; the length

of each of the interviews was not especially long; the police ceased the initial

interview immediately upon Barnett's request for an attorney; and Barnett was given

time between interviews to consider the situation free of police pressure. Further, the

weight Sheets attempts to place on the discrepancies in each of Barnett's accounts is

too great. The fact that Barnett increased his own culpability in Bush's murder as he

confessed to the police does not suggest that he was "fed" information by the

interrogating officers. And it certainly does not suggest that the officers were feeding

information to Barnett that implicated Sheets. 

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In light of these circumstances, and viewing the evidence in the light most

favorable to Sheets, we find that tactics such as those contested by Sheets were not

so coercive as to deprive Barnett of his ability to make an unconstrained decision to

implicate Sheets and to confess to his own involvement in the murder, and do not rise

to the level of malice or sadism resulting in the inhumane abuse of power that literally

shocks the conscience. See Moran, 296 F.3d at 647. 

Finally, in his complaint, Sheets alleges that the officers obtained a search

warrant based upon Barnett's audiotaped statement, which they knew to be false.

Sheets's argument on appeal concerning the clearly established state of the law is

irrelevant at this stage of the analysis. As previously noted, before we determine

whether the law was clearly established for purposes of qualified immunity, we first

must determine whether the facts alleged show that the officers violated a

constitutional right. We have determined that the tactics employed by the officers in

obtaining Barnett's statement do not offend the Constitution. And Sheets presented

no evidence that the officers either knew or recklessly disregarded a risk that Barnett

was lying. Thus, statements made in a warrant relating information from Barnett's

confession are not false nor made with reckless disregard for the truth. 

C. Motion to Compel

The more critical issue on appeal, according to Sheets, is the district court's

failure to rule on the merits of the pending motion to compel before granting

summary judgment in favor of the defendants. "Our review of questions concerning

discovery matters is very deferential. . . . We will not reverse such a determination

absent a gross abuse of discretion resulting in fundamental unfairness in the trial of

the case." SDI Operating P'ship, L.P. v. Neuwirth, 973 F.2d 652, 655 (8th Cir. 1992)

(quotations omitted). 

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At the time the district court ruled on the summary judgment motion, Sheets's

discovery motion was pending. In that motion, Sheets sought the testimony of

Barnett's court-appointed attorney concerning the attorney's conversations with

Barnett when Barnett was interrogated and when he confessed. Sheets claims that the

attorney's testimony would call into question the constitutionality of the officers'

behavior in obtaining Barnett's confession and the voluntariness of the same. The

district court ruled that the motion was moot because the defendants were entitled to

qualified immunity. On appeal, Sheets spends significant time arguing the merits of

his claim that the motion to compel should have been granted because the personal

representative of Barnett's estate waived the attorney-client privilege. We need not

get that far. 

The defendant's motion for summary judgment raised two overlapping claims:

(1) the individual officers were entitled to qualified immunity, and (2) Sheets could

not substantiate the merits of his claim. Thereafter, Sheets filed a motion to continue

the response deadline to conduct discovery on all issues presented by the officers'

motion except for the issue of qualified immunity, stated to the court that he was "able

to address the issues relating to qualified immunity now," and submitted a responsive

brief on that issue. Sheets then later filed the motion to compel without retracting his

prior affirmation to the court that the issue of qualified immunity was ripe for

determination. 

At Sheets's very request, then, the district court ruled on the pending summary

judgment motion with respect to qualified immunity. That ruling, of course, required

the district court to evaluate the merits of the constitutional violation in light of the

evidence available. Saucier, 533 U.S. at 200. At best for him, Sheets's motions were

in conflict. We cannot fault the district court for traveling a course that Sheets

ambiguously, or perhaps unwittingly, marked. 

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Sheets's apparent request for a qualified immunity ruling notwithstanding, we

see no reason to consider the attorney-client privilege question. Even assuming that

Barnett may have been able to assert a substantive due process claim, we have found

no precedent that the benefits of such a claim could run vicariously to Sheets under

the circumstances of this case. And, Sheets cites none.

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Given the status of the case at the time the district court ruled on the qualified

immunity issue, we see no basis for Sheets's arguments concerning the district court's

denial of the motion to compel. The district court did not abuse its discretion.4

 

III. CONCLUSION

For the reasons stated herein, we affirm the order of the district court.

______________________________

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