Lana Canen v. Dennis Chapman

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

____________________

No. 16-1621

LANA CANEN,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

DENNIS CHAPMAN, in his individual

capacity as Deputy for the Elkhart

County Sheriff Department,

Defendant-Appellee.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Indiana, South Bend Division.

No. 3:14-cv-00315-RL — Rudy Lozano, Judge.

____________________

ARGUED SEPTEMBER 23, 2016 — DECIDED JANUARY 27, 2017

____________________

Before RIPPLE, ROVNER, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge. Lana Canen was convicted of felony

murder on August 10, 2005 in Indiana state court. Over seven

years later, the state postconviction court vacated her convic-

tion after Detective Dennis Chapman, the state’s fingerprint

expert, recanted his trial testimony. He conceded that he mis-

takenly had identified a latent fingerprint found at the crime

2 No. 16-1621

scene as belonging to Ms. Canen. The misidentification oc-

curred because Detective Chapman only was trained to com-

pare “known prints” (i.e., digital, ink, or powder fingerprint

exemplars), not “latent prints” (i.e., invisible, unknown fin-

gerprints found at a crime scene), and thus lacked the neces-

sary qualifications to identify the latent print removed from

the crime scene. At no time had he disclosed his lack of train-

ing to any party in the underlying state criminal proceeding.

Following her release, Ms. Canen brought this action

1

against Detective Chapman under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. She

claimed that he had withheld his lack of qualification to per-

form latent fingerprint analysis and therefore had violated

Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963). The district court dis-

missed the case at summary judgment. It held that Detective

Chapman was entitled to qualified immunity. Ms. Canen then

2

filed an appeal in this court.

We now hold that the district court’s analysis was correct.

Detective Chapman’s failure to disclose that he was not

trained as a latent print examiner cannot be characterized as

a violation of any clearly established right, and, accordingly,

the doctrine of qualified immunity protects Detective Chap-

man. Moreover, to the degree that this action is premised on

the preparation or presentation of his trial testimony, absolute

immunity protects him. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment

of the district court.

1 The district court’s jurisdiction was premised on 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331,

1343(a)(3).

2 Our jurisdiction is premised on 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

No. 16-1621 3

I

BACKGROUND

A.

On November 28, 2002, Helen Sailor was strangled to

death in her apartment. At the time, she was a resident of the

Waterfall Highrise Apartments in Elkhart, Indiana, which

provided housing for low-income elderly people and adults

with disabilities. Lana Canen and Andrew Royer, both recip-

ients of Social Security disability benefits, were also residents.

During the murder investigation, the Elkhart City Police

Department (“ECPD”) found fingerprints on a number of

items in Sailor’s apartment, including a plastic container used

to hold her medication. The ECPD sent these lifts, along with

fingerprint samples from various suspects, to Detective Chap-

man of the Elkhart County Sheriff’s Department for analysis

because they knew that the Indiana State Police Laboratory

would have required substantially more time to do the anal-

ysis. Detective Chapman concluded that the latent print on the

3

container matched Ms. Canen’s left pinky finger.

As the investigation progressed, the ECPD interviewed

Royer about Sailor’s murder. Royer made multiple incon-

sistent statements during his interviews and ultimately con-

fessed to the murder. He was charged with the crime. Some

of Royer’s statements also implicated Ms. Canen. During her

interview, Ms. Canen denied ever being in Sailor’s apartment

and, even after being told that her fingerprint was found

3Detective Chapman denies making any representations that he was an

expert in latent fingerprint analysis. R.42-2 at 28.

4 No. 16-1621

there, continued to deny ever being in the apartment. Subse-

quently, the prosecutor also charged Ms. Canen in connection

with Sailor’s murder.

Prior to her trial, the State allowed Ms. Canen’s attorney

to review the prosecutor’s entire file, including Detective

Chapman’s report. To aid in her evaluation, Ms. Canen’s at-

torney retained Charles Lambdin, a retired ECPD detective,

to analyze the latent print. He examined the print for approx-

imately thirty minutes and found two points of similarity, but

no points of difference. As a result of his examination,

Mr. Lambdin believed that Ms. Canen was possibly the

source of the print. Ms. Canen’s attorney did not seek a pre-

trial deposition of Detective Chapman, nor did he move to ex-

clude his testimony.

B.

At trial, the State’s evidence against Ms. Canen focused on

testimony regarding her relationship with Royer, her false

statement that she was out of town on the day of Sailor’s mur-

der, her denial of ever having been inside Sailor’s apartment,

and Detective Chapman’s latent print identification.

Detective Chapman’s testimony included a discussion of

his prior experience with fingerprint examinations. He de-

scribed his past experience with the FBI and his participation

in a twelve-week FBI training program in which he had

learned how to classify and examine fingerprints. He also

stated that he was assigned to the Elkhart County Sheriff’s

Department Crime Laboratory after attending the Integrated

Indiana Law Enforcement Crime Scene Training School in the

fall of 2000. Additionally, he testified:

No. 16-1621 5

Q: … And in the lab as a full time detective tech-

nician, is it one of your responsibilities to exam-

ine as well [as] compare fingerprints?

A: Yes, it is.

Q: Based upon your experience, have you been

able to make fingerprint comparisons in the

past several years?

A: Yes, I have.

Q: Any idea how many comparisons you’ve

made?

A: Not right off the top of my head. Several — maybe

100 or so.

Q: … Do you also have training and experience

in attempting to recover latent prints from a

crime scene?

A: Yes.

Q: Is that part of your responsibilities at the

sheriff’s department?

A: Yes, it is.[4]

Detective Chapman then explained how he compared

Ms. Canen’s known print card to the latent print taken from

Sailor’s apartment and stated that the latent print matched

Ms. Canen’s known print. On cross-examination,

Ms. Canen’s attorney did not question Detective Chapman

4 R.30-1 at 132–33 (emphasis added).

6 No. 16-1621

about his qualifications, nor did he offer a witness to refute

his conclusion.

The jury convicted both Ms. Canen and Royer. The court

imposed a fifty-five year sentence on Ms. Canen. The Indiana

5

Court of Appeals affirmed her conviction on direct appeal,

6

and the Indiana Supreme Court denied transfer.

C.

In August 2009, after exhausting her direct appeals,

Ms. Canen filed a petition for state postconviction relief

7

(“PCR”). As part of her PCR, Ms. Canen’s attorney retained

an expert, Kathleen Bright-Birnbaum, to analyze the finger-

print evidence. Ms. Bright-Birnbaum is certified in latent fin-

gerprint examination, and her review excluded Ms. Canen as

the source of the fingerprint.

Detective Chapman re-examined the evidence and also

concluded that he had erred in his previous finding. He testi-

fied as to this conclusion during the PCR hearing. When

asked why his opinion had changed, he stated that “part of

it” was additional training on latent fingerprint identification

8

received in 2006 (after Ms. Canen’s trial). He also stated that

he had more experience “[l]ooking at a lot of prints” since he

5 R.30-3 at 2.

6 Id.; Canen v. State, 860 N.E.2d 591 (Ind. 2006).

7 Indiana Post-Conviction Relief Rule 1.

8 R.30-2 at 29; see also id. at 22.

No. 16-1621 7

9

conducted the initial analysis. Detective Chapman explained

that when he had testified at trial about his experience, he was

10

referring to his experience with “known” or “inked” prints.

He simply had not reviewed as many latent prints as sug-

11

gested by his initial testimony. When asked if he ever con-

sidered saying “maybe [he] shouldn’t” do the comparison,

12

Detective Chapman testified, “Yes.” Nonetheless, he ex-

plained that he did not bring this to someone’s attention be-

13

cause he “was trying to help out Elkhart City.”

The State then requested a continuance in the PCR pro-

ceeding to allow the Indiana State Police Laboratory (“State

Police”) to examine the fingerprint evidence. The State Police

excluded Ms. Canen as the source of the latent print. The court

then granted Ms. Canen’s PCR petition; it concluded that

Ms. Canen’s exclusion as the source of the latent print consti-

tuted newly discovered evidence. Her conviction was va-

14

cated. She was released after over seven years of confine-

15

ment.

9 Id. at 29.

10 Id. at 32–33.

11 Compare R.30-1 at 132, with R.30-2 at 32–33.

12 R.30-2 at 33.

13 Id.

14 R.30-3 at 8.

15 See id.

8 No. 16-1621

D.

In this subsequent civil action in the federal district court,

Ms. Canen sought money damages. Her complaint under 42

U.S.C. § 1983 alleged that Detective Chapman had violated

her right to due process under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83

(1963), when he held himself out as an expert in fingerprint

identification but failed to inform anyone that he lacked the

qualifications necessary to examine latent fingerprints.

On cross-motions for summary judgment, the district

court granted judgment in favor of Detective Chapman. The

court expressed “doubts” as to whether Detective Chapman’s

inexperience was “suppressed for purposes of Brady” because

the evidence was potentially “available to [Ms.] Canen

16

through the exercise of reasonable diligence.” The district

court did not resolve that issue, however, because it believed

that, in any event, Detective Chapman was immune from suit.

The district court based its determination of immunity on

two grounds. First, the district court noted that Detective

Chapman enjoyed absolute immunity for his allegedly mis-

leading testimony that he had made “maybe 100 or so” fin-

17

gerprint comparisons. The court also held that Detective

Chapman was entitled to qualified immunity. In this respect,

the court focused its analysis on the second prong of the qual-

ified immunity test: whether the constitutional right was

clearly established at the time of the alleged violation. Specif-

ically, the court held that Ms. Canen had failed to establish

16 R.62 at 21.

17 Id. at 22 n.6.

No. 16-1621 9

“whether the violative nature of [Chapman’s] particular con-

18

duct is clearly established.”

II

DISCUSSION

We review a district court’s decision granting summary

judgment de novo. McDonald v. Hardy, 821 F.3d 882, 888 (7th

Cir. 2016). “Summary judgment is appropriate when, after

construing the record in the light most favorable to the non-

moving party, we conclude that no reasonable jury could rule

in favor of the nonmoving party.” Bagwe v. Sedgwick Claims

Mgmt. Servs., 811 F.3d 866, 879 (7th Cir. 2016).

A.

We first examine whether Detective Chapman is entitled

to qualified immunity. “Qualified immunity shields federal

and state officials from money damages unless a plaintiff

pleads facts showing (1) that the official violated a statutory

or constitutional right, and (2) that the right was ‘clearly es-

tablished’ at the time of the challenged conduct.” Ashcroft v.

al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 735 (2011) (emphasis added). The district

court declined to answer definitively the first inquiry and fo-

cused on the second. In doing so, the court acted well within

its discretion. See id. (explaining that courts may address the

prongs in either order).

18Id. at 25 (emphasis and alteration in original) (internal quotation marks

omitted) (quoting Mullenix v. Luna, 136 S. Ct. 305, 308 (2015)).

10 No. 16-1621

For a right to be clearly established, “existing precedent

must have placed the statutory or constitutional question be-

yond debate.” Reichle v. Howards, 132 S. Ct. 2088, 2093 (2012)

(internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting al-Kidd, 563 U.S.

at 741). In order to carry that burden, Ms. Canen must “show

either a reasonably analogous case that has both articulated

the right at issue and applied it to a factual circumstance sim-

ilar to the one at hand or that the violation was so obvious that

a reasonable person necessarily would have recognized it as

a violation of the law.” Chan v. Wodnicki, 123 F.3d 1005, 1008

(7th Cir. 1997). Because the inquiry is aimed at determining

whether a reasonable person in the officer’s position would

have understood his actions to be against the law at the time

he acted, the Supreme Court has stressed that the right at is-

sue must be articulated at a meaningful level of particularity.

White v. Pauly, No. 16-67, slip op. at 6 (U.S. Jan. 9, 2017). This

requirement does not mean that a plaintiff must be able to

point to a case “on all fours” with the defendant officer’s al-

leged misconduct. But there must be settled authority that

would cause him to understand the illegality of the action. See

Mullenix v. Luna, 136 S. Ct. 305, 308 (2015).

Ms. Canen notes that the right that she asserts here is

rooted in Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963). There, the Su-

preme Court established the general proposition that a pros-

ecutor’s suppression of exculpatory evidence violates the Due

Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Ms. Canen

also correctly notes that subsequent case law has established

clearly that the Brady doctrine applies equally to both excul-

patory and impeachment evidence. Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S.

419, 433 (1995). The mere invocation of these general princi-

ples is insufficient. Rather, we must refine our inquiry and ex-

amine whether, at the time of Ms. Canen’s criminal trial, the

No. 16-1621 11

law clearly required someone in Detective Chapman’s situa-

tion to declare voluntarily his minimal training in evaluating

latent finger prints.

In an effort to meet this burden, Ms. Canen invites our at-

tention to Newsome v. McCabe, 256 F.3d 747 (7th Cir. 2001), a

case involving exculpatory Brady evidence. In Newsome, the

police failed to alert the prosecutor to the fact that the finger-

prints from the crime scene did not match the defendant’s. In

our analysis, we asked whether it was “clearly established …

that police could not withhold from prosecutors exculpatory

information about fingerprints” and came to the unremarka-

ble conclusion that, having failed to provide the defense with

clearly exculpatory information, the officer could not claim

qualified immunity. Id. at 752.

Newsome, however, cannot carry the day for Ms. Canen.

The evidence at issue in this case is of a substantially different

kind than the evidence in Newsome. In Newsome, the sup-

pressed evidence clearly violated Brady because it had direct

exculpatory value; the fingerprint analysis excluded the de-

fendant as the source of an incriminating fingerprint. By con-

trast, the right asserted here is of an entirely different ilk; the

Detective took the stand and stated his job, his experience,

and his conclusions about the latent prints that he was tasked

with analyzing. He simply did not disparage his testimony by

volunteering that he lacked the training that most witnesses

who testify about latent fingerprints have.

Ms. Canen also invites our attention to a number of cases

involving Brady violations rooted in the suppression of im-

peachment evidence. We find these cases meaningfully dis-

tinguishable for three reasons. First, under the Indiana Rules

of Evidence, Detective Chapman’s testimony was admissible.

12 No. 16-1621

Expert testimony in Indiana is governed by Indiana Rule of

Evidence 702, which states:

(a) A witness who is qualified as an expert by

knowledge, skill, experience, training, or ed-

ucation may testify in the form of an opinion

or otherwise if the expert’s scientific, tech-

nical, or other specialized knowledge will

help the trier of fact to understand the evi-

dence or to determine a fact in issue.

(b) Expert scientific testimony is admissible

only if the court is satisfied that the expert

testimony rests upon reliable scientific prin-

ciples.

Ind. R. Evid. 702. The Indiana Supreme Court has clarified

that, under the Indiana Rules of Evidence, “[n]o precise quan-

tum of knowledge is required if the witness shows a sufficient

acquaintance with the subject.” Fox v. State, 506 N.E.2d 1090,

1095 (Ind. 1987). Rather, “[t]he determination of whether a

witness is qualified to testify as an expert is within the sound

discretion of the trial court whose rulings will not be dis-

turbed absent an abuse of discretion.” Id. “As such, a witness

may qualify as an expert on the basis of practical experience

alone,” Kubsch v. State, 784 N.E.2d 905, 921 (Ind. 2003), and

“[a] lack of extensive formal training or experience goes to the

weight of the expert testimony rather than to its admissibil-

ity,” White v. State, 547 N.E.2d 831, 837 (Ind. 1989). Accord-

No. 16-1621 13

ingly, Detective Chapman, an officer trained in known finger-

19

print analysis by the FBI and the Integrated Indiana Law En-

20

forcement Crime Scene Training School, and who had per-

21

formed latent fingerprint retrieval and latent fingerprint ex-

22

aminations in the past, qualified as an expert under Indi-

ana’s rules of evidence and his testimony was admissible.

Second, both the prosecution and defense declined to

probe the weight of Detective Chapman’s testimony. For ex-

ample, having established Detective Chapman’s qualifica-

tions, the first mention of latent prints proceeded as follows:

Q: Okay. I’d like to show you what has been —

actually, before we do that. Let’s talk a little bit

about fingerprints. Do you also have training

and experience in attempting to recover latent

prints from a crime scene?

A: Yes.

Q: Is that part of your responsibilities at the

sheriff’s department?

19 R.36-11 at 2–3.

20 Id. at 5.

21 R.42-1 at 5 (“Part of my duties as a patrolman included dusting for and

retrieving fingerprint impressions from crime scenes.”).

22 Id. at 6 (“[F]rom time to time, I was asked to examine latent fingerprints

that were taken from a crime scene and compare those fingerprints to

‘known prints.’”); see also R.42-2 at 27.

14 No. 16-1621

A: Yes, it is.[23]

Similarly, Detective Chapman’s cross-examination focused

on the number of points of comparison needed for a success-

24

ful match to be established, not his training or experience. At

bottom, the prosecution and both defense lawyers elected not

to ask Detective Chapman to identify the differences between

latent and known fingerprints, or his formal training in one

discipline verses the other.

Finally, the cases cited by Ms. Canen all involve disabili-

ties of a very different kind than that presented by the instant

25

facts. For example, in United States v. Banks, 546 F.3d 507 (7th

Cir. 2008), this Court ordered a new trial when it learned that

the chemist who tested the drugs at issue in the case was un-

der investigation for possible misconduct at the time of her

trial testimony. Id. at 509, 513. Similarly, in State v. Davila, 357

P.3d 636 (Wash. 2015), the Washington Supreme Court found

that the termination of a DNA specialist for incompetence

was favorable impeachment evidence under Brady. Id. at 638,

26

643. Finally, in State v. Proctor, 595 S.E.2d 476 (S.C. 2004), the

Supreme Court of South Carolina found that the trial court

had erred in denying the defendant a hearing on his claim that

23 R.30-1 at 133.

24 See id. at 148–51.

25 We note that these cases are pure Brady claims, rather than § 1983 claims

arising from a Brady violation.

26The court declined to find a violation of Brady because the suppressed

impeachment evidence was not material. State v. Davila, 357 P.3d 636, 648–

49 (Wash. 2015).

No. 16-1621 15

27

the state suppressed evidence of a DNA lab’s error rate. Id.

at 479.

In marked contrast, Detective Chapman’s conduct and

background present none of the issues outlined above. He

28

was not under investigation at the time of trial. Moreover,

he had not been fired for incompetence, nor is there any indi-

cation in the record that he was incompetent. Lastly, there

was no evidence that he had a particularly high error rate. De-

tective Chapman simply had none of the affirmative disabili-

ties outlined in the cases cited by Ms. Canen.

Ultimately, Ms. Canen has pointed us to no case that es-

tablishes the legal principle that an officer is obliged to reveal

the limitations on his training when he has stated his back-

ground, such as it is, and then exposed himself to cross-exam-

ination by the defense. We accordingly see no reason to con-

clude that Detective Chapman’s failure to declare affirma-

tively his lack of training in latent fingerprint evaluation vio-

lated any clearly established right.

B.

To the extent that Ms. Canen’s allegation focuses on De-

tective Chapman’s actual testimony and his preparation for

27 The court nonetheless found the nondisclosure was not material. State

v. Proctor, 595 S.E.2d 476, 480 (S.C. 2004).

28 Detective Chapman was disciplined and forbidden from assisting other

agencies with fingerprint identification only after disavowing his previ-

ous fingerprint identification in this case. R.42-2 at 26.

16 No. 16-1621

that testimony, he also is protected by the traditional absolute

immunity accorded to witnesses at a judicial proceeding.

It is long-established that witnesses enjoy absolute im-

munity, Briscoe v. LaHue, 460 U.S. 325, 330–33 (1983), and we

have acknowledged that this protection covers the prepara-

tion of testimony as well as its actual delivery in court, New-

some v. McCabe, 319 F.3d 301, 304 (7th Cir. 2003). The rule is

designed to aid the search for truth by limiting any fear of re-

crimination, which in turn decreases any attendant motiva-

29

tion to self-censor. See Briscoe, 460 U.S. at 332–33.

Conclusion

The district court correctly granted summary judgment

for Detective Chapman. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment

of the district court.

AFFIRMED

29 Ms. Canen’s invocation of Manning v. Miller, 355 F.3d 1028 (7th Cir.

2004), does not alter this rule. That case involved FBI investigators actively

colluding with a witness to commit perjury—“behavior that [went] well

beyond testimony given at trial.” Id. at 1032–33.