Opinion ID: 774782
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Partial Dissent

Text: 39 The partial dissent agrees that in order to support a deliberate-fabrication claim, Devereaux must show more than that an interviewer disbelieved an initial denial and continued with aggressive questioning. Kleinfeld, J., dissenting in part at 12226 (partial dissent). The partial dissent's analysis of the evidence, however, is inconsistent with that requirement. 40 As part of its case against Wood, the partial dissent describes deposition testimony from A.S.'s mental health counselor to the effect that A.S. had threatened, on numerous occasions, to accuse the counselor of abusing her. Id. at 12228-29. The partial dissent fails to acknowledge, however, that the deponent was asked whether A.S. appeared to be capable of carrying out such a threat, but that the answer to that question was not included in the deposition excerpt that was provided to the district court and to this court. Most importantly, there is no evidence that Wood was aware of any of this, or even that the deponent had ever told anyone, let alone Wood, about any of A.S.'s threats. For all we know, the deponent never took the threats seriously enough to think them worth reporting. 41 The partial dissent also states that in a later interview A.S. both accused another social worker of participating in the alleged orgies and admitted having made false accusations of rape. The partial dissent concludes that [a ] reasonable interviewer would have to be very wary indeed of accusations of sexual misconduct by this dangerous girl. Id. at 12229. The later interview in question was conducted by Devereaux's attorney and took place on June 26, 1995, nearly one year after Wood's allegedly improper interview of A.S., and approximately four months after Devereaux filed his complaint. The partial dissent fails to explain how A.S.'s statements in June 1995 should have made Wood aware in August 1994 of A.S.'s supposed dangerousness. 2 42 Apart from these unsupported or irrelevant allegations, the case against Wood comes to this: (1) A.S. initially did not accuse Devereaux, (2) she was subsequently left alone with Wood, and then, (3) after a lengthy interrogation by Wood and Perez, she accused Devereaux. The partial dissent notes that Devereaux, as the nonmoving party, is entitled to all reasonable inferences in his favor. It then concludes that a jury could infer that Wood knew the story was false.  Id. at 12229. 43 There are several problems with this line of reasoning. The first is that a jury would be authorized to draw such an inference any time an interviewer discounts an initial denial and continues with aggressive questioning that produces an accusation -indeed, that is all that the inference would be based on in this case. Were we to reverse the grant of summary judgment as to Wood, then, we would thereby eliminate completely any latitude that interviewers of child victims of suspected sexual abuse must have, because pressing on past an initial denial would always give rise to potential liability. This we cannot do. Errors of this kind -inferring deliberate fabrication from the fact that an investigator discounted a witness's statement and pressed on -also occur elsewhere in the partial dissent's analysis. See, e.g., id. at 12233 (permitting the jury to infer that Carrow . . . knew that Perez was making all the children lie from the fact that A.R. said to Perez you make all the children lie). 3 44 Second, as we explained, supra, Devereaux has never alleged that Wood or any other Defendant knew that he was innocent. His claim must therefore be based entirely on improper interviewing techniques, i.e., techniques that are inherently so coercive or abusive as to give rise to liability even if used in good faith. By repeatedly basing its arguments on inferences to guilty knowledge on the part of Defendants, see id. at 12229-30 (Wood); id. at 12232, 12234 (Carrow); id. at 12235 (Alexander), the partial dissent grounds its analysis upon factual allegations that Devereaux has never made. 4 45 Other, similar problems pervade the remainder of the partial dissent's analysis. For example, it discusses the interview in which Perez, with Carrow present, threatened A.R. with charges for false reporting. It concludes that a jury could draw inferences on this basis about Carrow's modus operandi, to the effect that she had probably used similarly coercive techniques in other interviews with other girls. Id. at 12233. The flaw in this reasoning is that there is no evidence that Carrow has ever used this coercive technique (i.e., the making of threats), or any other, on anyone, including A.R. All that the record shows is that on one occasion Carrow was present when someone else used threats -we do not even have any evidence that Carrow approved use of the technique. How this evidence shows that the use of threats and similarly coercive techniques was Carrow's modus operandi has been left unexplained. 46 The partial dissent's case against Alexander is that, having received medical evidence that C.M. might have been abused but not to the full extent that C.M. claimed, Alexander subsequently obtained reconfirmation of C.M.'s story, in part by truthfully informing C.M. that C.M.'s mother had told a similar story. Id. at 12235. 47 At the time of this incident, Alexander had reason to believe that C.M. had been abused (because her hymen was partially torn and she had made allegations of abuse), but Alexander also had reason to believe that C.M.'s story could not be true in its entirety (because the condition of C.M.'s hymen was not consistent with the full extent of the abuse she had alleged). Notwithstanding the partial dissent's conclusions to the contrary, truthfully informing a witness about another witness' corroboration is not such an inherently coercive or abusive technique that Alexander knew or should have known it would lead to false information -rather, Alexander could have reasonably believed that by taking C.M.'s side, so to speak, she could gain C.M.'s trust and persuade her to describe what sort of abuse had really taken place. This may or may not be the wisest approach to a witness whose story has already been falsified in part, but it cannot serve as the foundation for a deliberate-fabrication-of-evidence claim. 48 Devereaux has had ample opportunity to marshal his evidence and focus his arguments on Defendants, rather than on Perez. If the partial dissent's observation that therecord and briefs are not as clear as we might like becausethe case was focused on Detective Perez, id. at 12227, is meant to excuse Devereaux's failure to marshal the evidence against Defendants, we are unpersuaded. In the district court, Abbey, Alexander, Carrow, and Wood moved for summary judgment separately from Perez. Devereaux then filed a memorandum in opposition to their motion separately from his opposition to Perez's motion. Devereaux has repeatedly been put on notice that he must present and argue the evidence against Defendants. If his case was focused on Perez, it was only because the only evidence Devereaux had was against Perez, and he had none against Defendants. In that state of the record, it cannot be gainsaid that the district court correctly granted summary judgment in favor of Abbey, Alexander, Carrow, and Wood. 49 One final point merits emphasis: The partial dissent does not purport to present arguments that it finds in Devereaux's pleadings and briefs. Rather, it creates the factual allegations that Devereaux needs and then proceeds directly to the record, mining it for evidence to support the necessary allegations. We reject this approach for the simple reason that we are not Devereaux's attorneys. It is not the role of this court to manufacture arguments for an appellant. Greenwood, 28 F.3d at 977.