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Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

_______________

No. 19-2238

_______________

JHEN SCUTELLA,

Appellant

v.

PATROLMAN JAMES COUSINS 3RD; 

PATROLMAN ROBERT WILLIAMS; 

LT. GOOZDICH

_______________

On Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Western District of Pennsylvania

(D.C. No. 1:17-cv-00222)

District Judge: Honorable Susan Paradise Baxter

_______________

Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a) 

on January 30, 2020

Before: CHAGARES, RESTREPO, and BIBAS, Circuit Judges

(Filed: May 1, 2020)

_______________

OPINION*

_______________

* This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and, under I.O.P. 5.7, is not binding 

precedent.

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BIBAS, Circuit Judge.

If a police officer acts on a reasonable belief in a defendant’s guilt, he cannot be liable 

for malicious prosecution. The police charged Jhen Scutella with falsely reporting his truck 

stolen. It was not; instead, the police had impounded it after Scutella fled a traffic stop. 

Because the police reasonably believed that Scutella had knowingly filed a false report, 

they had probable cause to charge him with a crime for doing so. Though prosecutors later 

dropped the charges, that does not make the prosecution malicious. So we will affirm the 

District Court’s dismissal of this malicious-prosecution suit.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Bar hopping gone awry 

One night, Scutella and his friend Chaz Mathis decided to go bar hopping in Erie, Pennsylvania. They met up with Mathis’s two cousins at one bar for a drink before leaving for 

another bar.

The four of them got into Scutella’s white truck. Scutella, who had been drinking, drove 

to a gas station. When they arrived, Scutella and Mathis got into a tussle. A gas-station 

employee called the police and warned that the men might have a gun. When they ended 

their scuffle, they got back into the truck and drove to a bar called Luigi’s.

Around 11 p.m., Officer James Cousins responded to the gas-station employee’s call. 

He spotted Scutella’s truck, which matched the dispatcher’s description of it, and began 

tailing it. Officer Cousins did not yet recognize the truck as Scutella’s, but the two had met 

before.

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A few years earlier, Officer Cousins had arrested Scutella for disorderly conduct and 

driving under the influence, among other alleged offenses. During the arrest, Cousins had 

allegedly tasered Scutella while he was handcuffed on the ground. So Scutella had sued 

Cousins and other officers for excessive force. That suit settled three months before Cousins’s and Scutella’s paths crossed again near the gas station.

With Officer Cousins tailing him, Scutella drove and parked his truck near Luigi’s. 

Cousins parked behind him. When Scutella and his passengers got out, Cousins allegedly 

ordered them “[n]umerous times” to stop and stay with the truck. App. 91. Cousins stayed 

back about twenty yards, because the dispatcher had said someone might have a weapon. 

He also radioed for backup.

According to Officer Cousins, the four disobeyed his orders and walked away in two 

directions. Once backup arrived, the police went looking for the four. They found the three 

passengers and arrested them for disorderly conduct and public intoxication. But they could 

not find Scutella. Later, Cousins returned to the truck, glanced through the window, and 

saw marijuana in plain view on the driver’s-side floorboard. So he had the truck towed and 

impounded.

Meanwhile, Scutella entered Luigi’s alone. He ordered a shot of vodka and a six-pack 

of beer and socialized with some patrons. After more than forty-five minutes, Scutella 

looked out the bar’s door and saw that his truck was gone. He then stayed for another 

twenty to thirty minutes, ordering another vodka before heading home. On his way home, 

he called the police to report his truck stolen.

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A clerk at the police station took the call. The clerk told Officer Cousins, who had 

returned to the station, and Lieutenant Steven Goozdich, the officer in charge that night, 

that Scutella had reported his truck stolen. Cousins told the clerk to write up a report of the 

call, but Scutella was not told that the police had impounded the truck “[b]ecause his vehicle was involved in criminal activity.” App. 100.

Lieutenant Goozdich assigned Officer Robert Williams to investigate Scutella’s report. 

Shortly after the call, around 1 a.m., Williams went to Scutella’s home to interview him. 

In a signed affidavit, Scutella misstated that he had parked his stolen truck outside a different bar called Reno’s, at least two blocks away from where he had actually parked. And 

though he had returned from Luigi’s not long before, he told Williams that he had entered 

Reno’s.

B. State charges of disorderly conduct and false reports

Nearly two weeks later, Officer Cousins charged Scutella with disorderly conduct and 

possession of marijuana. After plea negotiations, he pleaded guilty only to disorderly conduct for fleeing the traffic stop.

Separately, Officer Williams charged Scutella in a complaint with two crimes: writing 

up and signing a false report that his truck had been stolen and where it had been parked

(an unsworn falsification to the police), and making a knowingly false oral report to police 

to the same effect. See 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. §§4904(a)(1), 4906(b)(1). The case went to trial 

on those charges in the Court of Common Pleas of Erie County.

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Before trial, the court excluded evidence of Scutella’s earlier excessive-force suit as 

irrelevant. At trial, the court dismissed the written-statement charge but let the charge of a 

false oral report proceed, and the jury convicted on it.

On appeal, the Pennsylvania Superior Court held that the trial court should have admitted testimony about the excessive-force suit because it was relevant to Officer Cousins’s

motive and went to his credibility. It thus vacated Scutella’s conviction and sentence and 

remanded for a new trial.

Rather than try Scutella again, the prosecution moved to dismiss the case. It saw no 

reason to retry him because he had already served more than six months in detention for 

the crime, which carried a maximum sentence of six to twelve months. The court granted 

the dismissal.

C. Federal suit for malicious prosecution

Scutella sued the three police officers in the Western District of Pennsylvania. He argued that Officer Cousins, Officer Williams, and Lieutenant Goozdich had maliciously 

prosecuted and conspired to maliciously prosecute him by filing the two false-report 

charges without probable cause. He also alleged many other claims, all of which were later 

dismissed as time barred or claim precluded and are not raised on appeal. After discovery, 

the District Court granted summary judgment for the officers. It reasoned that Scutella had 

not proven that his criminal proceeding had ended in his favor, a necessary element of a 

malicious-prosecution claim under 42 U.S.C. §1983.

We review the District Court’s grant of summary judgment de novo. Tundo v. County 

of Passaic, 923 F.3d 283, 286 (3d Cir. 2019). Summary judgment is proper “if the movant

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shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to 

judgment as a matter of law.” Constitution Party v. Cortes, 824 F.3d 386, 393 (3d Cir.

2016) (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a)).

II. THE POLICE HAD PROBABLE CAUSE TO PROSECUTE SCUTELLA FOR 

FALSE REPORT AND UNSWORN FALSIFICATION

A. Legal standards and scope of review

To succeed on his malicious-prosecution claim under §1983, Scutella must show five 

elements: (1) the officers began the criminal proceeding; (2) they did so without probable 

cause; (3) the proceeding ended in Scutella’s favor; (4) the officers “acted maliciously or 

for a purpose other than bringing [him] to justice”; and (5) as a result of the legal proceeding, he “suffered deprivation of liberty consistent with the concept of seizure.” Johnson v. 

Knorr, 477 F.3d 75, 82 (3d Cir. 2007). The District Court dismissed Scutella’s maliciousprosecution and malicious-prosecution-conspiracy claims at the third prong because the 

criminal proceeding did not end in his favor. Scutella disputes that finding on appeal.

We need not decide whether the District Court’s analysis was correct because we can 

affirm on any ground supported by the record. Blake v. JP Morgan Chase Bank NA, 927 

F.3d 701, 705 (3d Cir. 2019). As the police officers had probable cause, Scutella’s claims

fail at prong two.

Probable cause is a low hurdle. It requires only “a fair probability that the person committed the crime.” Dempsey v. Bucknell Univ., 834 F.3d 457, 467 (3d Cir. 2016) (quoting 

Wilson v. Russo, 212 F.3d 781, 789 (3d Cir. 2000)). The officers need not have been certain 

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that Scutella was guilty; they need only have believed it reasonably. Wright v. City of Philadelphia, 409 F.3d 595, 602 (3d Cir. 2005). Scutella bears the burden of showing that their 

belief was unreasonable. See Goodwin v. Conway, 836 F.3d 321, 327 (3d Cir. 2016).

In addition, even at summary judgment, we can consider both facts favorable and unfavorable to Scutella. Though Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(a) requires courts to view 

the evidence “in the light most favorable to the non-moving party,” the probable-cause 

standard lets courts consider “conflicting, even irreconcilable evidence.” Dempsey, 834 

F.3d at 468. So to decide whether the officers’ belief of guilt was reasonable, we consider 

all the facts that were known to them. Id.

B. The police had enough evidence for probable cause

The officers charged Scutella with falsely reporting that his truck was stolen and where 

it had been parked. Scutella argues that they lacked probable cause because he did not 

know that the police had impounded his truck. We disagree for three reasons.

1. The officers reasonably believed that Scutella had filed a false report to hide his 

unlawful conduct. The officers reasonably believed that Scutella had falsely reported his 

truck stolen to cover up illicit activities. Officer Williams testified that people often falsely 

report their cars stolen “as a cover for someone to deny they were in the vehicle at all or to 

deny that they had anything to do with it.” App. 121. The officer believed that Scutella was 

likewise lying to cover his tracks. Though this theory was hardly ironclad, it was reasonable.

Officer Williams had plenty of reason to suspect that Scutella was covering up his illegality: First, he knew that Scutella had fled a traffic stop that night. Though Scutella denied 

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this at trial, he neither admits nor denies the officers’ account of the traffic stop on appeal. 

Besides, by pleading guilty to disorderly conduct as charged, Scutella admitted that he had 

“fail[ed] to respond” to Officer Cousins’s “numerous request[s] to cease his actions and 

return to the vehicle he had just exited.” App. 265.

Second, Officer Williams knew that Scutella had been involved in a fight earlier that 

night and that he was possibly carrying a weapon. Third, he knew that the officers had 

found marijuana in the truck. So Williams reasonably suspected that Scutella had plenty to 

hide by reporting his truck stolen.

2. The traffic stop and marijuana found in the truck supported Scutella’s guilt. Considering all the facts known to the officers, they reasonably believed that Scutella had reported the truck stolen even though he knew the police had it. Scutella offers no evidence 

to the contrary.

As mentioned, Scutella had fled a traffic stop. A reasonable officer could believe that

Scutella thus knew that the police would likely search for him and examine his truck. 

And there is no dispute that the police found marijuana in the truck from outside, readily 

visible on the driver’s-side floorboard. True, Scutella later denied seeing the marijuana. 

But given the location of the marijuana, a reasonable officer could have suspected that 

Scutella knew that there was marijuana in the truck.

Against this backdrop, the officers argue that “[a]ny reasonable officer investigating” 

Scutella’s report would have probable cause to believe that his truck, “which also happened 

to contain illegal substances,” was falsely being reported stolen. Appellees’ Br. 24. We 

agree. 

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Scutella produced no evidence to suggest that the officers’ belief was unreasonable. He 

argues only that he subjectively did not know that the police had impounded his truck. That 

is not enough to make the officers’ belief in his guilt unreasonable.

3. Scutella’s misstatements also supported his guilt. Finally, the officers were justifiably suspicious about Scutella’s misstatements. Scutella told Officer Williams that his 

truck had been stolen but said nothing about a traffic stop. And when asked “several times” 

where it was, he said that he had parked it outside Reno’s, a couple of blocks from Luigi’s, 

and that he had gone inside Reno’s. App. 124.

But Officer Williams saw through these misstatements. The officer knew that the truck 

was not stolen, but in police custody. He knew that Scutella had fled Officer Cousins’s

traffic stop. And he knew that Scutella had parked his truck near Luigi’s, not Reno’s.

Thus, when Scutella made those misstatements, Officer Williams reasonably believed 

that Scutella had lied. He visited Scutella’s home a little more than two hours after Officer 

Cousins first responded to the gas station. Williams saw that when Scutella misstated the 

facts, “he was not slurring [his] speech or acting intoxicated.” App. 118. So his belief that 

Scutella was not mistaken, but lying, was reasonable. Again, Scutella has not met his burden of proof, offering no evidence to undercut Officer Williams’s reasonable skepticism.

See Goodwin, 836 F.3d at 327. The officers thus had probable cause to prosecute Scutella 

for false report and unsworn falsification. See Wright, 409 F.3d at 602.

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* * * * *

Scutella may not have known that the police had seized his truck. But the officers’ belief 

in his guilt need not have been correct, only reasonable. In the totality of the circumstances, 

it was. The officers thus had probable cause to charge Scutella with making a false report 

and unsworn falsifications. Because probable cause is a complete defense to malicious

prosecution, we will affirm.

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