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Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 4', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 101', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983']

Castellano v. Fragozo, 352 F.3d 939 | Casetext
352 F.3d 939 (5th Cir. 2003)
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Castellanov.Fragozo
United States Court of Appeals, Fifth CircuitDec 5, 2003
Timothy B. Soefje (argued), Thornton, Summers, Biechlin, Dunham Brown, San Antonio, TX, for Plaintiff-Appellee.
Nathan Mark Ralls (argued), Chaves, Gonzales Hoblit, San Antonio, TX, Audrey Mullert Vicknair, Chaves, Gonzalez Hoblit, Corpus Christi, TX, for Fragozo.
Alfred Castellano sought damages for his wrongful conviction of arson, asserting claims under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Before trial the magistrate judge concluded that alleging the elements of malicious prosecution under Texas law stated a claim, but only under the Fourth Amendment. The trial judge passed over defendants' claim of absolute immunity, accepting their argument that the Supreme Court in Albright v. Oliver held that if there is an adequate state tort remedy there can be no claim for a denial of due process, and dismissed all claims under any other constitutional provision. With the Texas law of malicious prosecution now the source for his § 1983 claim, Castellano amended his complaint, dropping his state law claim. A jury returned a substantial award of money damages.
510 U.S. 266, 271, 114 S.Ct. 807, 127 L.Ed.2d 114 (1994).
We conclude that the trial court's reading of Albright, while clinging to the law of this circuit, simultaneously misread both the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. As for the Fourteenth Amendment claims, we reject the trial court ruling that there was no denial of due process, either in its primitive form that § 1983 cannot sustain such a claim, or because the state provides a post-deprivation tort remedy. We hold that a state's manufacturing of evidence and knowing use of that evidence along with perjured testimony to obtain a wrongful conviction deprives a defendant of his long recognized right to a fair trial secured by the Due Process Clause, a deprivation of a right not reached by the Parratt doctrine. At the same time, we note that Castellano faces obstacles in pursuing his wrongful conviction claims on remand given that Sanchez and Fragozo enjoy absolute immunity for their testimony at trial and have substantial arguments that their manufacturing of evidence could not have created, without the trial testimony, a wrongful conviction.
We begin by reciting the history of the case. We then examine the development of malicious prosecution as a claim under § 1983 — including the contours of the state law tort, its early development as a federal claim in this circuit, as well as the impact of Albright v. Oliver on this circuit's precedent. After examining our own law, we turn to the law of other circuits and conclude that "malicious prosecution" standing alone is no violation of the United States Constitution. We then return to the case at hand, and in doing so we examine Albright, finding no support there for the magistrate judge's ruling that by using the elements of the state tort of malicious prosecution, Castellano's full claim could be tethered to the Fourth Amendment. We conclude by finding that the verdict cannot be sustained and that the case must be remanded for a new trial.
510 U.S. 266, 114 S.Ct. 807, 127 L.Ed.2d 114 (1994).
Maria Sanchez and Chris Fragozo collaborated together and without their testimony and the altered tapes, there is insufficient evidence to sustain a finding of guilt in this case.
Ex parte Castellano, 863 S.W.2d 476, 479 (Tex.Crim.App. 1993).
We have been inexact in explaining the elements of a claim for malicious prosecution brought under the congressional grant of the right of suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. We are not alone. Other circuits have been facing similar difficulties and share with us a common shortcoming — either not demanding that this genre of claims identify specific constitutional deprivations or struggling in their efforts to do so. This laxness has tolerated claims in which specific constitutional violations are often embedded, but float unspecified, undefined, and hence unconfined inside a general claim of malicious prosecution. Its characteristic weak discipline has permitted the blending of state tort and constitutional principles, inattentive to whether the court is adopting state law as federal law in a process of federal common law decision-making, such as detailing remedial responses to a constitutional deprivation, or whether the court is creating a freestanding constitutional right to be free of malicious prosecution. On examination, the latter appears to rest on a perception that the sum of elements borrowed from state tort law by some synergism is a constitutional right itself — in its best light, that the elements of the state law tort of malicious prosecution, when proved, inevitably entail constitutional deprivation. While sometimes this is so, it is not inevitable, and the price of cutting the tether from constitutional text is too great to permit it to continue.
We are persuaded that we must return to basics. And in doing so we conclude that no such freestanding constitutional right to be free from malicious prosecution exists. This conclusion in turn means that we must insist on clarity in the identity of the constitutional violations asserted. In this effort, we first look at the state law tort of malicious prosecution and then look to the enforcement of constitutional protections enjoyed by persons accused of crimes, all as informed by the decision of the Supreme Court in Albright v. Oliver.
The tort of malicious prosecution of criminal proceedings occurs when one citizen initiates or procures the initiation of criminal proceedings against an innocent person, for an improper purpose and without probable cause therefor, if the proceedings terminate favorably for the person thus prosecuted.
FOWLER V. HARPER ET AL., THE LAW OF TORTS § 4.1 (3d ed. 1996).
It signifies that initiation of charges without probable cause lies at the heart of this definition, one that is deployed by state courts throughout the country, including Texas.
In Shaw v. Garrison, we recognized a "federal right to be free from bad faith prosecutions" without elaborating on the source of that right. Twelve years later we held in Wheeler v. Cosden Oil Chemical Co. that "the Fourteenth Amendment imposes a duty on state prosecutors to charge only upon ascertaining probable cause." Judge Gee's opinion, thoughtful as it was, proved to be a wrong turn — one quickly flagged but which nonetheless stood until Albright, ten years later. Wheeler's requirement of probable cause to initiate gave common footing to a right secured by the Fourteenth Amendment to be free of charges initiated without probable cause and the identical duty imposed by the classic common law tort of malicious prosecution. The ability of the Wheeler holding to survive Supreme Court scrutiny was questioned in Brummett v. Camble because it was based on an implied right rather than a "more textual footing." But the Brummett opinion ventured that a malicious prosecution claim based on the infringement of a specific constitutional guarantee would survive review. Other pre- Albright cases recognized that claims of false arrest, false imprisonment, and malicious prosecution could implicate Fourteenth and Fourth Amendment rights "when the individual complains of an arrest, detention, and prosecution without probable cause." None of this court's pre- Albright decisions achieved a fit between a claim of malicious prosecution and claims under the Constitution, including the Fourth Amendment. The Supreme Court in Albright v. Oliver defined a starting point.
467 F.2d 113, 120 (5th Cir. 1972).
734 F.2d 254, 260 (5th Cir. 1984).
946 F.2d 1178, 1181 n. 2 (5th Cir. 1991).
Albright alleged that Officer Oliver instituted a baseless charge against him and gave misleading testimony at a preliminary hearing. The state court found probable cause to try Albright, but the charges were dismissed prior to trial. Albright sued under § 1983 claiming the officer "deprived him of substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment — his `liberty interest' — to be free from criminal prosecution except upon probable cause."
Chief Justice Rehnquist's plurality opinion, joined by Justices O'Connor, Scalia, and Ginsberg, held that "it is the Fourth Amendment, and not substantive due process" under which Albright's claim must be judged. The plurality reasoned that the Fourth Amendment addresses concerns of pretrial deprivations of liberty, and "[w]here a particular Amendment `provides an explicit textual source of constitutional protection' against a particular sort of government behavior, `that Amendment, not the more generalized notion of "substantive due process," must be the guide for analyzing these claims.'" Noting that Albright's claim was not for a violation of procedural due process or a violation of Fourth Amendment rights, the Court dismissed it and expressed no view on whether his claim would succeed under the Fourth Amendment.
Justices Souter and Scalia each wrote separately to emphasize differences with the plurality, but each agreed that there was no need to look beyond the Fourth Amendment in Albright's case. Justice Ginsburg's separate opinion explained that the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable seizures could extend to post-arraignment travel restrictions such as those placed on Albright, and thus a Fourth Amendment claim would not accrue until the charges against Albright were dismissed.
Justice Kennedy, joined by Justice Thomas, agreed that the Fourth Amendment applied to claims of unreasonable seizures, but felt that Albright's claim was for the instigation of the prosecution, not any resulting seizure. He stated that while "due process requirements for criminal proceedings do not include a standard for the initiation of a criminal prosecution," the "Due Process Clause protects interests other than the interest in freedom from physical restraint." Assuming arguendo that some of these interests protected by the Due Process Clause include those protected by the common law of torts (such as freedom from malicious prosecution), Kennedy stated that "our precedents make clear that a state actor's random and unauthorized deprivation of that interest cannot be challenged under [§ 1983] so long as the State provides an adequate postdeprivation remedy." Kennedy concluded that because the state provides a cause of action for malicious prosecution, a § 1983 claim is barred under the holding of Parratt. Where a state did not provide a tort remedy for malicious prosecution "there would be force to the argument that the malicious initiation of a baseless criminal prosecution infringes an interest protected by the Due Process Clause and enforceable under § 1983."
A series of our post- Albright decisions evolved into the rule articulated in Gordy v. Burns, the decision the panel majority found to be controlling. Gordy holds that "the rule in this circuit is that the elements of the state-law tort of malicious prosecution and the elements of the constitutional tort of `Fourth Amendment malicious prosecution' are coextensive." Furthermore, "a plaintiff in a § 1983 malicious prosecution action need establish only the elements of common-law malicious prosecution. . . . [C]ourts must look to the elements of a malicious prosecution claim under the law of the state where the offense was committed."
294 F.3d 722 (5th Cir. 2002).
This holding is the result of persisting uncertainties in precedent accumulating over time. Judge Barksdale's dissent from the panel majority observes that the post- Albright cases failed to distinguish our prior precedent which relied on the Fourteenth Amendment, a position his dissent urges Albright called into question. We add that many of the recent cases fail to note the qualifying language of earlier decisions, which state that malicious prosecution claims implicate the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments "`when the individual complains of an arrest, detention, and prosecution without probable cause.'" As we will explain, Albright did not speak to the Fourteenth Amendment beyond eschewing reliance upon substantive due process to create a requirement of probable cause to initiate a prosecution, albeit a holding that drained Wheeler of precedential force.
To look forward, we first look back to find the trace to Gordy that will inform our effort to chart a new path. Gordy relied on Piazza, acknowledging that we assumed without deciding that satisfying the Texas state law elements was sufficient. Similarly, Gordy relied on Evans, which in turn cites Brummett for the holding that "malicious prosecution may be a constitutional violation, but only if all of its common law elements are established." Yet Brummett made clear that "the federal courts have repeatedly held that common law and state tort law do not define the scope of liability under § 1983." The court in Brummett did look to the common law elements of malicious prosecution, and out of concern that plaintiffs would relitigate state convictions in federal court, adopted the common law element that the plaintiff show proof of favorable termination of the prosecution. Similar concerns led the Supreme Court to adopt an analogous element as well. Brummett did not, however, hold that all common law tort elements were required for a federal claim.
Finally, Gordy relied on Kerr. Kerr states without explanation that the elements for a § 1983 claim of malicious prosecution are those of Texas state law, citing Hayter v. City of Mount Vernon. Hayter cites Taylor v. Gregg, which relies in turn on Brown v. United States. As the Gordy opinion notes, Brown was a Federal Tort Claims Act case, and the FTCA requires the court to look to the law of the place where the alleged tort occurred. In none of the opinions that ultimately rely on Brown did we explain why the requirements of the FTCA should dictate the elements of a § 1983 claim.
With hindsight, our precedent governing § 1983 malicious prosecution claims is a mix of misstatements and omissions which leads to the inconsistencies and difficulties astutely pointed to in Judge Barksdale's dissent from the panel opinion and Judge Jones's special concurrence in Kerr. We are not alone in this drift. Other circuits have traveled uneven paths as well, and numerous approaches have developed after Albright.
Our sister circuits take two broad approaches to malicious prosecution claims under § 1983. The first is to require proof of all common law elements of malicious prosecution, usually based on the law of the state where the offense occurred, as well as proof of a constitutional violation — an approach adopted in various forms by the First, Second, Third, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits. The second approach views malicious prosecution as unenforceable under § 1983, looking to the common law elements of the tort only as needed to assist the enforcement of analogous constitutional violations — seizures under the Fourth Amendment, for example. This is the view of the Fourth, Seventh, and Eleventh Circuits. The approach of the Sixth Circuit is not clear, as it also has conflicting precedents and has yet to articulate the elements of a § 1983 malicious prosecution claim. Similarly, the Eighth Circuit's approach is undefined beyond insisting upon a constitutional violation.
In Nieves v. McSweeney, the First Circuit cited four state common law elements it requires for a malicious prosecution claim. But the court then stated that the plaintiff "must show a deprivation of a federally-protected right." The court reasoned that procedural due process cannot be the basis of the claim because Massachusetts provides an adequate remedy, and Albright forecloses substantive due process claims. The court "assume[d] without deciding that [a state law] malicious prosecution can, under some circumstances, embody a violation of the Fourth Amendment and thus ground a cause of action under section 1983." Turning to the case at bar, the court acknowledged that while malicious prosecution permits damages for deprivations of liberty pursuant to legal process, the plaintiffs had been arrested without a warrant. Therefore, the plaintiffs failed to allege a seizure which could be part of their malicious prosecution since a warrantless arrest is not pursuant to legal process. The plaintiffs' post-arraignment restrictions and harms (release on their own recognizance, pending serious criminal charges, sullied reputations, pretrial court appearances, and trial) were not seizures.
241 F.3d 46, 53 (1st Cir. 2001) (listing (1) the commencement or continuation of a criminal proceeding against the eventual plaintiff at the behest of the eventual defendant; (2) the termination of the proceeding in favor of the accused; (3) an absence of probable cause for the charges; and (4) actual malice).
The Second Circuit also requires proof of a tort under state common law and an injury caused by a deprivation of liberty guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment. That court has noted that it is "theoretically possible" for a plaintiff to premise a malicious prosecution claim on some other constitutional right, in which case the standard governing that right would determine whether there was a constitutional violation. Like the First Circuit, the Second requires a seizure pursuant to legal process, ruling out warrantless arrests. However, the Second Circuit has found that post-arraignment travel restrictions are sufficient to constitute a seizure.
Murphy, 118 F.3d at 946 ("[W]hile a state has the undoubted authority . . . to restrict a properly accused citizen's constitutional right to travel outside of the state as a condition of his pretrial release, and may order him to make periodic court appearances, such conditions are appropriately viewed as seizures within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.").
The Third Circuit likewise requires proof of all common law elements, as well as a constitutional violation, but not with certainty. Rather, it has questioned the role of additional common law elements of malicious prosecution: "For instance, if the harm alleged is a seizure lacking probable cause, it is unclear why a plaintiff would have to show that the police acted with malice." However, it has not abandoned this requirement. Like the Second Circuit, post-arraignment restrictions ($10,000 bond, travel restrictions, weekly contact with pretrial services, and attendance at all pretrial hearings) constitute a seizure. Unlike most circuits, the alleged constitutional violation is not limited to a Fourth Amendment seizure, and includes any constitutional violation, including violations of procedural due process (but not substantive due process), a distinction that will draw our attention in this case.
The Tenth Circuit is more restrictive, requiring proof of all common law elements, but limiting the additional constitutional violation to a violation of "the Fourth Amendment's right to be free from unreasonable seizures." The court noted that where an independent and untainted determination of probable cause is made at the arraignment, the post-arraignment detention is not a seizure even if the arrest was illegal.
Taylor v. Meacham, 82 F.3d 1556, 1561 (10th Cir. 1996) (stating that "our circuit takes the common law elements of malicious prosecution as the `starting point' . . . but always reaches the ultimate question . . . whether the plaintiff has proven a constitutional violation").
In the Ninth Circuit the state tort of malicious prosecution alone is not sufficient for a § 1983 claim if there is a state remedy available, but there is an exception if the defendant had the intent "to deprive a person of equal protection of the law or otherwise to subject a person to a denial of constitutional rights." The plaintiff must satisfy the state law elements and the element of purpose to deprive a constitutional right.
[T]here is no such thing as a "§ 1983 malicious prosecution" claim. What we termed a "malicious prosecution" claim . . . is simply a claim founded on a Fourth Amendment seizure that incorporates elements of the analogous common law tort of malicious prosecution — specifically, the requirement that the prior proceeding terminate favorably to the plaintiff. It is not an independent cause of action.
223 F.3d 257, 262 (4th Cir. 2000) (internal citations omitted).
Interestingly, the Fourth Circuit cites cases from the First, Second, and Tenth Circuits as taking the same approach it adopted, pointing to the subtlety of the difference between the two approaches. The difference, nonetheless central, is that when the constitutional violation is the focus, only those common law elements which are consistent with enforcement of a constitutional right are incorporated, and those that are not are rejected.
For instance, the Fourth Circuit has rejected the common law malice requirement, "since the reasonableness of a seizure under Fourth Amendment jurisprudence should be analyzed from an objective perspective." On the other hand, that court has incorporated the requirement of a favorable termination, not only as a prerequisite to recovery, but also to establish the time of accrual. The court stated that incorporating common law elements was not done to create a new cause of action, but rather was "in recognition of the fact that § 1983 was designed to create a `special species of tort liability.'" It pointed to several Supreme Court cases where common law elements were incorporated into § 1983 claims.
Id. at 262 n. 3. As mentioned, this court took a similar approach by adopting only this element in Brummett v. Camble, 946 F.2d 1178, 1183 (5th Cir. 1991), as did the Supreme Court in Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994).
The Seventh Circuit, like the Fourth, does not recognize a federal claim of malicious prosecution: "[I]f a plaintiff can establish a violation of the fourth (or any other) amendment there is nothing but confusion to be gained by calling the legal theory `malicious prosecution.'" Instead, "[c]laims of malicious prosecution should be analyzed . . . under the language of the Constitution itself and, if state law withholds a remedy, under the approach of Parratt," whereby the adequacy of a state law remedy bars a due process claim. The Seventh Circuit explicitly rejected its earlier holdings which required the state law elements of the tort to be satisfied, stating that "whatever scope malicious prosecution may have as a constitutional tort after Albright, it does not depend on state law in this way." It had no occasion to consider which common law tort elements of malicious prosecution it would incorporate. Finally, it recognized that Newsome had stated a due process claim "if the prosecutors withheld material exculpatory details."
can be a shorthand way of describing a kind of legitimate section 1983 claim: the kind of claim where the plaintiff, as part of the commencement of a criminal proceeding, has been unlawfully and forcibly restrained in violation of the Fourth Amendment and injuries, due to that seizure, follow as the prosecution goes ahead.
85 F.3d 581, 584 (11th Cir. 1996).
The court then concluded that "[i]n determining when a section 1983 claim accrues (as well as the elements which must be pled to state a claim) we must seek help from the common law tort which is most analogous to the claim in the case before us." In situations where the alleged seizure was pursuant to legal process the tort of malicious prosecution is most analogous, and so the court incorporated the favorable termination element whereby the claim does not accrue until the prosecution ends in the plaintiff's favor. In addition, the court noted that under analogous malicious prosecution principles, injuries caused by the unlawful seizure may include those associated with the prosecution.
Id. at 586 n. 10 (noting that there may be causation problems if an independent prosecutor's actions broke the causal link between the defendant officer's behavior and the plaintiff's injury).
Petitioner's claim before this Court is a very limited one. He claims that the action of respondents infringed his substantive due process right to be free of prosecution without probable cause. He does not claim that Illinois denied him the procedural due process guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. Nor does he claim a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights, notwithstanding the fact that his surrender to the State's show of authority constituted a seizure for purposes of the Fourth Amendment.
One matter should here be put to rest. Under the unique circumstances of this case, we apply an abuse of discretion standard, rather than plain error. We ask "whether the court's charge, as a whole, is a correct statement of the law and whether it clearly instructs jurors as to the principles of the law applicable to the factual issues confronting them." It is true that defendants did not object to the jury charge beyond urging their earlier motions for judgment as a matter of law. It is equally true that defendants did object to allowing the jury to consider wrongful conviction as a claim under the Fourth or Fourteenth Amendment, making their legal position clear to the magistrate judge both by their motions for judgment as a matter of law, as well as by explicit renewal of those motions at the charge conference in response to the judge's invitation to lodge any objections to the proposed charge. Moreover, defendants appeal from the district court's denial of judgment as a matter of law, and its rejection of the contention that the Fourth Amendment would not support claims arising from the trial.
We iterate our longstanding view that failure to object to a jury charge ordinarily limits review to plain error. See, e.g., Tompkins v. Cyr, 202 F.3d 770, 783 (5th Cir. 2000); Highlands Ins. Co. v. Nat'l Union Fire Ins. Co., 27 F.3d 1027, 1032 (5th Cir. 1994); Farrar v. Cain, 756 F.2d 1148, 1150 (5th Cir. 1985). Rule 51 states that "[n]o party may assign as error the giving or the failure to give an instruction unless that party objects thereto before the jury retires to consider its verdict, stating distinctly the matter objected to and the grounds of the objection." "The purpose of this rule is to allow the trial court to correct any error before the jury begins its deliberation." Farrar, 756 F.2d at 1150. Nevertheless, given the unusual procedural history of this case, that the jury was charged contrary to the law of the case, and the fact that the nature of the defendants' continued objections to submitting the case to the jury went to the heart of this error, an abuse of discretion standard is appropriate.
This instruction is a direct quotation from a decision of the Texas Supreme Court stating the elements of a claim of malicious prosecution under state law. It is a vivid example of the hazards of blending state tort law with federal law in an undifferentiated way. The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution cannot be circumscribed by state tort law, yet this is the practical effect of this instruction, in that if Fragozo were acting under color of state law in providing the false information, there would be no probable cause. It neatly excised Castellano's claim that the falsity of the tapes and testimony furnished by Sanchez and Fragozo was attributed to the prosecutors because Fragozo acted under color of state law and hence denied Castellano due process, just as the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had concluded in vacating his conviction. Locating the state elements of malicious prosecution under the Fourth Amendment did not remove the trial events from the case; at the same time, it fell short of putting the Fourteenth Amendment back in because it limited the jury's use of evidence of fabricated evidence and perjured testimony to its resolution of the issues of malice and causation. The instruction also assumed that initiating a criminal case without probable cause denies a constitutional right, contrary to Albright, and that defendants' testimony at trial could supply the causal nexus between the Fourth Amendment and the claim of wrongful conviction.
See Richey v. Brookshire Grocery Co., 952 S.W.2d 515, 519 (Tex. 1997).
Ex parte Castellano, 863 S.W.2d 476, 485 (Tex.Crim.App. 1993) ("Fragozo acted under color of law and was, therefore, a member of the prosecution team in the investigation of the instant case and as such his knowledge of the perjured testimony was imputable to the prosecution."). Castellano went to trial on his Third Amended Complaint. There he continued his allegations that Ed Sargologos, the district attorney who prosecuted the case and who was earlier dismissed from the case on immunity grounds, knowingly used the manufactured and perjured testimony and withheld that fact from the defendant.
We cannot agree that the claims under the Fourteenth Amendment were properly dismissed because there was no deprivation of due process that can support a claim for damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. This view rests on two arguments. First, that the specific constitutional rights guiding a criminal trial spend their force in assuring a fair trial, and, in its most primitive form, that they cannot support an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Second, that a state remedy in tort to compensate for the injury is an adequate post-deprivation response and hence there was no denial by the state of the process secured by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Turning first to the very role of § 1983 in enforcing constitutional rights, the Supreme Court has made clear that Congress created a species of tort liability with § 1983. As the court observed in Carey v. Piphus:
[O]ver the centuries the common law of torts has developed a set of rules to implement the principle that a person should be compensated fairly for injuries caused by the violation of his legal rights. These rules, defining the elements of damages and the prerequisite for their recovery, provide the appropriate starting point for the inquiry under § 1983 as well.
435 U.S. 247, 257-58, 98 S.Ct. 1042, 55 L.Ed.2d 252 (1978).
The substantial body of law developing the immunity to liability of various players in criminal trials rests on the implicit acceptance of the draw of § 1983 upon principles of tort law to compensate for injury suffered in the loss of constitutional rights. We find no reasoned basis for concluding that § 1983 is never available to remedy injuries wrought by a denial of due process. The countervailing interests of law enforcement have been weighed in the judicial development of the immunity doctrine, not in somehow sidestepping the congressional command of § 1983.
Nor is there a serious suggestion that the Parratt doctrine is applicable to Castellano's claim that the manufacturing of evidence and use of perjured testimony at trial leading to his wrongful conviction denied him due process. Albright, in forbidding the deployment of substantive due process to police state actors' conduct that was governed directly by particular constitutional provisions, makes no such suggestion.
Before trial defendants even urged that Fourth Amendment claims should be dismissed because there was an adequate state remedy.
In his concurring opinion in Albright, Justice Kennedy, joined by Justice Thomas, made clear that in his view Albright's due process claim concerned only the "malicious initiation of a baseless criminal prosecution," rather than an unlawful arrest or events at trial leading to a wrongful conviction, since there was no trial. He noted that the Due Process Clause protects interests "other than the interest in freedom from physical restraint," and assumed arguendo that "some of the interests granted historical protection by the common law of torts (such as the interests in freedom from defamation and malicious prosecution) are protected by the Due Process Clause." However, he also noted that even if malicious initiation of charges was protected by the Due Process Clause, such a claim would be barred: "[O]ur precedents make clear that a state actor's random and unauthorized deprivation of that interest cannot be challenged under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 so long as the State provides an adequate postdeprivation remedy."
differs in kind from In re Winship, and the other criminal cases where we have recognized due process requirements not specified in the Bill of Rights. The constitutional requirements we enforced in those cases ensured fundamental fairness in the determination of guilt at trial. See, e.g., Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U.S. 103, 112, 55 S.Ct. 340, 341, 79 L.Ed. 791 (1935) (due process prohibits "deliberate deception of court and jury" by prosecution's knowing use of perjured testimony).
courts, including our own, have been cautious in invoking the rule of Parratt. That hesitancy is in part a recognition of the important role federal courts have assumed in elaborating vital constitutional guarantees against arbitrary or oppressive state action. We want to leave an avenue open for recourse where we think the federal power ought to be vindicated,
a reservation also expressed in Monroe v. Pape's reading of § 1983 as supplementary to state remedies for constitutional injury. This caution also finds expression in Justice Kennedy's statement that a claim of malicious initiation of criminal proceedings "differs in kind" from claims that implicate "fundamental fairness in the determination of guilt at trial" — claims in which the federal power ought to be vindicated. The concurring opinion of Justice Kennedy, joined by Justice Thomas, expresses the view that Parratt can brake the spinning of new constitutional strictures upon the trial of criminal cases from a blend of state tort law and substantive due process, a principle running through Albright.
365 U.S. 167, 81 S.Ct. 473, 5 L.Ed.2d 492 (1961).
We need not agree with the Seventh Circuit's statement that Justice Kennedy's concurring opinion is the holding of Albright to agree that there are fundamental rights, albeit few in number, secured by due process that differ in kind from those at issue in Albright and which are beyond the reach of Parratt. Justice Stevens made the point as well, observing, "[e]ven if prescribed procedures are followed meticulously, a criminal prosecution based on perjured testimony . . . simply does not comport with the requirements of the Due Process Clause." This is no more than the line drawn by the Parratt line of cases and the handful of cases decrying conduct so destructive of a fair trial that it cannot be justified by procedures. As Chief Justice Rehnquist put it in Daniels, the Due Process Clause protects against arbitrary acts of government by promoting fairness in procedure and "by barring certain government actions regardless of the fairness of the procedures used to implement them."
As we have indicated, we find the reasoning employed in dismissing Castellano's due process claims flawed. Castellano's contention that the manufacturing of evidence and knowing use of perjured testimony attributable to the state is a violation of due process is correct. Nevertheless, on remand Castellano will face the well-established rule that prosecutors and witnesses, including police officers, have absolute immunity for their testimony at trial. Courts have also held that non-testimonial pretrial actions, such as the fabrication of evidence, are not within the scope of absolute immunity because they are not part of the trial. Thus, while Castellano's due process claims are not properly rejected by the principles of Albright and Parratt, whether they survive the absolute immunity given witnesses in a criminal trial or whether the fabrication of the tapes could have been a legally sufficient cause of the wrongful conviction, we leave to the district court on remand.
See Buckley, 509 U.S. at 275-76, 113 S.Ct. 2606. Defendants cannot shield any pretrial investigative work with the aegis of absolute immunity merely because they later offered the fabricated evidence or testified at trial. Id. at 276, 113 S.Ct. 2606; Spurlock v. Satterfield, 167 F.3d 995, 1003-04 (6th Cir. 1999) (finding "untenable" the result that officials who fabricate evidence could later shield themselves from liability simply by presenting false testimony regarding the evidence).
In her concurring opinion in Albright, Justice Ginsburg articulated a theory that gave a broad reach to seizure under the Fourth Amendment — suggesting that various constraints such as travel restrictions and required attendance at pretrial hearings might constitute a seizure and thereby extend the Amendment's reach toward trial. This view did not attract support in Albright and we need not here further define its limits. Rather, we adhere to the view that the umbrella of the Fourth Amendment, broad and powerful as it is, casts its protection solely over the pretrial events of a prosecution. This much is implicit in Albright's insistence that the source of constitutional protection is the particular amendment offering an explicit and extended source of protection against a particular sort of government behavior.
We have no occasion here to consider afresh the federal common law footing of our insistence that a state criminal proceeding terminate in favor of a federal plaintiff complaining of constitutional deprivations suffered in a state court prosecution, a rule reflecting powerful governmental interests in finality of judgments. Nor do we face the kindred exercise in deciding when such a claim accrues under applicable limitations periods. Justice Scalia's opinion in Heck v. Humphrey answers any question of limitations in the overwhelming percentage of cases, including this case. It concludes that no such claim accrues until the conviction has been set aside where, as here, the suit calls the validity of the conviction into play.
The heart of Castellano's claim is that the prosecution obtained his arrest and conviction by use of manufactured evidence and perjured testimony, actions attributable to it because Fragozo acted under color of state law. Castellano's proof directly implicated the validity of his conviction and therefore he could not proceed and limitations could not accrue consistent with the principles of Heck until the case was dismissed for insufficient evidence by the state trial court on December 29, 1993, on remand from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. This suit followed nine months later. Although the parties sparred in the trial court over the general applicable period of limitations and the specific effect of an amended pleading, the parties make no contention here that the trial court's holding that the federal claims were not barred by limitations was in error in either respect.
It is suggested that Castellano should not be able to pursue any claims under the Fourteenth Amendment in that the magistrate judge dismissed them before trial and Castellano filed no cross-appeal. It is settled that an appellee may urge any ground available in support of a judgment even if that ground was earlier and erroneously rejected by the trial court. Castellano has attempted to salvage his verdict, as put at oral argument, on the basis that, contrary to the ruling of the magistrate judge, he did state a due process claim and it in practical effect was before the jury. While we have rejected this contention, it is quite plain that to make it requires no cross-appeal. Castellano does not attempt to expand his rights under the judgment by urging that it can be sustained under the Fourteenth Amendment despite the ruling of the trial court.
In particular, the majority purports to allow Castellano to retry state law claims against the two remaining appellants. This is wrong for two reasons. As Judge Barksdale notes, Castellano did not appeal from the magistrate judge order consolidating his state law malicious prosecution claim into a § 1983 claim. Moreover, Castellano has clearly disavowed a state law claim as recently as in his response to the petition for rehearing en banc. The disavowal turns on quirks of state law rather than on this court's constitutional about-face. The majority opinion continues a troublesome trend in this court's recent en banc decisions of deviating from normal standards of appellate practice. See, e.g., United States v. Southland Mgmt. Corp., 326 F.3d 669 (5th Cir. 2003) (en banc) (Jones, J., concurring); Coggin v. Longview Indep. Sch. Dist., 337 F.3d 459 (5th Cir. 2003) (en banc) (Jones, J., dissenting). I dissent from this apparently unnecessary remand.
A judgment or settlement of a Texas Tort Claims Act case involving a government employer bars the continuation of an action or judgment against an employee of that department "whose act or omission gave rise to the claim." TEXAS CIVIL PRACTICE REMEDIES CODE § 101.106; Thomas v. Oldham, 895 S.W.2d 352, 355-57 (Tex. 1995); see also Owens v. Medrano, 915 S.W.2d 214 (Tex.App.-Corpus Christi 1996, writ den'd.) (judgment against City of San Benito on claims including one for malicious prosecution bars suit against its police officers on same claim); Brand v. Savage, 920 S.W.2d 672, 674-75 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 1995).
I also dissent from allowing Castellano on remand to try a Fourth Amendment claim properly limited, in events and damages, to pretrial events. He never sought such limited relief in the trial court. Awarding it here is, as Judge Barksdale says, impermissibly lawyering the case for Castellano.
On the other hand, I cannot agree with Judge Barksdale's argument that Castellano waived any possible constitutional claim by his trial court pleadings. At every step of the litigation, he conscientiously attempted to conform to this court's decisions and to accomplish the ultimately impossible task of harmonizing our case law with that of the Supreme Court. Because this court changed the game technically on Castellano, he should be allowed to retry his claim as one for violation of procedural due process based on the appellants' fabrication of evidence against him. Judge Barksdale also powerfully argues that because Texas law affords Castellano an adequate state remedy in a malicious prosecution claim, the Parratt doctrine withholds a constitutional remedy. While this position may prove correct, we have no post- Parratt guidance on it from the Supreme Court, and several courts have allowed claims like Castellano's to proceed without mention of Parratt. See, e.g., Newsome v. McCabe, 256 F.3d 747 (7th Cir. 2001); Jean v. Collins, 221 F.3d 656 (4th Cir. 2000) (en banc); Brady v. Dill, 187 F.3d 104, 114 (1st Cir. 1999); McMillian v. Johnson, 88 F.3d 1554, 1566-70, on reh., 101 F.3d 1363 (11th Cir. 1996); Taylor v. Waters, 81 F.3d 429, 436 n. 5 (4th Cir. 1996); Jones v. City of Chicago, 856 F.2d 985, 992 (7th Cir. 1988); Geter v. Fortenberry, 849 F.2d 1550, 1559 (5th Cir. 1988). For now, I would side with the other appellate courts and concur in this portion of the majority's remand.
Whether this claim will survive a defense based on the appellants' absolute witness immunity has not been briefed and remains open on remand.
The starting point for the new § 1983 claim's being erroneous is the maxim "Ubi jus, ibi remedium" — "Where there is a right, there is a remedy". See, e.g., Texas P.Ry. Co. v. Rigsby, 241 U.S. 33, 40, 36 S.Ct. 482, 60 L.Ed. 874 (1916). Our federal system counterpoint is: "Where there is a right, there may not be a federal law remedy". Restated, it may be that the remedy must be through state law. This reflects, among other things, the limited powers granted by our federal constitution, the concomitant limited role of federal courts, and the proper balance between state and federal law.
This case was tried on Castellano's now proscribed § 1983 malicious prosecution claim; a quite substantial jury verdict resulted. But, as noted, that verdict was against only two individuals. When they appealed, Castellano did not cross-appeal any of his numerous dismissed claims ( i.e., § 1983 claims concerning the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments); or the consolidation of his Fourth Amendment claim with his state law malicious prosecution claim; or the dismissal of the other defendants, such as the city. Accordingly, the only issue on appeal — including before our en banc court — was the jury's malicious prosecution verdict against Sanchez (Castellano's former employee) and Fragozo (the policeman who had worked for Castellano as a part time security guard and was linked to Sanchez).
When those two defendants appealed, Castellano elected not to raise by cross-appeal ( or otherwise) the dismissal of any of these claims, including his Fourteenth Amendment due process claim (again, he had abandoned his First Amendment claim). In general, even without filing a cross-appeal, an appellee can still present an issue on appeal that does not seek to modify the judgment; in other words, he must cross-appeal only when he seeks to alter it. E.g., Kelly v. Foti, 77 F.3d 819, 822 (5th Cir. 1996). But, obviously, even if a cross-appeal is not required to present an issue, the appellee must still present it on appeal if he wants it considered. E.g., United States v. Hill, 42 F.3d 914, 917 n. 8 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 843, 116 S.Ct. 130, 133 L.Ed.2d 79 (1995). Castellano did neither.
Assuming arguendo that, on appeal, Castellano did properly present a due process claim, it is barred by the Parratt doctrine. Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 101 S.Ct. 1908, 68 L.Ed.2d 420 (1981), overruled in part by Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 106 S.Ct. 662, 88 L.Ed.2d 662 (1986), held: where state law provides an adequate post-deprivation remedy, the plaintiff is barred from claiming, through § 1983, a procedural due process violation. This prohibition, however, does not extend to claimed violations of recognized substantive rights incorporated in the Fourteenth Amendment. E.g., Augustine v. Doe, 740 F.2d 322 (5th Cir. 1984) (holding Parratt inapplicable to claimed violation of recognized Fourth Amendment substantive right, but remanding another claim to determine whether state actors' conduct was "official policy", or instead "random and unauthorized" and therefore a procedural due process violation — a claim barred by Parratt). For this reason, understanding the distinction between procedural and substantive due process, and determining which claim Castellano pleaded in district court, is most essential. Unfortunately, the majority brushes this aside in its relentless effort to provide Castellano a remedy — any remedy — on remand.
In district court, Castellano pleaded a procedural, not substantive, due process violation. In his third amended complaint, he claimed that he was deprived of his right to due process and a fair trial because the defendant witnesses allegedly fabricated evidence and gave perjured testimony. Defendants were of the view that, post- Albright, a § 1983 claim for substantive due process was prohibited. Therefore, they contended in their summary judgment motions that Castellano had pleaded a proscribed substantive due process claim that should be dismissed.
Winship [ 397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970)] undoubtedly rejected the notion that all of the required incidents of a fundamentally fair trial were to be found in the provisions of the Bill of Rights; but it did so as a matter of procedural due process: "This notion [that the government must prove the elements of a criminal case beyond a reasonable doubt] — basic in our law and rightly one of the boasts of a free society — is a requirement and a safeguard of due process of law in the historic, procedural content of `due process.'" Similarly, other cases relied on by the dissent, including Mooney . . . [and] Brady . . . were accurately described in [ United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 96 S.Ct. 2392, 49 L.Ed.2d 342 (1976)] as "dealing with the defendant's right to a fair trial mandated by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution."
As noted, courts have permitted § 1983 recovery for recognized substantive violations, despite the availability of state law remedies. See, e.g., O'Quinn v. Manuel, 773 F.2d 605, 608 (5th Cir. 1985) (concluding the Parratt doctrine, while barring § 1983 claim for procedural due process, does not bar one for claimed violation of the "substantive eighth amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment") (emphasis added); Augustine, 740 F.2d at 327 (holding Parratt doctrine does not bar § 1983 claim for violation of the "substantive [ Fourth Amendment] right protected by the Constitution against infringement by state governments"). But I find no cases, and the majority cites none, where a court has recognized a substantive due process violation for a witness' evidence fabrication and perjury. And some circuits have interpreted Albright as precluding all § 1983 claims that are predicated on a no more specific constitutional violation than substantive notions of due process of law (but as allowing procedural due process or articulated constitutional provisions such as the Fourth Amendment). See, e.g., Merkle v. Upper Dublin School Dist., 211 F.3d 782, 791 (3d Cir. 2000).
In an apparent effort to side step the Parratt bar, the majority refers in its opinion only to "due process" (due process simpliciter?). See, e.g., Maj. Opn. at 952, 956, 957, and 958. But, to truly escape Parratt, the majority must mean substantive due process. The Parratt doctrine precludes simply blending procedural and substantive due process; instead, it requires identifying the precise nature of the claimed constitutional violation.
Relying almost exclusively on Justice Kennedy's Albright concurrence, the majority concludes that "the Parratt doctrine is [not] applicable to Castellano's claim that the manufacturing of evidence and use of perjured testimony at trial . . . denied him due process". Maj. Opn. at 958. The majority first claims that Justice Kennedy warned of the contra-indications of Parratt, noting that in some instances federal power ought to be vindicated, rather than rely on state law remedies. This is true; but that is only part of the equation. The majority then refers, by way of example, to Monroe's "reading of § 1983 as supplementary to state remedies for constitutional injury". Maj. Opn. at 957. Returning to Justice Kennedy, the majority states that this notion — of § 1983 claims supplementing state remedies — "finds expression in Justice Kennedy's statement that a claim of malicious initiation of criminal proceedings `differs in kind' from claims that implicate `fundamental fairness in the determination of guilt at trial'". Maj. Opn. at 957. The majority then determines that this latter type of claim is one "in which the federal power ought to be vindicated" and is therefore not barred by Parratt. Id.
Even assuming, arguendo, that Justice Kennedy's factual distinction is meant to imply that there are substantive due process rights in the fundamental fairness of a trial, he does not identify conduct sufficient to invoke them beyond a prosecutor's knowing use of perjury ( Mooney) and the requirement of proving elements of a criminal conviction beyond a reasonable doubt ( Winship). It is the majority that holds that a witness' evidence fabrication and perjury are sufficient to invoke it.
But the price of our ambivalence over the outer limits of Parratt has been its dilution. . . . The Parratt rule has been avoided by attaching a substantive rather than procedural label to due process claims (a distinction that if accepted in this context would render Parratt a dead letter) and by treating claims based on the Due Process Clause as claims based on some other constitutional provision.
Id. (emphasis added). There can be no more accurate description of Castellano's due process claim in district court. (Again, he does not present such a claim on appeal.)
As a final note, the very reason why, in state court, Castellano added federal law claims must not be overlooked. He did so through amended complaints in an apparent effort to avoid state law immunity. Justice Kennedy warned: "The commonsense teaching of Parratt is that some questions of property, contract, and tort law are best resolved by state legal systems without resort to the federal courts". Albright, 510 U.S. at 284, 114 S.Ct. 807 (Kennedy, J., concurring). He later notes that "[t]he Parratt principle respects the delicate balance between state and federal courts and comports with the design of § 1983. . . ." Id. Parratt makes very clear: "Although the state remedies may not provide the respondent with all the relief which may have been available if he could have proceeded under § 1983, that does not mean that the state remedies are not adequate to satisfy the requirements of due process". Parratt, 451 U.S. at 544, 101 S.Ct. 1908. In Parratt, there was "no contention that the procedures themselves [were] inadequate". Id. at 543, 101 S.Ct. 1908. Nor is there one here.
Accordingly, although I fully concur in our finally proscribing a claim under § 1983 for malicious prosecution, I must respectfully dissent from both the creation of the new § 1983 due process remedy and the remand of this action for yet another round of litigation. Instead, I would vacate and render for appellants. This is not an unfair result — far from it. It is the result for which Castellano, by his election on appeal, rolled the dice . . . and lost.