Vett v. City Of New York

Background

Ilya Vett sued the City of New York, the New York City Police Department, several police officers, and unidentified officers under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a federal law allowing damages claims for certain violations of constitutional rights. The remaining claims concerned false arrest, federal and state malicious prosecution, alleged manufacturing of evidence, denial of a fair trial, and deprivation of liberty.

Vett was arrested on September 21, 2018, after Officer James Taylor found a 3D printer producing a black plastic object that looked like part of a revolver. Sergeant James Kelly arrested Vett after receiving information from the theater’s security director that Vett had problems with coworkers and that employees were afraid because someone had a gun. Vett later told Detective Thomas Schick that he owned the printer and was making a plastic prop revolver. The criminal charges were dismissed on March 7, 2019, after the prosecutor concluded that the People could not prove that the object could be modified into an operable firearm.

Vett did not submit the statement of facts required by the court’s local summary-judgment rule. Judge McMahon therefore treated the defendants’ factual statement as undisputed for purposes of the motion, while still viewing those facts in the light most favorable to Vett.

Expert testimony

The defendants asked the court to exclude testimony from Vett’s firearms expert, Officer Peter Miscia, under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and the standards governing expert testimony. The court found Miscia qualified to testify about firearms, firearm operation, and firearms training based on his decades of experience. His lack of specific experience with New York City police training affected the weight of his testimony, not whether he could testify.

The court granted the motion in part and denied it in part. Miscia could testify, with modification, that a person with basic firearms training would recognize that the black plastic object as it existed could not expel a projectile because it lacked essential parts such as a hammer, barrel, cylinder, chamber, and firing pin. He could not testify that a completed 3D-printed revolver could never operate, that the object was not an attempt to create an operable firearm, or that it was not an attempt to create an imitation firearm. The court also excluded his opinion that completing the object would necessarily cause it to explode, because he was not an expert in 3D-printed firearms and his reasoning did not rule out the object’s ability to expel ammunition.

Summary judgment

The court granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment. Summary judgment is a decision without a trial when the evidence does not present a genuine dispute requiring a jury to decide the issue.

For the federal false-arrest claim, the court concluded that the officers had arguable probable cause. Probable cause means sufficient reasonably trustworthy information to support a belief that a crime was committed; arguable probable cause exists when a reasonable officer could have believed probable cause existed, even if that belief was mistaken. The officers saw an object that looked like part of a firearm being manufactured and had been told that Vett’s coworkers were afraid and that there had been workplace conflicts. Although Officer Taylor lacked relevant training about 3D-printed firearms and the object was later found not to be operable, a reasonable officer could have believed that a crime was being committed. The court therefore held that qualified immunity protected Taylor and Kelly from the false-arrest claim and granted summary judgment on that claim.

The court also granted summary judgment on the federal and state malicious-prosecution claims. It found that Detective Schick did not initiate the prosecution because he did not sign the criminal complaint or otherwise take the required active role. Officer Taylor did sign the complaint, and the dismissal of the criminal case qualified as a favorable termination. But the prosecutor’s independent decision to continue the case and conduct a months-long investigation broke the chain of causation between Taylor’s signing of the complaint and the later prosecution. The court also noted, as an alternative ground, that Vett offered no evidence that Taylor acted with an improper motive.

The court granted summary judgment on Vett’s claims for deprivation of liberty and denial of a fair trial based on alleged manufacturing of evidence because Vett did not oppose dismissal of those claims. The court also dismissed the claims against the unidentified John Doe defendants because Vett had not identified them or explained why he could not do so.

Disposition

Defendants’ motion to exclude Officer Miscia’s testimony was granted in part and denied in part. Defendants’ motion for summary judgment was granted, and the complaint was dismissed. The court directed the Clerk to terminate the motions and close the case.