Sanders v. Doe

Background

Robert Sanders alleged that Petar Simonovic and Jose Cintron, who were employed by the New York Police Department, arrested him in the Bronx on February 27, 2015. He alleged that they used a chokehold, threw him against a wall and the ground, searched his pocket, and recovered bags of crack cocaine. He also alleged that he was injured, received limited medical treatment, and was later subjected to force and a strip search during pretrial detention.

Sanders pleaded guilty in the criminal case and entered a drug-treatment program. The criminal case was later dismissed after he completed the program, but he alleged that he did not learn of the dismissal until May 9, 2019. He also alleged that he suffered back and ankle injuries and other harm while living at Samaritan Day Top Village. His amended complaint asserted civil-rights claims under the Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments, including unlawful search and seizure, excessive force, false arrest, malicious prosecution, and cruel and unusual punishment.

Simonovic and Cintron moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which allows dismissal when a complaint does not state a legally sufficient claim. Richard Johnson had not been served, so the court did not address or dispose of the claims against him.

Rulings on the claims

Statute of limitations. The court held that Sanders’s malicious-prosecution claim was timely because that claim generally begins when the criminal prosecution ends favorably, and the court treated the September 9, 2016 dismissal as the earliest possible accrual date for that purpose. Sanders filed this action on June 13, 2019.

The court held that the remaining claims based on the arrest, search, force, false arrest, prearraignment medical treatment, detention force, and strip search were untimely. Those claims accrued when the alleged events occurred or, for false arrest, when Sanders was held through legal process. Because those events occurred more than three years before the lawsuit, and Sanders did not establish a basis for extending the deadline, the claims were time-barred.

Malicious prosecution. Although the claim was timely, the court dismissed it because the criminal case did not end in the legally required favorable manner. Sanders had pleaded guilty to enter the drug-treatment program, and the charges were dismissed after he completed the program. The court concluded that this was a compromise or act of mercy accepted by Sanders, not a disposition showing that he was not guilty. The court also held that the references in the state-court certificate to New York Criminal Procedure Law §§ 160.60 and 160.50 did not change that conclusion.

Pretrial conditions and medical care. The court held that Sanders’s pretrial conditions claims were not properly governed by the Eighth Amendment because he had not yet been convicted. The court instead considered whether the allegations stated claims under the Fourteenth Amendment. It concluded that the medical-care allegations did not show deliberate indifference because Sanders was offered hospital treatment and received aspirin and Motrin. It also held that the allegations concerning force and the strip search did not state claims against Simonovic and Cintron because Sanders did not allege that they were personally involved in those events and did not provide facts showing constitutional violations.

Samaritan Day Top Village. The court held that Sanders did not allege that Simonovic or Cintron participated in the events at Samaritan Day Top Village. The officers were alleged to have been involved in the February 2015 arrest, while the program-related injuries occurred later. The court did not decide whether Sanders could state a claim against Samaritan Day Top Village.

Disposition and amendment

The court dismissed all of Sanders’s Section 1983 claims against Simonovic and Cintron with prejudice because they were time-barred, barred by the rule concerning claims that would undermine an existing conviction, or lacked allegations of the officers’ personal involvement. The court dismissed the claims concerning injuries at Samaritan Day Top Village against those defendants without prejudice and granted Sanders leave to amend for a second time with specific facts about the events, proper defendants, addresses, dates, actions or omissions, and requested relief.

Judge Lewis J. Liman granted Simonovic and Cintron’s motion to dismiss, directed the Clerk to terminate them as defendants, and left the claims against Johnson pending. The order required any amended complaint to be mailed to the Pro Se Office by April 23, 2021.