Opinion ID: 1983194
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the jury instructions and verdicts

Text: The plaintiffs contend that the trial justice erred in his charge to the jury on probable cause. The charge given was in part as follows: The law is that a peace officer has probable cause to arrest without a warrant if the facts and circumstances known to him, or of which he has reasonably trustworthy information at the moment of arrest, that information warrants a man of reasonable caution, in the belief that an offense has been or is being committed by the person arrested.       There is another manner in which [you may conclude] that the defendant had probable cause. If the defendant proves to you by a fair preponderance of the evidence that he consulted with the Assistant United States Attorney for the purpose of ascertaining whether the facts in his possession authorized him to make an arrest, and the defendant submitted to the Assistant United States Attorney a full and correct statement of the facts within his knowledge and was advised by the United States Attorney that he could proceed to arrest, and the defendant Mr. Robert, proceeded in good faith upon that advice to arrest, then the defendant was justified in making the arrest and he will not be liable under a claim of false arrest. A trial justice fulfills his or her obligation to charge the jury properly by framing the issues in such a way that the instructions reasonably set forth all of the propositions of law that relate to material issues of fact which the evidence tends to support. State v. Freeman, 473 A.2d 1149, 1152 (R.I. 1984). As long as this rule is followed, the particular language suggested by any one of the litigants need not be adopted. In this case the trial justice's instruction was a proper statement of the relevant law. See, e.g., State v. Haigh, 112 R.I. 740, 743, 315 A.2d 431, 433 (1974); Kitchen v. Rosenfeld, 44 R.I. 399, 401, 117 A. 537, 538 (1922). We observe from the record that apparently neither Robert nor the U.S. Attorney advising him was aware of the long-established federal law requiring that a bank employee be convicted under 18 U.S.C. § 656 before a nonemployee can be found guilty of aiding and abetting under 18 U.S.C. § 2. See, e.g., Giragosian v. United States, 349 F.2d 166, 167 (1st Cir.1965). Were he aware of this settled law, Robert surely would not have pursued his scheme to catch plaintiffs by posing as a bank officer, for such a scheme could not have resulted in a successful prosecution. Nevertheless, the jury must have found that Robert acted in good faith in relying on the advice provided by the U.S. Attorney, and under Rhode Island law this provides a complete defense against the false-arrest and malicious-prosecution claims. [4] See, e.g., Kitchen, supra. We have considered the other arguments set forth by the plaintiffs and have determined that they are without merit. For these reasons, the plaintiffs' appeal is denied and dismissed. The judgments appealed from are affirmed. The papers are remanded to the Superior Court.