Mara v. Rilling

• Decision Date: 09 April 2019
• Docket Number: August Term 2018,No. 17-3326-cv,17-3326-cv
• Citation: 921 F.3d 48
• Parties: John MARA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Stephen RILLING, Edward Nook, Frederick Hine, Defendants-Appellants, Gary MacNamara, Michael Gagner, Antonio Granata, Jason Takacs, Town of Fairfield, Fairfield University, Patrick Cleary Defendants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

921 F.3d 48

John MARA, Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
Stephen RILLING, Edward Nook, Frederick Hine, Defendants-Appellants,

Gary MacNamara, Michael Gagner, Antonio Granata, Jason Takacs, Town of Fairfield, Fairfield University, Patrick Cleary Defendants.^*

No. 17-3326-cv
August Term 2018

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued: September 5, 2018
Decided: April 9, 2019

Thomas Gerarde, Esq., Howd & Ludorf, LLC, Hartford, Connecticut, for Defendants-Appellants.

Andrew Bruce Bowman, Esq., Westport, Connecticut, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Before: Sack, Raggi, and Chin, Circuit Judges.

Reena Raggi, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiff John Mara ("Mara") sued Fairfield, Connecticut police officials Stephen Rilling, Edward Nook, and Frederick Hine (appellants here) as well as other members of that police department and the Fairfield University Security Office, for alleged violations of the Constitution and state law in connection with a 2013 investigation that led to Mara being criminally charged with assault and disturbing the peace, charges that were eventually dismissed. Specifically, Mara sued defendants for false arrest, coercive interrogation, and malicious prosecution in violation of the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments, see 42 U.S.C. § 1983, as well as for parallel state law claims of false arrest, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Defendants Rilling, Nook, and Hine here appeal from that part of an order entered in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut (Robert Chatigny, Judge ) on September 30, 2017, which denied them summary judgment based on

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qualified immunity. See Mara v. MacNamara , No. 14-cv-1095, 2017 WL 4368612 (D. Conn. Sept. 30, 2017).¹

For the reasons stated herein, we conclude that the record, viewed most favorably to Mara, demonstrates defendants’ entitlement to qualified immunity as a matter of law because (1) Mara was not under arrest when initially interviewed by the police on January 2, 2013, and, thus, police did not then require probable cause to question him; (2) probable cause for the February 22, 2013 warrant authorizing Mara’s arrest was established by a non-defective eyewitness identification without regard to Mara’s allegedly coerced statements; (3) Mara’s statements not being necessary to establish probable cause, he cannot claim their use in violation of the Fifth Amendment; and (4) the police procedures employed during Mara’s interview were not so egregious or shocking as to violate Fourteenth Amendment due process or to support a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress. Accordingly, we reverse the challenged order, and direct the entry of judgment in favor of defendants.

BACKGROUND

Because Mara claims that police acted unlawfully—even shockingly—in conducting the investigation leading to his arrest and prosecution, we discuss that conduct in some detail preliminary to explaining why Mara’s claims fail. The following facts are undisputed or viewed in the light most favorable to Mara.

I. The Blackman Assault and Initial Investigation

In the course of a 2012 New Year’s Eve party held at a private home in Fairfield, Connecticut, and attended mostly by vacationing college students, someone hit Philip Blackman in the head with a large bottle, fracturing his skull and causing a severe brain hemorrhage.

While Blackman was undergoing surgery on the morning of January 1, 2013, his father reported the attack to Fairfield police, prompting defendants Rilling and Nook to respond to St. Vincent Hospital. The detectives there spoke with three of Blackman’s friends—Dennis DePalmer, Dan Langlais, and James Hansen—who stated that, at about 12:30 a.m., they had seen unknown persons shoving Blackman out of the house where the party was being held. Langlais went to his friend’s aid, but when the fracas ended, Blackman was lying on the ground unconscious. None of the three friends had direct knowledge of how Blackman was injured. They could report only that they had heard "[s]omeone" at the party state that Blackman had been hit over the head with a bottle by "Jack Mara," the plaintiff, who was then a senior at Fairfield University. App’x 404–05.

Rilling and Nook then proceeded to 1027 Fairfield Beach Rd., the site of the party, and spoke with its host, Rachel Chase. Chase told the detectives that various uninvited persons had arrived during the party and that things had gotten out of hand, with someone whom she did not know being hit over the head with a bottle.

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At the Chase residence, the detectives also spoke with David O’Brien. He reported attending the prior night’s party with his brother Darren. Darren had recovered the black Freixenet champagne bottle used to hit Blackman, which David O’Brien produced for the police later that day. Meanwhile, David O’Brien stated that another party guest, Luke Kazmierczak, had actually witnessed the Blackman assault.

Later on January 1, Darren O’Brien went to the Fairfield police station where he told Rilling that, at the prior night’s party, shortly after midnight, he observed an altercation among people he did not know. At some point, he saw a champagne bottle roll on the ground and heard people yelling that someone had been hit with the bottle. Seeing Blackman, a friend of his brother David’s, lying on the ground, Darren O’Brien grabbed the bottle and gave it to his brother for safe keeping. Darren O’Brien told Rilling that his friend, Luke Kazmierczak, had witnessed Blackman’s assault and that Kazmierczak and the O’Brien brothers had given chase when the assailant started running from the party down Fairfield Beach Rd. On that road, the O’Briens and Kazmierczak encountered a group of men walking toward the party. One man was shirtless, and Kazmierczak identified him to the O’Briens as the person who had hit Blackman with a bottle.

On January 1, Kazmierczak, a student at the University of Wisconsin, came to the Fairfield police station and confirmed that he had seen the prior night’s assault on Blackman. He described the assailant as a white male in his 20s, with short, dark hair, who ran east on Fairfield Beach Rd. towards Reef Rd. As Kazmierczak and the O’Brien brothers gave chase, they saw persons walking toward the party. Kazmierczak recognized one of the men—who was shirtless, highly intoxicated, and acting out of control—as Blackman’s assailant. Shown a six-photo array that included Mara’s four-year old freshman photograph, Kazmierczak identified another individual as Blackman’s assailant, reporting 70% certainty. Police contacted that person and determined that he was not at the Chase party.

II. Mara’s Police Interview

On the evening of January 1, Mara’s mother called the Fairfield police to report that her son was receiving threatening text messages from Blackman’s friends, accusing him of committing the New Year’s Eve assault. Mara then also spoke with Rilling, and the two agreed to meet at the Fairfield police station the next day at 5:00 p.m. Prior to the meeting, William Heller, an attorney for Mara’s father, called Rilling. Rilling told Heller that the police viewed Mara as a witness, not a target, and that Mara did not need an attorney at the meeting. Heller told Rilling that Mara’s father would likely accompany his son to the meeting.

On January 2, rather than wait for Mara to come to the police station, Rilling, Nook, and their supervisor, defendant Sergeant Hine, went to Fairfield University at approximately 4:00 p.m., deciding it would be to their advantage to interview Mara there. The officers were dressed in plain clothes and, although armed, none ever displayed a weapon in dealing with Mara that day. As Mara emerged from class, he saw police cars parked behind his own vehicle. Defendants, along with University Safety Officer Patrick Cleary, approached Mara and asked if they could speak with him on campus rather than later at the police station. Mara agreed, traveling to the university’s Public Safety Office in

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Cleary’s vehicle.² Defendants told Cleary not to let Mara use his cell phone en route.³

At the Public Safety Office, Mara was interviewed in a small room, with Rilling and Nook at a table and Mara seated in a corner. Hine observed the interview on a computer in an adjacent room. The entire exchange lasted approximately one hour and twenty minutes and was videotaped. The tape shows that Mara was never restrained or subjected to any physical force during the interview and that he and the officers maintained calm demeanors throughout.

At the outset, defendants obtained basic pedigree information and photographed Mara—explaining that "so many people" were at the New Year’s Eve party under investigation that "we’re just taking a picture of everybody." App’x 353.⁴ Rilling then advised Mara that he did not have to talk with the officers and could leave at any time.⁵ Mara indicated that he understood. At no time thereafter did Mara decline to answer questions or seek to leave.

Asked to recount what he had heard about the events of New Year’s Eve, Mara stated that he had "heard that a kid...