Kavanaugh v. Lexington Fayette Urban County Government

638 F. App'x 446
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedAugust 26, 2015
Docket14-6323
StatusUnpublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 638 F. App'x 446 (Kavanaugh v. Lexington Fayette Urban County Government) 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
Kavanaugh v. Lexington Fayette Urban County Government, 638 F. App'x 446 (6th Cir. 2015).

Opinion

OPINION

BERNICE BOUIE DONALD, Circuit Judge.

Pleas Lucian Kavanaugh (“Kavanaugh”) appeals a district court order granting summary judgment to the defendants on his civil rights claims. In 2009, Kava-naugh was arrested in connection with two separate attacks on women in Lexington, Kentucky. A grand jury indicted him, and after his motion to sever the charges was granted, he proceeded to trial regarding the first of the two attacks. A jury acquitted Kavanaugh regarding the first attack, and the prosecutor dropped the charges regarding the second attack. In 2013, Ka-vanaugh filed a state law and federal civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for malicious prosecution. He also claimed that the local government violated § 1983 by maintaining a policy or custom of inaction regarding officer misconduct and failing to train those officers appropriately. The defendants moved for summary judgment, which the district court granted. We AFFIRM.

I.

This case arose from the defendants’ investigations into two incidents in downtown Lexington, Kentucky, in late 2009. The first involves an attack on Morgan Persley (“Morgan”), the 23-year-old daughter of defendant Detective William Persley (“Persley”). On October 24, 2009, Morgan departed a bar after an argument with her then-boyfriend. It was shortly after 1:00 in the morning, so as she walked down the street, Morgan called a friend on her cell phone to come retrieve her. Still on the call with her friend, Morgan came to a stop under a streetlight about three or four blocks from the bar. While she stood in the same spot, she observed a man walk past her; Morgan acknowledged him and kept talking on her phone. The man passed her again, this time from the opposite direction, and Morgan took note of him more cautiously. As *448 she hung up her phone, the man approached her a third time, grabbed her from behind, and dragged her away from the street. Morgan struggled with her assailant, sustaining several bruises and scrapes, and ultimately broke free. After the attack, Morgan no longer had her cell phone or her keys.

Résponding officers collected blood samples from the scene of Morgan’s attack. Morgan was able to describe her attacker in general terms, but was unable to provide sufficient facial details for a composite sketch. Detective Elizabeth Adams (“Adams”) was assigned as the lead detective for the incident. Without further information, however, the investigation stalled until a second incident occurred three months later.

The attack on Laura Baker (“Baker”) took place on December 8, 2009. Baker was sitting on a bench at a Transit Center bus stop when a man sat down beside her. The man kept staring at her, so Baker asked if she knew him; he replied, “no, but I’d like to get to know you.” He then asked if she knew where to get some dope. When Baker responded that she did not, the man pulled out a plastic baggie with what appeared to be cocaine inside. He asked her to leave with him to do some of the (alleged) cocaine. He dropped the baggie on the ground as a police officer emerged from the Transit Center. The man then pulled a “large silver colored pocket knife” from his pocket and held it to Baker’s side, telling her repeatedly that she “was leaving with him.” When a bus pulled up to the stop, Baker ran onto the bus and asked the driver to call police. The suspect walked away.

The responding officer took an initial statement from Baker, filed a report, and brought Baker to meet Detective Adams. Adams wrote a report of their conversation. The following day, Baker met with Detective Leah Anderson (“Anderson”) to generate a composite sketch of her attacker. While Adams drove Baker to and from the appointment with Anderson, Adams did not accompany Baker during the development of the composite sketch. Persley was assigned as the lead detective for the Baker investigation.

On December 10, 2009, Adams and Pers-ley compared notes on the similar descriptions of the suspects in the attacks on Morgan and Baker. Adams reviewed the composite, generated the previous day with Baker, and noted that it bore a resemblance to Kavanaugh, who had been a suspect in a previous ease. Adams then prepared a photographic line-up of six men, including Kavanaugh, which was shown separately to Morgan and to Baker. All men in the line-up were black. However, four had darker skin and two had lighter skin; Kavanaugh was one of the two with lighter skin. Both women identified Kavanaugh as their attacker. Based on these identifications, the detectives swore out arrest warrants for Kavanaugh related to both incidents. Kavanaugh was arrested five days later, and his DNA was collected to be compared with the blood samples found at the scene of Morgan’s attack. Adams and Persley testified before a grand jury, at which time Adams testified that the results of the DNA tests regarding the attack on Morgan were unavailable. The grand jury indicted Kava-naugh regarding both incidents.

Kavanaugh was first tried for the attack on Morgan. Before the trial began, Kava-naugh filed a motion to suppress Morgan’s line-up identification of Kavanaugh, claiming it was impermissibly suggestive because only two of the six photographs featured light-skinned black men. The trial court agreed, and suppressed the line-up identification. However, the court allowed Morgan to identify her assailant during *449 the trial itself. Despite Morgan’s identification, the jury acquitted Kavanaugh of robbery in August 2011. In light of the trial judge’s decision to suppress the photographic line-up evidence in Morgan’s case (along with any reference to the Baker composite sketch from which it was derived), the prosecutor dismissed the charges against Kavanaugh regarding the attack on Baker. 1

Kavanaugh filed the present action in March 2012 against the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government (“LFUCG”), Chief of Police Ronnie Bastin (“Bastin”), Adams, Persley, and other unidentified defendants. 2 Kavanaugh claims, inter alia, that the defendants violated state law and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 when they maliciously prosecuted him for the crimes against Morgan and Baker, and that the prosecution was based on the LFUCG’s policy or custom of inaction in responding to officer dishonesty and failure to train or supervise its officers. The defendants moved for summary judgment. The district court granted summary judgment to the defendants on Kavanaugh’s federal claims, declined supplemental jurisdiction on his state-law claims, and dismissed the case. Kavanaugh appeals.

II.

A.

We review a district court grant of summary judgment de novo. Ramsey v. Penn Mut. Life Ins. Co., 787 F.3d 813, 818 (6th Cir.2015). Summary judgment is appropriate “if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). The moving party bears the initial burden of demonstrating that its opponent has not presented sufficient evidence to support its case.

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Bluebook (online)
638 F. App'x 446, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kavanaugh-v-lexington-fayette-urban-county-government-ca6-2015.