Jose Angel AGUILERA, Plaintiff
v.
WRIGHT COUNTY, IOWA ; Lee E. Poppen; Jeffrey TeKippe; Victor Murillo; William Basler; Jack Seward; Eric Simonson; and Scott D. Brown, Defendants.
No. C 13–3034–MWB.
United States District Court, N.D. Iowa, Central Division.
Signed Oct. 6, 2014.
Martyn S. Elberg, Sigmeth Roberts Law, PLC, Fort Lauderdale, FL, for Plaintiff.
Jeffrey C. Peterzalek, Des Moines, IA, for Defendant, Scott D. Brown.
Robert M. Livingston, Kristopher K. Madsen, Stuart Tinley Peters Thorn Hughes Faust & Madsen, Council Bluffs, IA, for Defendants Wright County, Iowa, Eric Simonson, Jeffrey TeKippe, and Lee R. Poppen.
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER REGARDING COUNTY DEFENDANTS' MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT
MARK W. BENNETT, District Judge.
| TABLE OF CONTENTS |
|---|
| I. | INTRODUCTION | 1060 |
| A. | Factual Background | 1060 |
| B. | Procedural Background | 1061 |
| II. | LEGAL ANALYSIS | 1063 |
| A. | Standards For Summary Judgment | 1063 |
| B. | Absolute Judicial Immunity | 1064 |
| 1. | Arguments of the parties | 1064 |
| 2. | Analysis | 1065 |
| C. | Other Grounds For Summary Judgment | 1067 |
| 1. | Arguments of the parties. | 1067 |
| 2. | Analysis | 1068 |
| III. | CONCLUSION | 1069 |
As I explained, in somewhat more detail, in my January 6, 2014, Memorandum Opinion And Order Regarding State Defendants' Motion To Dismiss (docket no. 19), published at Aguilera v. Wright Cnty., Iowa, 990 F.Supp.2d 926 (N.D.Iowa 2014), this unhappy case has been brought by a state prisoner, plaintiff Jose Angel Aguilera, after the Iowa Supreme Court set aside Aguilera's 1996 conviction for the second-degree murder of Jesus “Jesse” Garcia, on the basis of a Brady violation,1 but not until Aguilera had already served 14 years in prison. The state opted to retry Aguilera for second-degree murder, but, on March 12, 2012, Aguilera entered into a plea agreement to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter and to be sentenced to time served. Aguilera continues in custody facing deportation. Aguilera asserts federal constitutional claims pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and state-law tort claims against state investigators and county prosecutors involved in his initial prosecution in 1996 and against a state investigator and county and state prosecutors involved in his re-prosecution in 2012.2
This action is now before me on the County Defendants' August 4, 2014, Joint Motion For Summary Judgment (docket no. 24), asserting absolute prosecutorial immunity and other bars to Aguilera's claims against them.
I. INTRODUCTION
A. Factual Background
I set out an extensive statement of the factual and procedural background to this case in my prior ruling, including a description of the circumstances of the underlying shooting of Jesse Garcia. Aguilera, 990 F.Supp.2d at 930–37. Here, I find that a rather more circumscribed statement of facts—disputed and undisputed—than the parties have offered is sufficient to put in context the parties' arguments concerning the County Defendants' Motion For Summary Judgment. In the present context, the focus is on what the County Defendants did in the course of prosecuting and re-prosecuting Aguilera.
Agents with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI), who are identified as State Defendants, investigated Garcia's death. As a result of their investigation, Aguilera was prosecuted on a charge of first-degree murder for the death of Garcia in the Iowa District Court for Wright County by Wright County Attorney Lee E. Poppen and Assistant Wright County Attorney Jeffrey TeKippe, both identified as County Defendants. TeKippe filed the Complaint charging Aguilera with first-degree murder, and Poppen later filed a Trial Information charging Aguilera with first-degree murder.
By letter dated September 30, 1996, Poppen informed Aguilera's trial counsel that the Wright County Attorney's Office would “voluntarily provide [trial counsel] with the reports of local law enforcement agencies, any lab testing results and the written statements provided by any witnesses,” but that Poppen “w[ould] not provide the DCI investigative report without a specific court order directing [him] to do so.” Aguilera contends that Poppen implemented the policy reflected in this letter in his “administrative” role, but the County Defendants contend that nothing in the portions of the record that Aguilera cites indicates that Poppen was acting in an “administrative” role. On November 6, 1996, Aguilera's trial counsel moved the district court for “production of evidence as requested within a time to be fixed by the Court.” The district court orally granted that request, then, later, at Aguilera's trial counsel's request, entered a written ruling on December 17, 1996, memorializing that the request was granted.
In its opinion granting Aguilera's second petition for post-conviction relief, the Iowa Supreme Court found that the State never turned over the DCI file, which that court held violated Brady, but that court nowhere determined who, specifically, was responsible for failure to turn over the file. See Aguilera v. State, 807 N.W.2d 249, 251–59 (Iowa 2011). The Iowa Supreme Court also determined that the file was...
