Turner v. City Of New York

Background

Shamar Turner brought claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the City of New York, the New York City Police Department, NYPD Detective William Seligson, Bronx Community College officials Saul Fraguada, Pedro Soto, Angel Irizary, Alexandra Torres, and Sixto Velasquez, and six unnamed Bronx Community College public-safety officers. He alleged false arrest, malicious prosecution, and failure to intervene arising from his October 22, 2015 arrest. The complaint also included municipal and state-law claims, but Turner later withdrew his municipal and state-law claims.

The Bronx Community College Department of Public Safety received a report about a dispute involving Turner and his brother, Uhjani Cruz. Officers approached the two men on campus. Cruz produced Turner’s student identification card, and officers determined that Cruz was not Turner and was not a Bronx Community College student. When Cruz was arrested for trespassing, he removed a backpack and gave it to Turner. After Turner carried the backpack into a nearby building and then handed it to officers, they searched it and found two firearms. Turner was arrested and later indicted in New York state court on weapons charges.

The state court found that Turner had a legitimate expectation of privacy in the backpack and that the prosecution had not shown voluntary consent to the search. It suppressed the firearms. The Bronx County District Attorney’s Office dismissed the charges on September 4, 2018. Turner then filed this federal case. The opinion also states that the New York City Police Department is not a suable entity, that Turner failed to identify the unnamed defendants, and that the City University of New York was not a party because Turner could not unilaterally add it to the case caption.

Summary-judgment standard

The court applied Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56. Summary judgment is proper when there is no genuine dispute over a fact that could affect the result and the moving party is entitled to judgment under the law. The court considered the factual materials submitted by both sides and rejected Turner’s objection that defendants could not rely on facts he had alleged in his own pleadings.

False arrest

A § 1983 false-arrest claim is based on the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable seizures. Probable cause—facts and circumstances sufficient to support a reasonable belief that a person committed a crime—is a complete defense to false arrest.

The court held that finding the unregistered firearms in the backpack gave the officers probable cause to arrest Turner. The officers knew that Cruz had possessed both the backpack and Turner’s identification card, that Cruz appeared to disclaim possession of the backpack when arrested, and that Turner took and carried the backpack. Those facts reasonably suggested that Turner and Cruz shared an interest in concealing what was inside. The court emphasized that probable cause requires less evidence than proof sufficient for a criminal conviction. It also held that the legality of the initial stop and search did not eliminate probable cause created by the later discovery of the firearms. The court therefore granted summary judgment to defendants on the false-arrest claim.

Initial stop and backpack search

Although Turner argued that the initial stop and search violated his constitutional rights, the court treated that conduct as part of his false-arrest claim for purposes of the opinion. The court assumed, without deciding, that the state court was correct that the warrantless backpack search was unlawful.

The court nevertheless held that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity. Qualified immunity can protect government officials from damages when their conduct did not violate a clearly established federal right. The court concluded that, given the circumstances, a reasonable officer could have believed that the backpack belonged to Cruz and that searching it was lawful, including as a search connected to Cruz’s lawful arrest. The officers therefore could not reasonably have understood that stopping and searching the backpack violated a clearly established privacy right.

Malicious prosecution

For Turner’s § 1983 malicious-prosecution claim, the court required a Fourth Amendment seizure and the elements of a malicious-prosecution claim under New York law. Probable cause is a complete defense. The court also applied the rule that a grand-jury indictment creates a presumption of probable cause, which can be overcome by evidence that the indictment resulted from fraud, perjury, suppression of evidence, or other bad-faith police conduct.

The parties did not dispute that Turner was prosecuted, that the prosecution ended in his favor for purposes of the motion, or that he experienced a post-arraignment seizure by attending criminal proceedings. The court held that Turner had not rebutted the indictment’s presumption of probable cause. His assertions that defendants relied on illegally obtained evidence and falsely described consent were conclusory, and he produced no evidence about what occurred before the grand jury or that defendants engaged in misconduct sufficient to overcome the presumption. The court granted summary judgment to defendants on the malicious-prosecution claim. It did not need to decide whether the firearm evidence independently supplied probable cause or whether defendants acted with malice.

Failure to intervene and disposition

Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald held that the failure-to-intervene claim was moot because the false-arrest and malicious-prosecution claims failed as a matter of law and the defendants were, at minimum, entitled to qualified immunity for the alleged unlawful stop and search. The court stated that an officer cannot be liable for failing to intervene when there was no underlying constitutional violation for which another officer could be held liable.

The court granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment in its entirety, directed the Clerk to enter judgment for defendants, terminated the motion, and closed the case.