Opinion ID: 795902
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Criminal Investigation Division Detectives

Text: 52 The Amended Complaint alleges that the CID Detectives also engaged in conduct that violated Yarris's rights under the Fourth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. 7 The CID Detectives moved to dismiss each of Yarris's claims against them on the basis of qualified immunity. 53 Qualified immunity shields state officials from suit when their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known. Harlow, 457 U.S. at 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727. Courts must undertake a two-step inquiry to determine whether a state official is entitled to qualified immunity. First, the court must determine whether the facts alleged show that the defendant's conduct violated a constitutional or statutory right. See Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001). If so, the court must then determine whether the constitutional or statutory right allegedly violated by the defendant was clearly established at the time the violation occurred. See id. If the court concludes that the defendant's conduct violated a clearly established constitutional or statutory right, it must deny the defendant the protection afforded by qualified immunity. See id.; see also Williams v. Bitner, 455 F.3d 186, 190-91 (3d Cir.2006). 54 In denying the motion to dismiss the claims against the CID Detectives, the District Court stated the following: 55 Yarris claims the Criminal Investigator Defendants, Martin, Pfeifer and Siti intentionally destroyed evidence by retaining exculpatory DNA evidence in a paper bag under a desk, used impermissible interrogation techniques and coercion to obtain false statements, inflicted serious physical injuries and prosecuted Yarris without probable cause after they determined the killer's gloves would not fit him. If Yarris's claims are true, the Defendants knew their conduct violated Yarris's constitutional rights and they are not entitled to qualified immunity. 56 Yarris, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4131, at . On appeal, the CID Detectives argue that the constitutional rights they allegedly violated were not clearly established at the time of their conduct. (Appellants' Reply Br. at 13.) 57 The Amended Complaint alleges that the CID Detectives violated Yarris's Fourteenth Amendment rights when they refused to turn over exculpatory evidence. In Brady v. Maryland, the Supreme Court held that the suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused upon request violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment, irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of the prosecution. 373 U.S. 83, 87, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963). However, the Brady duty to disclose exculpatory evidence to the defendant applies only to a prosecutor. Gibson v. Superintendent of N.J. Dep't of Law & Public Safety-Div. of State Police, 411 F.3d 427, 442 (3d Cir.2005). Nonetheless, police officers and other state actors may be liable under § 1983 for failing to disclose exculpatory information to the prosecutor. Id. at 443; see also McMillian v. Johnson, 88 F.3d 1554, 1567 (11th Cir. 1996) (Investigators satisfy their obligations under Brady when they turn exculpatory and impeachment evidence over to the prosecutors.); Walker v. City of New York, 974 F.2d 293, 299 (2d Cir.1992) ([T]he police satisfy their obligations under Brady when they turn exculpatory evidence over to the prosecutors.). 58 The CID Detectives argue that they are entitled to qualified immunity from Yarris's claim that they failed to turn the gloves recovered from the crime scene over to the ADAs prior to trial. We agree. According to the Amended Complaint, before presenting to the jury a photograph depicting a pair of men's gloves inside the victim's vehicle, [t]he prosecution had already determined . . . after assessing the size of Yarris' hands, that the gloves would not have fit his hands. (Am.Compl.¶ 56.) Thus, Yarris's own allegations indicate that the CID Detectives had complied with their disclosure duties by giving the gloves to the ADAs prior to trial. Accordingly, the Amended Complaint does not allege a constitutional violation with respect to the pre-trial disclosure of the gloves and, therefore, the CID Detectives are entitled to qualified immunity from this claim. 59 The CID Detectives also argue that they are entitled to qualified immunity from Yarris's claim that they mishandled and failed to preserve evidence that could be used for DNA testing. The Supreme Court's decision in Arizona v. Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51, 109 S.Ct. 333, 102 L.Ed.2d 281 (1988), establishes the standard for determining whether law enforcement officials have infringed on a defendant's due process rights by failing to preserve evidentiary material of which no more can be said than that it could have been subjected to tests, the results of which might have exonerated the defendant. Id. at 57, 109 S.Ct. 333. The Youngblood Court held that unless a criminal defendant can show bad faith on the part of the police, failure to preserve potentially useful evidence does not constitute a denial of due process of law. 488 U.S. at 58, 109 S.Ct. 333. The presence or absence of bad faith by the police for purposes of the Due Process Clause must necessarily turn on the police's knowledge of the exculpatory value of the evidence at the time it was lost or destroyed. Id. at 57 n. , 109 S.Ct. 333. 60 At the outset, we note that Youngblood addresses law enforcement officials' constitutional duty to preserve evidence prior to conviction, whereas Yarris's claim is based on the CID Detectives' post-conviction conduct. We nonetheless believe that the Supreme Court's application of the Due Process Clause in Youngblood guides our analysis here. However, the Youngblood decision did not indicate that it was limited to its temporal context, as it sought to govern applicability of the Due Process Clause in what might loosely be called the area of constitutionally guaranteed access to evidence and resolve the violation it described broadly as the failure of the State to preserve evidentiary material. 488 U.S. at 55, 57, 109 S.Ct. 333. We agree with the reasoning of Judge King of the Fourth Circuit in his concurring opinion in Harvey v. Horan, in which he discussed prisoners' post-conviction due process rights: 61 In essence, the concept of due process requires that the government treat its citizens in an evenhanded and neutral manner; thus the targeting of specific individuals with the purpose of frustrating the exercise of their lawful rights contradicts the basic premise of the constitutional guarantee. 62 Thus, given that prisoners possess a right of effective access to the court system, a governmental decision to deny access to evidence with the intent—and with the effect—of preventing a prisoner from exercising his right of effective access to the court system would violate due process. To permit a state official to target a particular prisoner and to deliberately frustrate that prisoner's ability to take advantage of post-conviction legal options contravenes the essence of fair and impartial procedural justice. 63 278 F.3d 370, 387 (4th Cir.2002) (internal citations omitted) (King, J., concurring in part). 64 The CID Detectives contend that their alleged mishandling of DNA samples does not amount to a constitutional violation because they could not have acted in bad faith insofar as DNA testing was still in its infancy at the time of the alleged violation. We disagree. To establish bad faith, Yarris must allege only that the CID Detectives knew of the exculpatory value of the evidence at the time it was . . . destroyed. Youngblood, 488 U.S. at 57 n. , 109 S.Ct. 333. According to the Amended Complaint, CID Detective Pfeifer and another detective refused to relinquish custody of the evidence, kept the evidence in a paper bag, in a non-controlled environment, under a detective's desk, where it was allowed to rot and to be destroyed as useful evidence. (Am.Compl.¶ 70.) These allegations indicate that the CID Detectives consciously acted to frustrate Yarris's request for DNA testing; therefore, the Amended Complaint's allegations concerning the CID Detectives' conduct satisfy Youngblood's bad faith requirement. See id. at 58, 109 S.Ct. 333 (explaining that due process is violated when the police themselves by their conduct indicate that the evidence could form a basis for exonerating the defendant). 65 Furthermore, we find that the due process right at issue here was clearly established at the time of the alleged violation. The Supreme Court decided Youngblood on November 29, 1988. Although the Amended Complaint does not indicate precisely when the evidence was hidden under a desk and allowed to rot, the sequence of the allegations suggests that the conduct occurred between some time in 1988 and November of 1989. ( See Am. Compl. ¶¶ 68-72.) Thus, accepting Yarris's allegations as true and drawing all reasonable inferences in his favor, we conclude that even though DNA testing may have been less common at the time of the alleged mishandling of evidence, the CID Detectives were given fair warning that their conduct was unconstitutional. 8 Accordingly, the CID Detectives are not entitled to qualified immunity from this claim at this stage of the proceedings. 66 Yarris also alleges that the CID Detectives violated his constitutional rights by using trickery or deceit to obtain false evidence against him. As noted, the introduction in evidence of the allegedly false testimony was the work of prosecutors — not the CID Detectives—and is covered by absolute prosecutorial immunity. Michaels v. New Jersey, 222 F.3d 118, 121-22 (3d Cir.2000). We perceive no support — and Yarris has identified no support—for the proposition that the use of impermissible interrogation techniques in securing statements prior to their use in court constituted an independent violation of Yarris's constitutional rights. See Chavez v. Martinez, 538 U.S. 760, 123 S.Ct. 1994, 155 L.Ed.2d 984 (2003); Michaels v. New Jersey, 222 F.3d 118 (3d Cir.2000); Buckley v. Fitzsimmons, 20 F.3d 789 (7th Cir.1994). In the absence of such a violation, the CID Detectives are entitled to qualified immunity with respect to these claims.