JEFFREY DEWAYNE CLARK, GARR KEITH HARDIN v. LOUISVILLE-JEFFERSON COUNTY METRO GOVERNMENT - Articles

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JEFFREY DEWAYNE CLARK, GARR KEITH HARDIN v. LOUISVILLE-JEFFERSON COUNTY METRO GOVERNMENT

Posted by: Azya Thornton on Mar 7, 2025

Court: 6th Circuit Court (Published Opinions)

Attorneys 1: ARGUED: Ed Monarch, MCBRAYER PLLC, Louisville, Kentucky, for Appellant.

Attorneys 2: ARGUED: Emma Freudenberger, NEUFELD SCHECK BRUSTIN HOFFMANN & FREUDENBERGER, LLP, New York, New York, for Appellee.

Attorneys 3: ON BRIEF: Ed Monarch, Peter J. Rosene, MCBRAYER PLLC, Louisville, Kentucky, for Appellant.

Attorneys 4: ON BRIEF: Emma Freudenberger, Anthony Balkissoon, Anna Benvenutti Hoffmann, Mary Katherine McCarthy, NEUFELD SCHECK BRUSTIN HOFFMANN & FREUDENBERGER, LLP, New York, New York, for Appellee.

Judge(s): STRANCH, BUSH, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges

Court Appealed: United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky at Louisville

PER CURIAM. In 1995, a Kentucky jury convicted Garr Keith Hardin and Jeffrey Clark of murdering Rhonda Sue Warford. Robert Thurman, a forensic serologist, testified at their trial that a hair found at the crime scene was “similar” to a sample of Hardin’s hair. After Clark and Hardin spent over two decades in prison, DNA testing proved that this hair was not, in fact, Hardin’s. A state court thus vacated Hardin’s and Clark’s convictions. Clark and Hardin then brought this suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against (among others) Thurman. In discovery, they obtained the “observation notes” that Thurman had written when examining the hairs. These notes suggested that the hair found at the scene might not have matched Hardin’s hair sample in various ways. Hardin claimed that Thurman’s failure to disclose the notes before trial violated his disclosure obligations under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963). The district court denied Thurman’s qualified-immunity defense. On appeal, Thurman argues (1) that his notes were neither exculpatory nor material under Brady, and (2) that the law in the mid-1990s did not clearly establish that Brady’s duty of disclosure applied to scientists. Our precedent deprives us of jurisdiction over Thurman’s first argument. And it also dooms his second argument that Brady did not clearly apply to him. We thus affirm in part and dismiss in part for lack of jurisdiction.At day’s end, cases like Moldowan and Gregory bind us here. So I concur in the majority opinion. But I see room for debate over whether those decisions resolved these issues correctly.

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