Randles v. Gregart

965 F.2d 90, 1992 WL 110811
Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit·Decided May 28, 1992·No. Nos. 91-1349, 91-1351·Published·Cited by 20 cases

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

The plaintiff-appellant Carl A. Randles, Jr. initiated this pro se appeal from the district court judgments dismissing his two 42 U.S.C. section 1983 actions, which are consolidated in this appeal. The first complaint requested an injunction against pending state criminal proceedings and a monetary award against James Gregart, Prosecutor, Kalamazoo County, Thomas Ed-monds, Sheriff, Kalamazoo County, La Mar Brooks, Deputy Sheriff, Kalamazoo County, and the Eighth District Court of Michigan for violations of Randies’s Second, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Randles also charged the prosecutor and sheriff in the first complaint for pursuing a de minimis prosecution.

The defendants moved to dismiss the complaint pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) and for summary judgment, which the district court granted in part. Following discovery, the district court granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment on the remaining claims and entered final judgment on January 4, 1991. Randles filed a second complaint on February 4, 1991, adding Judge Kenneth E. Long and Deputy Sheriff William Timmerman. The Eighth District Court of Michigan was not a named defendant in the second complaint and no appeal was taken from the district court’s decision dismissing the action against the Eighth District Court of Michigan on January 4,1991. The United States district court sua sponte dismissed Ran-dles’s second complaint on February 14, 1991, finding the action barred by res judi-cata.

This appeal arose from a confrontation on the morning of November 2, 1988, between Randles and two Kalamazoo County Deputy Sheriffs, La Mar Brooks and William Timmerman. The two deputy sheriffs, who were parked in a lane fifty to seventy yards west of a farmhouse that Randles owned, observed Randles carrying a rifle while crossing an adjoining field as he walked towards his farmhouse. The deputies called to Randles on a bullhorn and requested that he walk over to their vehicle. Rather than cross the muddy field that lay between himself and the car, Ran-dles motioned toward the farmhouse and told the deputies that he would meet them at the house.

The deputies drove to the farmhouse and requested him to relinquish the rifle. When Randles refused, Deputy Timmer-man forcibly wrested the rifle from Ran-dles’s possession, twisting his arm in the process. The deputies ordered Randles to produce his hunting license. Randles replied that “a varmint had killed a half-grown goose and he was watching for the predator.” Randles displayed the dead and partially eaten goose to Deputy Timmer-man. He also identified the place where the goose had been killed and pointed out the carcass of a second goose that had been killed several days earlier.

The deputies issued Randles a citation to appear in court charging him with hunting foxes without a senior citizen’s license. His rifle was returned to him. On February 23, 1989, the prosecutor requested that the citation be amended to charge Randles with hunting fur-bearing animals without a harvester’s license. The state trial court, Judge Kenneth E. Long, granted this amendment. Randles was later found guilty by a jury and his conviction was upheld on appeal.

Randles filed his first complaint in the district court prior to his trial and conviction seeking to enjoin the pending state criminal action against him from proceeding. The district court denied the requested injunctive relief pursuant to Younger v. [92] Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669 (1971). The district court also concluded that the Eleventh Amendment barred Randies’s claim against the Eighth District Court of Michigan for monetary relief. The United States district court dismissed the Second, Fifth, and Ninth Amendments claims, since these amendments were not the source of legally cognizable claims against the state. In addition, the district court concluded that Randles had not alleged facts that would give rise to a Fourteenth Amendment claim under either the equal protection or due process clause. The claim of de minimis prosecution against Prosecutor Gregart was dismissed on the basis of prosecutorial immunity.

However, the district court denied the motions of Sheriff Edmonds and Deputy Sheriff Brooks to dismiss the claims against them, which invoked the defenses of lack of acquiescence and qualified immunity, respectively. It was at this point in time that Randles was convicted in the state court proceedings. The sheriff and deputy sheriff then moved for summary judgment, which the district court granted, finding that the existence of probable cause was no longer a question of fact since Randles had been found guilty in the state criminal proceeding, that there was no question of material fact concerning whether the deputies had used excessive force in disarming Randles, and that Ran-dles had consented to the deputy sheriffs’ entry onto his land. Since Randies’s constitutional rights had not been infringed, there were no unconstitutional acts that Sheriff Edmonds had condoned as alleged by Randles. Final judgment was entered on January 4, 1991.

In his second complaint, filed on February 4, 1991, Randles reasserted the same facts as he had pleaded in his first complaint and joined the identical parties to the suit, except that Judge Kenneth E. Long and Deputy Sheriff William Timmerman were added and the Eighth District Court of Michigan was dropped. The district court, finding that the second complaint was based on facts identical to those in the first complaint and that Randles had been accorded the opportunity to litigate the first complaint, dismissed the second complaint based on res judicata.

Randies’s most legally cognizable claim on appeal is his excessive force claim against the deputy sheriffs, which arises from his disarmament. However, Randles has failed to demonstrate the existence of any genuine dispute as to any issue of material fact that would join a cognizable issue for trial. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). As a matter of law, the consideration of the existence of probable cause to support the seizure of the rifle by the deputy sheriffs and the citation of Randles charging a misdemeanor has been foreclosed by the state court judgment on the appearance citation issued on November 2, 1988. Walker v. Schaeffer, 854 F.2d 138, 142 (6th Cir.1988). The state court judgment has also foreclosed Randies’s de minimis or malicious prosecution claim against Sheriff Edmonds. Dunn v. Tennessee, 697 F.2d 121, 126 (6th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1086, 103 S.Ct. 1778, 76 L.Ed.2d 349 (1983). In addition, since Randles admitted that he invited the deputy sheriffs onto his land, as a matter of law no claim of an illegal search or an illegal arrest could flow from their entry onto his land. Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 576, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 1374-75, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980).

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Randles v. Gregart, 965 F.2d 90, 1992 WL 110811 (6th Cir. 1992).

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