Appeals Court Clears Path for Death-Row Exonerees’ Lawsuit Against North Carolina Police Officers to Go to Trial

A fed­er­al appeals court has cleared the way for a civ­il law­suit by two North Carolina death-row exonerees to advance to tri­al, reject­ing a claim that police offi­cers who alleged­ly vio­lat­ed their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights were immune from lia­bil­i­ty. On July 31, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld a tri­al court rul­ing allow­ing Henry McCollum (pic­tured, left) and Leon Brown (pic­tured, right) to sue North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) agents Leroy Allen and Kenneth Snead and Robeson County detec­tives Joel Garth Locklear and Kenneth Sealey for false arrest, mali­cious pros­e­cu­tion, depri­va­tion of due process, and municipal liability. 

McCollum and Brown, who are half-broth­ers, were just 19 and 15, respec­tive­ly, when they were arrest­ed for the rape and mur­der of 11-year-old Sabrina Buie. Both men are intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled, which made them par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble to coer­cion and manip­u­la­tion by police. In the suit — which was filed on their behalf in 2015, one year after they were exon­er­at­ed and released from prison—they allege that the offi­cers ​“coerced and fab­ri­cat­ed [their] con­fes­sions, and then, to cov­er up this wrong­do­ing, … with­held in bad faith excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence that demon­strat­ed [McCollum and Brown’s] inno­cence and buried pieces of spe­cif­ic evi­dence indi­cat­ing that” anoth­er sus­pect, Roscoe Artis, had com­mit­ted the crime. The case has not yet been heard by a jury because of the offi­cers’ appeal. 

Shortly after McCollum and Brown insti­tut­ed suit, the offi­cers filed a motion to dis­miss it on the basis of qual­i­fied immu­ni­ty, a prin­ci­ple that ​“pro­tects gov­ern­ment offi­cials from lia­bil­i­ty for vio­la­tions of con­sti­tu­tion­al rights so long as they could rea­son­ably believe that their con­duct did not vio­late clear­ly estab­lished law.” The dis­trict court reject­ed that argu­ment, hold­ing that, if the facts alleged in their law­suit were true, the exonerees would be enti­tled to recov­er dam­ages from the law-enforce­ment defen­dants. The Fourth Circuit agreed, say­ing ​“It was beyond debate at the time of the events in this case that [McCollum’s and Brown’s] con­sti­tu­tion­al rights not to be impris­oned and con­vict­ed based on coerced, fal­si­fied, and fab­ri­cat­ed evi­dence or con­fes­sions, or to have mate­r­i­al excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence sup­pressed, were clear­ly estab­lished.” The exonerees, the appeals court said were enti­tled to a chance to prove any ​“dis­put­ed facts” at trial. 

The suit claims that the offi­cers coerced the two men into false­ly con­fess­ing. McCollum says that the offi­cers told him if he signed a form, they would let him go home. The form was, in fact, a form waiv­ing McCollum’s Miranda rights. As described by the appeals court, the offi­cers inter­ro­gat­ing McCollum alleged­ly ​“got into his face, hollered at him, … threat­ened him,” called him racial epi­thets, and told him they would send him to the gas cham­ber if he didn’t con­fess. ​“McCollum fur­ther alleged that the offi­cers told him to sign a paper that said if he could help them in the case as a wit­ness, they would let him go home. McCollum signed the paper — which was actu­al­ly the con­fes­sion writ­ten out by Snead — but he did not read it and it was not read to him.” 

Brown pro­vid­ed a sim­i­lar account of his inter­ro­ga­tion and coerced con­fes­sion. Describing Brown’s tes­ti­mo­ny at tri­al, the cir­cuit court recount­ed that ​“Detective Locklear did not advise him of his rights, that Brown asked for his moth­er when an offi­cer grabbed Brown’s arm, and that Brown (like McCollum) was told he would be tak­en to the gas cham­ber if he did not sign the rights waiv­er. Then, Brown tes­ti­fied that when the offi­cers gave him a piece of paper, he cir­cled ​‘no’ on it. According to Brown, that ​‘no’ was sup­posed to indi­cate that he could not help the offi­cers.” Instead, it indi­cat­ed that he waived his rights. Of the con­fes­sion that he signed, Brown said, ​“Detective Locklear draft­ed it and told Brown to sign it, which Brown did after an offi­cer told him doing so would ensure his release. Locklear then read the con­fes­sion to Brown, and Brown told the offi­cers that it was not true. Like his broth­er, Brown was then placed under arrest.” The offi­cers dis­pute this account of the inter­ro­ga­tions and confessions. 

Brown and McCollum also allege that police vio­lat­ed their rights because they ​“failed to inves­ti­gate and with­held excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence regard­ing (1) the sim­i­lar­i­ties between the rape and mur­der of Buie and Artis’s rape and mur­der of Brockhart; (2) a state­ment by a poten­tial eye­wit­ness, Mary McLean Richards, that she saw Artis attack­ing Buie; and (3) the alleged coerced tes­ti­mo­ny of Brown and McCollum’s friend L.P. Sinclair.” They say that Artis was a sus­pect before Brown and McCollum were tried. “[O]n October 5, 1984, three days before [Brown and McCollum’s] first tri­al, inves­ti­ga­tors sub­mit­ted Artis’s fin­ger­prints to the SBI for com­par­i­son to the latent prints found on the beer can at the Buie crime scene. Artis was list­ed as a sus­pect on the fin­ger­print com­par­i­son request. However, the inves­ti­ga­tors can­celed the request that same day, and the fin­ger­print com­par­i­son was never completed.”