King v. City of Newburgh Police Dept.
- Laura Swain
- 1:24-cv-02964
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In King v. City of Newburgh Police Dept., Judge Swain dismissed the duplicate lawsuit without prejudice.
Kejohna King; the Newburgh Police Department; and the pending related case under docket number 24-CV-2949.
What happened
In King v. City of Newburgh Police Dept., Kejohna King, who was detained in the Orange County Jail and represented himself, sued the Newburgh Police Department under a federal civil-rights law. King alleged that detectives and others used excessive force and tampered with evidence and body-camera footage during a January 11, 2024 incident.
The court found that King had already filed a pending case about the same incident and claims, Case No. 24-CV-2949. Because this lawsuit duplicated that case, the court dismissed it without prejudice to King's pending case.
Judge Swain directed the Clerk not to charge King the $350 filing fee and barred deductions from his prison trust account for this lawsuit. The court also denied permission to proceed without paying fees on appeal, finding that an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- King v. City of Newburgh Police Dept. · No. 1:24-cv-02964
- Laura Swain
- Apr. 24, 2024
Background
Kejohna King, who was detained in the Orange County Jail and represented himself, brought an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the Newburgh Police Department. He alleged that on January 11, 2024, on Dubois Street in Newburgh, Newburgh police detectives Edgar Kevin, Gilberto Salazar, and others used excessive force against him and tampered with evidence and body-camera footage.
Reason for Dismissal
King had previously filed a complaint in this court arising from the same January 11 incident. That earlier case, which names Detectives Kevin and Salazar and Officers Jodice Kevin and Dolshun Hunter, remained pending under docket number 24-CV-2949. The court concluded that the present complaint raised the same claims and that filing and litigating this duplicate lawsuit would serve no useful purpose.
Ruling
The court dismissed King's complaint without prejudice as duplicative of Case No. 24-CV-2949. The dismissal did not resolve the underlying excessive-force or evidence-tampering allegations in this case. The court directed the Clerk not to charge King the $350 filing fee and directed that funds not be deducted or encumbered from his prison trust account for this lawsuit. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3), Judge Swain certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without paying fees for purposes of an appeal.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.