Diamondstone v. Macaluso

Citation148 F.3d 113,1998 WL 327883
Decision Date22 June 1998
Docket NumberDocket No. 97-7216
PartiesPeter I. DIAMONDSTONE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Christopher A. MACALUSO, Leroy Prior, David R. Stanton, A. James Walton, Jr., and State of Vermont, Defendants-Appellees.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (2nd Circuit)

Herbert G. Ogden, Jr., Liccardi, Crawford & Ogden, Rutland, VT, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Geoffrey A. Yudien, for William H. Sorrell, Vermont Attorney General, Montpelier, VT, for Defendants-Appellees.

Before: FEINBERG, McLAUGHLIN and CALABRESI, Circuit Judges.

CALABRESI, Circuit Judge:

This case arose out of an unfortunate series of encounters between Trooper Christopher A. Macaluso of the Vermont police and Peter I. Diamondstone, a resident of Brattleboro, Vermont. On a dozen occasions between August 1991 and December 1992, Macaluso pulled over Diamondstone and asked him to produce proof that he had auto insurance. On each of these occasions, Diamondstone--who was, in fact, fully insured--invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to produce his insurance card. Each time, Macaluso cited Diamondstone for driving without insurance. And each time, the Vermont traffic court entered judgment in favor of Diamondstone. During the twelfth and final traffic stop, Diamondstone and Macaluso got into a scuffle. Macaluso arrested Diamondstone on suspicion of drunk driving. A blood alcohol test revealed that Diamondstone had no alcohol in his system. Nevertheless, Macaluso issued a press release suggesting that Diamondstone had been driving while intoxicated.

As a result of these encounters, Diamondstone filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that Macaluso and several of Macaluso's supervisors, as well as the state of Vermont, had violated his constitutional rights. The United States District Court for the District of Vermont (J. Garvan Murtha, Chief Judge ) granted partial summary judgment to the defendants, ruling that the motor vehicle stops for lack of insurance were based upon reasonable articulable suspicion that Diamondstone was violating the law. Judge Murtha allowed Diamondstone's claims against Macaluso for assault, battery, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, trespass to chattels, and defamation to go to trial. The jury returned a verdict in favor of Macaluso on all of these claims except for Diamondstone's defamation claim. While the jury found that Macaluso had defamed Diamondstone, it awarded no damages.

Diamondstone appeals both from the grant of partial summary judgment and from the court's upholding of the jury verdict. We affirm in part and reverse in part.

I. FACTS

The case involves many, many traffic stops and several trips to the Vermont traffic court to adjudicate the propriety of those stops. The timing of the incidents is important to our analysis, and so it is necessary to go over the sequence of events in some detail.

Prologue: The saga began in 1987, when a police officer (not Macaluso) stopped Diamondstone for allegedly operating a motor vehicle without a state inspection sticker. In response to the officer's request for proof of insurance, Diamondstone said he did not have his card. The officer then asked if he had insurance. Diamondstone refused to answer, invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The officer cited Diamondstone for driving without insurance in violation of Vt. Stat. Ann. tit. 23, § 800. A Vermont district court ruled that Diamondstone had a constitutional right to refuse to say whether or not he had auto insurance and that his refusal to answer a police officer's questions about his insurance could not be used against him in court. Since there was no evidence that suggested that Diamondstone lacked insurance (aside from Diamondstone's lack of a state inspection sticker and his refusal to answer questions), the court dismissed the citation. A little while later, Diamondstone was again cited (not by Macaluso) for driving without insurance, and the citation was dismissed on the same grounds.

Macaluso Stop # 1: Diamondstone apparently steered clear of the traffic police for the next several years. But on August 27, 1991, Trooper Macaluso pulled Diamondstone over for illegally passing him on a curve and for having defective equipment. At the time, Diamondstone was driving a white 1981 Renault with a valid state inspection sticker. To obtain a state inspection sticker, a driver must produce proof of insurance. Macaluso asked Diamondstone for his license, registration, and proof of insurance. Diamondstone produced his license and registration, but refused to provide proof of insurance. He told Macaluso that he had a constitutional right to refuse to provide proof of insurance, citing the two Vermont district court opinions. Macaluso charged him with driving with defective equipment and told him he needed to furnish proof of insurance within fifteen days or he would be cited for driving without insurance in violation of Vt. Stat. Ann. tit. 23, § 800. Diamondstone did not furnish proof of insurance within fifteen days. As it turns out, Diamondstone did have insurance, but for whatever reason, he preferred not to respond to Macaluso's questions and thought he had a right not to do so.

Stop # 2: On December 2, 1991, Macaluso pulled Diamondstone over for speeding. He may also have been motivated to pull Diamondstone over because he knew that Diamondstone had not produced proof of insurance within fifteen days of the first stop. Again, Diamondstone refused to provide proof of insurance. Macaluso cited him for driving without insurance in violation of Vt. Stat. Ann. tit. 23, § 800. In this encounter, Diamondstone was driving his wife's 1983 black Renault station wagon, a different car from the one that he was driving in August. This car also had a valid inspection sticker.

Traffic Court Round I: On February 18, 1992, the case came before Vermont traffic court hearing officer Michael Pratt. The hearing officer found that Macaluso did think that Diamondstone was speeding on December 2, 1991, but that the insurance was "the critical issue leading to the stop." Diamondstone raised the Fifth Amendment as a defense to the insurance citation, citing the two earlier cases. The hearing officer noted that, in the time since those decisions, Vermont had decriminalized its traffic violations. As a result, he held that the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, which only applies in criminal matters, see U.S. Const. amend. V ("nor shall any person ... be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself") (emphasis added), could not be invoked by Diamondstone. Nevertheless, the court found that Diamondstone's refusal to answer the question was insufficient evidence on which to issue a citation. In addition, the hearing officer noted that it was unclear whether the citation was for the August 27th or the December 2nd incident or for both of them, and entered judgment for Diamondstone on both. The hearing officer advised Macaluso that the State had a right to appeal, but no appeal was taken.

Stops # 3, 4, 5, and 6: On April 9 and June 5, 17, and 25, 1992, Macaluso stopped Diamondstone. The sole reason for each of these stops was to ask Diamondstone for proof of insurance. Diamondstone refused to provide proof of insurance on each occasion, and Macaluso issued him a citation for lack of insurance on each occasion. On these dates, Diamondstone was driving his son's green Datsun pickup truck, which was, like the other cars, insured and which bore a valid state inspection sticker.

Traffic Court Round II: On June 30, 1992, the April 9th citation came before traffic court hearing officer Pratt. Diamondstone moved to dismiss the ticket on the grounds that Macaluso lacked probable cause to stop him. Macaluso testified that he stopped Diamondstone because he thought, based on the earlier encounters, that Diamondstone was driving without insurance. The hearing officer ruled as follows:

The two differences between this case and those other cases, first in those other cases probable--the probable cause, or the proper basis for the stop, the reasonable belief that a violation had occurred, stemmed from a violation that the officer felt he observed on the spot at that time. We don't have that in this case.

This is intertwined with this insurance issue, and the issue that I raised here today as far as did that insurance issue become stale as far as providing a reasonable basis for making the stop?

Trooper Macaluso made his position on the matter crystal clear, stating "As I've said, all I wanted from Mr. Diamondstone is proof of insurance. I don't think that's an unreasonable request.... If he'd show it to me right now, as I've said, I'd be more than happy, more than willing, to dismiss everything. If not, I will continue to stop him and issue as I feel I generally have probable cause." (emphasis added). In the end, the hearing officer concluded that Macaluso, in fact, did not have probable cause to make the stop, explaining that "I don't think a person is indefinitely subject to stops" based on an event that occurred several months earlier. The hearing officer dismissed the citation. This ruling was not appealed.

Stops # 7, 8, 9, and 10: Macaluso stopped Diamondstone on July 24 and 26, and August 5 and 6, 1992. (Diamondstone was driving the green Datsun on these occasions.) Again, the stops were based solely on Diamondstone's refusal to provide proof of insurance during the prior stops. Each time, Diamondstone invoked his Fifth Amendment rights. Each time, Macaluso issued him a ticket. During the July 24th stop, Macaluso told Diamondstone he was going to pull him over and give him a ticket every time he saw him on the road.

Diamondstone alleges that three other police officials became involved in the case on or about this time. Macaluso's supervisor, David Stanton, was present during the July 26th stop. Diamondstone told Stanton that he...

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