Sadiqq v. Bramlett

559 F. Supp. 362, 1983 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 18795
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Georgia
DecidedMarch 4, 1983
DocketCiv. A. C82-10A
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 559 F. Supp. 362 (Sadiqq v. Bramlett) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Sadiqq v. Bramlett, 559 F. Supp. 362, 1983 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 18795 (N.D. Ga. 1983).

Opinion

ORDER

ROBERT H. HALL, District Judge.

This is a civil rights suit, brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The plaintiff is a state prisoner, currently incarcerated at the Rivers North Unit in Hardwick, Georgia. The plaintiff’s pro se complaint and request to proceed in forma pauperis were received in the clerk’s office on January 5,1982, and were approved by Magistrate Dougherty the same day. On July 15,1982, Magistrate Dougherty allowed the plaintiff to amend his complaint to name as the sole defendants Webb Bramlett and Jack Ozment. These defendants subsequently filed the motion for summary judgment presently pending before this court. 1

On May 9, 1972, plaintiff Sadiqq was arrested, charged with murder and armed robbery, and placed in the Floyd County Jail. On May 17, 1972, he was indicted on both offenses. On July 14,1972, Sadiqq entered a plea of guilty to the charge of murder, and was sentenced to life imprisonment. The armed robbery charge was apparently dropped as part of his plea bargain. Sadiqq alleges that defendants Bramlett and Ozment, who were both employed by the identification department of the Floyd County (Georgia) Police Department at the time of Sadiqq’s arrest, indictment, plea and incarceration, were responsible for the transmission of incorrect information regarding his crime and the disposition of his case to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. 2 Specifically, Sadiqq contends that his F.B.I. criminal file shows, or implies, that he was convicted of both murder and armed robbery rather than murder alone. 3 This, says Sadiqq, “has damaged his *365 character and reputation and caused him to be denied parole,” and he contends that he is entitled to recover damages from the persons responsible for this purported violation of his constitutional rights. 4

Title 42, Section 1983 of the United States Code provides as follows:

Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom or usage, of any State or Territory, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.

The statutory language itself indicates the primary elements of a plaintiff’s prima facie case under § 1983. The requirement that the defendants must have committed the challenged conduct “under color of state law” has clearly been met here and merits no further elaboration. It is also necessary, however, that a defendant’s actions be a cause of the plaintiff’s constitutional deprivation. In other words, plaintiff Sadiqq must demonstrate that the defendants owed him a duty arising under the Consti *366 tution, that the defendants breached this duty, and that this breach was a cause in fact of Sadiqq’s constitutional deprivation.

In determining whether Sadiqq has stated a prima facie case under § 1983, then, the threshold inquiry concerns the existence of a constitutional duty running from the defendants to Sadiqq. This question is apparently one of first impression, in that no court has ever held local law enforcement record-keeping officials liable under § 1983 for misinformation ultimately appearing in an F.B.I. criminal file. . It is true that several courts have recognized a limited duty on behalf of the F.B.I. to assure the accuracy of the criminal records it disseminates. Crow v. Kelley, 512 F.2d 752 (8th Cir.1975); Tarlton v. Saxbe, 507 F.2d 1116 (D.C.Cir.1974); Menard v. Saxbe, 498 F.2d 1017 (D.C.Cir.1974). While the parameters of this duty are as yet not fully clear, it is beyond dispute that although the F.B.I. does not and cannot guarantee the accuracy of information contained in its criminal files, “the F.B.I.’s function of maintaining and disseminating criminal identification records and files [pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 534] carries with it as a corollary the responsibility to discharge this function reliably and responsibly and without unnecessary harm to individuals whose rights have been invaded.” Menard, supra, 498 F.2d at 1026. Thus it has been held that a district court has the inherent power to order ex-pungement of all or part of a subject’s F.B.I. criminal record in those cases where F.B.I. retention of such information or records would present a harsh or unique situation with potential for harm to the subject. See, e.g., United States v. Schnitzer, 567 F.2d 536 (2nd Cir.1977), cert. denied 435 U.S. 907, 98 S.Ct. 1456, 55 L.Ed.2d 499 (1978); United States v. Benlizar, 459 F.Supp. 614 (D.D.C.1978). Generally, courts will order expungement of arrest or conviction information appearing in F.B.I. files in order to remedy constitutional injuries sustained by reason of such arrests or convictions. Tarlton, supra, 507 F.2d 1116. Ex-pungement has been ordered in cases in which no probable cause- existed for the subject’s arrest, thus rendering the arrest unconstitutional. Sullivan v. Murphy, 478 F.2d 938 (D.C.Cir.), cert. denied 414 U.S. 880, 94 S.Ct. 162, 38 L.Ed.2d 125 (1973); Tarlton, supra; United States v. McLeod, 385 F.2d 734 (5th Cir.1967); and in cases in which the subject claims illegitimate police motive or purposeful harassment. Wheeler v. Goodman, 306 F.Supp. 58 (W.D.N.C.1969), vacated on other grounds 401 U.S. 987, 91 S.Ct. 1219, 28 L.Ed.2d 524 (1971). However, mere acquittal standing alone is not in itself sufficient to warrant expungement of an F.B.I. arrest record, largely because of the practical administrative problems a duty of this sort would create for federal record-keeping officials. See, e.g., United States v. Linn, 513 F.2d 925 (10th Cir.), cert. denied 423 U.S. 836, 96 S.Ct. 63, 46 L.Ed.2d 55 (1975); Coleman v. United States Department of Justice, 429 F.Supp. 411 (N.D.Ind.

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559 F. Supp. 362, 1983 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 18795, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sadiqq-v-bramlett-gand-1983.