CA10: Failure to raise a Fourth Amendment claim in a forfeiture case precluded a later § 1983 case

Failure to raise a Fourth Amendment claim in a forfeiture case precluded a later § 1983 case over the same issue. Campbell v. City of Spencer, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 23700 (10th Cir. December 16, 2014):

All of the constitutional violations that Campbell has alleged stem from the Municipalities’ search of her properties and the seizure of her horses, all occurring before the forfeiture proceeding. During the forfeiture proceeding, the state district court relied in part on evidence obtained from the searches of Campbell’s property and the seizure of her horses to establish probable cause that Campbell’s horses had been neglected. Campbell now argues that this evidence was illegally obtained. In response, the Municipalities have raised claim preclusion, also known as res judicata, as an affirmative defense to Campbell’s § 1983 claims. They argue that Campbell’s failure to raise her constitutional claims in the forfeiture proceeding defeats her ability to do so now. Under claim preclusion, “a final judgment on the merits of an action precludes the parties or their privies from relitigating issues that were or could have been raised in the prior action.” Wilkes, 314 F.3d at 503-04 (emphasis in original) (quoting Satsky v. Paramount Commc’ns, Inc., 7 F.3d 1464, 1467 (10th Cir. 1993)) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Black’s Law Dictionary 1504 (10th ed. 2014) (defining res judicata).

Federal courts must give a state court judgment the same preclusive effect as would its originating state. Migra v. Warren City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ., 465 U.S. 75, 81, 104 S. Ct. 892, 79 L. Ed. 2d 56 (1984); Fox v. Maulding, 112 F.3d 453, 456 (10th Cir. 1997). Oklahoma’s claim-preclusion doctrine bars a claim when (1) the party asserting the claim could have raised it as a defense in the first case, and (2) success on the later claim would nullify the first judgment or impair the rights established in it. Fox, 112 F.3d at 457-58; see also Copeman v. Ballard, 214 F. App’x 739, 741 (10th Cir. 2007) (unpublished).

Parties can seek to exclude evidence in civil proceedings in Oklahoma if the evidence was obtained unconstitutionally. Turner v. City of Lawton, 1986 OK 51, 733 P.2d 375, 379-80 (Okla. 1986); Brumfield v. Oklahoma, 2007 OK CR 10, 155 P.3d 826, 833 (Okla. Crim. App. 2007) (“In Turner v. City of Lawton, the Oklahoma Supreme Court, in a civil case, traced the development of the exclusionary rule for illegally obtained evidence, both in Oklahoma and under the U.S. Constitution, and concluded that … the Oklahoma Supreme Court had incorporated the exclusionary rule into Oklahoma law.”).

Moreover, the United States Supreme Court has held that the exclusionary rule applies in state civil forfeiture proceedings. One 1958 Plymouth Sedan v. Pennsylvania, 380 U.S. 693, 700-02, 85 S. Ct. 1246, 14 L. Ed. 2d 170 (1965). A party can argue to apply the exclusionary rule in the state forfeiture proceeding to exclude from the court’s forfeiture consideration illegally obtained evidence. Id.; see also Frazee v. I.R.S., 947 F.2d 448, 450 (10th Cir. 1991) (“[T]he legality of a seizure may be tested in a judicial forfeiture.”); Copeman, 214 F. App’x at 742 (recognizing that under Oklahoma law, the legality of a search or seizure may be tested in a forfeiture proceeding).