Opinion ID: 8414983
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The District Attorney’s Prosecution and Grand Jury Indictment

Text: We now turn to the Defendants’ argument that the District Attorney’s, decision to prosecute Dufort or the grand jury’s decision to indict insulates them from liability. As a preliminary matter, the district court granted summary judgment in this case without permitting Dufort to depose the prosecutors who tried him, and thus the record on the extent of their knowledge is incomplete. Park testified in her deposition in this case that she told the police and the prosecutor at some time in October 2006 that her lineup identification was based solely on Dufort’s clothing. Nonetheless, Dufort has submitted an affidavit from his criminal defense attorney, William Mackey, testifying that, at the time of the lineup, he never heard Park disclose to representatives from the District Attorney’s office that she only recognized Dufort by the color of his clothing. Dufort has also introduced testimony from his trial attorney, Christopher Renfroe, stating that Detective Marotta did not mention the limited nature of Park’s identification during a pre-trial hearing in which Dufort sought to suppress that identification. Defendants have produced no evidence demonstrating conclusively that the District Attorney’s office was aware of the limited nature of Park’s identification. The district court noted that Park stated for the first time in her 2014 civil deposition (long after Dufort’s acquittal) that she had told an ADA that she had identified only Dufort’s clothes. However, as Dufort points out, Park’s recollection of her cooperation with the police and prosecutors has been incomplete, and sometimes inconsistent. Whether Park ever told prosecutors pri- or to trial that she could only recognize Dufort by the color of his jacket is a disputed question of fact, and must be evaluated by a jury. If the District Attorney’s office pursued its prosecution against Dufort after it was deliberately misled by the Defendants, then the decision to prosecute does not interrupt the chain of causation. Cf. Bermudez v. City of New York, 790 F.3d 368, 374-76 (2d Cir. 2015) (holding that an ADA’s decision to prosecute a suspect did not constitute an intervening cause that shielded the arresting officers from liability if the ADA was “not informed of the alleged problems with the evidence”) Dufort has raised a triable issue of fact as to whether either the grand jury’s indictment or the prosecutors’ participation in his case constituted intervening causes that insulate the Defendants from liability. The record in this case presents a question of fact as to whether the District Attorney’s office was aware of the limited nature of Park’s identification testimony. “[U]nder New York law, indictment by a grand jury creates a presumption of probable cause that may only be rebutted by evidence that the indictment was procured by ’fraud, perjury, the suppression of evidence or other police conduct undertaken in bad faith.’” Savino, 331 F.3d at 72 (quoting Colon v. City of New York, 60 N.Y.2d 78, 83, 468 N.Y.S.2d 453, 455 N.E.2d 1248 (1983)). To rebut this presumption, the plaintiff bears the burden of establishing “that the indictment was produced by” such fraud or bad-faith police misconduct. Bernard v. United States, 25 F.3d 98, 104 (2d Cir. 1994) (quoting Colon, 60 N.Y.2d at 83, 455 N.E.2d 1248) Likewise, when a plaintiff pursues a claim of malicious prosecution against police officers based on an “unlawful arrest,” the “intervening exercise of independent judgment” by a prosecutor to pursue the case usually breaks the “chain of causation” unless the plaintiff can produce evidence that the prosecutor was “misled or pressured” by the police. Townes v. City of New York, 176 F.3d 138, 147 (2d Cir. 1999). Dufort bears the burden of establishing that Defendants misled the grand jury and the prosecutors by either withholding or misrepresenting evidence in order to sustain the case against Dufort. With respect to both actions, we conclude that Dufort has at least established a question of material fact as to whether prosecutors and the grand jury were aware of the limited nature of Park’s identification and the highly suggestive manner in which it was procured, such that their determinations break the chain of causation. With respect to the indictment, the record indicates that the only direct evidence presented to the grand jury linking Dufort directly to the attack was Park’s eyewitness identification. As noted earlier, that identification was invalid because it was confined to a lineup so defective that a reasonable officer could not use it to find probable cause. More importantly, the record reflects (and the Defendants do not contest) that the grand jury was simply told that Park identified Dufort as an assailant without being informed of the limited nature of Park’s identification. Detective Marotta testified that Park viewed Dufort in the lineup, and Park testified that she picked Dufort out of the lineup as an assailant, but neither clarified that she identified only his jacket. Nor was the grand jury informed that Dufort was the only suspect in the lineup wearing a maroon sweatshirt. Id. Given the critical nature of Park’s testimony to the case against Dufort, these omissions were glaring and easily could have affected the grand jury’s decision. We thus find that, contrary to the district court’s holding, Dufort has raised a genuine issue of material fact regarding whether the Defendants’ conduct rose to the requisite level of bad faith to rebut the presumption of probable cause ordinarily created by a grand jury indictment. The Defendants also argue that Dufort has failed to satisfy the “initiation” aspect of the malicious prosecution inquiry, because the District Attorney (rather than the defendant police officers) initiated the proceedings against him. This argument fails for the same reason. The “initiation” requirement is met when the plaintiff can establish that police officers forwarded statements to a prosecutor without sharing that the statements were suspect. See Manganiello v. City of New York, 612 F.3d 149, 163 (2d Cir. 2010). Thus, a plaintiff can satisfy the initiation requirement if he can establish that an indictment “was produced by fraud, perjury, the suppression of evidence or other police conduct undertaken in bad faith.” Dawson v. Snow, 356 Fed.Appx. 526, 529 (2d Cir. 2009) (summary order) (quoting Colon, 60 N.Y.2d at 83, 468 N.Y.S.2d 453, 455 N.E.2d 1248). Because the prosecutors’ knowledge is uncertain as discussed above, questions of fact precluding summary judgment as to the initiation of the prosecution remain as well. Defendants also argue that the record contains no evidence that they acted with malice. RB 42-43. Under New York law, malice does not have to be actual spite or hatred, but requires only “that the defendant must have commenced the criminal proceeding due to a wrong or improper motive, something other than a desire to see the ends of justice served.” Nardelli v. Stamberg, 44 N.Y.2d 500, 502-03, 406 N.Y.S.2d 443, 377 N.E.2d 975 (1978). Malice may be inferred, however, from the absence of probable cause. See Lowth v. Town of Cheektowaga, 82 F.3d 563, 573 (2d Cir. 1996) (citing Conkey v. New York, 74 A.D.2d 998, 427 N.Y.S.2d 330, 332 (4th Dep’t 1980)). Moreover, Dufort’s trial attorney’s affidavit stating that he was told by detectives that they were treating Du-fort as a suspect solely in order to induce him to testify against other participants also supports the inference that the prosecution against him was improperly motivated. Accordingly, the record presents genuine issues of fact as to whether Defendants acted with malice.