Sadiqq v. Bramlett

559 F. Supp. 362, 1983 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 18795
District Court, N.D. Georgia·Decided March 4, 1983·No. Civ. A. C82-10A·Published·Cited by 3 cases

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.

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

559 F. Supp. 362 (Sadiqq v. Bramlett) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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