Fraser v. City Of New York

Background

Jawaun Fraser sued the City of New York, Undercover Officer Number 84, Detective Matthew Regina, and Detective Jason Deltoro. The defendants moved for partial summary judgment after discovery, seeking dismissal of certain claims. The opinion relies on an earlier decision for the underlying factual account rather than repeating it.

The opinion states that Fraser was a defendant in a New York State Supreme Court criminal case and was not told about lawsuits against the three officers involving alleged fabrication of evidence. The state court decision cited in the opinion concluded that evidence had been made up in Fraser’s case, and Fraser’s conviction was thrown out.

Rulings on the Claims

The court denied the motion for partial summary judgment. It held that genuine disputes of material fact—meaning factual disputes that could affect the result—prevented judgment for the defendants on the relevant claims. Those disputes included whether the officers knew about the lawsuits, whether they failed to disclose them to prosecutors, and whether defense counsel’s ability to find information in public records affected the claims. The court stated that long-settled law did not permit the defendants to place responsibility for finding the lawsuits on Fraser’s defense counsel.

The court also found disputed facts about whether Detective Deltoro knew that other officers had fabricated a story to justify Fraser’s arrest and then knowingly filed paperwork identifying a copy of Undercover Officer Number 84’s driver’s license as arrest evidence. The court said that every count involved genuine issues of material fact and that the case should be resolved by a jury if it was not settled before trial.

Intent and Recklessness

The court did not resolve whether the officers’ failure to disclose the information had to be intentional or could be merely reckless. It found factual disputes concerning intent as to Undercover Officer Number 84 and Detective Deltoro, including evidence that both had been served with process in at least four of the five undisclosed lawsuits. The court stated that a jury could find that personal service made an officer aware of a lawsuit. It planned to submit both intent and recklessness to the jury through special verdicts. If the jury found intentional conduct, the court would not need to decide the legal issue; if it found only recklessness, the court would address the issue after trial.

Qualified Immunity

The City sought qualified immunity for the individual officers. Qualified immunity can protect government officials from liability when the law did not clearly establish that their conduct was unlawful. The court rejected dismissal on that ground at this stage. It concluded that the law clearly established that officers had to provide prosecutors with evidence required to be disclosed under Brady v. Maryland, including impeachment evidence—information that could be used to challenge a witness’s credibility—when the officers knew about it. The court further concluded that lawsuits against an officer could qualify as impeachment information if they could be used to impeach that officer.

Because factual disputes remained about whether the officers knew about and withheld the lawsuits, the court held that the claims against them could not be dismissed based on qualified immunity. It also rejected the argument that there had to be a prior case involving fundamentally identical facts.

City’s Failure-to-Train Claim

The court agreed that the City could potentially be held liable under Monell on a failure-to-train theory. The opinion says the Police Academy training materials available before Fraser’s trial inaccurately defined Brady material, did not discuss impeachment evidence or the effect of Giglio v. United States on the Brady doctrine, and did not explain that civil lawsuits could be impeachment evidence. The officers could not recall training before 2017 on their duty to disclose this kind of information. The court held that a reasonable jury could find that the City failed to train its officers adequately, even without finding the individual officers liable.

Trial Management and Disposition

The court denied the motion to bifurcate the trial, meaning the request to divide the trial into separate phases. It found no basis for doing so, particularly because the officers might rely on an alleged lack of training as part of their defense, which would require evidence about the City’s training practices during the trial against the officers. The case was placed in the queue for a trial date, and the Clerk was directed to remove the motion at Docket No. 67 from the list of open motions.