Thibodeaux v. Normand et al

Filing 109

ORDER AND REASONS: IT IS ORDERED that 103 Second Motion for Reconsideration filed by the plaintiff, Damon Thibodeaux, is DENIED as set forth in document. Signed by Judge Jay C. Zainey on 7/28/2020.(ajn)

Case 2:13-cv-05903-JCZ-JVM Document 109 Filed 07/29/20 Page 1 of 14

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA
DAMON THIBODEAUX

CIVIL ACTION

VERSUS

NO: 13-5903

NEWELL NORMAND, ET AL.

SECTION: "A" (1)

ORDER AND REASONS
The following motion is before the Court: Second Motion for
Reconsideration (Rec. Doc. 103) filed by the plaintiff, Damon Thibodeaux.1
Defendants, Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office ("JPSO") employees Lt. Steve Buras,
Sgt. Dennis Thornton, Lt. Stacy Phillips, Major Walter Gorman, Lt. Maggie Snow, and
Lt. Hilda Montecino, in their individual capacities, and Sheriff Newell Normand, in his
official capacity as Sheriff of Jefferson Parish, oppose the motion.2
The motion, submitted for consideration on July 8, 2020, is before the Court on
the briefs without oral argument. For the reasons that follow, the motion is DENIED.

Thibodeaux’s second motion for reconsideration was filed under seal because it includes
references to grand jury testimony subject to a protective order. The Court is not persuaded that
this Order and Reasons, which does not divulge any of the contents of the grand jury’s evidence,
should be filed under seal.
1

Newell Normand is no longer the Sheriff of Jefferson Parish. Joseph Lopinto, who now holds
that office, is enrolled as counsel of record because he represented Defendants before he was
elected to succeed Normand. The case remains stayed and administratively closed so no motion
has been filed to withdraw Lopinto as counsel and to substitute him in as a defendant in his
official capacity. Neither Normand nor Lopinto held the office when the events giving rise to this
action occurred.
2

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I.

Background3
On July 21, 1996, the plaintiff, Damon Thibodeaux, confessed to the murder and

rape of fourteen year-old Crystal Champagne. A state court judge determined that the
confession was admissible against Thibodeaux at his criminal trial.
A Jefferson Parish jury found Thibodeaux guilty of first degree murder and he
was sentenced to death. The Louisiana Supreme Court upheld the conviction and
sentence as well as the admissibility of the confession. State v. Thibodeaux, 750 So. 2d
916, 920 (La. 1999). Thibodeaux spent the next 16 years on death row awaiting execution
until a state court judge granted, without reasons, a joint motion by Thibodeaux and the
district attorney to vacate the conviction and sentence. This occurred on September 27,
2012.
On September 20, 2013, Thibodeaux filed this civil action pursuant to 42 U.S.C.
'' 1983, 1985, 1988, and state law to recover money damages, punitive damages, and
attorney fees for what he contends was his wrongful conviction for the murder of Crystal
Champagne. No one could plausibly suggest that the conviction could have been
obtained without Thibodeaux’s confession, and Thibodeaux maintains that he falsely
confessed for a crime that he did not commit.
All of the individual defendants are employees of the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's
Office who either participated in questioning Thibodeaux when he confessed to
murdering Crystal Champagne, or participated in the homicide investigation in some

The Court has provided a more detailed factual background in its Order and Reasons
addressing Defendants’ motion for summary judgment. (Rec. Doc. 31, Order and Reasons
entered 3/3/15, granting in part and denying in part summary judgment).
3

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manner. Thibodeaux contends that the indictment and his conviction rested on the
confession alone because there was never any evidence connecting him to Crystal
Champagne's body, her clothing, or the crime scene. As to the confession itself,
Thibodeaux contends that it was not only demonstrably false, but also the product of an
unconstitutional custodial interrogation, at which certain of the defendants allegedly
"fed" him important facts about the details of the murder. The crux of Thibodeaux's
claims against the individual defendants is that but for their wrongful conduct in
interrogating him, he would not have falsely confessed to Crystal Champagne's murder,
and consequently, he would not have spent 16 years in prison for capital murder.4
On March 3, 2015, the Court issued a comprehensive Order and Reasons (Rec.
Doc. 31) ruling on Defendants' motion for summary judgment. That ruling narrowed the
scope of this case considerably because of all the claims asserted, the Court identified a
single potentially viable federal claim: Thibodeaux’s Count I Fifth/Sixth Amendment
claim that Defendants violated his right to counsel by continuing to question him even
after he asked to speak with an attorney, and having violated that right, eliciting the
confession that ultimately led to his conviction.5

The Court has already explained that there is no federal constitutional right to be free from a
“wrongful conviction” just as there is no right to be free from incriminating oneself by confessing
“falsely.” So even if Thibodeaux’s theory is that he was wrongfully convicted based on a false
confession he must nonetheless tether that theory to the violation of a specific existing federal
right. (Rec. Doc. 79 at 11, Order and Reasons granting motion in limine). Further, § 1983 is a
vehicle for vindicating existing federal rights “elsewhere conferred.” Albright v. Oliver, 510 U.S.
266,273 (1994) (quoting Baker v. McCollan, 443 U.S. 137, 144 n.3 (1979)). Section 1983 is not
itself a source of substantive rights. Id. Therefore, the first step in a claim brought under § 1983
is to identify the specific constitutional right allegedly infringed. Id. (citing Graham v. Connor,
490 U.S. 386, 394 (1989)). Id.
4

Thibodeaux’s Count III § 1983 conspiracy claim is still pending but like any other § 1983 claim
this cause of action must be grounded on the violation of a specific federal right. Again, the only
5

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On January 30, 2017, the Court stayed and administratively closed this case after
Thibodeaux brought to the Court’s attention the case of Manuel v. City of Joliet, a case
in which the Supreme Court was expected to address issues of law that Thibodeaux
anticipated would prove favorable to his Fourth Amendment Claim. (Rec. Doc. 89, Order
staying and closing case). As explained below, the Court had previously granted
summary judgment in favor of Defendants on the Fourth Amendment claim, after
concluding that the claim was prescribed. (Rec. Doc. 31, Order and Reasons entered
3/3/15, granting in part and denying in part summary judgment).
On March 17, 2017, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Manuel v. City of
Joliet, 137 S. Ct. 911 (2017). Subsequently, the United States Court of Appeals for the
Fifth Circuit decided Winfrey v. Rogers, 901 F.3d 483 (5th Cir. 2018). Then on June 20,
2019, the Supreme Court decided McDonough v. Smith, 139 S. Ct. 2149 (2019).
Thibodeaux contends that these decisions directly impact many of the issues
surrounding his § 1983 Fourth Amendment claim and provide a legal basis (as
intervening decisions of law) for the Court to reconsider its prior disposition of the
Fourth Amendment claim. Moreover, since this Court last ruled, Thibodeaux obtained
the grand jury transcripts for his state criminal case and he posits that they provide an
evidentiary basis for reconsideration.

viable federal right at issue in this case is the Fifth/Sixth Amendment claim so the § 1983
conspiracy claim must necessarily be premised on a conspiracy to violate that right.
Further, the viability of any of Thibodeaux’s state law causes of action has never been
before the Court and the Court has already forewarned the parties that its inclination, should all
federal claims be disposed of prior to trial, would be to decline to exercise supplemental
jurisdiction over the state law claims. (Rec. Doc. 31, Order and Reasons at 4 n.6).

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The merits of Thibodeaux’s arguments are discussed below.6
II.

Thibodeaux’s Fourth Amendment Claim and the Court’s Prior Ruling
Before delving into the arguments that Thibodeaux has raised in his second

motion for reconsideration—which seeks reconsideration only as to the Fourth
Amendment claim—it is important to understand the substance of Thibodeaux’s Fourth
Amendment claim and why the Court originally concluded that it is prescribed. As the
Court previously explained,
The Fourth Amendment claim that Thibodeaux pleaded is quite simple.
Thibodeaux alleges that he was taken into custody and transported to the
Harvey Criminal Investigations Bureau ("CIB") without probable cause.
(Rec. Doc. 1, Complaint & 59). Thibodeaux also alleges that once he got to
the station, he was not free to leave for the next nine hours leading up to his
formal arrest, even though the officers lacked probable cause to hold him
prior to his confession. (Id. && 59-60). Thibodeaux's contention is that his
entire time of incarceration was a "wrongful seizure" that continued from
the time he entered the Harvey CIB station for questioning until he was
released in 2012. (Id. & 62).
(Rec. Doc. 31, Order and Reasons at 10).
In other words, Thibodeaux contends that the Fourth Amendment wrongful

The Court is unmoved by the defense’s suggestion that the Court should not consider
Thibodeaux’s arguments for reconsideration. No final judgment has been issued in this case and
the Court stayed this matter in anticipation of clarification from the Supreme Court as to the
Fourth Amendment claim. Whether the cited cases actually alter the legal landscape so as to
afford Thibodeaux any relief from this Court’s prior rulings is a different question but fairness
requires that Thibodeaux be allowed to present his arguments.
Moreover, Thibodeaux was met with resistance (not from the defendants) when he tried
to obtain the grand jury transcripts, and he did not have them when he opposed Defendants’
motion for summary judgment or when he filed his first motion for reconsideration. In fact,
when the Court denied Thibodeaux’s first motion for reconsideration on June 17, 2015, the Court
specifically explained that because discovery was ongoing, if Thibodeaux could obtain relevant
evidence that would call into question the Court’s rulings then he could bring that to the Court’s
attention via an appropriate motion. (Rec. Doc. 37, Order and Reasons entered 6/17/15, denying
reconsideration). Therefore, while the Court considers its prior rulings to be sound and does not
take lightly the prospect of altering them, the Court will consider Thibodeaux’s new legal
authorities and evidence.
6

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seizure violation that he was subjected to lasted for 16 years.
The Court has previously explained why the initial encounter with the police,
when Thibodeaux accompanied officers to the Harvey station, is not a viable claim.7
Instead, even assuming that Thibodeaux voluntarily left his mother’s house to
accompany the detectives to the station, the wrongful seizure that triggered a Fourth
Amendment violation would have occurred at some point over the next nine hours of
exhausting interrogation when the situation transitioned from one of voluntary
cooperation to involuntary detention (in the absence of probable cause to believe that
Thibodeaux had committed a crime) because Thibodeaux wanted to leave but was not
free to do so.8 Several of the named defendants in this action were personally involved
in that allegedly involuntary seizure. (Rec. Doc. 31 at 10 n.9). Thus, Thibodeaux’s Fourth
Amendment wrongful seizure claim accrued—the accrual date being the point in time
when Thibodeaux first could have taken legal action on the Fourth Amendment claim—
at some point during the pre-confession nine hours of questioning when he was not
allowed to leave the Harvey CIB station even though the officers lacked probable cause

As the Court has already observed, none of the defendants in this case were involved in picking
Thibodeaux up at his mother’s house and bringing him to the Harvey station for questioning,
and aside from that, Thibodeaux admitted at his deposition that he went with the officers
voluntarily because he was willing to help in the investigation into Crystal Champagne's
disappearance. (Rec. Doc. 31 at 9 n.9). Thus, there was no wrongful “seizure”—the sine qua non
of a Fourth Amendment violation—associated with the officers transporting Thibodeaux to the
Harvey station for questioning. And even if there had been, the officers who are defendants in
this case cannot be held to account for the acts or omissions of other officers whose conduct they
did not control.
7

A person is “seized” for Fourth Amendment purposes whenever officials terminate or restrain
his freedom of movement by either physical force or show of authority. Brendlin v. California,
551 U.S. 249, 254 (2007) (citing Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429, 434 (1991)).
8

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to believe that he had committed a crime. (Id. at 11). The accrual date for Thibodeaux’s
Fourth Amendment claim is therefore July 21, 1996.9
But the accrual date only marks the earliest point in time when Thibodeaux first
could have taken legal action on the Fourth Amendment claim—in other words, the
point in time when the cause of action was choate. This is true because a Fourth
Amendment violation arises and therefore becomes actionable upon a wrongful
“seizure,” independent and without regard to whether any criminal charges, much less
an actual conviction, ultimately result from the violative detention. See Manuel, 137 S.
Ct. at 926 (Thomas, J., dissenting). So while Thibodeaux had an accrued Fourth
Amendment claim as of July 21, 1996, and therefore could have taken legal action as
early as this date to challenge the constitutionality of his detention, the more important
legal question for Thibodeaux is when the one-year period to file suit on the Fourth
Amendment claim started to run against him.10 The controlling law—at least as of the
time that the Court issued its prior rulings—dictated that the one year limitations clock
began to run no later than July 25, 1996, which was the date that Thibodeaux was
indicted, and therefore held from that point forward pursuant to legal process. (Rec.

Thibodeaux entered the Harvey station on July 20, 1996, and confessed on July 21, 1996.
Assuming without deciding that a Fourth Amendment violation did in fact occur, the Court will
assume that it occurred after midnight on the evening when Thibodeaux first entered the station
to cooperate with the investigation. As will be clear from the discussion that follows, it makes no
difference under the facts of this case whether the violation actually occurred on the 20th or the
21st of July 1996.
9

The Court has previously rejected Thibodeaux’s suggestion that a two year limitation period
could apply to his Fourth Amendment claim. (Rec. Doc. 37 at 3 n.1, Order and Reasons entered
6/17/15, denying reconsideration). The limitations period for the Fourth Amendment claim is
one year and Thibodeaux has not moved for reconsideration of this legal determination.
10

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Docs. 31 & 37). As the Court explained, Thibodeaux’s Fourth Amendment claim
prescribed on July 25, 1997 (one year from the date of indictment), pursuant to a
straightforward application of the Supreme Court’s on point, controlling decision in
Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384 (2007), which, for statute of limitations purposes,
analogizes a Fourth Amendment violation to the tort of false imprisonment. Per
Wallace, the prescriptive period on a ' 1983 claim seeking damages for an 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. 549 U.S. at 396. And since Thibodeaux did not file suit until September 20,
2013, the Fourth Amendment claim was untimely.11
III.

Thibodeaux’s Motion for Reconsideration
Thibodeaux re-urges—relying upon new post-ruling authorities and subsequently

obtained grand jury evidence—the same argument that he has made since the inception
of this litigation: that the one year limitations period on his Fourth Amendment claim
should be analogized to the tort of malicious prosecution (as opposed to the tort of false
imprisonment), which requires as an element of the cause of action that the underlying
conviction be vacated or set aside. If the tort of malicious prosecution provides the
proper prescriptive analogy for Thibodeaux’s Fourth Amendment claim, then
prescription did not commence to run on his Fourth Amendment claim until his

The Court identified the following important dates for the prescription analysis: Thibodeaux
was brought in for questioning on July 20, 1996 and he confessed in the early morning hours
of July 21, 1996. Thibodeaux was indicted on July 25, 1996, and he was convicted on
October 3, 1997. Thibodeaux's conviction and sentence were vacated on September 27,
2012. Thibodeaux filed the instant ' 1983 Complaint on September 20, 2013. (Rec. Doc. 31 at
8).
11

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conviction was vacated and set aside on September 27, 2012. And since he filed this civil
action less than one year later, the Fourth Amendment claim would not be prescribed.
Of course, as the Court explained in its exhaustive legal analysis both in ruling on
Defendants’ motion for summary judgment and on Thibodeaux’s first motion for
reconsideration, this position ran contrary to controlling law per Wallace, supra. The
Court therefore turns its attention to the new authorities that Thibodeaux relies upon to
see whether the legal landscape has changed.
In Manuel v. City of Joliet the Court held that the plaintiff could rely on the
Fourth Amendment to challenge an allegedly unlawful period of pretrial detention that
lasted 48 days. 137 S. Ct at 914. The most significant aspect of the opinion was the
Court’s recognition that the Fourth Amendment may continue to govern a period of
pretrial detention even after the initiation of legal process. Id. But the key fact that drove
the decision was that the legal process that Manuel had received—a preliminary
probable cause hearing before a judge and a grand jury indictment—were based entirely
on fabricated “made-up” evidence and false testimony from the arresting officers. Thus,
legal process did not expunge Manuel’s Fourth Amendment claim because the “process”
he received failed to establish what that Amendment makes essential for pretrial
detention—probable cause to believe that he committed a crime. Id. at 919-20.
The Manuel decision taken alone is not helpful to Thibodeaux for two reasons.
First, the Supreme Court specifically declined to address when the limitations period on
Manuel’s Fourth Amendment claim began to run, which again is the most important
legal question as to Thibodeaux’s claim. Second, and perhaps even more important, the
Manuel decision only addressed pretrial detention not post-conviction incarceration. In

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fact, the majority expressly rejected any suggestion that its holding pertaining to
“tainted” legal process applied to post-conviction periods of detention:
By contrast . . . once a trial has occurred, the Fourth Amendment drops out:
A person challenging the sufficiency of the evidence to support both a
conviction and any ensuing incarceration does so under the Due Process
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment . . . [t]he Framers “drafted the Fourth
Amendment” to address the matter of pretrial deprivations of liberty . . .,
and the Amendment thus provides “standards and procedures” for “the
detention of suspects pending trial.
Manuel, 137 S. Ct. at 920 n.8 (emphasis in original and internal citations omitted).12
Unlike Manuel, Thibodeaux’s Fourth Amendment claim relates to pre-verdict
detention and post-verdict incarceration, with most of the sixteen years that he was
deprived of liberty having followed a full criminal trial. Thus, even assuming without
deciding that false evidence was presented by the defendants before Thibodeaux’s grand
jury so as to taint that legal process, Manuel only stands for the proposition that the
Fourth Amendment continued to govern up until Thibodeaux was convicted on October
3, 1997. And per the quoted passage above from Manuel, upon conviction the Fourth
Amendment no longer applied to Thibodeaux’s involuntary detention even if
Thibodeaux could demonstrate that the defendants provided false testimony at his
criminal trial to help convict him. And because nothing in Manuel suggests that a Fourth
Amendment violation that accrued on July 21, 1996 and ended no later than October 3,
1997 was held in abeyance for limitations purposes until the conviction was set aside,

Perhaps the quoted passage from the footnote was intended to address criticisms that Justice
Thomas raised in his dissent. Justice Thomas observed that by the majority’s logic, there was no
apparent reason why even a judgment of conviction should cut off the accrual of new Fourth
Amendment claims based on the use of fabricated evidence. Manuel, 137 S. Ct. at 927 n.3
(Thomas, J., dissenting). Obviously, the majority wanted to be clear that Manuel was not
intended to elide the distinction between pre- and post-judgment detention.
12

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nothing in Manuel calls into question the Court’s prior conclusion that when suit was
filed on September 20, 2013, the Fourth Amendment claim was already prescribed. In
short, while Manuel does allow that the Fourth Amendment violation that accrued on
July 21, 1996 could have continued past the point of an allegedly tainted grand jury
process, it does nothing to suggest that the limitations period remained tolled until
Thibodeaux’s conviction was vacated.
Winfrey v. Rogers, decided in 2018 after Manuel, appears at first blush to be a
promising decision for Thibodeaux because in that case the Fifth Circuit analogized the
plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment wrongful seizure claim to the tort of malicious
prosecution to hold that the claim did not accrue until the criminal proceedings
terminated in his favor. 901 F. 3d at 493. This of course is the legal approach that
Thibodeaux has been arguing in favor of since the inception of this lawsuit nearly seven
years ago.
But what Thibodeaux fails to recognize is that the plaintiff in Winfrey was
acquitted at his criminal trial so none of the time for which he was wrongfully “seized”
involved post-verdict or post-conviction incarceration. While Winfrey’s detention had
lasted several years in duration, all of the time that he was locked up constituted pretrial
detention governed by the Fourth Amendment as confirmed by Manuel. Of course once
Winfrey was acquitted at trial and released, the allegedly violative period of detention
ended and the limitations on his Fourth Amendment claim began to run. The Court is
persuaded that together Manuel and Winfrey confirm that the limitations clock on an
accrued Fourth Amendment claim begins to run no later than the date of the criminal
trial—and this is true whether the plaintiff is acquitted or convicted at that trial. Winfrey

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does not stand for the general proposition that a Fourth Amendment violation continues
past the point of conviction into a period of post-trial incarceration so as to end tolling
only when the conviction is later set aside. And it certainly does not stand for the
proposition that Thibodeaux’s Fourth Amendment claim should be analogized to the tort
of malicious prosecution for limitations purposes.
Finally, McDonough v. Smith also held that the statute of limitations began to run
on the plaintiff’s claim when criminal proceedings terminated in his favor but that
plaintiff’s claim was not brought under the Fourth Amendment. 139 S. Ct. at 2153.
Moreover, like the plaintiff in Winfrey, McDonough was acquitted at trial so none of the
time at issue in that case involved post-conviction incarceration—all of the time that the
plaintiff was subjected to a loss of liberty involved pretrial detention.13 Thus, neither
Winfrey nor McDonough, while both analogizing a period of pretrial detention to the
tort of malicious prosecution, and therefore pegging the start of the limitations clock at
the favorable termination of criminal proceedings, stand for the proposition that the
Fourth Amendment continued to govern into the period of Thibodeaux’s post-conviction
incarceration. And neither decision suggests that the limitations period for Thibodeaux’s
Fourth Amendment claim was tolled until his conviction was set aside.
Defendants are correct when they argue that none of the foregoing decisions have
any bearing on the timeliness of Thibodeaux’s Fourth Amendment claim. Even if the
Court assumes that the grand jury relied on evidence that the defendants fabricated to

The plaintiff in McDonough was not incarcerated pending his trial but he was subject to
limitations and restrictions on his ability to travel. Therefore, the plaintiff did plead a liberty
deprivation. McDonough, 139 S. Ct. at 2156 n.4.
13

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help indict Thibodeaux, that would only move the start of the one year limitations clock
on the Fourth Amendment claim to the date of conviction, which was October 3, 1997.
The Fourth Amendment claim would have prescribed on October 3, 1998—nearly 15
years before Thibodeaux filed suit—because there is no authority to suggest that the
Fourth Amendment continued to govern during the time that Thibodeaux was
incarcerated following conviction. Thibodeaux’s reliance on the foregoing decisions (and
the grand jury evidence) to reach a contrary outcome is simply misplaced. And even if
Thibodeaux were not attempting to recover under the Fourth Amendment for the years
of post-verdict incarceration, there is likewise no authority to suggest that the one year
limitations clock on Thibodeaux’s accrued pre-verdict Fourth Amendment claim
(involuntary detention from July 21, 1996 to October 3, 1997) was tolled until his
conviction was set aside. A pretrial or pre-verdict Fourth Amendment violation accrues
independently of a judgment of conviction so the start of the limitations clock does not
depend on whether the plaintiff is subject to an extant criminal conviction.
Accordingly, and for the foregoing reasons;
IT IS ORDERED that the Second Motion for Reconsideration (Rec. Doc.
103) filed by the plaintiff, Damon Thibodeaux, is DENIED.14
July 28, 2020
___________________________________
JAY C. ZAINEY
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
At this time the case remains stayed and closed and given the local state of affairs with the
COVID-19 pandemic the Court assumes that the parties wish to keep the case in that posture for
the time being. In light of COVID-19 General Order 20-9, jury trials cannot take place in the
Eastern District of Louisiana at this time. The Court therefore has not scheduled a status
conference at this time or reopened the case. The parties can move for relief in this vein if they
14

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choose to do so.
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