Wendell Griffin v. Baltimore Police Department

PUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 14-1494
WENDELL GRIFFIN,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
v.
BALTIMORE POLICE DEPARTMENT; JERRY LANDSMAN; DONALD KINCAID;
EDWARD BROWN,
Defendants - Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
Maryland, at Baltimore. J. Frederick Motz, Senior District
Judge. (1:13-cv-03387-JFM)
Argued: September 17, 2015 Decided: October 27, 2015
Before WILKINSON, AGEE, and HARRIS, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Wilkinson wrote the
opinion, in which Judge Agee and Judge Harris joined. Judge
Harris wrote a separate concurring opinion.
ARGUED: Charles N. Curlett, Jr., LEVIN & CURLETT LLC, Baltimore,
Maryland, for Appellant. Daniel C. Beck, BALTIMORE CITY LAW
DEPARTMENT, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Sarah
F. Lacey, LEVIN & CURLETT LLC, Baltimore, Maryland, for
Appellant. George A. Nilson, City Solicitor of Baltimore City,
Suzanne Sangree, Chief, Glenn Marrow, Deputy Chief, Police Legal
Affairs Division, BALTIMORE CITY LAW DEPARTMENT, Baltimore,
Maryland, for Appellees.
WILKINSON, Circuit Judge:
Plaintiff Wendell Griffin seeks damages for police and
prosecution withholding of evidence in violation of Brady v.
Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), during his 1982 murder trial. The
district court dismissed his case, holding it barred by Heck v.
Humphrey, which prohibits § 1983 claims for damages that would
“necessarily imply the invalidity” of a plaintiff’s prior
conviction. 512 U.S. 477, 487 (1994). For the reasons that
follow, we affirm.
I.
On March 8, 1982, Griffin was convicted by a jury in
Baltimore City Circuit Court for the April 22, 1981 murder of
James Williams Wise and also for a related weapons charge. He
was sentenced to life in prison. The Maryland Court of Special
Appeals affirmed Griffin’s convictions on April 4, 1983, and the
Maryland Court of Appeals denied Griffin’s petition for
certiorari on April 11, 1984.
Griffin filed a pro se petition for state post-conviction
relief, but it was withdrawn without prejudice on February 23,
1993. He then filed another petition, this one claiming that he
received ineffective assistance of counsel, on April 19, 1995.
The Baltimore City Circuit Court denied this petition on
December 13, 1996.
2
On October 31, 1997, over fifteen years after his
conviction, Griffin sought federal habeas relief in the United
States District Court for the District of Maryland. The petition
was denied on June 11, 1998, and this court declined to issue a
certificate of appealability. Griffin v. Sizer, 161 F.3d 2 (4th
Cir. 1998).
Over a decade later, on June 10, 2010, Griffin filed a pro
se petition seeking post-conviction DNA testing of certain
evidence pursuant to Md. Code, Crim. Proc. § 8-201. In response
to this petition, the court appointed Griffin counsel, who filed
a Maryland Public Information Act request seeking records from
the Baltimore City Police Department. These documents allegedly
revealed that Baltimore City Police Department detectives
withheld from the defense exculpatory evidence, including
exculpatory photo-arrays, exculpatory witness statements, proof
of a break in the chain of custody over keys found at the crime
scene, and evidence that tended to inculpate another person.
On August 4, 2011, the Baltimore City Circuit Court
conducted an evidentiary hearing to consider Griffin’s
arguments. It found that Maryland had conducted a reasonable
search for evidence secured in connection with Griffin’s case,
and it indicated that it would address the question of whether
any withholding of evidence was intentional at a later hearing.
3
On February 2, 2012, Griffin again moved for state post-
conviction relief. Then, on May 23, 2012, the Baltimore City
Circuit Court granted Griffin’s unopposed motion to modify his
sentence to time served. Griffin was placed on three years of
unsupervised probation, but the probation was terminated early
on December 19, 2012.
Griffin, no longer in custody, sued the Baltimore City
Police Department and three of its former detectives for damages
under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The United States District Court for the
District of Maryland, noting that Griffin had “ample opportunity
to seek federal review . . . prior to his release from
incarceration,” J.A. 108, dismissed his claims pursuant to the
bar set forth in Heck v. Humphrey. This appeal followed.
II.
We shall briefly review at the outset the principles
underlying Heck before proceeding to the core of Griffin’s
claim. In Heck, the Supreme Court identified two potential
problems lying at the intersection of the major statutory
schemes relevant to prisoner litigation: habeas corpus and
§ 1983. The first problem goes to consistency. If a § 1983
plaintiff could win damages premised on the wrongfulness of a
still-valid conviction, there would be “two conflicting
resolutions” of a single controversy. Heck, 512 U.S. at 484. All
4
things considered, it would be best not to have law at odds with
itself.
The second problem goes to the proper observance of
Congress’s specified means of federal post-conviction review.
Habeas corpus, and not § 1983, is the exclusive federal remedy
for state prisoners seeking actual release from confinement.
Preiser v. Rodriguez 411 U.S. 475, 487-90 (1973). Congress has
limited this remedy, moreover, by requiring habeas petitioners
to exhaust their claims in state forums and by limiting a
federal court’s ability to review a state court’s adjudication
of the merits of a claim. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254. If, however, a
§ 1983 plaintiff could win damages premised on a still-valid
conviction, then that plaintiff could circumvent these
limitations and mount “a collateral attack on [a] conviction
through the vehicle of a civil suit.” Heck, 512 U.S. at 484.
The Supreme Court attempted to forestall these two problems
by prohibiting § 1983 claims implicating issues more
appropriately resolved via federal habeas corpus or state post-
conviction relief. Specifically, the Court held that
to recover damages for . . . harm caused by actions
whose unlawfulness would render a conviction or
sentence invalid, a § 1983 plaintiff must prove that
the conviction or sentence has been reversed on direct
appeal, expunged by executive order, declared invalid
by a state tribunal authorized to make such
determination, or called into question by a federal
court’s issuance of a writ of habeas corpus, 28 U.S.C.
§ 2254.
5
Id. at 485. Through what has become known as the “favorable
termination requirement,” Nelson v. Campbell, 541 U.S. 637, 646-
47 (2004), the Court ensured that § 1983 litigation would not
result in inconsistent judgments or retrials of old state
convictions through pathways other than those delineated by
Congress.
Heck itself makes clear, however, that § 1983 actions that
do not “necessarily” imply the invalidity of a prior conviction
“should be allowed to proceed, in the absence of some other bar
to the suit.” Heck, 512 at 487. The need to avoid inconsistent
judgments and prevent litigants from evading the procedural
requirements of federal habeas corpus is not present when a
§ 1983 claim would not actually undermine a valid conviction. In
Skinner v. Switzer, for example, the Court held that Skinner’s
suit for DNA testing was cognizable under § 1983, because the
testing would not “necessarily” undermine the validity of his
conviction. 562 U.S. 521, 534 (2011). It might instead only
incriminate him further. Id.While § 1983 suits seeking DNA testing may proceed around
the Heck bar, § 1983 actions based on Brady claims may not.
Skinner itself makes this distinction clear. “Unlike DNA
testing, which may yield exculpatory, incriminating, or
inconclusive results, a Brady claim, when successful
postconviction, necessarily yields evidence undermining a
6
conviction: Brady evidence is, by definition, always favorable
to the defendant and material to his guilt or punishment.”
Skinner, 562 U.S. at 536; see also Brady, 373 U.S. at 87 (“We
now hold that the suppression by the prosecution of evidence
favorable to an accused upon request violates due process where
the evidence is material.”). The Court’s careful explanation of
this distinction prevents us from allowing its decision in
Skinner to “spill over to claims relying on Brady.” Skinner, 562
U.S. at 536.
What we have here, then, are § 1983 claims predicated on
alleged Brady violations which would, if proven, necessarily
imply the invalidity of Griffin’s convictions. And those
convictions have not been “reversed on direct appeal, expunged
by executive order, declared invalid by a state tribunal . . .
or called into question by a federal court’s issuance of a writ
of habeas corpus.” Heck, 512 U.S. at 487. Under Heck, therefore,
they may not be collaterally attacked through § 1983 now.
That Griffin is no longer in custody does not change this
result. The Heck bar is “not rendered inapplicable by the
fortuity that a convicted criminal is no longer incarcerated.”
Id. at 490 n.10. This rule prevents would-be § 1983 plaintiffs
from bringing suit even after they are released from custody and
thus unable to challenge their conviction through a habeas
petition. Were the rule otherwise, plaintiffs might simply wait
7
to file their § 1983 actions until after their sentences were
served, and thereby transform § 1983 into a new font of federal
post-conviction review.
Successful resolution of Griffin’s § 1983 claims would
necessarily undermine the validity of Griffin’s prior
convictions. Griffin’s claims would appear therefore to fall
within the core of the Heck bar.
III.
Griffin argues, however, that he is not subject to Heck
even though his claims would necessarily undermine his
convictions. He points to Wilson v. Johnson, which recognizes an
exception to the Heck bar in cases where a litigant “could not,
as a practical matter, [have sought] habeas relief” while in
custody. 535 F.3d 262, 268 (4th Cir. 2008). Griffin argues that
he qualifies for this exception because he could not
successfully pursue habeas relief while “deprived of the
exculpatory evidence hidden by the police.” Appellant’s Op. Br.
at 37. There are several problems with his position.
In Wilson, this Court considered a § 1983 claim for damages
alleging that the State of Virginia improperly extended Wilson’s
sentence by approximately three months. Wilson, 535 F.3d at 263.
Wilson’s case presented a potential problem identified by
Justice Souter in Heck: because federal habeas suits may be
filed only by individuals who are “in custody,” 28 U.S.C.
8
2254(a), petitioners with short sentences might find their
claims moot before they could prosecute them. Without § 1983 as
a backstop, these petitioners might lack access to federal
courts altogether. See Heck, 512 U.S. at 500-02 (Souter, J.,
concurring); see also Spencer v. Kenma, 523 U.S. 1, 20-21, 21
n.* (1998) (Souter, J., concurring). After accepting Wilson’s
assertion that exhausting his claims prior to his release was
impossible, see Wilson, 535 F.3d at 268 n.8, we held that his
action was cognizable under § 1983, id. at 267-68. Had we held
otherwise, Wilson would have been entirely “left without access
to a federal court.” Id. at 268.
We applied a similar rationale in Covey v. Assessor of Ohio
County. There, Covey was sentenced to not less than one and not
more than five years of home confinement. 777 F.3d 186, 191 (4th
Cir. 2015). He brought suit under § 1983 later the next year, by
which time his home confinement was complete. Id. at 198. We
held that Heck did not bar Covey’s claims “for purposes of the
defendants’ motions to dismiss,” and that the district court
should decide after discovery whether Covey was “unable to
pursue habeas relief because of insufficient time or some other
barrier.” Id. In discussing Wilson’s holding, moreover, we
suggested that the Heck exception does not extend to just any
petitioner who, by virtue of no longer being in custody, cannot
seek habeas relief. Rather, the exception applies only if a
9
petitioner could not have “practicably sought habeas relief
while in custody.” Id. at 197 (citing Wilson, 535 F.3d at 267-
68).
Together, Covey and Wilson delineate the Heck bar’s narrow
exception. A would-be plaintiff who is no longer in custody may
bring a § 1983 claim undermining the validity of a prior
conviction only if he lacked access to federal habeas corpus
while in custody. 1
Griffin did not lack access to habeas relief while in
custody. While Wilson had only a few months to make a habeas
claim, and while Covey had at most a little over a year, Griffin
had three decades. And Griffin actually did bring a federal
habeas petition during his time in custody. Although his
petition was denied, the fact that he was able to file it
demonstrates that the concern animating Wilson and Covey –- that
a citizen unconstitutionally punished might lack an opportunity
for federal redress if kept in custody for only a short period
of time –- is absent in this case.
Griffin argues that he never had the opportunity to achieve
meaningful habeas relief because evidence necessary to his case
1
Access to federal habeas corpus comes part and parcel with
the restrictions Congress has placed on invocations of the writ.
A statute of limitations’ expiration, for example, would not in
this sense deprive a petitioner of access to the federal courts.
By access we mean access to federal habeas corpus as provided
under the enactments of Congress that apply to a petitioner
during his time in custody.
10
remained in the hands of the Baltimore Police Department.
Appellant’s Op. Br. at 28, 39. But likelihood of success is not
the equivalent of opportunity to seek relief. And even if it
were, nothing in the record suggests that Griffin sought the
relevant records (much less encountered resistance to their
production) until he filed his Maryland Public Information Act
request in 2010. That law, meanwhile, has been in effect since
1970. Maryland Public Information Act Manual, 1-1 (13th ed.,
Oct. 2014). Lack of information did not take away Griffin’s
opportunity for meaningful habeas relief.
While our precedent makes clear that lawful access to
federal habeas corpus is the touchstone of our inquiry,
Griffin’s case is further undercut by the fact that he did
eventually receive actual notice of possible official misconduct
and still did not pursue additional federal habeas relief. In
declining to except Brady claims from the rule in Heck v.
Humphrey, Skinner, 562 U.S. at 536-37, the Supreme Court
recognized that the adversary process does not as a rule require
a potential respondent to give notice to a potential petitioner
of every claim, meritorious or otherwise, that the petitioner
may possess. Griffin knew of possible police misconduct by, at
the latest, August 4, 2011, the date of his evidentiary hearing
in the Baltimore City Circuit Court. His custody did not
terminate until over sixteen months later, on December 19, 2012.
11
The habeas “in custody” requirement, moreover, applies only at
the time of filing, not throughout the case. Carafas v.
LaVallee, 391 U.S. 234, 238-39 (1968); Wolfe v. Clarke, 718 F.3d
277, 286 n.10 (4th Cir. 2013). Griffin would have had only to
file his petition during those sixteen months. He did not do so.
In sum, Griffin has identified no impediment to habeas
access warranting an expansion of the Heck exception. In fact,
to dissolve the Heck bar for a damages suit some thirty years
after a still-valid conviction for a plaintiff who not only
could but did file a federal habeas petition would permit the
Heck exception to swallow the rule.
IV.
It is important not to disassociate Griffin’s case from the
broader context of which it is part. The usual federal remedy
for Griffin, as for all those who challenge unlawful state
confinement, is habeas corpus. Congress has simultaneously
provided and circumscribed this remedy so as to preserve the
sensitive balance between state and federal courts. The most
recent major habeas statute -- the 1996 Antiterrorism and
Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) -- was written with the
“principles of comity, finality, and federalism” in mind.
Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 420, 436 (2000).
These concerns are not novel. The Supreme Court has long
recognized the importance of “the relations existing, under our
12
system of government, between the judicial tribunals of the
Union and of the States,” and that “the public good requires
that those relations be not disturbed by unnecessary conflict
between courts equally bound to guard and protect rights secured
by the constitution.” Ex parte Royall, 117 U.S. 241, 251 (1886).
Indeed, “the trial of a criminal case in state court” has always
been understood “as a decisive and portentous event,” Wainwright
v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 90 (1977), and one which commands a
decent measure of federal respect. Griffin’s conviction, after
all, is a state conviction, and it is one in which Maryland, the
rendering jurisdiction, retains an interest.
Limits on federal habeas corpus recognize, moreover, that
the states often already provide many avenues of post-conviction
relief. Maryland, for example, allows certain offenders who are
no longer in custody to challenge their convictions by means of
an “independent, civil action” known as a “petition for writ of
error coram nobis.” Smith v. State, 100 A.3d 1204, 1206 (Md.
App. 2014) (citing Skok v. State, 760 A.2d 647 (Md. 2000)).
Maryland also permits convicted persons to file petitions for
writs of actual innocence on the basis of newly discovered
evidence. Md. Code, Crim. Proc. § 8-301. Additionally, the
Maryland Constitution empowers the governor to issue an
13
executive pardon. Md. Const. art. II, § 20, cl. 1. 2 And the
Maryland Board of Public Works may grant compensation to
pardoned persons. Md. Code, State Fin. & Proc. § 10-501. Each of
these forms of relief is in addition to Maryland’s standard
direct appeal and collateral review procedures. See Md. Code,
Crim. Proc. § 7-101-09. Griffin may or may not qualify for any
or all of these remedies; that is for Maryland to decide. But
nothing prevents Maryland from creating new means of
invalidating his convictions or paying him damages if it wishes
to do so. Maryland is an “independent sovereign[] with plenary
authority to make and enforce [its] own laws as long as [it]
do[es] not infringe on federal constitutional guarantees.”
Danforth v. Minnesota, 552 U.S. 264, 280 (2008).
As the Supreme Court recently observed, federal habeas
corpus “intrudes” on state sovereignty “to a degree matched by
few [other] exercises of federal judicial authority.” Harrington
v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 103 (2011). This observation is not
inapplicable to Brady claims like Griffin’s, which can take a
federal court deep into a state’s criminal case, and which may
not be amenable to a quick look-see. Whether alleged Brady
2 Some courts have held that, while not strictly an
“expungement by executive order,” a pardon still suffices to
lift the Heck bar. See, e.g., Wilson v. Lawrence Cty., Mo., 154
F.3d 757, 760-61 (8th Cir. 1998); Snyder v. City of Alexandria,
870 F. Supp. 672, 681 (E.D. Va 1994). That question is not
before us, and we do not address it.
14
evidence was exculpatory might lend itself to a quick read, but
whether it was material, another critical element of a Brady
claim, cannot invariably be decided in a vacuum, but only by
reviewing the total context of the state prosecution. Brady
claims may thus involve an exhaustive exhumation of state
proceedings, a process which in turn implicates the Supreme
Court’s concerns about premature intrusions upon the established
principles of dual sovereignty. This intrusion, if brought in
habeas corpus, is constitutionally and statutorily authorized.
But collateral attacks are not to be undertaken with abandon or
in a manner that disregards the conscientious efforts of state
judges and juries both to provide and protect the safety of
their citizens and to safeguard their precious rights. All of
this counsels against accepting Griffin’s invitation to turn
§ 1983 into some routine vehicle for challenging long-settled
state convictions.
We close by noting that our decision sounds in procedure,
not substance. We express no opinion on the actual merits of
Griffin’s Brady claims. Our holding is not meant to bar him from
seeking a remedy for possible police misconduct. The remedy of
habeas corpus was open to him in the past, and he may retain
state remedies he can pursue in the future. We hold only that
the vehicle he has presently chosen is not, at least not now, an
appropriate one under Supreme Court and circuit precedent.
15
Should his convictions at some point be invalidated, he might
again attempt a § 1983 suit free of any Heck bar. Until then,
however, we must affirm the judgment of the district court.
AFFIRMED
16
PAMELA HARRIS, Circuit Judge, concurring:
I join the majority’s opinion, which cogently explains the
principles underlying Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), and
the federalism concerns that counsel federal respect for state
convictions. And I agree that Griffin’s § 1983 suit cannot
proceed consistent with Heck, at least unless and until his
state conviction is invalidated.
As the majority explains, Griffin was on notice of the
alleged Brady violation in his case at some point before August
4, 2011, the date on which the Baltimore City Circuit Court
conducted a hearing on Griffin’s Brady claim, and yet did not
pursue federal habeas relief then or during the additional
sixteen months he spent in custody. Maj. Op. at 11-12. * Our
court has not precisely delineated the scope of the Heck
“exception” it recognized in Wilson v. Johnson, 535 F.3d 262,
265-68 (4th Cir. 2008), and Covey v. Assessor of Ohio County,
777 F.3d 186, 197-98 & n.11 (4th Cir. 2015). But in a case like
this, where the petitioner’s full term of custody was more than
long enough to allow for access to habeas relief, see Maj. Op.
at 10, then I agree that the exception can apply only if the
petitioner could not have “practicably sought habeas relief”
during that period of custody, id. at 9-10 (quoting Covey, 777
* Citations to “Maj. Op.” refer to the majority slip
opinion.
17
F.3d at 197). And whether or not Griffin “practicably” could
have sought habeas relief before he actually discovered the
alleged Brady material, cf. Heck, 512 U.S. at 502 (Souter, J.,
concurring) (suggesting that Heck bar does not apply “to a
person who discovers after his release from prison that . . .
state officials deliberately withheld exculpatory material”), he
has provided no explanation, in his pleadings or on appeal, as
to why he could not have pursued habeas relief after that
discovery and before the termination of his custody. See Maj.
Op. at 12.
Finally, I echo the majority’s clarification of an
important point: Our holding expresses no view on the merits of
Griffin’s Brady claim and does not bar Griffin from seeking a
remedy for any Brady violation he has suffered. Id. at 15-16.
On Griffin’s account, his allegations were substantial enough
that the Baltimore City Circuit Court was prepared to order a
new trial unless the government agreed to his release from
prison after more than thirty years served. If Griffin’s claim
is indeed meritorious, then under Heck, it is the State of
Maryland that has the authority and also the obligation to
provide a remedy, or to invalidate Griffin’s conviction and
allow a federal court to do so under § 1983 and free of the Heck
bar.
18