Court Opinion

ID: 9409824
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-19 17:01:23.817997+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:53.852858
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION                           FILED
                    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                        JUL 19 2023
                                                                      MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                       U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
                           FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

DAMEION DOUGLAS,                                No.    18-35563

                Plaintiff-Appellant,            D.C. No. 6:16-cv-00048-AA

 v.
                                                MEMORANDUM*
DONALD REESE, Multnomah County
Prosecutor; JOHN DOE, Multnomah County
Court Clerk; JOHN DOE,

                Defendants-Appellees.

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                            for the District of Oregon
                     Ann L. Aiken, District Judge, Presiding

                             Submitted July 17, 2023**
                             San Francisco, California

Before: HAWKINS, S.R. THOMAS, and McKEOWN, Circuit Judges.

      Dameion Douglas appeals pro se from the district court’s dismissal of claims

      *
             This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
      **
             The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Douglas alleges that prosecutor Donald Rees1 and two

unnamed Multnomah County officials violated his First, Fourth, and Fourteenth

Amendment rights during postconviction litigation in state court. In particular,

Douglas challenges the defendants’ failure to provide chain-of-custody records

beyond 2002 for a ski cap that was submitted as evidence at his criminal trial in

2000. The district court granted defendants’ Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for

failure to state a claim. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we review

de novo. Redlin v. United States, 921 F.3d 1133, 1138 (9th Cir. 2019). We affirm.

      The district court interpreted the “crux” of Douglas’s request for the chain-of-

custody records to be his contention that the prosecution nefariously altered his cap

to look like a mask during his criminal proceedings. Although Douglas asserted that

his only ambition in this phase of postconviction litigation is access to the records,

the district court reasoned that an underlying Brady claim of evidence suppression

would be Douglas’s only cognizable route to relief. See Brady v. Maryland, 373

U.S. 83, 87 (1963) (holding that prosecutorial suppression of material evidence

favorable to a criminal defendant violates due process).        However, the court

concluded, because Douglas’s success on a Brady claim “would necessarily imply

the invalidity of his conviction,” the Heck doctrine requires dismissal of his

1
      Although defendant is identified as “Donald Reese” in the complaint and
case caption, we acknowledge that defendant’s name is properly spelled “Donald
Rees.”

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complaint. See Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 487 (1994).

      On appeal, Douglas seeks to circumvent Heck. Douglas again stresses that he

solely seeks access to chain-of-custody information, which, he notes, may prove

immaterial to his conviction. Acknowledging that his claim is a misfit with Brady,

Douglas leans on the argument that he has a right to postconviction access to

evidence pursuant to the Supreme Court’s decisions in District Attorney’s Office for

Third Judicial District v. Osborne, 557 U.S. 52 (2009) and Skinner v. Switzer, 562

U.S. 521 (2011).

      But, as the district court explained, this argument is unavailing. The Court in

Osborne made clear that there is no Brady-analogue for postconviction relief:

“nothing in our precedents suggest[s] that this disclosure obligation continue[s] after

the defendant was convicted and the case was closed.” 557 U.S. at 68. While the

Court in Skinner concluded that a plaintiff could seek postconviction DNA testing

of crime-scene evidence in a Section 1983 action, it was careful to cabin the holding

to the state statutes governing DNA testing—a distinctive and developing

evidentiary tool. See 562 U.S. at 529, 535–36. Although there may be a distinction

between Douglas’s “immediate plea” and his “ultimate aim,” see Skinner, 562 U.S.

at 535, Douglas has failed to identify a freestanding constitutional right that would

obligate production of chain-of-custody records detailing the cap’s location in years

after criminal proceedings had concluded.

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      Moreover, as the Court in Osborne stipulated, “[f]ederal courts may upset a

State’s postconviction relief procedures only if they are fundamentally inadequate

to vindicate the substantive rights provided.” 557 U.S. at 69. Douglas makes no

such contention. Because Douglas has not shown or even suggested that Oregon’s

postconviction procedures are fundamentally unfair, he cannot avail himself of this

avenue for relief.

      AFFIRMED.

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