Dennis v. City of Phila.

379 F.Supp.3d 420

James DENNIS, Plaintiff,

v.CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, et al., Defendants.

CIVIL ACTION NO. 18-2689

United States District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania.

Filed May 15, 2019

Michael C. Schwartz, James, Schwartz & Associates PC, Paul M. Messing, Kairys Rudovsky Messing Feinberg & Lin, LLP, Philadelphia, PA, for Plaintiff.

Michael R. Miller, City of Philadelphia Law Dept., Philadelphia, PA, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM

EDUARDO C. ROBRENO, J.

This case presents a novel question not yet addressed by either this Court or the Third Circuit: may an individual whose conviction for first-degree murder was vacated pursuant to a writ of habeas corpus, ordering release or a new trial, and who subsequently entered a no contest plea to third-degree murder, bring a § 1983 claim for fabrication of evidence and deliberate deception in connection with the vacated conviction for first-degree murder? Plainly put, yes.

Over twenty-five years ago, in 1992, James Dennis was sentenced to death for first-degree murder, following a trial in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas replete with instances of police misconduct and Brady violations (the "1992 conviction"). Three years ago, the Third Circuit, sitting en banc, granted Mr. Dennis habeas relief on account of those very Brady violations and observed that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's case against Mr. Dennis was "effectively gutted." Dennis v. Sec'y, Pa. Dep't of Corr., 834 F.3d 263, 269 (3d Cir. 2016).

Following the en banc panel's decision, the Commonwealth was instructed to set Mr. Dennis free or retry him, neither of which happened. Instead, the Commonwealth offered Mr. Dennis a no contest plea to a reduced charge of third-degree murder. On December 22, 2016, after spending over a quarter-century on death row, Mr. Dennis entered the no contest plea, was sentenced to time served, and left prison. He now brings a § 1983 claim against the City of Philadelphia and two detectives and various Joe Doe police officers from the Philadelphia Police Department for violations of his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process and a fair trial.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. BACKGROUND...424

A. The Murder & The Investigation...424

B. The Alleged Fabricated Clothing Evidence & Undermining of Mr. Dennis's Alibi...425

C. The Complicity of the City...426

D. Mr. Dennis's Habeas Petition...426

II. LEGAL STANDARD...426

III. DISCUSSION...427

A. Heck Does Not Bar This Action...427

1. The Heck Doctrine...427

2. Post-Heck Jurisprudence: Two-Conviction Cases...428

3. Distinguishing Third Circuit Post-Heck Case Law...430

B. Defendants' Alternative Arguments are Unpersuasive...431

1. A Failure to State a Malicious Prosecution Claim is Irrelevant Because Mr. Dennis Has Not Brought Such a Claim...431

2. Mr. Dennis Has Adequately Alleged Causation...432

3. This Action is Not Time-Barred...432

4. The Detectives are Not Entitled to Qualified Immunity at this Stage...433

5. The City is Entitled to Qualified Immunity on the Brady Claim, but the Remainder of the Claim Against the City Survives...435

IV. CONCLUSION...435

I. BACKGROUND

Mr. Dennis alleges the following facts, all of which are presumed to be true for purposes of resolving a motion to dismiss.

A. The Murder & The Investigation

On October 22, 1991, Ms. Chedell Williams was murdered near the Fern Rock SEPTA station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Compl. ¶¶ 8-10, ECF No. 1. According to eyewitnesses, Ms. Williams was followed by two men, one of whom shot Ms. Williams at close range in the neck. Id. ¶ 9. The shooter and his accomplice then made their way towards a getaway car, driven by a third man. Id. Nine eyewitnesses provided descriptions of the assailants to detectives Frank Jastrzembski and Manuel Santiago as well as various Joe Doe officers (together with the two detectives, the "defendant officers"). Id. ¶ 11. All nine eyewitnesses generally described the shooter as "about 170 to 180 pounds and 5'9? to 5'10?, ... in his late teens to early twenties, with a dark complexion, and wearing a red sweat suit." Id. Notwithstanding this physical description, Mr. Dennis, who was 5'4? and about 125 pounds with a medium complexion at the time of the incident, was later arrested for the murder of Ms. Williams. Id. ¶¶ 12-18. Mr. Dennis was the only person ever arrested for the three-person crime, despite not matching the physical description of the shooter or the other two men. Id. ¶ 18.

Only four of the nine eyewitnesses picked Mr. Dennis out of a photo array, which consistently placed Mr. Dennis in the first position, and three of these four did so "tentatively." Id. ¶¶ 22, 24, 28, 50, 51. These were the only eyewitnesses invited to the lineup. Id. ¶ 50. Three of these four eyewitnesses then identified Mr. Dennis in the lineup and subsequently testified at trial for the Commonwealth, while the one who did not identify him in the lineup did not. Id. ¶¶ 51– 52. Defense trial counsel never learned that five of the nine eyewitnesses never picked Mr. Dennis out of the photo array, and despite requesting a lineup with all nine eyewitnesses, such a lineup never occurred. Id. ¶ 50.

Mr. Dennis alleges that the defendant officers concealed information regarding other individuals who had confessed their involvement with the murder or knew who was involved and concealed and coerced certain witnesses. Id. ¶¶ 36-38, 40-41. For example, the defendant officers did not follow up on the inconsistencies between statements made by Zahara Howard, who had accompanied Ms. Williams, the murder victim, to the SEPTA station. Id. ¶¶ 32-34. Specifically, although Ms. Howard had first told the defendant officers that she had never seen the assailants, she later told her aunt and uncle that she recognized the assailants from Olney High School, a school Mr. Dennis had never attended. Id. ¶ 32. Ms. Howard's aunt and uncle informed the defendant officers about what Ms. Howard had said, which was also corroborated by Ms. Williams's aunt. Id. ¶ 33. This information, which was recorded in the detectives' activity logs, was concealed from Mr. Dennis for ten years. Id. ¶ 34.

Several days after the murder, the Philadelphia Police Department was advised by Montgomery County law enforcement that an inmate in the Montgomery County Prison had advised them that he had spoken with a man who had confessed his involvement in the murder. Id. ¶ 36. The inmate provided a signed statement, which included details about all three men involved in the murder and identified the source of the information. Id. ¶¶ 36– 37. The investigation itself of these three individuals and the related materials were never provided to the defense trial counsel; this information was revealed a decade later during PCRA discovery. Id. ¶ 38.

B. The Alleged Fabricated Clothing Evidence & Undermining of Mr. Dennis's Alibi

Mr. Dennis alleges that the defendant officers fabricated the existence of certain clothing matching the clothing of the shooter as described by eyewitnesses to the murder. Id. ¶¶ 45-46, 66-67. At trial, Detective Jastrzembski testified that the clothing had been found at Mr. Dennis's residence but had since "disappeared" from police headquarters. Id.

According to Mr. Dennis, the defendant officers also engaged in deliberate deception by concealing evidence that would have supported Mr. Dennis's alibi and supporting false testimony at trial that undermined Mr. Dennis's alibi. Specifically, a witness's time-stamped welfare receipt corroborated Mr. Dennis's alibi that he was elsewhere at the time of the murder. Id. ¶¶ 47–49, 65. But the defendant officers took the only copy of the welfare receipt, never shared it with Mr. Dennis, and did not correct the witness when she misread the receipt's military-style time-stamp while interviewing her. Id. ¶¶ 47–49. The witness repeated her mistake at trial. Under those circumstances, her testimony no longer supported Mr. Dennis's alibi. Id. ¶ 65. It was not until direct appeal counsel obtained a copy of the receipt that the witness's mistake and the import of that mistake became apparent. Id. ¶¶ 48–49.

C. The Complicity of the City

Further, according to Mr. Dennis, the City of Philadelphia, which operates, directs and controls the Philadelphia Police Department, maintained a policy, practice, or custom of misconduct in homicide investigations, including using coercive interview and interrogation techniques, fabricating and tampering with evidence, and conducting improper identification procedures. Id. ¶¶ 82–83. To that end, the City failed to discipline, train, and take remedial action against detectives and police officers who engaged in such misconduct and abused their authority. See id. ¶ 1.

D. Mr. Dennis's Habeas Petition

Against that factual background, Mr. Dennis began federal habeas proceedings in 2011 in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Dennis v. Wetzel, 966 F.Supp.2d 489, 498 (E.D. Pa. 2013). After reviewing Mr. Dennis's habeas petition, Judge Brody vacated Mr. Dennis's conviction, expressing concern that Mr. Dennis "was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to die for a crime he did not commit." See id. at 518. On February 9, 2015, however, a Third Circuit panel reversed and remanded the case back to Judge Brody. See Dennis v. Sec'y, Pa. Dep't of Corr., 777 F.3d 642 (3d Cir. 2015). Subsequently, on August 23, 2016, the Third Circuit, en banc, reversed the Third Circuit panel decision and reinstated the vacatur of Mr. Dennis's conviction, noting that the Commonwealth's case was "effectively gutted." See Dennis v. Sec'y, Pa. Dep't of Corr., 834 F.3d 263, 269 (3d Cir. 2016). In its mandate, issued on September 30, 2016, the Third Circuit directed the Commonwealth either to set Mr. Dennis free or retry him. See Mandate, Docket No. 13-9003; see also Mandate, Docket No. 11-1660, ECF No. 64.

Rather than do either, the Commonwealth offered Mr. Dennis a no contest plea to third-degree murder, which Mr. Dennis entered on December 22, 2016. After nearly twenty-five years on death row, Mr. Dennis walked out of...