Ames v. City Of New York

Background

Darius Ames sued the City of New York, NYPD officers Scott Williams, Anthony Peters, Darryl E. Fontaine, Ivan Vale, and Hantz Muller, and unidentified officers. The suit arose from Ames’s January 3, 2018 arrest for an assault allegedly committed on December 24, 2017. The alleged victim, Arnold Williams, told responding officers that he knew the assailant, identified the assailant as Darius, and later identified Ames in a photographic procedure. Detective Scott Williams also observed evidence of injury and reviewed surveillance video showing Arnold Williams and Ames at the location when the assault occurred.

Ames was charged, arraigned, and held in Department of Correction custody from January through November 2018. A grand jury indicted him for attempted assault in the first degree, assault in the second degree, and criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree. His criminal case was later dismissed, but the opinion says the record does not reveal why.

Ames’s complaint asserted federal claims under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1983, 1985, and 1986, including false arrest, unlawful search and seizure, excessive force, malicious prosecution, malicious abuse of process, denial of a fair trial, conspiracy, failure to intervene, due process violations, equal-protection violations, and municipal liability against New York City. He also asserted related New York State claims and claims against the City concerning negligent hiring, training, retention, and supervision. Defendants moved for summary judgment, which asks whether the evidence leaves a genuine factual dispute requiring a trial.

Claims Treated as Abandoned

Ames did not oppose summary judgment on his claims for excessive force, denial of a fair trial, deprivation of rights and denial of equal protection, conspiracy and failure to prevent the conspiracy, failure to intervene, due process violations, and municipal liability. He also did not address defendants’ arguments concerning his New York State claims. The court stated that it may treat claims as abandoned when a plaintiff does not respond to arguments seeking their dismissal. It therefore granted summary judgment dismissing Counts I, III, V, VI, VII, IX, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX, and XXI.

False Arrest

The court granted summary judgment dismissing Count IV. It explained that probable cause is a complete defense to a false-arrest claim. Probable cause exists when officers have reasonably trustworthy information supporting a reasonable belief that the person committed an offense.

The court held that the officers had probable cause based on Arnold Williams’s report, his identification of Ames, photographs of Williams’s bandaged arm and cut clothing, and surveillance video showing Williams and Ames at the scene. The court rejected Ames’s arguments that probable cause was undermined because Detective Williams, rather than Arnold Williams, signed the criminal complaint; because the detective did not personally observe the wound; because the video did not show a weapon; because no weapon was recovered; and because the two men had relationships with the same woman. The court concluded that there was no evidence supporting a lack of probable cause.

Malicious Prosecution

The court granted summary judgment dismissing Count VIII. A grand-jury indictment creates a presumption that probable cause existed. A plaintiff may overcome that presumption with evidence that the indictment was obtained through fraud, perjury, suppression of evidence, or other bad-faith police conduct.

The court found that Ames offered no evidence rebutting the presumption. His arguments about Arnold Williams’s reliability, the lack of direct observation of the injury, and the absence of a recovered or observed weapon did not create a genuine factual dispute about whether the indictment was improperly obtained.

Malicious Abuse of Process

The court granted summary judgment dismissing Count X. Ames offered no evidence that the defendants used regularly issued legal process with the intent to cause unjustified harm or to obtain a collateral objective outside the legitimate purposes of the process. His suggestion that Detective Williams came to work and processed the arrest for overtime, based on one statement in the detective’s testimony, was insufficient to create a factual dispute.

The court also noted that Ames’s opposition referred to a person named Marshall, even though Ames’s name is not Marshall, and questioned whether that argument had been copied from another case.

Unlawful Search and Seizure

The court granted summary judgment dismissing Count II. Ames alleged that he had been illegally searched and subjected to a strip search and cavity search. The court found that Ames testified he was not subjected to either type of search at the precinct, and he identified no evidence that such a search occurred there.

Ames had not been asked whether a search occurred at Rikers Island, but the court found no evidence that one occurred. It further held that, even assuming such a search took place, there was no evidence that any named defendant participated in it. The court rejected Ames’s theory that the defendants indirectly caused a possible Rikers Island search by wrongfully arresting him because the court had already found that the arrest was supported by probable cause.

Disposition

Judge McMahon granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment. The court granted summary judgment dismissing the specified abandoned claims and granted summary judgment on the false-arrest, malicious-prosecution, malicious-abuse-of-process, and unlawful-search-and-seizure claims. The clerk was directed to remove the motion from the list of open motions and close the file. The opinion does not state that the judgment was with or without prejudice.