Opinion ID: 793983
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: malicious prosecution against clark and carroll

Text: 143 Plaintiff argues that the district court improperly dismissed Plaintiff's malicious prosecution claims against Carroll and Clark. Plaintiff alleges that both Clark and Carroll unlawfully continued Plaintiff's prosecution by creating false investigative notes and materially misleading the court at Plaintiff's preliminary hearing following his arrest for the assault on Ms. S. As we discussed supra, Part II.C in this opinion, we find that we must unpack Plaintiff's claim of malicious prosecution and look to the actual injury alleged in order to apply the correct legal analysis to Plaintiff's claims. 144 Plaintiff first alleges that Clark materially misled the court at Plaintiff's preliminary hearing and that Clark's reliance on the court's determination of probable cause was therefore unreasonable. If true, Plaintiff alleges a Fourth Amendment violation. Plaintiff next alleges that Clark and Carroll caused his detention to be continued absent probable cause through the creation of false investigative notes. Plaintiff implies that absent the notes' existence, probable cause for Plaintiff's continued detention would have dissolved. This is also an allegation of a Fourth Amendment violation. We therefore apply Fourth Amendment analysis to plaintiff's claims for continued detention without probable cause against Clark and Carroll. 145
146 Police officers cannot, in good faith, rely on a judicial determination of probable cause when that determination was premised on an officer's own material misrepresentations to the court. Yancey v. Carroll County, 876 F.2d 1238, 1243 (6th Cir.1989). Such reliance is unreasonable, and detention of an individual pursuant to such deceptive practices violates the Fourth Amendment. Hill v. McIntyre, 884 F.2d 271, 275 (6th Cir.1989). This Court has held investigators subject to suit under § 1983 for making materially false statements either knowingly or in reckless disregard for the truth to establish probable cause for an arrest. Id. With Fourth Amendment rights implicated by ongoing, pretrial detention, deliberate obfuscation or omission of material facts by an investigator at the preliminary hearing makes the investigator's subsequent reliance on the hearing's conclusions unreasonable. See Albright, 510 U.S. at 280, 114 S.Ct. 807 (Ginsburg, J., concurring). 147 To establish that Clark or Carroll acted in an objectively unreasonable fashion in continuing Plaintiff's detention, Plaintiff must present evidence that the officers (1) stated a deliberate falsehood or showed reckless disregard for the truth and (2) that the allegedly false or omitted information was material to the finding of probable cause. Hill, 884 F.2d at 275; see also Spurlock, 167 F.3d at 1006 ([A] reasonable police officer would be on notice that unlawfully detaining a suspect, despite the fact that the evidence used to detain the individual was fabricated, would also be unlawful.). 148 At a preliminary hearing on June 15, 2002, Clark testified on direct examination that Mrs. V had twice identified Plaintiff. On cross-examination, Clark revealed that Mrs. V had failed to pick Plaintiff out of a photopak, but did not reveal that Mrs. V actually picked another photo. When asked if the police had any evidence against Plaintiff other that Mrs. V's identification, Clark responded Not at this time. (J.A. at 1300.) When asked if Mrs. V had given a physical description of her assailant, Clark responded: That's correct and it fits [Plaintiff.] (J.A. at 1301.) When Plaintiff moved to dismiss for lack of probable cause, the judge denied the motion, but noted that because of the extremely minimal burden on the Commonwealth that I'm gonna have to find probable cause but I'll state for the record it's just barely. (J.A. at 1302.) 149 Plaintiff argues that had Clark revealed that Mrs. V indicated another picture from the array, the judge's determination of probable cause may have swung the other way. The facts show that Mrs. V identified someone other than Plaintiff out of the photopak when asked to choose a picture of someone most closely resembling her attacker. Whether this selection by Mrs. V should have been disclosed by Clark is a question of materiality, and materiality determinations are the province of the jury when reasonable minds could differ. Gaudin, 515 U.S. at 512, 115 S.Ct. 2310 (1995). Moreover, Clark stated on the stand that Mrs. V's description of her attacker fit Plaintiff, despite the fact that Mrs. V described her assailant as 5 feet 6 inches tall, with a stocky build and long, straight, oily or greasy hair while Plaintiff was actually 5 feet, 11½ inches tall and had kinky hair. A reasonable jury could infer that this conclusion by Clark was so contrary to the facts known to him at the time that this statement was a material misrepresentation to the court. 14 Further, because the court at the time of the hearing just barely found probable cause, a reasonable jury could conclude that without the fit testimony or with the additional exculpatory information that Mrs. V had chosen another picture from the photopak, the preliminary hearing judge would have failed to find probable cause. As such, a jury could conclude the Clark's reliance on the court's determination of probable cause was unreasonable. 150 Accordingly, the district court erred when it dismissed Plaintiff's malicious prosecution claim against Clark. Because Carroll did not testify at the preliminary hearing, and Plaintiff presents no evidence or argument that Clark's knowledge can be imputed to Carroll, the district court properly dismissed Plaintiff's claim against Carroll insofar as it goes to Carroll's actions and knowledge relating to Mrs. V's photopak identification. 151 Because we find that the district court improperly dismissed Plaintiff's § 1983 claim against Clark as premised on Clark's preliminary hearing testimony, we also address Clark's eligibility for qualified immunity against this claim. The district court did not reach the issue because it dismissed the claim on its underlying merits, but Clark addresses the issue in his brief to this Court ( see Defs. Final Third Br. 14-15), and Plaintiff appears to refer to immunity when he states that [n]o reasonable officer would have believed that probable cause existed to continue a prosecution against [Plaintiff] based on the `evidence' (Pl. Final Second Br. 59) in Plaintiff's argument on this issue. 152 Based upon the above analysis, Plaintiff has alleged a violation of a known constitutional right to be free of continued detention without probable cause. Plaintiff has presented evidence such that a jury could infer that Clark deliberately obfuscated the truth at the preliminary hearing and that such evidence is material. Hence, Plaintiff's continuing detention in reliance on the preliminary hearing findings would be unreasonable. This is a matter of fact for the jury.
153 We reach a different conclusion on the matter of the allegedly false investigative notes. Plaintiff argues that Clark and Carroll participated in his malicious prosecution by fabricating notes which falsely recorded that Plaintiff had independent knowledge of the items stolen from Mrs. V's apartment. We find here that Plaintiff has failed to establish a Fourth Amendment injury from the notes' existence and creation. The notes are inculpatory evidence only. There is no evidence that the notes were presented to the court at the preliminary hearing and contributed to the Court's determination of probable cause to hold Plaintiff over for trial. Neither does Plaintiff point to evidence that the notes influenced any decision to proceed to trial. Without some link between the allegedly false investigative notes and Plaintiff's continued detention, Plaintiff fails to state a viable cause of action separate and apart from his fabrication of evidence claims, which, as discussed supra, the district court properly held could proceed under a due process theory. 154 We note the distinction here between Plaintiff's viable continued detention claim against Katz as premised on Brady violations, and Plaintiff's failed continued detention claim against Clark and Carroll as premised on fabrication of the notes. We held, supra, that Plaintiff could pursue both his Brady violation claim and his continued detention claim against Katz because the shared factual premise there — the concealment of exculpatory information — resulted in both unlawful pretrial detention and an unfair trial. Here, the fabrication of inculpatory information has no pretrial detention effect in the absence of additional evidence that the fabrications influenced the initial or continued detention. Accordingly, we find that although Plaintiff may pursue a fabrication of evidence claim based on the allegedly false investigation notes, Plaintiff has failed to establish any link between the notes and any Fourth Amendment injury.
155 Because a jury could reasonably infer that Clark's reliance on the probable cause determination from the preliminary hearing was unreasonable in light of Clark's material misrepresentations to the court, we reverse the district court's grant of summary judgment to Clark on Plaintiff's claim for continued detention without probable cause. We also find that Clark is not entitled to qualified immunity as a matter of law against this same allegation. Because Carroll did not testify at the preliminary hearing, and Plaintiff presents no evidence that would impute Clark's knowledge to Carroll, we affirm the district court's dismissal of Plaintiff's § 1983 claims against Carroll insofar as they reach Carroll's actions and knowledge relating to Mrs. V's photopak identification. III