Dukes v. City of Albany

289 F. Supp. 3d 387
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. New York
DecidedFebruary 6, 2018
Docket1:17–CV–865
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 289 F. Supp. 3d 387 (Dukes v. City of Albany) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dukes v. City of Albany, 289 F. Supp. 3d 387 (N.D.N.Y. 2018).

Opinion

DAVID N. HURD, United States District Judge

I. INTRODUCTION

On November 17, 1998, relying on a coerced confession supported by false police testimony, an Albany County jury wrongly convicted plaintiff Carl Dukes ("Dukes" or "plaintiff") of murdering Erik Mitchell ("Mitchell"), a college student whose apartment plaintiff helped burglarize four months beforehand. Plaintiff was exonerated of Mitchell's murder in 2016 after another man confessed the precise details of the crime.

On August 7, 2017, Dukes brought this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and related state law asserting claims for malicious prosecution, denial of his fair trial rights, a violation of his right against self-incrimination, and negligence1 against defendants City of Albany (the "City") and the six detectives involved in obtaining his false confession and then securing his wrongful conviction: Detective Kenneth Wilcox ("Detective Wilcox"),2 Detective Anthony Ryan ("Detective Ryan"), Detective Michael Sbuttoni ("Detective Sbuttoni"), Detective Peter McKenna ("Detective McKenna"), Detective Sergeant Kevin Breen ("Detective Sergeant Breen"), and Detective Ronald Matos ("Detective Matos") (collectively "defendants").

On September 1, 2017, defendants moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) seeking to dismiss Dukes' complaint in its entirety on the basis of various principles of claim and issue preclusion. The motion has been fully briefed.

*390II. BACKGROUND

The following facts are taken from the complaint and assumed true for purposes of this motion. In 1996, Dukes, who was then 19 years old and living in Albany, agreed to help Matthew Parsons ("Parsons") rob Mitchell, a small-time marijuana dealer and college student Parsons met while working at the SUNY Albany cafeteria.

On October 4, 1996, Dukes and Parsons, aided by Lavell Jones ("Jones"), Pierre Lyons ("Lyons"), and Zakee Abdul-Hameed ("Abdul-Hameed"), broke into Mitchell's apartment while he was not home.3 Although the quintet initially escaped, Albany police managed to identify and charge three of the men-Parsons, Lyons, and Abdul-Hameed (but not Dukes or Jones)-with the robbery.

Four months later, on February 18, 1997, someone shot and killed Mitchell in the vestibule of his apartment building. Forensic evidence recovered from the scene indicated Mitchell had been shot at close range by a .25 caliber bullet. Under the supervision of Detective Sergeant Breen, defendants opened an investigation and initially identified Jeffrey Conrad ("Conrad") as a potential suspect in the murder.

Dukes alleges Conrad was a known felon on probation whose girlfriend lived several doors down from Mitchell, and who had attempted to purchase a firearm shortly before the murder occurred. However, defendants completely neglected to investigate Conrad because they believed one or more of the participants in the earlier robbery must have also carried out the later murder. According to plaintiff's complaint, defendants hatched a plan to turn this hunch into one or more murder convictions.

On February 19, 1997, the day after Mitchell's murder, detectives interviewed Parsons, who they had initially arrested for the robbery months earlier. Although he denied any knowledge of the murder, the detectives tried again on April 30, 1997, interrogating Parsons until they succeeded in coercing him into claiming he "heard" from an unidentified person that Dukes and Abdul-Hameed had gone back to Mitchell's apartment to look for someone else, unexpectedly ran into Mitchell, and shot him.

On September 8, 1997, while Dukes sat in the Albany County jail awaiting trial on an unrelated charge, defendants ordered him brought to the Albany County Courthouse. When plaintiff arrived he was met by Bertrand Gould, his public defender. Attorney Gould explained to plaintiff that defendants wanted to speak to him about an ongoing robbery investigation. Plaintiff was then brought into a conference room where several detectives were waiting. At that point, Attorney Gould announced that "due to a conflict of interest" he would not remain in the room for the interrogation.

Beginning around 9:00 a.m., Detectives Wilcox and Matos interrogated Dukes about the robbery of Mitchell's apartment. Although they did not read him his Miranda rights, they asked plaintiff to initial a form stating they had in fact done so. By 12:30 p.m., defendants convinced plaintiff to acknowledge his involvement in the October robbery and persuaded him to sign a statement Detective Matos had prepared to that effect.

Dukes alleges Detective Matos had secretly added language to this written statement which falsely indicated plaintiff also had knowledge of Mitchell's murder in February. According to plaintiff, the detectives' questioning that morning did not *391touch on the subject of the murder at all and therefore plaintiff failed to notice defendants had included information about this second crime before he signed the statement.

After taking a break for lunch, Detectives Wilcox and Matos resumed the interrogation, again asking Dukes to initial a form acknowledging his Miranda rights even though they never actually read them to him. The detectives then began to question plaintiff about Mitchell's murder. Plaintiff repeatedly denied having any involvement in the murder, at one point breaking down in tears.

Nevertheless, Detective Wilcox began to feed Dukes a false narrative in which plaintiff had gone to Mitchell's apartment with Jones and Lyons, two of the other robbers, and that Jones had shot Mitchell. Detective Wilcox demanded that plaintiff adopt this story, and threatened plaintiff with the death penalty if he refused. Eventually, plaintiff relented and signed a statement, again prepared by Detective Matos, which recounted the story Detective Wilcox had pushed onto plaintiff. Attorney Gould returned to the room and terminated the interview. Plaintiff was arrested.

After obtaining Dukes' coerced confession, defendants were faced with a problem: plaintiff's story was inconsistent with the prior coerced statement from Parsons, which claimed Abdul-Hameed (not Jones or Lyons) had been with plaintiff at Mitchell's apartment the night of the murder. Defendants resolved this inconsistency by obtaining a second false corroborating statement from Parsons.

But defendants weren't done yet. They proceeded to build the murder case against Dukes by eliciting false confessions from Jones and Lyons using the same aggressive interrogation tactics employed against plaintiff. First, Detectives McKenna and Ryan traveled to Brooklyn, where Jones had been arrested during a traffic stop, and coerced him into signing a statement falsely admitting his involvement in Mitchell's murder. In addition, these detectives coerced Jones's girlfriend into signing a statement falsely claiming Jones had confessed directly to her.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
289 F. Supp. 3d 387, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dukes-v-city-of-albany-nynd-2018.