Cooks v. County of Los Angeles

710 F. Supp. 732, 1989 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3698, 1989 WL 34335
CourtDistrict Court, C.D. California
DecidedApril 7, 1989
DocketNo. CV 87-7937-DWW
StatusPublished

This text of 710 F. Supp. 732 (Cooks v. County of Los Angeles) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, C.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cooks v. County of Los Angeles, 710 F. Supp. 732, 1989 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3698, 1989 WL 34335 (C.D. Cal. 1989).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OF ORDER GRANTING SUMMARY JUDGMENT TO DEFENDANTS

DAVID W. WILLIAMS, Senior District Judge.

On the evening of January 19,1980, John and Barbara Gould returned home in their car driven by Mrs. Gould and parked it near their apartment in Paramount, California. As Mrs. Gould paused to lock her car, she heard someone yell, “let’s get him!” and she observed three males beating her husband as he walked toward their home. She ran toward the scene of the attack and one of the males who she identified at the trial as being the plaintiff, Tony Cooks, faced her and cautioned her from coming any nearer. He stood approximately 10 feet from Mrs. Gould. After this first encounter, Mrs. Gould ran toward her apartment building to obtain help and when she returned, the men were still beating her husband. Once again she identified Tony Cooks as the man who faced her for the second time and cautioned her against yelling for help. Her ability to see him was assisted by a nearby streetlight that illuminated the area. She testified that her in-court identification of Cooks was based upon the two opportunities she had to observe him that night, and not upon a photo lineup that she saw at a later time. Mr. Gould died from the beating 21 days later.

The crime occurred within the jurisdiction of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Vernon Clover and A1 Sett were two of the sheriff’s deputies who handled parts of the investigation of the offense. They interviewed all persons that came to their notice as possibly having any helpful information, and they made notes on these interrogations which became a [734]*734part of the file of accumulated evidence. Eventually, Tony Cooks was arrested as a suspect in this case and was indicted. During the period of investigation, the officers contacted Helen Foster who lived approximately 177 feet from the attack. Mrs. Foster testified that she saw Tony Cooks run by her home after the attack and that he came within 25 feet of her. She recognized him as being a person she had seen before in the neighborhood. On March 7, 1980, Mrs. Foster observed Tony Cooks on the sidewalk near her home and telephoned the sheriffs station and Cooks was arrested.

On the evening of the attack, and during the course of the police investigation that immediately followed their being summoned to the scene of the crime, sheriffs deputies filled out field interview cards on all young males they encountered, and a person named Douglas Henderson was detained at the location approximately 200 yards from the crime scene. Defendant Clover prepared a field interview card on Henderson but found nothing to invoke his suspicion that Henderson had anything to do with the crime and Henderson was allowed to go his way. The card which contained the name, address and other identification of Henderson was placed in the investigation file.

On March 7, 1980, witness Helen Foster was shown a photo lineup which included a photograph of Henderson, and she stated that she knew Douglas Henderson and that he was not the person she saw passing her house just after the beating took place. Mrs. Foster worked as a Crossing Guard at the corner in front of her home for a number of years, and was familiar with the young people that lived in the neighborhood. After Mrs. Foster was shown the photo lineup on March 7, she was reinter-viewed by a sheriffs deputy who was making an additional effort to see if Henderson could be linked to the crime and Mrs. Foster stated positively that Henderson was not, in her opinion, one of the three males who beat Mr. Gould.

Tony Cooks was tried in front of a jury a total of five times. The first jury hung 10 to 2 in favor of guilty. The second jury trial was declared a mistrial because a juror went to the scene of the crime after being instructed not to do so. The third jury hung 10 to 2 in favor of guilty. The fourth jury found Cooks guilty but the trial judge granted a new trial and this was reversed on appeal. In a separate appeal, the Court of Appeal reversed the guilty verdict of the fourth trial and ordered a new trial based upon improper jury instructions given by the trial judge. The fifth trial resulted in a verdict of not guilty. During the long period of time involved in the holding of these several trials, Tony Cooks remained on bail and was not imprisoned.

After being acquitted, he caused this civil suit to be filed against the County of Los Angeles, Sheriff Sherman Block and deputies Clover and Sett claiming a violation of his civil rights under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983. His action does not include as defendants any member of the county prosecutor’s office who prosecuted the various trials, possibly recognizing the prosecutorial immunity discussed in Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409, 96 S.Ct. 984, 47 L.Ed.2d 128 (1976). The complaint which was filed in the Superior Court and removed to this court is for damages for intentional infliction of emotional distress, violation of civil rights, conspiracy to violate civil rights and the spoliation of evidence.

The complaint was filed in September 1987, and both sides have engaged in an abundance of discovery following which the defendants moved this court for summary judgment, or in the alternative, a partial summary judgment. The plaintiff has strenuously resisted the granting of either motion and both parties have favored the court with an abundance of points and authorities which they claim supports their theories.

During the course of preparing for the defense of Tony Cooks in the criminal trial, his attorney made discovery demands from the prosecution which broadly requested the notes of interviews taken with persons who might have been able to offer helpful information. The prosecutor claims to [735]*735have turned over to the criminal defense lawyer, all bits of evidence that he intended to use at the criminal trial or which, in his opinion could be helpful to the defense in resisting the charges. The field investigation card which a sheriff’s deputy filled out the night of the crime after contacting Douglas Henderson was never turned over to Cooks’ defense lawyer until after the fourth trial. It is the contention of the defendants in this case that the card was placed in an investigation file and became lost, and was not discovered until after the fourth trial at which time it was immediately and voluntarily turned over to Cooks’ lawyer.

The basis of the present section 1983 action is upon the claim of plaintiff Cooks that the card was not turned over to Cooks’ attorney because of either an intentional conspiracy on the part of law enforcement officers to suppress it as evidence, or that if unintentional, the omission was through gross negligence on the part of law enforcement. The plaintiff in the instant case further contended that the field card constituted exculpatory evidence which, if produced earlier, would have led to an acquittal of Cooks much before the fifth trial.

The issues in this case, therefore, are: (1) was the card exculpatory in nature such that it was material evidence of Cooks’ innocence prior to the fifth trial; (2) was there a conspiracy on the part of law enforcement to suppress the card as evidence; (3) or was the officer negligent because of a lack of proper training that led to the card being mislaid; and (4) were any of the deputies guilty of spoliation of evidence.

EXCULPATORY EVIDENCE

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Related

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373 U.S. 83 (Supreme Court, 1963)
Imbler v. Pachtman
424 U.S. 409 (Supreme Court, 1976)
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Allen v. McCurry
449 U.S. 90 (Supreme Court, 1980)
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Smith v. Superior Court
151 Cal. App. 3d 491 (California Court of Appeal, 1984)

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Bluebook (online)
710 F. Supp. 732, 1989 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3698, 1989 WL 34335, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cooks-v-county-of-los-angeles-cacd-1989.