Daniels v. City of New York

Background

Deshawn Daniels sued the City of New York and police officers over a March 18, 2015 traffic stop and events at a precinct. He alleged that officers searched him and his vehicle, used force during an attempted body search, denied him medical attention, and falsely charged him with possessing a butterfly knife. The criminal charge was resolved through an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal, or ACD, on December 14, 2015, and the case was dismissed on June 13, 2016.

The court had previously dismissed several claims, including claims based on unlawful search and excessive force, and had allowed Daniels to replead claims for denial of a fair trial and failure to intervene. In his Second Amended Complaint, Daniels pursued those two claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the federal law allowing claims against state officials for certain constitutional violations. The City was no longer named as a defendant in that complaint.

Fair-Trial Claim

Daniels’s fair-trial claim was based on his allegation that the officers fabricated the butterfly-knife charge and sent that false information to prosecutors. The court considered the Supreme Court’s decision in McDonough v. Smith, which held that a fabricated-evidence claim cannot be brought before the related criminal prosecution ends favorably for the accused. McDonough did not decide whether every type of dismissal is a favorable ending, and the court noted that the Second Circuit had not decided whether an ACD qualifies in this setting.

After reviewing related decisions, the court held that Daniels’s acceptance of an ACD barred his fair-trial claim. The court reasoned that the claim challenged the same alleged fabrication that formed the basis of the criminal charge and therefore raised concerns about indirectly attacking the criminal proceeding through a civil lawsuit. The court also relied on the principle that an ACD is a bargained-for dismissal and does not affirmatively establish the accused’s innocence.

Failure-to-Intervene Claim

The court treated the failure-to-intervene claim as dependent on the underlying fair-trial claim. Because the fair-trial claim was barred, the court dismissed the failure-to-intervene claim as well. Separately, the court found that Daniels had not alleged facts showing that officers who did not personally fabricate the charge had a realistic opportunity to stop the alleged harm. The court had previously given him an opportunity to add such facts, but he did not do so. The court therefore dismissed the failure-to-intervene claim with prejudice.

Disposition

The court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss. It directed the clerk to terminate the pending motion at docket entry 66 and close the case. The opinion did not revisit the previously dismissed search-and-seizure and excessive-force claims, which it stated had already been dismissed with prejudice.