Davis v. City of New York

296 F.R.D. 127, 2013 WL 6284143, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 171015
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. New York
DecidedDecember 4, 2013
DocketNo. 12-CV-1219
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 296 F.R.D. 127 (Davis v. City of New York) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Davis v. City of New York, 296 F.R.D. 127, 2013 WL 6284143, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 171015 (E.D.N.Y. 2013).

Opinion

ORDER ON MOTIONS IN LIMINE AND SCHEDULING ORDER

JACK B. WEINSTEIN, Senior District Judge:

I. Facts 128
III. Law....................................................................129
III. Application of Law to Facts ...............................................129
IV. Evidentiary Issues.......................................................130
V. Trial 131

I. Facts

Leroy Davis — now plaintiff in this civil ease — was arrested by three New York City police officers on October 2, 2009. The officers maintain that they made the arrest after observing Davis suspiciously discard a black plastic bag, later discovered to contain a gun and crack cocaine, on a public sidewalk.

Plaintiff disputes this account. He denies possession of any of these objects, claiming that the gun and cocaine were discovered during an unauthorized search of his nearby residence. Rather, he suggests, the gun and cocaine belonged to another resident, Terrell Norman — or, perhaps, they were planted by the police officers, now defendants.

Davis was promptly arraigned in state court on multiple counts of criminal possession of a controlled substance and criminal possession of a weapon. He was held in City jail at Rikers Island for several days before being released on bond. The state charges remained pending until April 1, 2010, when, after several court appearances, they were dismissed.

While the state charges were open, federal authorities indicted Davis on three counts— felon in possession of a weapon; possession of a weapon in furtherance of a drug offense; [129]*129and possession of crack cocaine with intent to distribute — based on the same reports of the arresting officers.

Arraignment of Davis took place in federal court on November 12, 2009. Bail was denied. He remained in federal custody for thirteen months until he was acquitted by a federal jury on December 17, 2010.

Davis sues the three police officers for wrongful arrest and malicious prosecution. See 42 U.S.C. § 1988.

II. Law

As a threshold matter, the defendants contend that “[gjiven these circumstances, none of the defendants ... can be liable for damages suffered by plaintiff as a result of the federal prosecution.” See Defs.’ Trial Br., ECF No. 64, *2. Their theory: “The independent discretionary actions of the U.S. Attorney’s office served to break any causal connection between defendants [City employees] and the [federal] prosecution commenced against plaintiff.” Id. at *3.

In a federal civil rights case, New York City police officers may be liable for damages suffered by a plaintiff during the period when he was under either state or federal indictment, or both. First, even if a jury were to conclude that the defendants played no role in “importuning the [federal ] authorities to act,” see Manganiello v. City of New York, 612 F.3d 149, 163 (2d Cir.2010) — a highly questionable view, if Davis’s account is credited — Plaintiff may support a malicious prosecution claim predicated on the period during which he faced state criminal charges. This result follows even if the plaintiff was held in state custody only briefly during this period. See Albright v. Oliver, 510 U.S. 266, 277-81, 114 S.Ct. 807, 127 L.Ed.2d 114 (1994) (Ginsburg, J., concurring) (explaining Fourth Amendment malicious prosecution claim may lie even where the accused is released on bond during pendency of criminal proceedings).

Defendants reason that in the present case the “independent judgment” of the grand jury or the Assistant United States Attorney attenuated to the vanishing point their role in “causing” or “procuring” the plaintiffs prosecution in federal court. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has rejected defendant’s argument, explaining that previous cases alluding to an “attenuation” defense “merely acknowledge[ ] that a complaining layperson might not be responsible for a prosecution if prosecutors go forward based on independent, untainted evidence. As a result, it would not appear that [this principle] has any application where a police officer is alleged to have maliciously misled a prosecutor____” Cameron v. City of New York, 598 F.3d 50, 63 (2d Cir.2010) (emphasis in original).

III. Application of Law to Facts

Even if a more demanding causation standard governs this unusual case — because it was allegedly a federal prosecutor and grand jury, rather than a state prosecutor, who were misled — there is ample evidence from which a jury could conclude that the defendants “played an active role in the [federal] prosecution” of the plaintiff. See Rohman v. New York City Transit Authority (N.Y.CTA), 215 F.3d 208, 217 (2d Cir.2000) (discussing “initiation” element of malicious prosecution claim brought against non-police official). It can be argued that malicious misleading of both the state and federal prosecutors was by witnesses — here City police officers — acting under color of state authority-

Close collaboration between state and federal authorities in criminal matters is now commonplace and, generally speaking, laudable. See, generally, Essay, Coordination of State and Federal Judicial Systems, 57 St. John’s L.Rev. 1, 22-28 (1982) (urging increased state-federal cooperation in criminal justice matters); see also Essay, The Role of Judges in a Government Of By, and For the People: Notes for the Fifty-Eighth Cardozo Lecture, 30 Cardozo L.Rev. 8, n. 2 (“So far as most lay people are concerned, the state and federal systems are one judicial establishment with many courts.”).

Here, although none of the three defendants signed the federal criminal complaint against the plaintiff, “the source of [the] deponent’s information and the grounds [130]*130for his belief’ included “reviews of records [of] the NYPD [and] conversations with NYPD officers.” See United States v. Davis, 09-CR-0829, ECF No. 1, Aff. in Supp. of Crim. Compl., *2. Each of the three defendants is alleged to have subsequently testified falsely against the plaintiff during the federal criminal trial. Should a jury credit the plaintiffs version of events, defendants’ wrongdoing could suffice to satisfy the initiation or continuation element of a malicious prosecution claim. See Manganiello, 612 F.3d at 163.

Because the plaintiffs section 1983 claims will hinge on whose account the jury finds most credible, reference to the earlier criminal proceedings must be kept to a minimum if the civil jury here is to exercise its judgment independently. It is important to keep from this civil jury the credibility determinations made by the federal criminal petty jury and the Assistant United States Attorney who prosecuted the case. See United States v. Forrester,

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
296 F.R.D. 127, 2013 WL 6284143, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 171015, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/davis-v-city-of-new-york-nyed-2013.