In re N.Y.C. Policing During Summer 2020 Demonstrations

656 F.Supp.3d 486

IN RE: NEW YORK CITY POLICING DURING SUMMER 2020 DEMONSTRATIONS

20 Civ. 8924 (CM) (GWG)

United States District Court, S.D. New York

Signed February 15, 2023

Christopher Thomas Dunn, Daniel Ross Lambright, Jessica Perry, Perry Grossman, Robert Andrew Hodgson, Veronica Salama, Molly Knopp Biklen, New York Civil Liberties Union, New York, NY, Corey Stoughton, Jennvine Wong, Rigodis Appling, Legal Aid Society, New York, NY, Daphna Spivack, Bronx, NY, for Jarrett Payne.

Christopher Thomas Dunn, Daniel Ross Lambright, Jessica Perry, Perry Grossman, Robert Andrew Hodgson, Veronica Salama, Molly Knopp Biklen, New York Civil Liberties Union, New York, NY, Corey Stoughton, Jennvine Wong, Legal Aid Society, New York, NY, Daphna Spivack, Bronx, NY, for Andie Mali, Camila Gini, Vidal Guzman, Charlie Monlouis-Anderle, Jaime Fried, Micaela Martinez, Julian Phillips, Nicholas Mulder, Colleen McCormack-Maitland, Vivian Matthew King-Yarde.

Abigail Bain Everdell, Robert D. Balin, Alexandra Settelmayer, Kathleen Farley, Nimra Azmi, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, New York, NY, Alicia Calzada, Alicia Wagner Calzada, PLLC, San Antonio, TX, Mickey H. Osterreicher, National Press Photographers Association, East Amherst, NY, Wylie M. Stecklow, Wylie Stecklow PLLC, New York City, NY, for Adam Gray, Jason Donnelly, Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi, Jemell D. Cole, Amr Alfiky.

Douglas Edward Lieb, New York, NY, Alison Ellis Frick, Kaufman Lieb Lebowitz

& Frick LLP, New York, NY, Robert Howard Rickner, Rickner PLLC, New York, NY, Joshua Samuel Moskovitz, Hamilton Clarke, LLP, New York, NY, for Charles Henry Wood.

Conor P. Duffy, Lillian Marie Marquez, Philip Levitz, Travis William England, Swati Roopa Prakash, Gregory Morril, Jessica Clarke, Colleen Kelly Faherty, New York State Office of the Attorney General, New York, NY, Morenike Fajana, Naacp Ldf, New York, NY, Jaclyn Hillary Grodin, Goulston & Storrs PC, New York, NY, for People of The State of New York.

Luna Droubi, Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP, New York, NY, Remy Green, Cohen & Green P.L.L.C., Ridgewood, NY, for Adama Sow.

Jason Myles Clark, Joshua Samuel Moskovitz, Hamilton Clarke LLP, New York, NY, Lance A. Clarke, Hamilton Clarke, LLP New York, NY, Michael L. Spiegel, New York, NY, Robert Howard Rickner, Rickner PLLC, New York, NY, for Samira Sierra, Amali Sierra, Ricardo Nigaglioni, Alex Gutierrez.

David Bruce Rankin, Deema Azizi, Jonathan C. Moore, Katherine Adams, Luna Droubi, Regina Powers, Marc Arena, Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP, New York, NY, Gideon Orion Oliver, Jessica Massimi, New York, NY, Masai I. Lord, Lord Law Group PLLC, New York, NY, Rebecca Leigh Pattiz, Outten & Golden LLP, New York, NY, Elena Louisa Cohen, Remy Green, Cohen & Green P.L.L.C., Ridgewood, NY, Wylie M. Stecklow, Wylie Stecklow PLLC, New York City, NY, for David Jaklevic, Alexandra de Mucha Pino, Oscar Rios, Barbara Ross, Matthew Bredder, Sabrina Zurkuhlen, Maria Salazar, Savitri Durkee.

David Bruce Rankin, Deema Azizi, Katherine Adams, Luna Droubi, Regina Powers, Marc Arena, Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP, New York, NY, Gideon Orion Oliver, Jessica Massimi, New York, NY, Masai I. Lord, Lord Law Group PLLC, New York, NY, Rebecca Leigh Pattiz, Outten & Golden LLP, New York, NY, Elena Louisa Cohen, Remy Green, Cohen & Green P.L.L.C., Ridgewood, NY, Wylie M. Stecklow, Wylie Stecklow PLLC, New York City, NY, for Dara Pluchino.

Andrew Brian Stoll, Stoll, Glickman & Bellina, LLP, Brooklyn, NY, for Cameron Yates.

Remy Green, Cohen & Green P.L.L.C., Ridgewood, NY, Tahanie Ahmad Aboushi, The Aboushi Law Firm, New York, NY, for Kayla Roland.

Tahanie Ahmad Aboushi, The Aboushi Law Firm, New York, NY, for Corey Gilzean, Michael Hernadez, Christopher Husary, Keith Clingman, Jonathan Peck.

Elena Louisa Cohen, Remy Green, Cohen & Green P.L.L.C., Ridgewood, NY, Gideon Orion Oliver, New York, NY, for Krystin Hernandez, Roxanne Zech, Ryan Minett.

Elena Louisa Cohen, Cohen Green PLLC, Ridgewood, NY, Gideon Orion Oliver, New York, NY, for Natalie Baker, Ethan Chiel, Kyla Raskin, Rex Santus, Rafael-Lev Gilbert, Sarah Mills-Dirlam, August Leinbach, Jonathan Davis, David Holton.

Gideon Orion Oliver, New York, NY, for Jalen Matney.

Coordinated Case Plaintiffs, Pro Se.

Dara Lynn Weiss, City of New York Law Department, New York, NY, for Sergeant Keith Cheng, Lieutenant Michael Butler, Officer Matthew Tarangelo, Officer Thomas E. Manning, Sergeant Gypsy Pichardo, Officer Matthew L. Perry, Lieutenant Thomas R. Hardell, Officer Damian Rivera, Officer Aaron Husbands, Officer Jacqueline Vargas, Joseph Deck, Julio Delgado, Thomas Mosher, Thomas Garguilo, Ismael Hernandez Carpio.

Amy Robinson, Jenny Sue-Ya Weng, Joseph Makoto Hiraoka, Jr., Omar Javed Siddiqi, Peter Justin Scutero, Shannon Riordan, Stephanie Marie Breslow, Dara Lynn Weiss, Tobias Eli Zimmerman, New York City Law Department, New York, NY, Bridget Veronica Hamill, New York, NY, Daniel Michael Braun, NYC Law Department, Office of the Corporation Counsel, New York, NY, Nadine Ibrahim, Sergey Marts, New York City Law Department, Special Federal Litigation Division, New York, NY, for City of New York.

City of New York, Pro Se.

MEMORANDUM ORDER

GABRIEL W. GORENSTEIN, United States Magistrate Judge

This case consists of consolidated actions against the City of New York and other defendants (collectively, the "City") based on allegations of improper policing by the New York City Police Department ("NYPD") of demonstrations occurring during the late spring and summer of 2020. See, e.g., Complaint, filed October 26, 2020 (Docket # 1). Plaintiffs have moved to compel defendants to produce documents relating to an "after-action review" of the police operations during the demonstrations.¹ The documents were prepared by Thomas Conforti, who was at the time an Assistant Chief with the NYPD and Commanding Officer of the Operations Bureau. For the reasons stated below, we conclude that nearly all of the documents have been properly withheld.

Law Governing Deliberative Process Privilege

The deliberative process privilege "covers 'documents reflecting advisory opinions, recommendations and deliberations comprising part of a process by which governmental decisions and policies are formulated.' " Dep't of the Interior v. Klamath Water Users Protective Ass'n, 532 U.S. 1, 8, 121 S.Ct. 1060, 149 L.Ed.2d 87 (2001) (quoting NLRB v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 421 U.S. 132, 150, 95 S.Ct. 1504, 44 L.Ed.2d 29 (1975)). The privilege protects "recommendations, draft documents, proposals, suggestions, and other subjective documents which reflect the personal opinions of the writer rather than the policy of the agency." Grand Cent. P'ship, Inc. v. Cuomo, 166 F.3d 473, 482 (2d Cir. 1999) (quotation marks and citations omitted). The privilege

rests on the obvious realization that officials will not communicate candidly among themselves if each remark is a potential item of discovery and front-page news, and its object is to enhance the quality of agency decisions by protecting open and frank discussion among those who make them within the Government.

Klamath, 532 U.S. at 8-9, 121 S.Ct. 1060 (quotation marks and citations omitted).

For a particular document to be protected by the privilege, the agency must demonstrate that the document is both "(1) predecisional, i.e., prepared in order to assist an agency decisionmaker in arriving at his decision, and (2) deliberative, i.e., actually . . . related to the process by which policies are formulated." Am. Civ. Liberties Union v. Nat'l Sec. Agency, 925 F.3d 576, 592 (2d Cir. 2019) (citations omitted).

This predecisional element distinguishes documents prepared before a final agency decision, which are protected, from "postdecisional memoranda setting forth the reasons for an agency decision already made, which are not." Renegotiation Bd. v. Grumman Aircraft Eng'g Corp., 421 U.S. 168, 184, 95 S.Ct. 1491, 44 L.Ed.2d 57 (1975). Thus, this element looks to whether the document was "received by the decisionmaker on the subject of the decision prior to the time the decision is made to ensure that the subsequent decision will be fully informed." Am. Civ. Liberties Union, 925 F.3d at 593 (quotation marks and citation omitted).

"[T]he deliberative process privilege does not extend to 'purely factual, investigative matters . . . . If factual portions of a document are 'severable without compromising the private remainder of the document,' then the factual portions must be disclosed, even though the deliberative material remains protected." New York Times Co. v. Dep't of Health & Human Services, 513 F. Supp. 3d 337, 350 n.3 (S.D.N.Y. 2021) (quoting EPA v. Mink, 410 U.S. 73, 89, 91, 93 S.Ct. 827, 35 L.Ed.2d 119 (1973)), aff'd, 15 F.4th 216 (2d Cir. 2021). Also, the privilege is not applicable where "the document is more properly characterized as an opinion or interpretation which embodies the agency's effective law and policy, in other words, its working law." Brennan Ctr. for Just. at New York Univ. Sch. of L. v. U.S. Dep't of Just., 697 F.3d 184, 195 (2d Cir. 2012) (quoting Sears, 421 U.S. at 153, 95 S.Ct. 1504) (punctuation omitted).

Additionally, even where a party opposing disclosure has demonstrated that the deliberative process privilege applies, the privilege "is merely a qualified privilege" and "thus 'when the existence of [the] privilege is established, there is a need to balance the public interest in non-disclosure against the need of the of the particular litigant for access to the privileged information.' " In re Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether (MTBE) Prod. Liab. Litig., 643 F. Supp. 2d 439, 442 (S.D.N.Y. 2009) (quoting MacNamara v. City of New York, 249 F.R.D. 70, 79 (S.D.N.Y. 2008)). "Some courts have enumerated five factors useful for conducting this balancing. The factors are: (i) the relevance of the evidence sought to be protected; (ii) the availability of other evidence; (iii) the seriousness of the litigation and the issues involved; (iv) the role of the government in the...