Rodriguez v. City of Houston

Full title: George RODRIGUEZ, Plaintiff-Appellee v. CITY OF HOUSTON…

Court: United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit

Date published: Jun 13, 2011

428 F. App'x 367 (5th Cir. 2011)

Opinion

No. 10-20035.

June 13, 2011.

Mark L.D. Wawro, Esq., Alexander L. Kaplan, Robert S. Safi, Susman Godfrey, L.L.P., Houston, TX, Deborah L. Cornwall, Esq., Emma Kate Freudenberger, Esq., Anna Benvenutti Hoffmann, Esq., Barry Scheck,. Neufeld, Scheck Brustin, L.L.P., New York, NY, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

David M. Feldman, Robert L. Cambrice, City of Houston Legal Department, Jonathan Griffin Brush, Richard Alan Morris, Rogers, Morris Grover, L.L.P., Houston, TX, for Defendant-Appellant.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Dist Ct. Docket No. 4:06-cv-2650.

Before JOLLY and HAYNES, Circuit Judges, and RODRIGUEZ^_, District Judge.

_ District Judge of the Western District of Texas, sitting by designation.

PER CURIAM:[fn**] [fn**] Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH CIR. R. 47.5.4.

George Rodriguez sued the City of Houston under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 after his conviction for rape and kidnapping was set aside on habeas review as a result of demonstrably false serology evidence presented by the chief of the City of Houston crime lab's serology section. Following a lengthy jury trial, the district court entered judgment on the jury verdict for Rodriguez. At the time judgment was entered, the state of the law on municipal liability for wrongfully proffered (or withheld) evidence in our circuit could be found in the affirmance by an equally divided en banc court in Thompson v. Connick, 578 F.3d 293 (5th Cir. 2009). Prior to the en banc affirmance, a panel of this court had likewise affirmed the liability of the city in that case. Thompson v. Connick, 553 F.3d 836 (5th Cir. 2008). After this case was on appeal to our court, the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari in Connick v. Thompson, ___ U.S. ___, 130 S.Ct. 1880, 176 L.Ed.2d 399 (2010), and we stayed this appeal pending the Supreme Court's decision in that case. Thereafter, the Court reversed our court in Connick v. Thompson, ___ U.S. ___, 131 S.Ct. 1350, 179 L.Ed.2d 417 (2011).

We conclude that the interests of justice counsel in favor of allowing the district court in the first instance to consider that case and apply it as appropriate to the extensive facts and evidence developed in the lengthy trial in this case. Accordingly, without determining the merits at this time, we VACATE the district court's judgment and REMAND for consideration in light of Connick. See Sabala v. Western Gillette, Inc., 559 F.2d 282, 283 (5th Cir. 1977); see also Elizondo v. Parks, 254 Fed.Appx. 329, 332 (5th Cir. 2007) (unpublished) (vacating the district court's order denying qualified immunity and remanding for reconsideration in light of Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410, 126 S.Ct. 1951, 164 L.Ed.2d 689 (2006)).