Rubalcava v. City Of San Jose

District Court, N.D. California·Decided July 15, 2021·No. 5:20-cv-04191·Unknown

Opinion

LIONEL RUBALCAVA, Case No. 20-cv-04191-BLF

Plaintiff, ORDER (1) GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING IN PART CITY v. DEFENDANTS’ MOTION TO DISMISS, WITH LEAVE TO AMEND; CITY OF SAN JOSE, et al., AND (2) GRANTING COUNTY DEFENDANTS’ MOTION TO Defendants. DISMISS, WITH LEAVE TO AMEND IN PART AND WITHOUT LEAVE TO

[Re: ECF 57, 60]

This action arises out of a tragic miscarriage of justice that resulted in Plaintiff Lionel Rubalcava serving more than seventeen years in prison for a crime he did not commit: the attempted murder of a man named Raymond Rodriguez. Rubalcava’s conviction was vacated in 2019 by the Santa Clara County Superior Court, which also made an express finding of his actual innocence. Rubalcava thereafter filed this suit, claiming that San Jose Police Department (“SJPD”) officers and Santa Clara County investigators fabricated evidence and committed other misconduct that led to his wrongful conviction. He asserts federal and state law claims against those individuals and Monell1 claims against the City of San Jose and the County of Santa Clara. Before the Court are two motions to dismiss the complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), one brought by the City of San Jose and individual SJPD officers (collectively, “City Defendants”), and the other brought by the County of Santa Clara and individual County investigators (collectively, “County Defendants”). For the reasons discussed below, the City Defendants’ motion is GRANTED IN PART AND DENIED IN PART, WITH LEAVE TO AMEND, and the County Defendants’ motion is GRANTED, WITH LEAVE TO AMEND IN PART AND WITHOUT LEAVE TO AMEND IN The following facts are drawn from the complaint and are accepted as true for purposes of the motions to dismiss. Drive-By Shooting of Rodriguez At approximately 5:30 p.m. on April 5, 2002, Raymond Rodriguez was standing in front of his home on Mastic Street in San Jose, California, chatting with his twelve-year-old brother, Eric Millan, and a friend, Daniel Cerecerez. Compl. ¶¶ 35-36. Rodriguez was wearing red and had a large N-shaped belt buckle, both indicating affiliation with the Norteño gang. Id. ¶ 35. Also standing on the street were Rodriguez’s neighbor, David Gonzalez – also a Norteño – and two other men, Alejandro Borrego and Nicholas Faría. Id. ¶ 36. Gonzalez noticed a Toyota 4Runner driving along Mastic Street. Compl. ¶ 37. Its occupants were wearing blue, the color of the rival Sureño gang. Id. ¶ 35. Gonzalez recognized the 4Runner’s driver as a Sureño and ran into his backyard. Id. ¶ 37. The 4Runner stopped in front of Rodriguez’s house, and when Rodriguez realized that its occupants were Sureños, he raised his hands and asked, “what’s up?” Id. ¶ 38. The driver shot Rodriguez in the chest and sped off. Id. ¶ 39. Rodriguez survived but he was paralyzed from the waist down. Id. ¶ 40. Initial Investigation Lieutenant Walt Tibbet and Sergeant Rich Torres of the SJPD supervised the investigation while Officer Edgardo Garcia oversaw the canvass of the neighborhood. Compl. ¶ 48. When interviewed at the hospital, Rodriguez identified the 4Runner’s occupants as “scraps,” which is a derogatory term that Norteños use for Sureños. Id. ¶ 50. Rodriguez also stated that the Norteños and Sureños were feuding. Id. Upon learning that the shooting was gang-related, Lieutenant Tibbet and Sergeant Torres contacted Sergeant Gary Hafley, a supervisor with the SJPD gang unit, did not turn up any leads on the Sureño shooter. Id. ¶ 52. The 4Runner was recovered blocks away from Rodriguez’s home, trashed and burned. Id. ¶ 49. Two days after the shooting, Rubalcava saw Rodriguez’s sister, Jennifer Rodriguez, standing outside her home on Mastic Street and stopped to speak with her. Compl. ¶ 53. Jennifer Rodriguez was unnerved by the interaction and told SJPD officers that she thought Rubalcava might be connected to the shooting. Id. ¶ 54. The police had no other leads, so they focused on Rubalcava. Id. ¶ 55. Rubalcava had joined the Norteño gang when he was a boy. Compl. ¶ 43. However, he had become inactive in the gang as he got older. Id. At the time of the shooting, Rubalcava – then in his early 20s – was driving from San Jose, California to Hollister, California for a first date with a woman named Stephanie Leon. Compl. ¶¶ 18, 44. Rubalcava and Leon saw a movie and parted ways at approximately 10:00 pm. Id. Although Rubalcava was a Norteño and not a Sureño, and was not near Mastic Street at the time of the shooting, SJPD officers “began putting together a case against Rubalcava by using coercion, suggestion, and outright fabrication to muster false evidence of his guilt.” Compl. ¶ 55. Eye-Witness Gonzalez Detective Perez, along with SJPD officers Steven Spillman and Topui Fonua, took Rodriguez’s neighbor, Gonzalez, to an empty parking lot and threatened to search his family’s apartment if he did not cooperate in their investigation. Id. ¶ 56. Gonzalez stated that the shooter was a Sureño who had harassed him (Gonzalez) in the past for being a Norteño. Id. ¶ 58. Gonzalez thought that he was the intended target of the shooting. Id. Perez, Spillman, and Fonua nonetheless showed Gonzalez photo arrays and pressured him into identifying Rubalcava as the shooter. Id. ¶¶ 59-60. Perez, Spillman, and Fonua falsely stated in their report that Gonzalez immediately identified Rubalcava as the shooter, omitting the manner in which Gonzalez was coerced into making the identification. Id. ¶ 61. Sergeants Torres and Hafley “reviewed and approved the false report.” Id. ¶ 63. Gonzalez attempted to recant his identification of Rubalcava, but Perez pressured him to stick with the identification. Compl. ¶ 64. Perez also offered Gonzalez’s mother money to move promised Gonzalez witness-protection payments in exchange for his testimony. Id. ¶ 65. To ensure Gonzalez’s cooperation, Perez had Gonzalez arrested as an accessory to the attempted murder of Rodriguez, arranged for Gonzalez to wear a brown uniform in jail marking him as a “snitch,” and threatened to return him to jail after the preliminary hearing if he did not identify Rubalcava as the shooter. Id. ¶¶ 66-68. Gonzalez, in fear for his life, testified at the preliminary hearing that Rubalcava “looked like” the shooter, and Rubalcava was bound over for trial. Id. ¶ 68. In retaliation for Gonzalez’s failure to make a definite identification of Rubalcava, Perez withdrew the offers of financial support to Gonzalez and his family. Id. ¶ 70. Gonzalez thereafter testified truthfully at trial that Rubalcava was not the shooter, but his testimony was impeached with his prior identification of Rubalcava. Id. ¶ 71. Victim Rodriguez and his brother Millan Perez, Spillman, and Fonua also pressured the shooting victim, Rodriguez, and his brother, Millan, to identify Rubalcava as the shooter. Compl. ¶¶ 75, 79-80. Perez brought a photo array to Rodriguez when he was hospitalized and heavily medicated, and got him to identify Rubalcava as the shooter. Id. ¶ 79. The officers also reported that Millan positively identified Rubalcava when in fact Millan had not seen the shooter. Id. ¶¶ 73-75. Sergeants Torres and Hafley approved the false reports regarding identification of Rubalcava by Rodriguez and Millan. Id. ¶¶ 76, 82. Perez offered Jennifer Contreras, the mother of Rodriguez and Millan, money to relocate her family if her sons cooperated. Compl. ¶ 85. In return, Contreras pressured her sons to maintain their false identifications of Rubalcava through trial. Id. ¶ 98. Perez and County investigator Doug Kaleas falsified an application for witness protection funding, stating that Contreras and her sons had relocated for safety reasons when Perez and Kaleas had helped move Contreras to a better apartment to induce her sons to testify against Rubalcava. Id. ¶ 99. Perez and Kaleas did not disclose the witness protection funding to the

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