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Would filing in a state court have been any better?
Topic Started: Mar 10 2014, 08:27 AM (191 Views)
Quasimodo

What if the lax plaintiffs had filed in a state court instead of a federal court? Might the results have been better?

I don't know.

Perhaps the system would have protected itself no matter what?



Quote:
 
http://www.heraldsun.com/news/localnews/x177809132/Exonerated-man-loses-civil-lawsuit-against-city

Exonerated man loses civil lawsuit against city

Jul. 05, 2013
Ray Gronberg

DURHAM —
A man who spent nearly seven years in prison before being exonerated saw his civil lawsuit against the police tossed by the same judge who set him free.

Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson sided with city lawyers last month in ruling that Erick Daniels, 26, can’t pursue a malicious prosecution case against police.

Hudson’s order didn’t go into details, but Senior Assistant City Attorney Kim Rehberg had previously argued that Daniels and his lawyer couldn’t prove the sort of malice necessary under state law to support their case.

There was no evidence that the lead detective had “acted out of improper motive” or lied “to sustain the charges” of robbery and burglary that led to Daniels’ imprisonment, she said a June 6 dismissal motion.


Daniel was accused in 2000, when he was just 14, of participating in a home invasion targeting Ruth Brown, a Durham Police Department evidence-room staffer.

Brown told detectives that two masked men stole more than $6,000 in cash.

She picked Daniels’ picture out of a photo lineup drawn from his middle-school yearbook, identifying him mainly on the resemblance of his eyebrows to those of one of her assailants.

Her testimony contributed to his subsequent conviction.

His appeals lawyers argued that the photo lineup was improperly suggestive. The N.C. Court of Appeals rejected that argument, but Hudson in a follow-up proceeding in 2008 sided with Daniels and ordered him freed.

When first tried, Daniels hadn’t received effective help from his lawyer, and former Assistant District Attorney Freda Black had failed to disclose evidence favorable to him, Hudson said. There was newly discovered evidence pointing to his innocence, the judge said.

Once out of prison, Daniels threatened to take the city to court unless it settled with him for $25 million. No such payment was forthcoming, so in 2011 he and lawyer Daron Satterfield filed suit.

The case unfolded in state court, invoking common-law arguments rather than the sort of civil-rights claims that typically require federal proceedings. The lawsuit targeted Black, Brown, the city, lead detective Delois West and two other police officers.

The state attorney general’s office represented Black and argued that she was immune from any suit over her actions. Satterfield last year agreed to dismiss the case against her.

That left just the city and its employees as defendants.

Rehberg argued that Daniels was four years late, under the state’s statute of limitations, in filing the lawsuit if he wanted to claim negligence and infliction of emotional distress as harms justifying payment.

The malicious-prosecution claim, she conceded, required a different answer. But she argued that Daniels couldn’t meet the multi-pronged test that judges have set as the standard for such claims.

To sustain it, Daniels and Satterfield had to show that each of their targets had played an active role in the prosecution, that each acted with malice, that there was no probable cause for authorities to believe Daniels had been involved in the crime and that the prosecution had ended in his favor.

Rehberg argued that Brown’s role in the case was exactly like that of any other crime victim, and that there was no evidence suggesting that she knew Daniels wasn’t her attacker or that she maliciously intended to do him harm.

Allowing the case against her to proceed would be a precedent that “would create civil defendants out of legions of crime victims” in prosecutions that for various reasons fall through, Rehberg said.

As for West and the other officers, there was likewise no evidence of malice, she said.
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Quasimodo


Quote:
 

To sustain it, Daniels and Satterfield had to show that each of their targets had played an active role in the prosecution, that each acted with malice, that there was no probable cause for authorities to believe Daniels had been involved in the crime and that the prosecution had ended in his favor.


Quote:
 
Rehberg argued that Brown’s role in the case was exactly like that of any other crime victim, and that there was no evidence suggesting that she knew Daniels wasn’t her attacker or that she maliciously intended to do him harm.

Quote:
 

Allowing the case against her to proceed would be a precedent that “would create civil defendants out of legions of crime victims” in prosecutions that for various reasons fall through, Rehberg said.


Quote:
 
As for West and the other officers, there was likewise no evidence of malice, she said.


I'm not completely convinced of any of the above 'findings"; they may be correct, but imho there is at least some room for doubt.

Would a state court (or the state system) have been any more sympathetic to the claims of the lax plaintiffs?

Or would the system have closed ranks to protect itself?

Don't know.

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Quasimodo

Earlier post on LIESTOPPERS discussing the case:

Quote:
 
http://www.heraldsun.com/news/x177809132/Exonerated-man-loses-civil-lawsuit-against-city

Exonerated man loses civil lawsuit against city
Jul. 05, 2013 @ 06:09 PM

[At least the editor permitted the headline to use the word "exonerated". How often would they use that with the lax players?]

Ray Gronberg
DURHAM —

A man who spent nearly seven years in prison before being exonerated saw his civil lawsuit against the police tossed by the same judge who set him free.

Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson sided with city lawyers last month in ruling that Erick Daniels, 26, can’t pursue a malicious prosecution case against police.

Hudson’s order didn’t go into details, but Senior Assistant City Attorney Kim Rehberg had previously argued that Daniels and his lawyer couldn’t prove the sort of malice necessary under state law to support their case.

There was no evidence that the lead detective had “acted out of improper motive” or lied “to sustain the charges” of robbery and burglary that led to Daniels’ imprisonment, she said a June 6 dismissal motion.

Daniel was accused in 2000, when he was just 14, of participating in a home invasion targeting Ruth Brown, a Durham Police Department evidence-room staffer.

[Ruth Brown was also the one who got Lee Demeris, a reporter, jailed; and who managed to get paid over half the take from a police auction at which she worked, for "overtime". It is SPECULATED that she was hosting a card game with more than $10,000 on the table, when person/persons unknown broke in and took the money. ]

Brown told detectives that two masked men stole more than $6,000 in cash.

[Most people don't keep $6000 cash at home. See above.]

She picked Daniels’ picture out of a photo lineup drawn from his middle-school yearbook, identifying him mainly on the resemblance of his eyebrows to those of one of her assailants.

Her testimony contributed to his subsequent conviction.

His appeals lawyers argued that the photo lineup was improperly suggestive. The N.C. Court of Appeals rejected that argument, but Hudson in a follow-up proceeding in 2008 sided with Daniels and ordered him freed.

[Durham police never do lineups wrong...]


When first tried, Daniels hadn’t received effective help from his lawyer, and former Assistant District Attorney Freda Black had failed to disclose evidence favorable to him, Hudson said. There was newly discovered evidence pointing to his innocence, the judge said.

Once out of prison, Daniels threatened to take the city to court unless it settled with him for $25 million. No such payment was forthcoming, so in 2011 he and lawyer Daron Satterfield filed suit.

The case unfolded in state court, invoking common-law arguments rather than the sort of civil-rights claims that typically require federal proceedings.

[Would the lax cases have fared better in an NC state court than in federal court? Or not?]


The lawsuit targeted Black, Brown, the city, lead detective Delois West and two other police officers.

The state attorney general’s office represented Black and argued that she was immune from any suit over her actions. Satterfield last year agreed to dismiss the case against her.

That left just the city and its employees as defendants.

Rehberg argued that Daniels was four years late, under the state’s statute of limitations, in filing the lawsuit if he wanted to claim negligence and infliction of emotional distress as harms justifying payment.

[They let him sit in prison for seven years but want to impose a time limit on his ability to sue. That's called "justice"...]

The malicious-prosecution claim, she conceded, required a different answer. But she argued that Daniels couldn’t meet the multi-pronged test that judges have set as the standard for such claims.

To sustain it, Daniels and Satterfield had to show that each of their targets had played an active role in the prosecution, that each acted with malice, that there was no probable cause for authorities to believe Daniels had been involved in the crime and that the prosecution had ended in his favor.

Rehberg argued that Brown’s role in the case was exactly like that of any other crime victim, and that there was no evidence suggesting that she knew Daniels wasn’t her attacker or that she maliciously intended to do him harm.

Allowing the case against her to proceed would be a precedent that “would create civil defendants out of legions of crime victims” in prosecutions that for various reasons fall through, Rehberg said.

As for West and the other officers, there was likewise no evidence of malice, she said.


[All those arguments sound familiar, for some reason...And certainly no one at the DPD ever acted
maliciously or with malice in any investigation of a crime...(sarc/off)]



[MOO]
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Quasimodo

Frankie Washington:

Quote:
 
http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/09/22/1507862/ex-defendant-sues-cline-police.html

Ex-defendant sues Cline, police, Durham
BY J. ANDREW CURLISS
September 22, 2011


A Durham man who was set free by the state Court of Appeals over "repeated neglect" by Durham District Attorney Tracey Cline filed a civil lawsuit Wednesday against the prosecutor, the police officers who handled his case, and the city of Durham.

Frankie Washington alleges that the authorities who put him behind bars for nearly three years acted in "bad faith." The officers and Cline concealed evidence, the lawsuit alleges, and conspired to violate his rights under the state and U.S. constitutions.

Cline and the police had a "reckless and callous disregard of public justice in this State," says the lawsuit, filed in Durham County Superior Court.

[not federal court]

Washington also accuses Cline of libel and slander, based on allegedly "false" comments she has made in recent weeks to the news media about Washington's case and her certainty of his guilt. Washington's case was highlighted in the recent three-part News & Observer series "Twisted Truth," which focused on misstatements by Cline and evidence withheld from defendants.

Washington seeks more than money: The lawsuit requests greater oversight of the Durham Police Department.

Washington asks a judge to appoint an independent police "monitor" with the power to hire and fire all police officials.

Many cities have used police monitors, typically a person installed with oversight of the agency. Monitors typically have been put in place amid troubling patterns of police conduct.

The lawsuit, filed by attorneys Robert Ekstrand and Stefanie Sparks of Durham, also seeks the creation of a three-member police review board, appointed by the court, that would report to the monitor about complaints of police misconduct lodged by citizens. Currently, Durham has a nine-member board that reviews how police conduct internal reviews after complaints are made. That board reports to the city manager.

City will review

Mayor Bill Bell said in an interview that he would discuss the lawsuit and the broad remedies it seeks with other city officials and council members. Bell said the city would consider taking its own steps if necessary and would not wait on a court order.

Cline could not be reached for a response. Prosecutors typically receive broad immunity from civil suits based on their role within the legal system. It is not clear from the lawsuit, other than the claims of libel and slander, how Washington would be able to sue the district attorney.

A police spokeswoman wrote in an email message in July that the police department "feels confident in the quality of the investigation involving Frankie Washington."

In seeking an outside monitor, the lawsuit cites wrongful prosecutions in Durham, including three players who were on the Duke University lacrosse team and were charged in an alleged gang rape. Attorney General Roy Cooper declared the three players innocent in 2007, about two months after Washington's conviction by a jury.

A delay in testing

Washington, a Durham handyman, was convicted of robbery and attempted sexual assault in February 2007 on testimony from victims that he had been the masked attacker who was in their house. The victims, sitting in a police car 20 feet away, identified him the night of the attack.

The appeals court said it was troubled by the "show-up" eyewitness procedure that led to Washington's arrest. Cline, in an interview, has said she was not concerned with what happened and is certain that Washington is guilty.

Washington, who claimed all along that he was innocent, sought to have evidence that was collected at the time of the crime tested against his own DNA and fingerprints.

Cline did not submit the evidence for years, then testified in the trial and told a judge in a hearing that the delays were the result of a backlog at the state crime lab.

[They certainly could test the lax players' DNA fast enough, when they wanted to.]


The appeals court found otherwise, ruling that Cline was in control of the testing. When the evidence was finally tested, none of it matched Washington, but he was convicted anyway.

His conviction was vacated because he did not get a speedy trial. The case took almost five years from arrest to trial.

Another issue in Washington's case was a possible alternate suspect, a man who had been committing similar crimes in a similar fashion in the same neighborhood. Cline has not tested the evidence against anyone else, including that man, Lawrence Hawes. Hawes said in an interview that DNA and other forensics would not match him.

Washington's lawsuit alleges that Cline and the police knew that testing the evidence against others would reveal a match with Hawes. The lawsuit cites no basis for that allegation, and it is not clear from a review of the case records whether that would be the case.


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abb
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The ONLY way to win a public and highly political case is in the Court of Public Opinion. You will lose every time if you think a Court of Law will apply only the law. Judges and lawyers are very sensitive to public opinion.

I cite as evidence the ongoing libel suit against Mark Steyn. He figured it out in time.

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Quasimodo

Quote:
 
http://www.herald-sun.com/view/full_story/18567634/article-Judge-dismisses-lawsuit-against-police-officers-?

Judge dismisses lawsuit against police officers

05.11.12
BY BETH VELLIQUETTE

bvelliquette@heraldsun.com; 919-419-6632

DURHAM -- A judge has dismissed the lawsuit against nine of the “city defendants” in a lawsuit filed by Frankie Washington against former District Attorney Tracey Cline, Durham city officials and Durham police officers.

Superior Court Judge Osmond Smith
dismissed the suit against Durham police investigators Anthony Smith, William Bell, John Peter, Moses Irving, Anthony Marsh and police supervisors Edward Sarvis, Beverly Council and Steven Chalmers as well as the city of Durham.

The judge did not dismiss the claims against Cline, Durham City Attorney Patrick Baker or the state of North Carolina.

City of Durham attorneys are defending the lawsuit filed against their employees, and the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office is defending the lawsuit filed against Cline and the state of North Carolina.

Durham Senior City Attorney Kimberly Grantham said the judge apparently believed that Baker had received sufficient service of the lawsuit.

In the lawsuit, Baker is identified as the city manager. He resigned that position in the summer of 2008 and became the city attorney.

One investigator, Andrew T. Caldwell, was listed as a defendant in the original lawsuit, but he was never served with the lawsuit, Grantham said.

In September 2011, Washington filed a lawsuit claiming he was framed for a 2002 home invasion. In 2007, he was convicted of a home invasion, in which he was found to have held a family at gunpoint, then assaulted and robbed them.

In 2008, the N.C. Court of Appeals overturned his convictions, saying that authorities violated Washington’s right to a speedy trial and faulted the prosecutor’s failure to conduct DNA testing.

Washington, through his attorney Robert Ekstrand, filed the lawsuit last year, and in April, the “city defendants” filed a motion to have it dismissed against them for insufficiency of service.

They claimed that the lawsuits, which were delivered by FedEx, were not properly delivered to each of the defendants. In one instance a FedEx employee gave the lawsuit to a 12-year-old boy who was in the front yard of one of the recipients, and in another case, it was left on the doorstep of the recipient.

The lawsuits that were to be delivered to individuals at the Police Department were left with another employee at the department. None of the people who received the lawsuit was authorized to receive them, therefore service was not proper, the motion stated.

Judge Smith wrote in a memo that he was granted the motions to dismiss based upon the manner of service and not because it was performed by an improper person.


The system defending itself?

Edited by Quasimodo, Mar 10 2014, 09:04 AM.
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Quasimodo

Quote:
 
http://www.heraldsun.com/news/x1866991721/Judges-reinstate-lawsuit-sparked-by-home-invasion


Judges reinstate lawsuit sparked by home invasion
Nov. 19, 2013 @ 05:02 PM
Ray Gronberg

DURHAM —
N.C. Court of Appeals judges say a man accused in a 2002 home invasion can proceed with his lawsuit against former Police Chief Steve Chalmers and other city officials he claims tried to frame him.

The court, working through a three-judge panel, rejected city lawyers’ argument that Frankie Washington’s case should be dismissed because court papers weren’t properly served.

The city’s interpretation of the notification law “would contravene the manifest purpose of the” state legislators who wrote it, Judge Robert C. Hunter said for the unanimous panel.

But Hunter and fellow Judges Martha Geer and Doug McCullough refused Washington’s request that they also reinstate his lawsuit against the city as a corporate enterprise.

They said his lawyer, Durham-based attorney Bob Ekstrand, erred by sending the city’s notice to City Attorney Patrick Baker.

The state requires lawyers suing a city to notify its mayor, city manager or city clerk. Baker was Durham’s city manager from 2004 to 2008. Ekstrand filed the case in 2011, addressing the required notice to Baker as “city manager.”

State law is clear that delivery to anyone other than the mayor, manager or clerk “is insufficient to confer [to judges] jurisdiction over a city,” Hunter said.

[technicality, imho; which thwarts the ability of Washington to sue.]

Washington is seeking damages over having been arrested and convicted in connection with the home invasion, which happened in Trinity Park.

A 2008 Court of Appeals decision reversed his conviction. It said prosecutors violated Washington’s speedy-trial rights by waiting nearly five years to bring the charges to a jury.

Washington contends the home invasion was most likely committed by another man who’s now in prison for similar crimes. He also says police fabricated an eyewitness identification of him.

The lawsuit, as usual, named not just the city but a variety of city and police officials as defendants. It also targets the state government and former District Attorney Tracey Cline.

A trial judge, Osmond Smith, agreed last year with city lawyers that Ekstrand’s reliance on the Federal Express shipping service delivery to deliver the required notices didn’t square with state law.

That was because FedEx drivers didn’t necessarily hand the packages to the named defendants.

They gave Chalmers’ notice to the former chief’s 12-year-old grandson; former Deputy Police Chief B.J. Council found hers on her doorstep. Police officers still on active duty got theirs through the Police Department’s receiving clerk.

City lawyers argued FedEx’s drivers needed to hand the documents personally to each official named as a defendant, Hunter said.

But state statute says a lawyer who uses an authorized delivery company and who possesses delivery receipts need only show the documents were “in fact received” by the targets of the suit for it to proceed, Hunter said.

He further said there’s no dispute that Washington’s targets eventually did get Ekstrand’s notices.

Under the city’s interpretation of the law, a delivery agent “could hand a copy of a summons and complaint to an addressee’s spouse, at his domicile, while he was in the next room, and still be insufficient” to complete service, Hunter said.

That tight a reading of the state “goes against explicit legislative intent,” he added.

The panel that heard the case is bipartisan. Hunter and Geer are Democrats; McCullough is a Republican.
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Quasimodo

abb
Mar 10 2014, 08:57 AM
The ONLY way to win a public and highly political case is in the Court of Public Opinion. You will lose every time if you think a Court of Law will apply only the law. Judges and lawyers are very sensitive to public opinion.<br /><br />I cite as evidence the ongoing libel suit against Mark Steyn. He figured it out in time.<br /><br />

Absolutely correct!

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