Giuseppe D'Alessandro v. City of New York

713 F. App'x 1
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedOctober 17, 2017
Docket17-594-cv
StatusUnpublished
Cited by66 cases

This text of 713 F. App'x 1 (Giuseppe D'Alessandro v. City of New York) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Giuseppe D'Alessandro v. City of New York, 713 F. App'x 1 (2d Cir. 2017).

Opinion

SUMMARY ORDER

Giuseppe D’Alessandro (“D’Alessandro”) appeals from the January 30, 2017 judgment of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Townes, /.), granting motions to dismiss by defendants Robert Morgenthau (“Mor-genthau”), Brenda Morris (“Morris”), Anthony Vazquez (“Vazquez”), and the City of New York (“the City”). We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, the procedural history of the case, and the issues on appeal.

We give de novo review to a district court’s dismissal of a complaint for failure to state a claim. Pruter v. Local 210’s Pension Tr. Fund, 858 F.3d 753, 759 (2d Cir. 2017). In conducting this review, we assume all of the complaint’s factual allegations to be true, and “draw[ ] all reasonable inferences in [the plaintiffs] favor.” Id. (quoting Freidus v. Barclays Bank PLC, 734 F.3d 132, 137 (2d Cir. 2013)). However, “pleadings that ... are no more than conclusions!] are not entitled to the assumption of truth.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 679, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009). “[B]are assertions” that “amount to nothing more than a ‘formulaic recitation of the elements’ of a constitutional” violation “are conclusory and not entitled to be assumed true.” Id. at 681, 129 S.Ct. 1937 (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007)). We can affirm the district court’s order “on any ground” that the record supports, Lee v. Kemna, 534 U.S. 362, 391, 122 S.Ct. 877, 151 L.Ed.2d 820 (2002).

A. Background

In 1989, D’Alessandro suspected that his employee, Jaime Abril (“Abril”), had stolen $3,000 from his restaurant. D’Alessandro allegedly responded by coercing Abril into the restaurant’s basement and confining him there for over twelve hours. (D’Ales-sandro denies ever confining Abril.) Abril later filed a criminal complaint with the New York City Police Department (“NYPD”). Vazquez and five unnamed NYPD officers (“John Does 6-10”) investigated the incident and arrested D’Alessan-dro on charges of kidnapping and related offenses.

The New York County District Attorney’s Office—headed, at the time, by Mor-genthau—commenced prosecution of D’Al-essandro. Then-Assistant District Attorney (“ADA”) Morris presented D’Alessandro’s case to a grand jury in October 1989. D’Alessandro insists that the grand jury never returned a signed indictment, and that Morris proceeded with the prosecution regardless. 1 D’Alessandro also alleges that Morris: (1) engaged in a “police-type investigation” into his case in order to increase the severity of the charges against him in retaliation for his having declined her initial plea offer, • First Amended Complaint (“FAC”) ¶ 47; (2) improperly acquired evidence, manufactured evidence, facilitated false witness statements, and hid contrary exculpatory evidence during this investigation; (3) obtained a superseding indictment from a grand jury for the charge of kidnapping in the first degree based on this faulty investigation 2 ; (4) engaged in an unjustified 196-day delay in producing the grand jury minutes in response to D’Alessandro’s CPL § 210,30 motion; and (5) failed to alert the court to precedent that was dis-positive and directly contrary to her position.

On June 25, 1991, a jury found D’Ales-sandro guilty of kidnapping in the first degree. He was later sentenced to a minimum of fifteen years in prison. On June 29, 2010, the First Department granted D’Alessandro a writ of error coram nobis, concluding that his counsel was ineffective for failing to raise a “clear-cut and completely dispositive speedy trial argument” on the direct appeal of his conviction. FAC ¶ 21. The court vacated D’Alessandro’s conviction, and dismissed his indictment.

D’Alessandro filed the instant 42 U.S.C. § 1983 lawsuit in the Eastern District of New York on February 21, 2013, naming the following individuals as defendants: (1) Morris, in both her personal and official capacities; (2) Morgenthau, in both his personal and official capacities; (3) Cyrus M. Vance, Jr., the current District Attorney for the County of New York, in both his individual and personal capacities; (4) the City of New York; (5) Vazquez, in both his personal and official capacities; (6) five unnamed members of the District Attorney’s Office (“John Does 1-5”); and (7) five unnamed NYPD Officers (“John Does 6-10”). The complaint asserts that Morris’s alleged misconduct, outlined above, deprived D’Alessandro of his Fourteenth Amendment Due Process rights. It also alleges that Vance, 3 Morgenthau, John Does 1-5, and the City negligently hired Morris, failed to properly supervise Morris, and failed to train Morris in her legal duties. Finally, the complaint alleges that Vazquez and John Does 6-10 “failed to conduct a constitutionally adequate criminal investigation,” FAC ¶ 54, that all defendants failed to intervene to prevent the violation of D’Alessandro’s constitutional rights, and that the City was negligent in hiring, retaining, and supervising Vazquez and John Does 6-10, 4

The District Attorney’s Office—on behalf of Morgenthau and Morris—filed a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss D’Alessan-dro’s complaint for failure to state a claim. The City of New York—on behalf of itself and Vazquez—also filed a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss. 5 On November 22, 2016, the district court granted both motions. First, the district court held that absolute prosecutorial immunity bars D’Alessan-dro’s claims against Morris and Morgen-thau in their personal capacities. Second, the district court concluded that the Eleventh Amendment bars any claims against Morris and Morgenthau in their official capacities insofar as they were acting in their prosecutorial roles on behalf of the State, and that the remaining official capacity claims should be analyzed as claims against the City of New York. Third, the district court interpreted D’Alessandro’s claim against Vazquez to be a claim for false arrest, and dismissed that claim because Vazquez acted with probable cause. Finally, the district court dismissed D’Al-essandro’s claims against the City of New York, since D’Alessandro failed to allege that the City engaged in a “municipal policy or practice,” per Monell v. Department of Social Services of the City of New York, 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978).

On appeal, D’Alessandro argues that the district court erred in all four of these findings. Wé disagree.

B. Claims Against Morris and Mor-genthau in Their Personal Capacities

At the start, the district court correctly concluded that absolute prosecutorial immunity shields Morris and Morgenthau from suit in their personal capacities.

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713 F. App'x 1, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/giuseppe-dalessandro-v-city-of-new-york-ca2-2017.