Corley v. Vance

Background

Royce Corley moved to compel discovery and seek sanctions. The remaining claims identified by the court were an unlawful-search-and-seizure claim against the DA Defendants and malicious-prosecution and unlawful-search-and-seizure claims against the NYPD Defendants. The court considered twelve challenges to defendants’ discovery responses.

Discovery Requests and Protective Orders

The court agreed that Corley’s requests covered a broad part of his prior prosecution without being tailored to the three remaining claims. It also noted defendants’ representations that they did not possess most of the requested material, including because some information had been provided to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. The court did not find defendants’ descriptions of the requests as vague, ambiguous, overbroad, or unduly burdensome to be incorrect.

Corley sought information about minor victims of his prior conviction. The court held that a November 4, 2013 protective order barred him from possessing the information before, during, or after trial and did not exclude his civil case. The court also rejected Corley’s arguments about materials produced under the Jencks Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3500, and found that a January 15, 2016 order modified the earlier protective order only to address access for supplementing an appeal; it did not permit access to the information sought through these discovery requests and expressly barred identifying information about the minor victims. The court further noted that the materials were in the possession of either the federal government or Corley, not the defendants.

The court found that Corley had not shown why New York Criminal Procedure Law § 160.50 prohibited disclosure of the requested information or why the privileges asserted by defendants did not apply. It therefore found no discovery violation on those grounds. The court also rejected Corley’s request that defendants explain whether they had “constructive possession” of information held by the federal government.

Required Further Responses

When defendants relied on the existence of a more practical way for Corley to obtain information, the court ordered them to identify that method. When they relied on information being public or equally available to Corley, the court ordered them to identify the means of obtaining it. The court also ordered defendants to respond to Corley’s proposed solution to the issue that his interrogatories exceeded the limit of 25.

The court ordered the NYPD Defendants, insofar as practicable, to provide a log of records relevant to Corley’s remaining claims that had been destroyed by operation of law, including the record’s identity and approximate destruction date. The court considered it unlikely, given the time between Corley’s prosecution and this action, that defendants had violated a duty to preserve evidence, but found the requested log reasonable.

The court ordered each group of defendants to create and provide a privilege log for materials withheld under the attorney-client privilege or work-product doctrine. It also held that the protective order connected to the Plan for Certain § 1983 Cases Against the City of New York, now embodied in Local Civil Rule 83.10, could not be used as a reason to deny discovery because the plan applied to cases involving represented plaintiffs and Corley was not represented. If that plan was the sole reason for withholding the requested documents, the NYPD Defendants were ordered to produce them. The NYPD Defendants were also ordered to confirm Officer Gregory Smith’s identity.

Sanctions and Disposition

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(b)(2) permits sanctions for failing to obey a discovery order. The court found no indication that defendants acted in bad faith or improperly in objecting to Corley’s broad requests. It stated that no sanctions would be entered at that time.

The court ordered both groups of defendants to provide the specified information about practical or public means of obtaining discovery, respond to Corley’s proposed solution for the excessive interrogatories, and provide privilege logs. It separately ordered the NYPD Defendants to provide the destruction log, produce documents withheld solely under the cited protective plan, and respond to the request to identify Officer Gregory Smith. The orders were to be completed by March 10, 2020. The court rescheduled the post-fact discovery conference for March 26, 2020, and directed arrangements for Corley to participate by telephone from the Federal Correctional Institution Petersburg Low. The Clerk was directed to terminate the motion at docket entry 347.