Lead Opinion
OPINION
This suit involves three main questions: (1) whether plaintiff Randall Mills sufficiently pleaded a claim for malicious prosecution under 42 U.S.C. § 1988; (2) whether Mills sufficiently pleaded a claim for fabrication of evidence under § 1988; and (3) whether Mills sufficiently pleaded a Brady claim. The district court found that Mills had not so pleaded and granted defendant Sharon Jenkins’s motion to dismiss on those claims. We reverse the district court on all three issues, holding that the complaint, contains the requisite facts to constitute viable claims on all counts.
I
On the evening of March 15, 1999, twelve-year-old C.M. slipped out of her house while her mother was out of town. Her sister Jennifer, and her sister’s boyfriend, Robert Hodge, realized that C.M. was missing and searched the house and neighborhood for her. Upon their return to the house, the two found C.M. sitting on the front doorstep, disoriented. When asked where she had been, C.M. initially told her sister that she had, been in the backyard but .changed her story when confronted with the fact that Jennifer and Robert had searched the backyard. C.M. then stated that she had been at the house of Randall Mills, her next-door neighbor, and he had smoked marijuana with her and fondled her.. Jennifer and Robert went to Mills’s home and confronted him in front of his two sons, accusing him of providing drugs to and sexually assaulting C.M. The Lewisburg, Tennessee, police were informed'and began an investigation, during which C.M. also alleged that Mills provided her with Valiúm. A few days into the investigation, -Mills turned himself over to the custody of law enforcement.
On July 21, 1999,
That same day, the Marshall County Circuit Court granted an order for the taking of saliva and blood samples from Mills. Sharon Jenkins was the DNA analyst assigned by TBI to review the evidence in Mills’s case. After examining the underwear, Jenkins stated that there were two sources of DNA found: C.M. and a male contributor, whose DNA profile was consistent with Mills. Jenkins testified at trial that the likelihood of an unrelated Caucasian individual having the same DNA profile was 1 in 290, and that there was only a 0.3% chance that the DNA belonged to a Caucasian male other than Mills. Complaint ¶¶46, 63.
A jury convicted Mills of rape of a child, aggravated sexual battery, and casual exchange of a controlled substance, and he was sentenced to.serve twenty years in prison. Mills unsuccessfully appealed his convictions in state court and later sent a petition for a writ of habeas corpus to the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the Middle District of Tennessee. The Federal Public Defender, working together with the Innocence Project, sent the preserved DNA evidence and underwear from Mills’s trial to a private DNA laboratory, the Serological Research Institute (“SERI”). The SERI analysts were unable to retest the exact portions of the underwear that Jenkins had used because, according to Gary Harmor (an expert from SERI), those samples were “gone.” Additionally, Mills’s own samples had biodegraded, and he provided new samples to SERI. In performing the tests, Harmor took one sample from a portion of the underwear adjacent to the sample taken by Jenkins and three other samples from different locations on C.M.’s underwear. Using the “same analysis techniques as those used by” Jenkins, Harmor concluded that the underwear contained semen from two different male contributors and that neither of those contributors was Mills.
In May 2009, Mills filled a petition for a writ of error coram nobis before the state court. After evidentiary hearings, the Marshall County Circuit Court on post-conviction review granted Mills a new trial on the rape-of-a-child charge on January 26, 2011, but denied relief on the remaining charges. Mills appealed. In April 2011, after having served eleven years in prison, Mills was released on time served in exchange for signing a release of claims while his appeal was pending. In November 2013, the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals overturned all of Mills’s convic
On November 19, 2014, Mills filed suit under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1983, and 1985 in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. In his action, he named as defendants Weakley Barnard (the Assistant District Attorney General for the Tennessee Seventeenth Judicial District, including Marshall County), Jenkins (the TBI DNA analyst), and Beth Rhoton (a police investigator with the Lewisburg Police Department) in both their individual and official capacities; Mark Gwyn (the Director of the TBI) in his official capacity; Marshall County; and the City of Lewisburg. Mills claimed that: (1) he was subjected to malicious prosecution and “a conspiracy to cover-up the truth” in contravention of the Fourth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Amendments; (2) Barnard, Jenkins, and Rhoton conspired to deprive Mills of his constitutional rights; (3) the City of Lewisburg and Marshall County ratified and condoned the unconstitutional actions taken against Mills; and (4) Barnard and Jenkins falsely imprisoned Mills in violation of Tennessee state law. The district court construed Mills’s assertion that Barnard, Jenkins, and Rhoton manufactured “knowingly false inculpatory evidence” against him and suppressed “exonerating exculpatory evidence” as a claim under Brady v. Maryland,
II
We examine de novo the grant of a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of. Civil Procedure. Bickerstaff v. Lucarelli,
A. Malicious Prosecution
In Sykes v. Anderson,
The district court rested its decision on the fact that the superseding indictment was returned before any DNA analysis had been performed and, therefore, that probable cause for Mills’s prosecution had been conclusively established by the grand-jury indictment. In -coming to this conclusion, the district court cited Webb v. United States,
The prototypical case of malicious prosecution involves an official who fabricates evidence that leads to the wrongful arrest or indictment of an innocent person. In this case, however, the indictment, conclusively determines that probable cause existed for Mills’s detention, at least before the DNA test. See, e.g., Sanders v. Jones,
The existence of an indictment is thus not a talisman that always wards off a malicious-prosecution claim. Instead, “even if independent evidence establishes probable cause against a suspect, it would still be unlawful for law-enforcement officers to fabricate evidence in order to strengthen the case against that suspect.” Webb,
Relieved of the assumption that the grand-jury indictment resolves the issue of probable cause, one quickly perceives how reliant the prosecution’s case was on Jenkins’s results. C.M.’s- initial story had changed multiple times, including an escalation from sexual battery to rape. Her claim that Mills had given her Valium was contradicted by her toxicology report, and her description of events, which included Mills smoking several marijuana cigarettes and tossing one out of the window, was not supported by physical evidence (according to the complaint, Mills’s toxicology report showed no trace of marijuana in his system, the window was closed, and no marijuana was found in or outside of Mills’s home). Given this court’s (and others’) wariness about basing probable cause solely on the allegations of a child, see Wesley v. Campbell,
Gregory,
At oral argument, Jenkins contended that Gregory is distinguishable because the hairs were tested before Gregory’s indictments and so tainted the ensuing indictments. But the lab report in Gregory had not been presented to' the grand jury; thus, the grand jury’s finding of probable cause was not based on the false report. Gregory v. City of Louisville, No. 3:01-cv-535,
Mills has also sufficiently pleaded that Jenkins acted in a knowing or reckless manner. To be sure, the plain statement that Jenkins “intentionally, maliciously, [or] with ... reckless disregard” subjected Mills to malicious prosecution is insufficient -standing on its own. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal,
Turning to the final element of malicious prosecution that Jenkins disputes, it is clear that Jenkins “ma[d]e, influencefd], or participate^ in the decision to prosecute.” Sykes,
Finally, Jenkins argues that Mills should not be permitted to rely upon Gregory, as he did not cite it as the basis of his argument for lack of probable cause. An argument is not forfeited on appeal because a particular authority or strain of the argument was not raised below, as long as the issue itself was properly raised. See Leonor v. Provident Life & Acc. Co.,
The dissent states that our analysis “conflates two pieces of evidence — the preliminary DNA data and Jenkins’[s] final report interpreting that data” and that if the preliminary data “‘clearly excluded Mr. Mills,’ ... that only alleges Jenkins was incorrect, not that she knowingly or recklessly falsified her findings.” Dissent Op. at 489. With regard to the dissent’s first claim, while it is true that the existence of exonerating information is the source of Mills’s claims, the report (and what was omitted from it) is the basis of Jenkins’s influence and participation in the decision to prosecute. According to the complaint, Jenkins found “two distinct stains” and analyzed both. Jenkins prepared a report based on the results of her testing, and sent that report to the prosecutor. The only reference to “data” in the complaint is that “Jenkins claimed that ... [the] semen other than the one she found to be consistent with Mr. Mills’s DNA contained inconclusive data.” While inartful, this language does not imply any distinction between raw “data” and Jenkins’s report that no conclusion could be drawn from any other physical material. Instead, the complaint adequately alleges that the report (1) fabricated results inculpating Mills, specifically, that Mills’s DNA was consistent with the DNA from C.M.’s underwear when it was not; and (2) withheld exculpatory evidence by wrongly stating that other DNA results were inconclusive, when in fact some of those results definitively and clearly exclude Mills. Especially in light of Jenkins’s statement that she was not, and had never been, mistaken, the complaint adequately alleges that these untruths were knowing,
Secondly, the dissent states, or at least strongly implies, that “Jenkins did, in fact, provide the [raw] data to the prosecutor,” based on the complaint’s claim that the prosecutor “never presented [defense counsel] with any of Defendant Jenkins’ ‘inconclusive’ test results.” Dissent Op. at 490; Complaint ¶49. But even if Mills’s complaint is that the prosecutor should have given him the results, the only implication is that the prosecutor did not give the “results” (conceivably raw data), not that the prosecutor ever had any raw data.
Because Mills’s complaint alleges that Jenkins’s intentionally falsified report was material to his prosecution and that the falsities therein provided otherwise lacking probable cause, along with the allegations that he had been deprived of liberty and the criminal proceeding had eventually been resolved in his favor, he sufficiently pleaded a claim of malicious .prosecution under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The district court was in error in holding that the indictment conclusively resolved the issue of probable cause. Accordingly, we reverse the district court’s grant of the motion to dismiss with respect to the malicious-prosecution claim,
B. Fabricating Evidence and Withholding of Evidence
As an initial matter, Jenkins argues that both the fabrication and withholding-of-evidence claims are barred by the statute of limitations. She contends that the statute-of-limitations period began to run when the initial rape charge was dismissed on April 26, 2011. Because the statute-of-limitations period for § 1983 suits is determined by state law, the relevant limitations period for the suit is one year. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 28-3-104(a); Jackson v. Richards Med. Co.,
Jenkins also contends that Mills insufficiently pleaded and failed to state fabrication and withholding-of-evidence claims. In order to survive a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), a complaint must make a claim and plead facts plausibly showing that the plaintiff is entitled to relief. See Iqbal,
1. Fabrication-of-Evidence Claim. The basis of a fabrication-of-evidence claim under § 1983 is an allegation that a defendant “knowingly fabricated evidence against [a plaintiff], and [that] there is a reasonable likelihood that the false evidence could have affected the judgment of the jury.” Stemler v. City of Florence,
The district court combined the fabrication claim and the withholding claim into one, but this was in error. In Gregory, this court analyzed separately claims that a forensic expert withheld evidence and that the expert had fabricated evidence. Gregory,
2. Withholding of Evidence. The district court addressed the withholding-of-evidence claim more directly. It correctly observed that the test for such a claim is derived from Brady v. Maryland,
The source of Mills’s Brady claim, as distinguished from his fabrication claim, is that there existed additional DNA evidence — classified by Jenkins as “inconclusive” — that was in fact exculpatory.
The district court granted Jenkins’s motion to dismiss on the basis that the “new DNA evidence” was “based upon sperm fraction that Jenkins did not have, and additional DNA material that Jenkins did not have,” Citing the Tennessee appellate court’s findings, Mills v. State,
With respect, the district court went beyond the bounds of a motion to dismiss in considering facts drawn from the state appellate court decision to determine whether the complaint had sufficiently pleaded a claim. The district court supported its use of the Tennessee appellate decision with a citation to Rodic v. Thistledown Racing Club, Inc.,
Limiting review to Mills’s complaint, it is clear that the complaint alleges that the DNA evidence suppressed was that which was in Jenkins’s possession, not simply the DNA that SERI later tested. The complaint claimed that “the semen results Defendant Jenkins termed ‘inconclusive’ were actually conclusively someone else’s DNA” and that the DNA evidence “used by Defendant Jenkins was actually exculpatory.” It further alleged that “Jenkins’[s] ‘inconclusive’ test results ... were actually exculpatory and indicative of two different men’s semen, neither of whom was Mr. Mills.” These allegations do not claim to rely upon new DNA evidence from the SERI tests and, thus, are not subject to the deficiencies asserted by the district court. Nor" is there any allegation that Mills’s DNA changed in any material way between the original and later samples. To the extent that the district court relied on opinions by Mills’s expert in a separate proceeding, it was in error.
C. Qualified Immunity.
In holding that Mills sufficiently pleaded his claims of fabrication of evidence, suppression of evidence, and malicious prosecution, we determine that at this time qualified immunity is not warranted. Again, in the factually similar Gregory case, we stated that it was clearly established by at least 1992 that knowing fabrication of evidence violates constitutional rights. Gregory,
Although an officer’s “entitle[ment] to qualified immunity is a threshold question to be resolved at the earliest possible point,” that point is usually summary judgment and not dismissal under Rule 12. See Evans-Marshall v. Bd. of Educ. of Tipp City Exempted Vill. Sch. Dist.,428 F.3d 223 , 235 (6th Cir. 2005) (Sutton, J., concurring) (observing that the fact-intensive nature of the applicable tests make it “difficult for a defendant to claim qualified immunity on the pleadings before discovery” (emphasis in original)); see also Jacobs v. City of Chicago,215 F.3d 758 , 775 (7th Cir.2000) (Easterbrook, J., concurring) (“Rule 12(b)(6) is a mismatch for immunity and almost always a bad ground of dismissal.”); Chesser v. Sparks,248 F.3d 1117 , 1121 (11th Cir. 2001) (“[Qualified immunity is typically addressed at the summary judgment stage of the case.”); Grose v. Caruso,284 Fed.Appx. 279 , 283 (6th Cir. 2008) (“[T]he standard for a 12(b)(6) motion is whether the allegations, if taken as true, could state a claim upon which relief may be granted, [and] dismissal of Appellants on the basis of qualified immunity is premature.”).
Wesley v. Campbell,
III
Mills alleged a state-law claim against Jenkins. The district court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over this claim because it had dismissed all of Mills’s federal claims. Because we reverse the district court’s dismissal of a number of Mills’s federal claims, we also reverse the district court’s dismissal of Mills’s state-law claim and remand to permit the district court the opportunity “to determine whether to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over [this claim] given the” survival of a number of Mills’s federal claims. Veneklase v. Bridgewater Condos, L.C.,
IV
It is important to note that this appeal comes to us at the motion-to-dismiss stage, rather than at summary judgment where more facts are available to the district court. At the next stage, Jenkins may provide evidence that makes it clear that the DNA analytic methods used by SERI differed, that the evidence available to her was not exculpatory, or that her actions were innocent or negligent at worst. But at this stage, the complaint has stated legally cognizable claims. For the foregoing reasons, we REVERSE the district court’s grant of the motion to dismiss.
Notes
. Although the complaint states-that the indictment was returned on March 18, 1999, both parties acknowledge that Mills was indicted on July 21, 1999. We may recognize the actual date through judicial notice of the document. See United States v. Ferguson,
. We note that the complaint argues that Jenkins stated that "there was a 1 in 290 chance that the semen came from any Caucasian other than Mr, Mills” and that "there was only a 0.3% chance that the DNA she had analyzed belonged to a Caucasian male other than Mr. Mills.” These statements, if-made, would be flatly untrue. The correct statement: would be that 1 in every 290 white males would have such a marker and thus, for example, in a city with 29,000 white males, 100 such men would have the same marker, Indeed, the district court, in quoting the state-post-conviction opinion on Jenkins’s testimony, provided the correct statement that the chance of “an unrelated individual having the same DNA profile ... in the Caucasian population was 1 in 290,” Mills v. Barnard, No. 1:14-CV-00150,
. At oral argument, Jenkins maintained that the context of this statement is better understood as involving her actions after Mills’s prosecution and guilty verdict. But that reading, in addition to being inconsistent with the practice of construing the complaint and all reasonable inferences "in the light most favorable to the plaintiff,” is not the best one here. Directv,
. To be clear, the wrong in the withholding claim is the suppression of exonerating evidence that the DNA results did not match. The wrong in the fabrication claim is producing a false report that stated that the DNA in the underwear was consistent with Mills’s DNA. ' ■'
Dissenting Opinion
DISSENT
dissenting.
“To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’ ” Ashcroft v. Iqbal,
I.
Plaintiff Randall Mills was wrongly convicted of the rape of a child, aggravated sexual battery, and casual exchange of a controlled substance, after the complainant accused him of providing her with marijuana and engaging in vaginal intercourse with her. The latter accusation was supported by. a DNA report prepared by defendant Sharon Jenkins, who reported that Mills’ DNA was consistent with one of the two samples taken from the complainant’s underwear. Later re-examination of Jenkins’ data and additional DNA testing revealed that Mills was not a match and that the results for the second sample, which Jenkins reported as “inconclusive,” conclusively excluded him as a possible match. After Mills was exonerated, he filed this § 1983 suit against Jenkins and others involved in his prosecution. Plaintiff raised three separate claims against Jenkins: (1) malicious prosecution; (2) fabrication of evidence; and (3) withholding of evidence (“Brady”). Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), Jenkins moved to dismiss all three claims against her. The district court granted the motion, and Mills appealed. Contrary to my colleagues, I would affirm.
II.
A. Malicious Prosecution
A Fourth Amendment malicious-prosecution claim lies against a defendant who, among other things, “knowingly or recklessly makes false statements (such as in affidavits .or investigative reports) or falsifies or fabricates evidence[J” King v. Harwood,
46. ... Defendant Jenkins claimed that the segments of underwear containing semen other than the one she found to be consistent with Mr. Mills’s DNA contained inconclusive data.
47. Later expert analysis revealed that the DNA evidence used by Defendant Jenkins was actually exculpatory, and many of.the semen results Defendant Jenkins termed “inconclusive” were actually conclusively someone else’s DNA. The report that Defendant Jenkins presented was inaccurate and incomplete, and had a true report been provided, to Mr. Mills and [defense counsel] Dearing he would have been able to prove that CM had likely engaged in sexual relations with two other males on March 15, 1999, and that she had lied about "her virginity as well as Mills raping her, fondling her, and- providing her with ■marijuana.-
These factual allegations neither state nor imply that Jenkins “knowingly or recklessly ma[de]" false statements.” Id. (emphasis added).
Later in the complaint, plaintiff alleges that Jenkins “misidentified -segments of Mr. Mills’s DNA in order to support and maintain the guilty verdict.” This.“in order to” allegation is the land of general assertion of intent that can survive a motion to dismiss, but only if it is accompanied by factual-allegations that support a reasonable inference that the defendant acted with the requisite state of mind. See Republic Bank & Tr. Co. v. Bear Stearns &
The majority’s contrary conclusion relies on a misreading of an inapposite portion of the complaint. The majority states, “According to the complaint, the DNA found in the underwear ‘clearly excluded Mr. Mills,’ but ‘such evidence was deliberately and purposefully withheld’ by Jenkins.” First, the complaint does not allege that Jenkins withheld her preliminary data. Second, the majority conflates two pieces of evidence — the preliminary DNA data and Jenkins’ final report interpreting that data — each of which forms the basis for separate causes of action against Jenkins. Plaintiffs malicious prosecution claim is based on Jenkins’ final report in which she concluded that several test results were “inconclusive.” Missing from plaintiffs complaint are any factual allegations- that Jenkins knowingly or recklessly falsified her findings when preparing that report. The majority relies on the allegation that the preliminary data “clearly excluded Mr. Mills,” but that only alleges Jenkins was incorrect, not that she knowingly or recklessly falsified her findings. -
Plaintiffs 'complaint comes “close to stating a claim, but without some further factual enhancement it 'stops short of the line between possibility aind plausibility of ‘entitlement to relief;’” Twombly,
B. Fabrication of Evidence
Plaintiffs - fabrication-of-evidence. .claim fails, for- the. same reason.' In .order to establish this claim, plaintiff must allege that defendant “knowingly fabricated evidence against [him], and [that] there is a reasonable likelihood that the- false evidence could have affected the judgment of the jury.” Stemler v. City of Florence,
C. Withholding of Evidence
Finally, I disagree with my colleagues that the district court erred in dismissing
The majority asserts that Jenkins withheld exculpatory evidence when she reported several of the test results as “inconclusive.” But my colleagues assume that by misreporting her analysis of the data, Jenkins thereby withheld the information she used to make that report. The complaint does not allege that. In fact, the complaint alleges that the prosecutor, Weakley Barnard, withheld the preliminary DNA information that Jenkins used to complete her final report, indicating that Jenkins did, in fact, provide the data to the prosecutor. That was all that was required of Jenkins, see id., and, as a consequence, she was entitled to dismissal of plaintiffs withholding-of-evidence claim.
III.
For these reasons, I would affirm the judgment of the district court.