Ham v. Greene, (SC 15806)
| Decision Date | 04 May 1999 |
| Docket Number | (SC 15806) |
| Citation | 248 Conn. 508,729 A.2d 740 |
| Parties | ERIC HAM v. JOSEPH GREENE ET AL. |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
Borden, Berdon, Katz, Palmer and McDonald, JS. Martin S. Echter, deputy corporation counsel, for the appellants (defendants).
William S. Palmieri, for the appellee (plaintiff).
The principal issue in this appeal is whether the trial court properly refused to set aside the jury verdict holding the defendants, New Haven police department detectives Joseph Greene and Michael Sweeney, liable for common-law malicious prosecution and false arrest claims and federal civil rights claims brought by the plaintiff, Eric Ham. After the jury found in favor of the plaintiff on each claim, the defendants filed a motion to arrest judgment, to set aside the verdict, to direct a verdict in their favor or for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, or, in the alternative, for a new trial or a remittitur. The trial court denied their motion and rendered judgment in accordance with the jury verdicts. The defendants appealed from the judgment to the Appellate Court, and we transferred the appeal to this court pursuant to Practice Book § 65-1 and General Statutes § 51-199 (c). We affirm the judgment of the trial court. The jury reasonably could have found the following facts. On January 20, 1991, a light colored station wagon containing two or three African-American males stopped in the vicinity of Sylvan Avenue and Ward and Asylum Streets in New Haven. A black male, approximately five feet five inches to five feet eight inches tall, with a dark complexion and a stocky build, stepped out of the automobile and fired approximately ten shots from a weapon into a crowd of people. He then got back into the vehicle and left the scene. There were two victims of the shooting: Markiest Alexander, age fourteen, who died as a result of the gunshot wounds; and Alfred Brown, age eighteen, who was seriously injured.
New Haven police responded to the scene. Greene was the detective assigned to investigate the shooting and was responsible for coordinating the investigation, locating and interviewing witnesses, retrieving and examining physical evidence, preparing police reports and reviewing reports of other police department members involved in the investigation. Sweeney was the supervisor of the investigation. Numerous witnesses identified through the defendants' investigation were taken to police headquarters that evening and interviewed by the defendants. They recovered, among other items, ten nine millimeter shells from the scene. Among those witnesses who gave separate tape-recorded statements to the defendants within hours of the shooting, were Ronald Hannans, Tashim Thomas, Terry Williams and Troy Carson.
Thomas, who had stood approximately thirty feet away from the shooter, described the shooter to the defendants as a dark skinned black male, approximately five feet eight inches tall, with a stocky build. Hannans told the defendants that he did not recognize the shooter, whom Hannans described as a black male approximately five feet seven inches tall. Carson told the police that, moments before the shooting, he had seen a car with three black males cruising the area. He described the shooter as a dark skinned black male, approximately five feet seven inches to five feet eight inches tall with a stocky build. The male was dressed all in black. He could not identify the shooter beyond that physical description. Carson knew the plaintiff and told the police that he had seen him near the crime scene with a male named Timothy Davis. He stated that he saw the plaintiff and Davis only after the shooting had occurred and the police had arrived, as the two were leaving the area and as the crowd of onlookers was dissipating. Although Carson knew the plaintiff, he neither identified him as the shooter, nor suggested that the plaintiff was involved. Williams, who gave the same physical description of the shooter as the previous three witnesses, identified the weapon used as a "shiny nine millimeter."
On February 6, 1991, Tremaine Ortiz, another witness to the shooting, also described the shooter as a dark skinned black male, approximately five feet five inches tall with a medium build. Ortiz verified that the shooter had a uniquely shiny handgun and that a person named "Joe," who fit the description, was known for robbing drug dealers in the area where the shooting occurred.
Shortly after the evening of the shooting, the defendants interviewed Brown, the surviving victim. He told the police that his assailant was a black male, approximately five feet nine inches tall. Brown, who knew the plaintiff from school and the neighborhood, told the defendants that he did not recognize his assailant and, in fact, had never seen him before.
Nearly three weeks after the shooting, on February 6, 1991, the defendants interviewed Lynwood Cypress. Cypress described the shooter as a dark skinned black male, five feet five to five feet seven inches tall, with a stocky build. He confirmed Williams' description of the weapon. Additionally, he advised the defendants that the shooter was the same person who had tried to rob him at gunpoint earlier that evening, shoving the same firearm into his stomach. Cypress was then transported to the police department where he gave a tape-recorded statement in which he repeated his earlier description of the shooter. Cypress believed that the shooter's name was Joe, but did not know the man's full identity. Finally, Cypress told the defendants that he had seen the same person two days after the shooting, but had not seen him in a while and therefore assumed that he was not from New Haven.
In contradiction to his earlier statements, on February 11, 1991, in his third statement to the defendants, Cypress stated that he personally knew the plaintiff and that the plaintiff was the shooter. He witnessed the plaintiff get out of a station wagon and open fire into a crowd of people on Sylvan Avenue. According to Cypress, the plaintiff was dressed in black pants, a black jacket, black shoes and a black hat and was carrying a nickel plated nine millimeter gun that he used to shoot the victims. The plaintiff thereafter got back into the car, which sped away. The vehicle was driven by someone named Joe, whom Cypress also recognized. He did not know the person in the back seat. The plaintiff and Joe returned moments later and stood in the crowd of onlookers for three to four minutes. According to this statement by Cypress, he and Carson stood close to the plaintiff and Joe, and Carson conversed with them.
Joseph Timothy Davis also gave a statement to the police in which he incriminated the plaintiff. He described how, on the day of the shooting, he and the plaintiff had been driving around in a station wagon that he had rented from someone in the neighborhood. According to Davis, they had stopped at the corner of Sylvan and Asylum Streets to talk with some friends, when the plaintiff began playing with a nine millimeter gun he was carrying. The plaintiff leaned over Davis, and while he was tapping the weapon on the windowsill of the car, the gun discharged, and bullets ricocheted off the ground, striking two boys whom Davis knew from the neighborhood. Thereafter, they left the scene. In contradiction to every other witness as to the location of the shooter, in that statement, Davis reiterated that the plaintiff was seated in the car when the gun was fired. Following police questioning, Davis changed his story regarding the plaintiff's location, this time placing the plaintiff outside the vehicle during the shooting.
On January 28, 1991, the defendants learned from two inmates, one of whom was a relative of one of the victims, that an individual identified as Joe Covington, who was incarcerated at the New Haven Community Correctional Facility, was claiming responsibility for the shooting of Brown and Alexander. He had boasted to at least five people that he was responsible for the January 20, 1991 shooting. He provided details of the crime and how it had occurred. The defendants sent another policeman to interview two other inmates, George Galberth and Michael Gaetano, but they never interviewed Covington in connection with their investigation. Nor did they assign any other member of the police department to interview him or to show Covington's photograph to any of the witnesses.
On February 11, 1991, the defendants were given information that an individual named Tyrese White had shot Alexander and Brown. On the same date, the defendants received information from another source that an individual nicknamed "Ears" had had a dispute with Alexander two weeks before the shooting, and had threatened him at that time with a firearm. Neither lead was investigated. The defendants did, however, reinterview Carson that day. He repeated much of what he had already stated to the police on the evening of the shooting. He reiterated that he could not identify the shooter beyond the physical description he had already provided, and that he had seen the plaintiff and Davis leaving the area of the shooting as the crowd of onlookers dissipated, only after the shooting had occurred and the police had arrived.
On February 12, 1991, Greene executed a search warrant at the plaintiffs household. The plaintiff, an eighteen year old black youth, six feet two inches tall, light skinned, and of slim build, weighing 155 pounds, was present at the time of the search. He had extensive contact with Greene, thereby allowing Greene carefully to observe the plaintiff and take note of his physical appearance. Pursuant to the warrant, the defendants seized one black army-type jacket, one brown empty pistol holster and one empty Remington .22 caliber bullet box.
On February 13, 1991, the defendants prepared and submitted an affidavit in support of a request for an arrest warrant for ...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Label Systems Corporation v. Aghamohammadi
...abused its discretion in denying [a defendant's] motion to set aside the verdict." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Ham v. Greene, 248 Conn. 508, 536, 729 A.2d 740, cert. denied, 528 U.S. 929, 120 S. Ct. 326, 145 L. Ed. 2d 254 A Turning first to the expansive causation claim set forth by......
-
El Badrawi v. Department of Homeland Sec.
...as submitted to the magistrate, knowingly or recklessly omits or misrepresents material information. See Ham v. Greene, 248 Conn. 508, 527-28 & n. 9, 729 A.2d 740 (1999). The government contends that El Badrawi's arrest was not warrantless because he was arrested pursuant to a duly issued i......
-
Craig Outdoor Advertising v. Viacom Outdoor, Inc.
...law allows a court to award reasonable attorney fees no matter the terms of a contingency-fee agreement. See Ham v. Greene, 248 Conn. 508, 729 A.2d 740, 756 (Conn.) (affirming district court's punitive damages award even though amount was less than that calculated under contingency-fee agre......
-
State v. Whipper
...counsel nor how the attack deprived the defendant of a fair trial. We decline therefore to review these claims. See Ham v. Greene, 248 Conn. 508, 528 n.11, 729 A.2d 740, cert. denied, 528 U.S. 929, 120 S. Ct. 326, 145 L. Ed. 2d 254 (1999); Butler v. Hartford Technical Institute, Inc., 243 C......
-
Vexatious Litigation in Connecticut: Malicious Prosecution of Civil Actions, Probable Cause, and Lawyer Liability
...judge who must evaluate the reasonableness of a particular search or seizure in light of the particular circumstances."); Ham v. Greene, 248 Conn. 508, 520 (1999)(false arrest; liability turns on "objective legal reasonableness" of arresting officer's actions); Stone v. Stevens, supra note ......
-
1999 Connecticut Appellate Review
...543, 729 A.2d 760 (1999). 49. Wesley W. Horton and Susan M. Cormier, 1997 Connecticut Appellate Review, 72 CONN.B.J. 1, 2-8 (1998). 50. 248 Conn. 508, 729 A.2d 740 51. Id. at 542-43. 52. 249 Conn. 809, 734 A.2d 964 (1999). 53. Id. at 837, 839. Other interesting McDonald dissents are in DeMa......