Opinion
C. A. 3:22-1987-BHH-PJG
02-08-2023
Rodney Shelton Kelley, Plaintiff, v. Detective Black, of the Lexington County Sheriff's Department, Defendant.
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
PAIGE J. GOSSETT, UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE
Plaintiff Rodney Shelton Kelley, a self-represented state prisoner, brought this civil rights action seeking relief pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. This matter is before the court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b) and Local Civil Rule 73.02(B)(2) (D.S.C.) for a Report and Recommendation on the defendant's motion to dismiss or, in the alternative, for summary judgment. (ECF No. 28.) Pursuant to Roseboro v. Garrison, 528 F.2d 309 (4th Cir. 1975), the court advised Plaintiff of the summary judgment and dismissal procedures and the possible consequences if he failed to respond adequately to the defendant's motion. (ECF No. 31.) Plaintiff filed a response in opposition, as supplemented. (ECF Nos. 38 & 39.) Having reviewed the record presented and the applicable law, the court concludes that the defendant's motion should be granted.
BACKGROUND
The following facts are either undisputed or are taken in the light most favorable to Plaintiff, to the extent they find support in the record. Although Plaintiff is currently an inmate with the South Carolina Department of Corrections (“SCDC”), the allegations in his Complaint stem from his arrest and subsequent detention at the Lexington County Detention Center which occurred during 2014 and 2015. (Compl., ECF No. 1 at 6.) Specifically, Plaintiff alleges that Detective Black with the Lexington County Sheriff's Department interviewed and Mirandized him regarding an alleged shooting and carjacking, but then “fabricated a story” about the events in question, falsely arrested him, and falsely imprisoned him. (Id.) Plaintiff alleges he was held at the detention center for over nine months before being released on bond. (Id. at 7.) Plaintiff further alleges that his charge of accessory to murder after the fact was ultimately dismissed in January 2022. (Id.)
The court construed Plaintiff's Complaint as asserting claims pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violations of the Fourth Amendment. (ECF No. 21 at 2.) No party objected to the court's construction of claims. (ECF No. 33.) Plaintiff seeks monetary damages. (Compl., ECF No. 1 at 8.)
DISCUSSION
A. Applicable Standards
A motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) examines the legal sufficiency of the facts alleged on the face of the complaint. Edwards v. City of Goldsboro, 178 F.3d 231, 243 (4th Cir. 1999). To survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, “[f]actual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007). The “complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.' ” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570). A claim is facially plausible when the factual content allows the court to reasonably infer that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged. Id. When considering a motion to dismiss, the court must accept as true all of the factual allegations contained in the complaint. Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007). The court “may also consider documents attached to the complaint, see Fed.R.Civ.P. 10(c), as well as those attached to the motion to dismiss, so long as they are integral to the complaint and authentic.” Philips v. Pitt Cnty. Mem'l Hosp., 572 F.3d 176, 180 (4th Cir. 2009) (citing Blankenship v. Manchin, 471 F.3d 523, 526 n.1 (4th Cir. 2006)).
Summary judgment is appropriate only if the moving party “shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the [moving party] is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(a). A party may support or refute that a material fact is not disputed by “citing to particular parts of materials in the record” or by “showing that the materials cited do not establish the absence or presence of a genuine dispute, or that an adverse party cannot produce admissible evidence to support the fact.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c)(1). Rule 56 mandates entry of summary judgment “against a party who fails to make a showing sufficient to establish the existence of an element essential to that party's case.” Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322 (1986).
In deciding whether there is a genuine issue of material fact, the evidence of the nonmoving party is to be believed and all justifiable inferences must be drawn in favor of the nonmoving party. See Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255 (1986). However, “[o]nly disputes over facts that might affect the outcome of the suit under the governing law will properly preclude the entry of summary judgment. Factual disputes that are irrelevant or unnecessary will not be counted.” Id. at 248.
The moving party has the burden of proving that summary judgment is appropriate. Once the moving party makes this showing, however, the opposing party may not rest upon mere allegations or denials, but rather must, by affidavits or other means permitted by the Rule, set forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c), (e); Celotex Corp., 477 U.S. at 322. Further, while the federal court is charged with liberally construing a complaint filed by a pro se litigant to allow the development of a potentially meritorious case, see, e.g., Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89 (2007), the requirement of liberal construction does not mean that the court can ignore a clear failure in the pleadings to allege facts which set forth a federal claim, nor can the court assume the existence of a genuine issue of material fact where none exists. Weller v. Dep't of Soc. Servs., 901 F.2d 387 (4th Cir. 1990).
B. Defendant's Motion
1. Statute of Limitations
The defendant argues that Plaintiff's claims for false arrest and false imprisonment are barred by the applicable statute of limitations. The court agrees.
The applicable statute of limitations for a § 1983 claim arising in South Carolina is three years. See Owens v. Okure, 488 U.S. 235 (1989); Owens v. Baltimore City State's Attorney Office, 767 F.3d 379, 388 (4th Cir. 2014) (“[T]o determine the timely filing of a § 1983 claim, courts borrow the statute of limitations from the most analogous state-law cause of action. For § 1983 suits, that cause of action is a personal-injury suit.”) (internal citations omitted); Brannon v. Blanton, C/A No. 9:15-2434-CMC, 2016 WL 4232886, at *2 (D.S.C. Aug. 11, 2016) (“[T]he statute of limitations for § 1983 claims arising in South Carolina is three years, regardless of the underlying allegations of the § 1983 claim.”); see also S.C. Code Ann. § 15-3-530(5). A § 1983 cause of action accrues when the plaintiff possesses sufficient facts about the harm done to him that reasonable inquiry will reveal his cause of action. Nasim v. Warden, Md. House of Corr., 64 F.3d 951, 955 (4th Cir. 1995); see also Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384 (2007) (providing that the accrual date of a § 1983 cause of action is a question of federal law).
The defendant, relying on the South Carolina Tort Claims Act codified at S.C. Code Ann. § 15-78-10 et seq., mistakenly argues that the statute of limitations is two years. (Def's Mot. Dismiss, ECF No. 28 at 5.) However, the Supreme Court's holding in Owens v. Okure instructs otherwise. Owens v. Okure, 488 U.S. 235, 240-45 (1989); see Williams v. City of Sumter Police Dep't, C/A No. 3:09-2486-CMC, 2011 WL 723148 (D.S.C. Feb.23, 2011) (discussing the applicable statute of limitations for § 1983 claims arising in South Carolina and rejecting the two-year statute of limitations under the South Carolina Tort Claims Act).
The statute of limitations for an arrestee's § 1983 false arrest or false imprisonment claim begins to run at the time of arrest. Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384, 389 (2007) (“[T]he statute of limitations upon a § 1983 claim seeking damages for a false arrest in violation of the Fourth Amendment, where the arrest is followed by criminal proceedings, begins to run at the time the claimant becomes detained pursuant to legal process.”). Considered in the light most favorable to the Plaintiff, the record shows that Plaintiff's arrest warrant was issued on September 25, 2014 (ECF No. 28-4 at 1), and public records indicate that Plaintiff was arrested on September 26, 2014.Therefore, the statute of limitations for Plaintiff's false arrest/imprisonment claim began to run on September 26, 2014 and expired three years later in 2017. Once Plaintiff was detained pursuant to legal process, any claim for false arrest/imprisonment ceased; if Plaintiff were to pursue such a claim after that point, he had to pursue it as a claim for malicious prosecution. See Wallace, 549 U.S. at 389 (“Reflective of the fact that false imprisonment consists of detention without legal process, a false imprisonment ends once the victim becomes held pursuant to such process .... Thereafter, unlawful detention forms part of the damages for the ‘entirely distinct' tort of malicious prosecution, which remedies detention accompanied, not by absence of legal process, but by wrongful institution of legal process.”) (internal citations omitted). Plaintiff filed the instant suit on June 20, 2022-well beyond the applicable three-year statute of limitations. (Compl., ECF No. 1.) Accordingly, his claims for false arrest and false imprisonment should be dismissed.
See https://publicindex.sccourts.org/Lexington/PublicIndex/PISearch.aspx (search for last name “Kelley,” first name “Rodney;” select case number “2014A3210201832”) (last visited January 19, 2023).
See Houston v. Lack, 487 U.S. 266 (1988) (stating that a prisoner's pleading is filed at the moment of delivery to prison authorities for forwarding to the district court).
2. Malicious Prosecution
The defendant argues in his motion that Plaintiff has alleged only claims concerning his arrest and does not appear to raise a claim of malicious prosecution in his Complaint. (Def.'s Mot. Dismiss, ECF No. 28 at 7-8.) In support, the defendant points out that Plaintiff makes no argument that he was arrested without a warrant or that the arrest warrant was not facially valid. (Id.) In his Complaint, Plaintiff states that he is raising claims of “false, arrest, false imprisonment, [and] malicious arrest” and that the defendant “fabricated a story about me hid[]ing the gun in question and helping the shooter evade the police.” (Compl., ECF No. 1.) In his response in opposition to the defendant's motion, although Plaintiff does not directly contradict the defendant's arguments, he points to the dismissal of his charges in 2022 as evidence that he was innocent of the charges and was falsely arrested and imprisoned. Accordingly, on this record and liberally construing Plaintiff's Complaint as the court is required to do, the court concludes that Plaintiff has sufficiently pled a claim of malicious prosecution. See Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007).
The defendant argues that, to the extent Plaintiff raises a claim of malicious prosecution, such a claim is barred by the applicable statute of limitations. However, precedent holds that a Fourth Amendment claim based on malicious prosecution does not accrue until the prosecution ends-in this instance January 20, 2022-which makes Plaintiff's claim timely filed. See McDonough v. Smith, 139 S.Ct. 2149, 2160 (2019); Evans v. Chalmers, 703 F.3d 636, 647 (4th Cir. 2012).
The defendant also argues that any malicious prosecution claim would fail because no criminal conviction or sentence was invalidated. However, while courts in the Fourth Circuit previously held that the prosecution must end with some indication of innocence, see, e.g., Salley v. Myers, 971 F.3d 308, 313 (4th Cir. 2020), the Supreme Court's recent decision in Thompson v. Clark, 142 S.Ct. 1332 (2022), holds that the plaintiff need only show that the prosecution ended without a conviction, regardless of any affirmative indica of innocence.
Turning to the merits of Plaintiff's claim, the court concludes that Plaintiff has failed to put forth any evidence to support his claim of malicious prosecution. “Allegations that an arrest made pursuant to a warrant was not supported by probable cause, or claims seeking damages for the period after legal process issued-e.g., post-indictment or arraignment-are considered a § 1983 malicious prosecution claim.” Humbert v. Mayor & City Council of Baltimore City, 866 F.3d 546, 555 (4th Cir. 2017) (quoting Brooks v. City of Winston-Salem, 85 F.3d 178, 182 (4th Cir. 1996)) (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted); see also Thompson, 142 S.Ct. at 1337. “A malicious prosecution claim under § 1983 is properly understood as a Fourth Amendment claim for unreasonable seizure which incorporates certain elements of the common law tort.” Evans, 703 F.3d at 647 (quoting Lambert v. Williams, 223 F.3d 257, 261 (4th Cir. 2000)) (internal quotation marks omitted). To state a constitutional claim for malicious prosecution, “a plaintiff must allege that the defendant (1) caused (2) a seizure of the plaintiff pursuant to legal process unsupported by probable cause, and (3) criminal proceedings terminated in plaintiff's favor.” Evans, 703 F.3d at 647 (citing Durham v. Horner, 690 F.3d 183, 188 (4th Cir. 2012)).
Although the defendant argues that Plaintiff's claims should be dismissed because he failed to exhaust his administrative remedies under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”), Pub. L. No. 104-134, 110 Stat. 1321 (1996), the court disagrees. As Plaintiff's claims arise from Defendant Black's actions concerning the events surrounding Plaintiff's arrest rather than prison life or prison conditions, Plaintiff was not required to exhaust any administrative remedies before bringing such claims. See Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U.S. 81, 93 (2006) (“The PLRA attempts to eliminate unwarranted federal-court interference with the administration of prisons, and thus seeks to ‘affor[d] corrections officials time and opportunity to address complaints internally before allowing the initiation of a federal case.' ”) (quoting Porter v. Nussle, 534 U.S. 516, 525 (2002)); Witzke v. Femal, 376 F.3d 744, 752 (7th Cir. 2004) (“[T]he obvious limit to the plain wording of the term ‘prison conditions' is that only [claims] relating to conditions within a prison or correctional facility are subject to the exhaustion requirements.”).
Generally, an officer may give deference to a magistrate's determination of probable cause. See United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 914 (1984); Smith v. Munday, 848 F.3d 248, 255 (4th Cir. 2017). Therefore, to establish a malicious prosecution claim after a warrant is issued, the plaintiff must show that the officer deliberately or with reckless disregard for the truth made material false statements in the warrant application, Humbert, 866 F.3d at 556 (quoting Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 171 (1978)), or that the officer intentionally or with reckless disregard made the application misleading by omitting material facts, Humbert, 866 F.3d at 556 (quoting United States v. Colkley, 899 F.2d 297, 300 (4th Cir. 1990)). A reckless disregard can be shown by evidence that an officer acted with a high degree of awareness of a statement's probable falsity such that when viewing all the evidence, the officer must have entertained serious doubts as to the truth of his statements or had obvious reasons to doubt the accuracy of the information he reported. Miller v. Prince George's Cnty., Md., 475 F.3d 621, 627 (4th Cir. 2007). However, an officer's mere negligence or innocent mistake in making a false statement in a warrant affidavit will not provide a basis for a constitutional violation. Id. at 627-28 (quoting Franks, 438 U.S. at 171). A fact is material if it necessary to the magistrate's finding of probable cause. Humbert, 866 F.3d at 556; Miller, 475 F.3d at 628.
Here, other than Plaintiff's unverified statements, the record is devoid of any evidence that Defendant Black deliberately, or with reckless disregard for the truth, made false statements in the warrant application or omitted material facts. Although Plaintiff appears to believe that his dismissed charges necessarily prove that the statements in the arrest warrant were false, such unsupported allegations, without more, are insufficient to show that the arrest warrant was unsupported by probable cause or that Defendant Black had obvious reasons to doubt the accuracy of the information he reported. Leon, 468 U.S. at 914; Humbert, 866 F.3d at 556; Miller, 475 F.3d at 627. Consequently, the court concludes that Plaintiff has failed to put forth evidence that could support his Fourth Amendment claim of malicious prosecution.
RECOMMENDATION
Based on the foregoing, the court recommends the defendant's motion be granted. (ECF No. 28.)
Notice of Right to File Objections to Report and Recommendation
The parties are advised that they may file specific written objections to this Report and Recommendation with the District Judge. Objections must specifically identify the portions of the Report and Recommendation to which objections are made and the basis for such objections. “[I]n the absence of a timely filed objection, a district court need not conduct a de novo review, but instead must ‘only satisfy itself that there is no clear error on the face of the record in order to accept the recommendation.' ” Diamond v. Colonial Life & Acc. Ins. Co., 416 F.3d 310 (4th Cir. 2005) (quoting Fed.R.Civ.P. 72 advisory committee's note).
Specific written objections must be filed within fourteen (14) days of the date of service of this Report and Recommendation. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1); Fed.R.Civ.P. 72(b); see Fed.R.Civ.P. 6(a), (d). Filing by mail pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 5 may be accomplished by mailing objections to:
Robin L. Blume, Clerk
United States District Court
901 Richland Street
Columbia, South Carolina 29201
Failure to timely file specific written objections to this Report and Recommendation will result in waiver of the right to appeal from a judgment of the District Court based upon such Recommendation. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1); Thomas v. Arn, 474 U.S. 140 (1985); Wright v. Collins, 766 F.2d 841 (4th Cir. 1985); United States v. Schronce, 727 F.2d 91 (4th Cir. 1984).