Stacey Johnson v. Tim GriffinStacey Johnson v. Tim Griffin
Appeal from United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas - Central
Submitted: January 10, 2023
Filed: June 5, 2023
Before KELLY, ERICKSON, and STRAS, Circuit Judges.
Tim Griffin has been appointed to serve as the Attorney General of the State of Arkansas, and is substituted as appellant pursuant to
KELLY, Circuit
Stacey Johnson has been incarcerated on death row in Arkansas since 1997. After he was denied relief in state court under Arkansas‘s postconviction DNA testing statute, Johnson filed this federal lawsuit against several Arkansas officials under
I.
In 1993, Carol Heath was found dead in her home in Sevier County, Arkansas. Johnson was charged with her murder, and he was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death the following year. That conviction was later reversed on appeal because of an evidentiary error. See Johnson v. State (Johnson I), 934 S.W.2d 179, 180 (Ark. 1996). Johnson was re-tried in 1997, and a jury again found him guilty of Heath‘s murder and sentenced him to death. The Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed Johnson‘s conviction and death sentence on direct appeal. See Johnson v. State (Johnson II), 27 S.W.3d 405, 408 (Ark. 2000).
Following his second conviction, Johnson unsuccessfully sought postconviction relief in state court. See Johnson v. State (Johnson III), 157 S.W.3d 151, 158 (Ark. 2004) (ordering retesting of certain DNA evidence); Johnson v. State (Johnson IV), 235 S.W.3d 872, 874-76 (Ark. 2006) (concluding that Johnson III “contained a factual error” and that further DNA testing was not warranted). He then petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus in federal court, which was also unsuccessful. See Johnson v. Norris, 537 F.3d 840, 842-43 (8th Cir. 2008) (affirming the district court‘s denial of habeas relief), cert. denied, 555 U.S. 1182 (2009).
Arkansas scheduled Johnson‘s execution for April 20, 2017. Shortly before that date, Johnson filed a petition in state court under Arkansas‘s postconviction DNA testing statute, which is known as Act 1780.3 See
On remand, the state trial court again denied Johnson‘s Act 1780 petition. See Johnson V, 591 S.W.3d at 268-69. And the Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed that decision on appeal. Id. at 266. The court explained that DNA testing is authorized under Act 1780 “only if it can provide materially relevant evidence that will significantly advance the petitioner‘s claim of innocence in light of all evidence
presented to the jury.” Id. at 270. It then concluded that “none of the evidence that might result from” Johnson‘s proposed testing “could advance [his] claim of actual innocence or raise a reasonable probability that he did not murder Carol Heath.” Id. at 272.
Johnson filed a petition for rehearing, in which he contended that the denial of his Act 1780 petition “implicate[d] a right to due process and access to the courts under the United States Constitution.” Johnson v. State, No. CR-18-700, 2020 WL 830044, at *2 (Ark. Feb. 20, 2020). The Arkansas Supreme Court declined to consider the merits of Johnson‘s “novel constitutional arguments,” and it reaffirmed its denial of Johnson‘s Act 1780 petition. Id. Johnson petitioned the United States Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari, and that too was denied. See Johnson v. Arkansas, 141 S. Ct. 1370 (2021).
Johnson subsequently brought this
The defendants moved to dismiss Johnson‘s complaint. As relevant to this appeal, they argued that Johnson lacks standing and that they are immune from suit under the Eleventh Amendment. The district court denied the motion in part, concluding that Johnson has standing to challenge Act 1780 on procedural due
process grounds6 and that the defendants are not entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity. The court granted the motion to dismiss all other claims.
The defendants now appeal the district court‘s rulings on standing and immunity. And we have jurisdiction over their interlocutory appeal under the collateral order doctrine. See McDaniel v. Precythe, 897 F.3d 946, 949 (8th Cir. 2018) (“[W]e may
II.
The merits of Johnson‘s challenge to Act 1780 are not before us. Our review is instead limited to the threshold issues of whether Johnson has standing and whether the defendants are immune from suit under the Eleventh Amendment, two questions we review de novo. See Heglund v. Aitkin County, 871 F.3d 572, 577 (8th Cir. 2017) (“We review standing de novo.“); Balogh v. Lombardi, 816 F.3d 536, 544 (8th Cir. 2016) (“We review district court determinations of Eleventh Amendment immunity de novo.“).
A.
We start with standing. See McDaniel, 897 F.3d at 949-50. “The Constitution limits federal courts to deciding ‘Cases’ and ‘Controversies,‘” and that limitation, “[a]mong other things, . . . requires a plaintiff to have standing.” Fed. Election Comm‘n v. Cruz, 142 S. Ct. 1638, 1646 (2022) (quoting
To establish Article III standing, a plaintiff “must have (1) suffered an injury in fact, (2) that is fairly traceable to the challenged conduct of the defendant, and (3) that is likely to be redressed by a favorable judicial decision.” McDaniel, 897 F.3d at 950 (quoting Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330, 338 (2016)). The plaintiff has the burden of establishing these elements. Agred Found. v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng‘rs, 3 F.4th 1069, 1073 (8th Cir. 2021). To survive a motion to dismiss, a plaintiff need only “allege sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to support a reasonable and plausible inference that she satisfies the elements of Article III standing.” Hawse v. Page, 7 F.4th 685, 688-89 (8th Cir. 2021). And this pleading burden is “relatively modest.” Bennett v. Spear, 520 U.S. 154, 171 (1997).
Relevant to our analysis here are two Supreme Court cases that directly addressed the same type of constitutional claim that Johnson brings in this case. In District Attorney‘s Office for the Third Judicial District v. Osborne, the Court explained that if state law authorizes prisoners to demonstrate their innocence by way of postconviction DNA testing, that state-created liberty interest is subject to the Due Process Clause‘s procedural protections. 557 U.S. 52, 67-68 (2009); see id. at 69 (“Federal courts may upset a State‘s postconviction relief procedures only if they are fundamentally inadequate to vindicate the substantive rights provided.“). And in Skinner v. Switzer, the Court held that a procedural due process challenge to a state‘s postconviction DNA testing statute “is properly pursued in a
In neither Osborne nor Skinner did the Supreme Court question the prisoner‘s standing to bring the procedural due process claims at issue in those cases. And in the years since, a
The defendants here nonetheless argue that Johnson lacks standing because they “have no connection” to the Arkansas judiciary‘s enforcement of Act 1780 and, as a result, have not caused Johnson any redressable injury. They further argue that Osborne and Skinner “never addressed what state officials, if any, are proper Article III defendants.” But any lingering doubt about a prisoner‘s standing to bring the distinct procedural due process claim recognized in those two cases was dispelled by the Supreme Court‘s recent decision in Reed v. Goertz, 143 S. Ct. 955 (2023).
In Reed, a prisoner on death row brought a
Reed establishes that Johnson has standing to bring his procedural due process claim against the Sevier County Prosecuting Attorney. First, like the prisoner in Reed, Johnson has “sufficiently alleged an injury in fact“—namely, “denial of access to” the DNA evidence he wishes to test pursuant to Act 1780. Id. Second, Johnson alleges that the Sevier County Prosecuting Attorney has possession and control of that evidence yet, like the state prosecutor in Reed, continues to “den[y] access to” it, “thereby caus[ing]” Johnson‘s injury. Id. And third, Johnson‘s injury is redressable because, as explained in Reed, “if a federal court concludes that [Arkansas‘s] post-conviction DNA testing procedures violate due process, that court order would eliminate” the Prosecuting Attorney‘s “justification for denying DNA testing.” Id.; see id. (noting that such a court order would significantly increase the likelihood that the state prosecutor “would grant access to the requested evidence”
Reed specifically addressed a
Attorney General “thereby caused,” in part, Johnson‘s ongoing injury of being denied access to DNA testing that might prove his innocence. Reed, 143 S. Ct. at 960; see Bennett, 520 U.S. at 168-69 (explaining that the traceability requirement does not require that the defendant‘s actions be “the very last step in the chain of causation“).
As for the Director of the State Crime Lab, Johnson alleges that the Director has “possession” and “control” of evidence he would like to test. He further claims that the Director and the other defendants are “refus[ing] to allow” him “to test key evidence in their possession.” And these allegations—which we must accept as true at this stage of litigation, see Hawse, 7 F.4th at 688-89—are sufficient to meet Johnson‘s “relatively modest” burden of establishing standing. Bennett, 520 U.S. at 171.
In sum, Johnson has sufficiently alleged an injury in fact that was caused by the defendants and that would be redressed by the relief he seeks in his
B.
The defendants also argue that the district court erred in determining that they are not immune from suit under the Eleventh Amendment. The Eleventh Amendment “protects States and their arms and instrumentalities from suit in federal court.” Webb v. City of Maplewood, 889 F.3d 483, 485 (8th Cir. 2018). Yet under the exception to Eleventh Amendment immunity established in Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908), “a private party may sue state officials in their official capacities for prospective injunctive relief.” McDaniel, 897 F.3d at 951-52. This exception applies only if the state officials being sued have “some connection to the enforcement of the challenged laws.” Calzone v. Hawley, 866 F.3d 866, 869 (8th Cir. 2017). Such a connection exists “[s]o long as a state official is giving effect to a state statute in a manner that allegedly injures a plaintiff and violates his
constitutional rights,” McDaniel, 897 F.3d at 952, which is an inquiry similar to the standing one. See Duit Constr. Co., 796 F.3d at 940.
III.
The order of the district court is affirmed.
STRAS, Circuit Judge, concurring.
Based on the Supreme Court‘s decision in Reed v. Goertz, 143 S. Ct. 955 (2023), which is indistinguishable from this case, I concur. Although the Supreme Court did not say much, what it did tell us resolves everything we have to decide here.
KELLY, CIRCUIT JUDGE