Opinion ID: 780724
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Alleged Cover-Up and Mishandling of Smith's Corpse

Text: 40 Cover-ups that prevent a person who has been wronged from vindicating his rights violate the right of access to the courts protected by the substantive due process clause. Swekel v. City of River Rouge, 119 F.3d 1259, 1261-64 (6th Cir.1997); Bell v. City of Milwaukee, 746 F.2d 1205, 1253-58 (7th Cir.1984); Ryland v. Shapiro, 708 F.2d 967, 975 (5th Cir.1983); see also Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 579, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 2986, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974) (The right of access to the courts... is founded in the Due Process Clause and assures that no person will be denied the opportunity to present to the judiciary allegations concerning violations of fundamental constitutional rights.). [I]f state officials wrongfully and intentionally conceal information crucial to a person's ability to obtain redress through the courts, and do so for the purpose of frustrating that right, and that concealment and the delay engendered by it substantially reduce the likelihood of one's obtaining the relief to which one is otherwise entitled, they may have committed a constitutional violation. Swekel, 119 F.3d at 1262-63 (citing Ryland, 708 F.2d at 969-70). 41 Notwithstanding the broad formulation of the principle that a state officer's cover-up may create constitutional liability, in practice the courts have been cautious in allowing liability to be imposed on that basis. Thus, a plaintiff typically cannot recover for any cover-ups or discovery abuses after an action has been filed inasmuch as the trial court can deal with such situations in the ongoing action. In fact, if alleged cover-ups in the course of litigation are regarded as actionable under section 1983 it is foreseeable that an initial civil rights action, or indeed any action against a state or local government or its officers, will be only the first in a series of such cases. Thus, only prefiling conduct that either prevents a plaintiff from filing suit or renders the plaintiff's access to the court ineffective or meaningless constitutes a constitutional violation. Id. at 1261-64; see also Foster v. City of Lake Jackson, 28 F.3d 425, 430 (5th Cir.1994) (suggesting that the right of access to the courts encompasses a right to file an action, but not the right to proceed free of discovery abuses after filing). 42 The Smiths point out that the police refused to return Smith's answering machine tapes after they dropped the charges against him and that when they returned the tapes they did not contain any of the officers' voices, despite the fact that police records show that officers left numerous messages during the incident. They suggest that the defendants either have withheld tapes containing their voices, or altered tapes to erase their voices. Furthermore, the Smiths point to a note in an internal police record referring to concerns about possible civil litigation to suggest that the defendants tampered with the tapes for the purpose of impeding the Smiths from pursuing their rights. App. at 561. Finally, the Smiths rely on the evidence summarized above suggesting that the police came into contact with Smith's body earlier than reported and that their refusal to use search dogs prevented a more definitive autopsy by allowing the body to decompose. 43 Even if the Smiths can prove that the defendants attempted to effectuate a cover-up, they have not made a showing that the defendants' efforts either prevented the Smiths from filing suit or rendered their access to the courts ineffective or meaningless. Nor have the Smiths provided support for their contention that a more complete autopsy could have revealed more helpful information than was obtained from the autopsy conducted which, when coupled with their expert testimony, supplied a basis for a jury to attribute Smith's death to defendants' conduct. Furthermore, the Smiths raised the issue of potentially altered tapes in the district court which thus was in a position to address their concerns. 44 In any event, the Smiths were able to bring this action and present substantial evidence of central importance to their case. As a result, even assuming that they have proffered sufficient evidence for a jury to conclude that there was a cover-up, the alleged conduct did not prevent them from filing suit or render their access to the courts ineffective or meaningless. Indeed, this very opinion demonstrates that the Smiths have been able to develop the facts in this case quite effectively. Overall, we are satisfied that neither their cover-up nor mishandling theories can support a substantive due process claim.