Brown v. Town of Dekalb, Miss., Civil Action No. 4:06CV54TSL-LRA.

519 F.Supp.2d 635

William M. BROWN, Plaintiff v. TOWN OF DeKALB, MISSISSIPPI; DeKalb Police Department; Kirk Merchant, Individually and in his Official Capacity as DeKalb Police Chief; Jeff Jowers, Individually and in his Official Capacity as DeKalb Police Officer, Defendants.

Civil Action No. 4:06CV54TSL-LRA.

United States District Court, S.D. Mississippi, Eastern Division.

September 11, 2007.

Linda A. Hampton, Hampton & Associates Law Office, PLLC, DeKalb, MS, for Plaintiff.

Lee Thaggard, Bourdeaux & Jones, Meridian, MS, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

TOM S. LEE, District Judge.

This cause is before the court on the motion of defendants Town of DeKalb, Mississippi, Kirk Merchant and Jeff Jowers for summary judgment pursuant to Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Plaintiff William M. Brown has responded to the motion and the court, having considered the memoranda of authorities, together with attachments, submitted by the parties, concludes that the motion is well taken and should be granted.

Plaintiff William M. Brown filed his complaint in this cause on April 21, 2006, claiming federal civil rights violations pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985, based on alleged infringement of his Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights under the United States Constitution. Specifically, Brown alleged conspiracy, unlawful kidnapping and arrest, robbery and unlawful seizure of items during and resulting from an April 26, 2005 encounter with DeKalb Police Officer Jeff Jowers and then-DeKalb Police Chief Kirk Merchant. The events leading to the filing of Brown's complaint in this cause, as gleaned from the record evidence presented by the parties, are largely undisputed.

Brown was employed as a teller at the Commercial Bank in DeKalb, Mississippi prior to his termination on February 18, 2005 for unsatisfactory job performance. Following his termination, bank officials discovered that over a period of months during his employment, Brown had embezzled approximately $40,000 from a savings account of the bank's customer Donald Boyd, who was Brown's uncle. Upon making this discovery, Gloria Cumberland, Vice — President and Operations Manager for the bank, met with then-DeKalb Police Chief Merchant and presented him with documentation which confirmed Brown's embezzlement. Subsequently, on April 26, 2005, Merchant met with DeKalb police officer Jeff Jowers, showed and explained to him the documents he had been given by Cumberland, and told Jowers to go to Brown's place of employment, the Wal-Mart in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and bring Brown to DeKalb.¹ Pursuant to Merchant's directive, Jowers drove to the Philadelphia Wal-Mart, where he found Brown at work. Jowers, who was in plain clothes but had his badge, gun and handcuffs on his side, approached Brown and told him he needed Brown to come with him back to DeKalb.

Though Brown has claimed that Jowers never told him why he was there, Jowers maintains that Brown indicated he knew what Jowers was there about, and that Brown was entirely cooperative. In either event, it is undisputed that after the two walked out of the store together, Jowers gave Brown Miranda warnings,² and asked to search his car. Brown retrieved his car keys from inside the store, where he had left them, and after he signed a consent to search form, Jowers searched the car, but found nothing of interest. Jowers then drove Brown to DeKalb.

On the way to the police station, they stopped at the Commercial Bank, where they met Chief Merchant. Brown was asked to sign a consent to search form allowing the officers to search his safety deposit box at the bank. Brown did so, following which the officers went through the contents of the box and seized some documents. Brown was then taken to the police station, where the doors were locked and Chief Merchant undertook to interrogate Brown. Brown was again given Miranda warnings, and then, after signing a waiver of rights form, he proceeded to give a detailed confession, which was recorded on video, in which he admitted he had embezzled money not only from his Uncle Donald Boyd's account, but also from the Commercial Bank account of his cousin, Roosevelt Scott. Following his confession, Brown was allowed to leave with his mother and attorney, who had arrived at the police station during his confession. A week later, a grand jury indicted Brown for embezzlement. Ultimately, on May 1, 2006, Brown pled guilty to embezzlement and was convicted of felony embezzlement in the Circuit Court of Kemper County, and was sentenced to a term of incarceration with ten years suspended and five years of probation and ordered to pay restitution of $67,043.33.

Shortly before entering his guilty plea, Brown filed the present action under § 1983, alleging his arrest and the searches of his car and safety deposit box and seizure of items from his safety deposit box violated his rights under the Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. He also asserted a claim under § 1985.

On the present motion, defendants argue first that Brown's § 1983 claims constitute an impermissible collateral attack on his embezzlement conviction and are therefore barred pursuant to Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994). They argue, alternatively, that even if Brown was "technically arrested" by Jowers on April 26,³ there was probable cause to arrest him and Brown voluntarily consented to the searches of his vehicle and safety deposit box so that there was no substantive violation of his constitutional rights in any event. They further submit that Brown's claim under § 1985 fails because there is no competent proof of any conspiracy involving these defendants and because there is in any event no proof of any racial or otherwise class-based discriminatory animus behind the alleged conspiracy. Finally, they argue that plaintiff's proof is insufficient to establish a basis for municipal liability.⁴ The court considers these arguments in turn.

In Heck, the Supreme Court held:

In order to recover damages for allegedly unconstitutional conviction or imprisonment or for other 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 habeas corpus, 28 U.S.C. § 2254. A claim for damages bearing that relationship to a conviction or sentence that has not been so invalidated is not cognizable under § 1983.

512 U.S. at 487-88, 114 S.Ct. at 2373. Accordingly, when a plaintiff alleges tort claims against his arresting officers, "the district court must first consider whether a judgment in favor of the plaintiff would necessarily imply the invalidity of his conviction or sentence." Id. at 486, 512 U.S. 477, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383. "[I]f it would, the complaint must be dismissed unless the plaintiff can demonstrate that the conviction or sentence has already been invalidated." Id. See also DeLeon v. City of Corpus Christi, 488 F.3d 649, 652 (5th Cir.2007) (quoting Heck, 512 U.S. at 486, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383).

Defendants correctly argue that Brown's claims based on allegations pertaining to the seizure of his person and the seizure of his property from the safety deposit box, which led to his confession, indisputably question the validity of his subsequent conviction for embezzlement and are consequently barred by Heck.⁵ In fact, the state court record of the criminal case against Brown reflects that Brown moved to suppress evidence of his confession on the basis that it was the "fruit" of his unlawful arrest. There was never a ruling on this motion, however, because Brown pled guilty on the day his motion to suppress was to come on for hearing. The claims herein are thus due to be dismissed under Heck. See Kundra v. Austin, No. CA-306CV0728-H, 2006 WL 1391431, *3 (N.D.Tex. May 19, 2006) (finding that claims for false arrest and illegal seizure implicated validity of convictions and were barred by Heck, reasoning that if the court were to conclude that the officer lacked probable cause to arrest the plaintiff and seize the evidence, which was the basis for his convictions, the evidence would be subject to suppression); see also Cook v. McPherson, No. 1:05-cv-136, 2007 WL 1004606, *3 (E.D.Tenn. March 30, 2007) (finding Heck applied because causes of action for false arrest and false imprisonment could not be sustained without finding that defendants lacked probable cause and because such a finding would implicitly invalidate the plaintiffs state-court convictions, which could not stand without probable cause). However, summary judgment would be in order in this case even if Heck were not a bar to plaintiffs claims because the claims are without substantive merit.

"A warrantless arrest violates a suspect's Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights if the arresting officer lacks probable cause to believe that the suspect has committed a crime." Bodzin v. City of Dallas, 768 F.2d 722, 724 (5th Cir.1985). Conversely, "[p]robable cause is a defense to a § 1983 claim based on an alleged false arrest," Pfannstiel v. City of Marion, 918 F.2d 1178, 1183 (5th Cir.1990); and this is true whether the arrest is made with or without a warrant, see United States v. Watson, 423 U.S. 411, 422, 96 S.Ct. 820, 827, 46 L.Ed.2d 598 (1976) (holding that a warrantless arrest requires that the arresting officers possess probable cause to believe that the person has committed or is committing a felony offense).⁶ Therefore, "[t]o ultimately prevail on his section 1983 false arrest/false imprisonment claim, [Brown] must show that [defendants] did not have probable cause to arrest him." Haggerty v. Texas Southern Univ., 391 F.3d 653, 655 (5th Cir.2004) (citing Brown v. Lyford,...