WRIGHT v. WATSON et al

Filing 141

ORDER denying 134 Defendants' Motions in Limine VII and VIII. Ordered by US DISTRICT JUDGE CLAY D LAND on 09/08/2017. (CCL)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF GEORGIA
COLUMBUS DIVISION
ROBERT H. WRIGHT JR.,

*

Plaintiff,

*

vs.

*

JERALD WATSON and JOHN
GOODRICH,

*

CASE NO. 4:15-CV-34 (CDL)
*
Defendants.
*
O R D E R
The Court deferred ruling on Defendants’ motions in limine
VII and VIII (ECF No. 134) until the parties had an opportunity
to brief the issues.

The briefing is now complete, and the

motions are denied for the reasons discussed below.
BACKGROUND
Defendants

were

part

of

a

law

enforcement

team

that

“hovered over [Plaintiff’s] rural home in a helicopter, saw what
they

believed

adjacent

to

be

property,

a

patch

trespassed

of
on

marijuana

on

his

[Plaintiff’s]

neighbor’s

property

to

investigate, snooped around the shed near his home, searched the
inside of his home pursuant to a search warrant obtained through
the use of alleged false information, and then arrested and
prosecuted [Plaintiff] based on evidence found inside his home.”
Wright v. Watson, 209 F. Supp. 3d 1344, 1350 (M.D. Ga. 2016),
aff’d sub nom. Wright v. Goodrich, 685 F. App’x 731 (11th Cir.

2017).

Plaintiff brought claims based on (1) the initial, pre-

warrant search, (2) the search of his property pursuant to a
search warrant that Plaintiff contends was illegally obtained,
(3) Plaintiff’s arrest for misdemeanor marijuana possession and
felony

marijuana

manufacturing,

(4)

the

seizure

of

certain

property from Plaintiff’s home, and (5) malicious prosecution
for felony marijuana manufacturing.

The Court previously found

that Defendants were entitled to qualified immunity on all of
Plaintiff’s

claims

except

his

illegal

search

claim

based

on

Defendants’ search of his property pursuant to a search warrant
that Plaintiff argues was illegally obtained.

Wright, 209 F.

Supp. 3d at 1372.
Importantly,

in

granting

summary

judgment

on

the

claims

based upon a finding of qualified immunity, the Court did not
determine

whether

the

subsequent

arrest

and

Plaintiff violated his constitutional rights.

prosecution

of

The Court simply

found that the Defendants’ conduct in arresting and prosecuting
Plaintiff did not violate clearly established law.

And thus,

Defendants

in

personal

could

not

capacities

be
for

held
the

liable
arrest

for
and

damages

prosecution

their
claims.

Defendants’ pending motions in limine require the Court to now
determine

whether

unconstitutional.
an

intervening

Plaintiff’s

arrest

and

prosecution

were

If they were, then they would not constitute

act

that

breaks

2

the

chain

of

causation,

and

Plaintiff would be able to recover damages proximately flowing
from

the

allegedly

illegal

search,

including

damages

arising

because of and subsequent to his arrest.
DISCUSSION
Defendants’
irrelevant

any

motion

in

evidence

limine

VII

pertaining

seeks

to

to

exclude

Plaintiff’s

as

dismissed

claims, including claims based on the initial pre-warrant search
of

Plaintiff’s

property,

Plaintiff’s

arrest,

the

civil

forfeiture action, and the prosecution of Plaintiff for felony
marijuana

manufacturing.

seeks

exclude

to

as

Defendants’

irrelevant

motion

evidence

in

that

limine

VIII

Plaintiff

was

terminated from his job.
The

Court

denies

Defendants’

motion

regarding

the

initial

pre-warrant

search.

relevant

because

the

allegedly

course,

be

allowed

to

argue

that

the

exclude
That

defective

affidavit was based on the initial search.
of

to

evidence

evidence

search

is

warrant

Plaintiff shall not,
initial

search

was

unlawful because the Court already concluded that Defendants are
entitled to qualified immunity and official immunity on claims
based on the initial search.

Wright, 209 F. Supp. 3d at 1364.

The heart of Plaintiff’s case is that Defendants conducted
an allegedly illegal search of his home that led to his arrest
for the felony of manufacturing marijuana and that this felony
arrest led to the loss of his job.

3

The Court previously granted

summary

judgment

to

the

individual

Defendants

involved

in

Plaintiff’s arrest and prosecution based on qualified immunity.
But the Court did not determine that the subsequent arrest and
prosecution

were

constitutional.

immunity

decision,

involved

officers

Defendants

now

the
did

argue

Court
not
that

To

simply

violate
the

reach

had

to

clearly

arrest

and

its
find

qualified
that

the

established

law.

prosecution

were

constitutional and thus they constitute an intervening act that
breaks

the

chain

of

causation.

Consequently,

according

to

Defendants, any damages suffered post-arrest cannot be causally
connected to the allegedly illegal search.
“For damages to be proximately caused by a constitutional
tort, a plaintiff must show that, except for that constitutional
tort, such injuries and damages would not have occurred and
further

that

such

injuries

and

damages

were

the

reasonably

foreseeable consequences of the tortious acts or omissions in
issue.”

Jackson v. Sauls, 206 F.3d 1156, 1168 (11th Cir. 2000).1

So, if a police officer’s conduct leads to a person’s arrest and
prosecution

and

no

intervening

acts

break

the

chain

of

causation, that person may have a valid claim for damages based
1

In Jackson, the defendant plain clothes undercover police officers
illegally stopped the plaintiffs at a motorcycle shop under
circumstances that made the shop’s occupants believe they were being
accosted by armed robbers.
There was a jury question on whether it
was reasonably foreseeable that the defendants’ conduct “might result
in the discharge of firearms by the Shop’s occupants, the officers’
firing back, and injuries to the Shop’s occupants [who were] illegally
stopped.” Jackson, 206 F.3d at 1169.

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on the arrest and prosecution.

See Manuel v. City of Joliet,

Ill., 137 S. Ct. 911, 914-15 (2017).

In Manuel, for example,

the plaintiff had a valid Fourth Amendment claim based on his
detention following an arrest for controlled substances because
there was evidence that (1) he was arrested despite a negative
field

test

on

pills

officers

found

in

his

car,

(2)

he

was

detained because an officer and a technician lied to a judge and
said that the plaintiff possessed the drug ecstasy, and (3) he
remained

detained

for

a

month

after

the

police

laboratory

reexamined the pills and found again that they contained no
controlled substances.

Id. at 915.

In contrast, the intervening acts of a judge who issues an
arrest

warrant

and

a

prosecutor

who

handles

the

prosecution

“each break the chain of causation unless plaintiff can show
that these intervening acts were the result of deception or
undue pressure by the defendant policemen.”

Barts v. Joyner,

865 F.2d 1187, 1195 (11th Cir. 1989) (emphasis added) (finding
that

the

plaintiff’s

murder

confession

broke

the

chain

of

causation between her illegal seizure and her subsequent trial,
conviction, and imprisonment).

“[T]he existence of a[n arrest]

warrant will not shield an officer from liability where the
warrant

was

misstatements

secured

based

made

either

upon

an

affidavit

intentionally

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or

that

contained

with

reckless

disregard for the truth.”

Smith v. Sheriff, Clay Cty., Fla.,

506 F. App’x 894, 898 (11th Cir. 2013) (per curiam).
Pursuant to the search warrant, which Plaintiff claims was
obtained illegally and which forms the basis of the claim that
the Court has determined should be submitted to a jury, officers
found

a

home.

small

amount

of

burned

marijuana

inside

Plaintiff’s

Defendants sought an arrest warrant for possession of

marijuana and manufacture of marijuana based on these marijuana
remnants

and

fifty-four

marijuana

plants,

stated were possessed by Plaintiff.

which

Defendants

The fifty-four marijuana

plants were in fact not even located on Plaintiff’s property but
were

on

property

his

neighbor’s

line.

affidavit.

An

Whether

property

arrest
an

next

warrant

arrest

door

was

near

issued

pursuant

to

Plaintiff’s

based

that

on

warrant

that
was

constitutional depends in part on whether it makes a difference
that

the

fifty-four

property or not.

marijuana

plants

were

on

Plaintiff’s

The Court finds that this discrepancy between

the arrest warrant affidavit and the true facts creates a jury
question.
that

That question is whether a reasonable officer knowing

there

property

of

were

fifty-four

Plaintiff’s

marijuana

neighbor

plants

combined

growing

with

the

on

the

marijuana

remnants found in Plaintiff’s house is sufficient to lead that
officer to believe that Plaintiff was operating a marijuana grow
operation.

6

If a jury concludes that Defendants did not have probable
cause to believe that Plaintiff possessed the fifty-four plants,
then the jury could find that Defendants made intentional or
reckless misstatements in the arrest warrant affidavit when they
stated that Plaintiff possessed those fifty-four plants found on
the

neighbor’s

property.

And

since

it

is

undisputed

that

officers did not have probable cause to seek the arrest warrant
for

felony

marijuana

manufacturing

without

those

fifty-four

plants, the acts of the judge who issued the arrest warrant and
the

prosecutor

who

handled

the

prosecution

and

the

civil

forfeiture proceeding would not constitute intervening acts that
break the chain of causation.2
The jury may well decide that there is enough evidence to
establish

a

connection

between

Plaintiff’s

property

large marijuana grow site on the neighbor’s property.

and

the

But the

jury could also conclude that there is not enough evidence to
2

If there were no jury question on the probable cause issue (say, if
officers found fifty-four large marijuana plants growing in the
Wrights’ basement), then the Court would likely conclude that Wright
could not recover damages based on the arrest and prosecution because
the discovery of incriminating evidence is not subject to the
exclusionary rule and would break the chain of causation.
See Smith
v. City of Oak Hill, Fla., 587 F. App’x 524 (11th Cir. 2014) (per
curiam) (affirming the denial of compensatory damages for expenses the
plaintiff incurred in defending the criminal charges against him
because although the jury found that the initial stop of the vehicle
was illegal, the jury also found that the officer had probable cause
to search the vehicle after it was stopped because the officer smelled
marijuana in the car); see also Black v. Wigington, 811 F.3d 1259,
1268 (11th Cir. 2016) (holding “that the exclusionary rule does not
apply in a civil suit against police officers,” so officers may rely
on evidence found during an allegedly illegal search to prove that
they probable cause for an arrest).

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establish such a connection and that Defendants thus did not
have

probable

cause

to

believe

that

Plaintiff

possessed

the

fifty-four plants that were found on his neighbor’s property.
And

if

the

jury

reaches

that

conclusion,

then

there

is

no

intervening cause to break the chain of causation between the
allegedly illegal search and the damages Plaintiff suffered due
to

the

arrest,

prosecution,

and

civil

forfeiture

proceeding.

Accordingly, the Court declines to exclude evidence, including
evidence of damages, related to the arrest, prosecution, and
civil forfeiture action.
CONCLUSION
As discussed above, Defendants’ motions in limine VII and
VIII (ECF No. 134) are denied.
IT IS SO ORDERED, this 8th day of September, 2017.
S/Clay D. Land
CLAY D. LAND
CHIEF U.S. DISTRICT COURT JUDGE
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF GEORGIA

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