Burleigh v. City of Detroit

80 F. App'x 454
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedNovember 5, 2003
DocketNo. 02-1309
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 80 F. App'x 454 (Burleigh v. City of Detroit) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Burleigh v. City of Detroit, 80 F. App'x 454 (6th Cir. 2003).

Opinion

SUTTON, Circuit Judge.

In this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Tito Lesean Burleigh seeks relief for false imprisonment, false arrest, and malicious prosecution in violation of state law and his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The district court grantéd summary judgment in favor of the defendant, Sergeant Melvin Williams. Because Burleigh has failed as a matter of law to show that Sergeant Williams violated his constitutional rights, we AFFIRM.

I.

On October 20, 1997, Norma Hurt was robbed outside a rental property she owned in Detroit, Michigan. At the preliminary examination, she gave the following version of events. When Hurt arrived at the property in her 1997 Lincoln Mark VIII, two men approached her, and one asked Hurt if she knew people in the neighborhood who needed their lawns mowed. When Hurt answered “no,” the man pulled a handgun from his pocket and said “this [is] a stickup.” Prelim. Hr’g Tr. at 7. The two robbers demanded that Hurt accompany them in her car to a credit union, where she could withdraw money for them. The first robber, who initially accosted Hurt, drove the car. The second robber, later identified as Quentin Spell, sat in the passenger seat, while Hurt rode in the back. On their way to the credit union, Spell searched Hurt’s purse and removed money and a cell phone from it. The first robber accompanied Hurt into the credit union, where she withdrew $2,000 for them. Hurt told the men that she would give them more money if they left her unharmed, which they did.

After dropping the men off, Hurt gave the police a statement describing the two robbers. She described the first robber as a black male with a light complexion, five feet four inches tall, 135-40 pounds, and approximately 26 years of age. She described Spell as a 26-year-old black male with a dark complexion, six feet tall, and 140 pounds.

The next day, a man whom Hurt believed to be the first robber called her at work and asked her for more money. He wanted $10,000, and threatened to “snatch [ ] up” her husband, Clifford Hurt, if she failed to comply. Hurt Statement, Oct. 21, 1997. Later that day Hurt gave a statement to Sergeant Melvin Williams about the phone call. She again described the previous day’s robbery and the threatening phone call she had received at work.

Shortly after the robbery, Williams obtained a fist of calls that had been made from Norma Hurt’s stolen cell phone. Williams noted that someone used the cell phone to make four calls to a phone registered to Shirley Burleigh, the sister of defendant Tito Burleigh. On December 10, 1997. Sergeant Williams visited Shirley Burleigh, who gave a description of her brother and who acknowledged that Tito [456]*456lived with her. Because this description matched the description of one of the men who robbed Hurt, Sergeant Williams returned to the police station and searched Tito Burleigh’s name in a police computer. Williams’ research showed a computer description of Burleigh (e.g., height, weight, skin color) that was consistent with Shirley’s description of her brother and Hurt’s description of one of the robbers.

On January 5, 1998, Sergeant Williams presented Norma Hurt with a photo lineup of approximately twelve photographs. After examining the photos, she selected two but could not be sure either photo depicted one of the robbers. One of the selected photos was of Tito Burleigh. Sergeant Williams, however, did not arrest Tito Burleigh at this point, and the robbery investigation apparently lay dormant for the next six months.

On July 13, 1998, Norma Hurt gave Sergeant Williams a photograph of Quentin Spell and positively identified him as one of the men who had robbed her. Sergeant Williams knew that Tito Burleigh was Quentin Spell’s cousin.

On August 27, 1998, Sergeant Williams prepared an investigator’s report and submitted it to Margaret Rynier, an assistant prosecutor. Williams provided a brief factual summary of Hurt’s robbery and concluded the narrative with these two sentences: “[Hurt] provided photos of Def# 2 [Spell], Also identifying Def# 1 [Burleigh] through photos.” Williams’ Investigator’s Rep., Aug. 27, 1998. On September 1, 1998, Rynier obtained an arrest warrant for Burleigh.

The police arrested Burleigh on September 25, 1998. At the time of his arrest, he gave a statement declaring his innocence and alleging that a Richard “Mendote,” later identified as Richard Mendoza, was Spell’s accomplice in the Hurt robbery. Burleigh claimed that Spell and Mendoza told him that they had robbed Hurt. Unable to make bah at the time, Burleigh remained in prison until he gathered enough money for his release in early March of 1999.

The police next arrested Quentin Spell for his role in the Hurt robbery, and he, too, gave a statement to the police. On September 30, 1998, Spell told Officer Stanley Granger that he had initially come into contact with Norma Hurt because she wanted someone to kill her husband, Clifford. Spell’s aunt, Barbara Dodd, introduced Spell and Mendoza to Hurt, and they agreed to the proposed contract killing for $5,000. They planned the murder for October 20, 1997, the day of the Hurt robbery. Spell and Mendoza arrived at Hurt’s rental property, and they drove to the credit union to obtain the money. Hurt allegedly wanted the encounter to look like a robbery so that her payment to Spell and Mendoza would be less suspicious. Hurt, however, did not have the full $5,000, and the men did not follow through with the murder that night. Spell also mentioned a later robbery of Clifford Hurt’s gambling operation involving “me[,] Richardf,] and another guy.” Spell Statement, Sept. 30, 1998.

On the basis of this information, Officer Granger prepared a memo for Sergeant Williams expressing his opinion that Mendoza was the first robber described by Norma Hurt. Granger, however, did not mention Burleigh or for that matter exclude Burleigh from participation in the October 20, 1997 robbery. Granger subsequently uncovered witness reports confirming the later robbery, and also observed in his report that Mendoza was presently in jail on murder charges. Sergeant Williams determined that Spell’s statement, even if accepted, did not exculpate Burleigh because Williams believed that there may have been three men in[457]*457volved in the Norma Hurt robbery. In his view, the witness statements from the later robbery left open the possibility that a third man was involved, especially if Norma Hurt’s robbery was connected to the later robbery of Clifford Hurt’s gambling operation, which purportedly involved three men.

On October 15, 1998, shortly after their arrest, Burleigh and Spell appeared at a state-court preliminary examination. Norma Hurt was the only witness. When asked if she could identify Tito Burleigh as one of the robbers, she said “[t]hat’s the one that approached me,” then added “I [am] not sure that was him.” Prelim. Hr’g Tr. at 6. Although she had difficulty positively identifying Burleigh, Hurt continued to state that she “believe[d] it’s him.” Id. at 41. The trial judge acknowledged Hurt’s uncertain identification, but decided probable cause nonetheless existed and bound Burleigh and Spell over for trial.

Less than one month later, Azzam Elder became the prosecuting attorney in Burleigh’s case. Elder noticed several “red flags” in Burleigh’s file, particularly Spell’s post-arrest statement identifying Mendoza as an accomplice in the Hurt robbery.

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80 F. App'x 454, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/burleigh-v-city-of-detroit-ca6-2003.