McGillvary v. Galfy

• Court: U.S. District Court — District of New Jersey
• Writing for the Court: Madeline Cox Arleo, United States District Judge
• Decision Date: 28 March 2023
• Docket Number: Civil Action 21-17121 (MCA)
• Citation: McGillvary v. Galfy, Civil Action 21-17121 (MCA) (D. N.J. Mar 28, 2023)
• Parties: CALEB L MCGILLVARY, Plaintiff, v. JAMES GALFY, et al., Defendants.

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CALEB L MCGILLVARY, Plaintiff, v. JAMES GALFY, et al., Defendants.

Civil Action No. 21-17121 (MCA)

United States District Court, D. New Jersey

March 28, 2023

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Madeline Cox Arleo, United States District Judge

Plaintiff Caleb McGillvary was tried before a jury and convicted of the first-degree murder of Joseph Galfy, Jr., which occurred on or about May 12, 2013. See Complaint at ¶ 1. On May 30, 2019, he was sentenced to fifty-seven years of imprisonment. See State v. McGillvary, No A-4519-18, 2021 WL 3378024, at *1 (N.J.Super. App. Div. Aug 4, 2021). As relevant to the instant matter, the jury heard and rejected Plaintiff's testimony regarding his defenses of involuntary intoxication and self-defense. See Complaint at ¶ 1; see also McGillvary, 2021 WL 3378024, at *7.

In his Complaint and proposed Amended Complaint, brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, ECF Nos. 1, 55, Plaintiff alleged a wide-ranging § 1983 conspiracy among various state actors and private individuals, including the prosecutors and public defender in his murder case, a potential expert witness, the medical examiner, investigators, and James Galfy (“Galfy”), the brother of the victim and executor of the victim's estate (“the Estate”). The object of this conspiracy was allegedly to deprive Plaintiff of the expert testimony and physical evidence that would substantiate Plaintiff's claims that he was drugged and sexually assaulted by Joseph Galfy, Jr. and that he acted in self-defense (or was involuntarily intoxicated) when he killed the victim. As part of the conspiracy, Plaintiff alleged that the Estate, through its executor Galfy made payments to a potential expert witness, the medical examiner, and the John Doe investigators. Plaintiff further alleged, among other claims, that his due process rights were violated by the prosecutor's failure to turn over the financial records of the Estate in discovery, which would substantiate Plaintiff's allegations.

Union County Prosecutors, Scott M. Peterson (“Peterson”) and Theodore Romankow (“Romankow”), and the Union County Prosecutor's Office (“UCPO”) (collectively “the UCPO Defendants”), and Galfy filed separate motions to dismiss the Complaint.^[1] ECF Nos. 30, 43. The Court assumed without deciding that Plaintiff could establish a conspiracy among the various Defendants but found that his due process claims were barred by Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), because Plaintiff's success on his these claims would necessarily invalidate his murder conviction.^[2] The Court granted the motions to dismiss, denied Plaintiff's motions to amend, for discovery, and for sanctions, and dismissed Plaintiff's due process and conspiracy claims without prejudice until such time that Plaintiff sets aside his conviction in state court or in a federal habeas proceeding. See Generally ECF Nos. 66-67. Plaintiff now moves for reconsideration on a number of grounds.

Plaintiff moves for reconsideration of the Court's decision pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 59(e), which “permits a court to alter or amend a judgment, but it may not be used to relitigate old matters, or to raise arguments or present evidence that could have been raised prior to the entry of judgment.” Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker, 554 U.S. 471, 486 n.5 (2008). A proper motion under this rule “must rely on one of three grounds: (1) an intervening change in controlling law; (2) the availability of new evidence; or (3) the need to correct clear error of law or prevent manifest injustice.” Lazardis v. Wehmer, 591 F.3d 666, 669 (3d Cir. 2010)(citing North River Ins. Co. v. CIGNA Reinsurance Co., 52 F.3d 1194, 1218 (3d Cir. 1995)).

Reconsideration motions are extraordinary remedies, and thus, such “are to be granted sparingly.” Maldonado v. Lucca, 636 F.Supp. 621, 630 (D.N.J. 1986)).

With respect to the UCPO Defendants, Plaintiff claims the Court applied the wrong standard to his due process, defamation, equal protection, and selective enforcement claims and wrongly determined that he could not bring state and federal criminal claims against them. See ECF No. 68, p. 4-12. The UCPO Defendants oppose the motion for reconsideration. ECF No. 70.

The Court construed Plaintiff to raise his due process claims under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), and Plaintiff now contends that the Court erred in this regard. He asserts instead that he is raising Fourteenth Amendment due process claims premised on his “fundamental” right to discovery under New Jersey Court Rule 3:13. Plaintiff claims he was “deprived of his state-created liberty & property interests in the discovery of the financial records of the estate and other items listed in the Amended Complaint: without due process of law.” Motion at 12. He further maintains that these liberty and property interests were created by N.J. Ct. R. 3:13. Id.

“A liberty interest may arise from the Constitution itself, by reason of guarantees implicit in the word ‘liberty,' or it may arise from an expectation or interest created by state laws or policies.” Wilkinson v. Austin, 545 U.S. 209, 221 (2005). A state-created liberty interest arises when a state imposes “substantive limitations on official discretion.” Olim v. Wakinekona, 461 U.S. 238, 249 (1983). Property interests are not created by the Constitution. “Rather they are created and their dimensions are defined by existing rules or understandings that stem from an independent source such as state law—rules or understandings that secure certain benefits and that support claims of entitlement to those benefits.” Bd. of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 577 (1972) (discussing, for example, welfare benefits). Similarly, “state statutes may create liberty interests that are entitled to the procedural protections of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Vitek v. Jones, 445 U.S. 480, 488 (1980) (emphasis added). It is well-established, however, that fundamental rights or liberties that are protected by substantive due process are those implicit in the concept of ordered liberty or derived from our Nation's history and tradition; they are not created by States.^[3] Steele v. Cicchi, 855 F.3d 494, 501 (3d Cir. 2017).

Plaintiff contends that, as a criminal defendant, he has a “fundamental” state-created property or liberty interest under N.J. Ct. R. 3:13-3 in obtaining discovery of Galfy's will and the Estate's financial records to prove his claims. As explained by the New Jersey Supreme Court in State v. Desir, 245 N.J. 179, 193 (2021), N.J. Ct. R. 3:13-3(b)(1) addresses the post-indictment discovery to which a New Jersey criminal defendant is entitled, and the Rule specifically codifies the criminal Defendant's right to exculpatory material, otherwise known as Brady material:

Rule 3:13-3(b)(1) codifies the criminal defendant's “right to automatic and broad discovery of the evidence the State has gathered in support of its charges.” State v. Stein, 225 N.J. 582, 594, 139 A.3d 1174 (2016) [quotation omitted]. That Rule “obligates the State to provide full discovery ... when an indictment is returned or unsealed,” State v. Robinson, 229 N.J. 44, 72, 160 A.3d 1 (2017), “[e]xcept for good cause shown,” R. 3:13-3(b)(1). Full discovery, under Rule 3:13-3(b)(1), “shall include exculpatory information or material.” The Rule thus explicitly renders automatic the turnover of exculpatory evidence mandated by the United States Supreme Court's holding in Brady v. Maryland.

Id. at 192-193.

But even assuming that Rule 3:13-3 provides a state-created right to discovery that is broader than the right to exculpatory material in Brady, Plaintiff's claims are still Heck-barred.^[4]That is, regardless of how Plaintiff frames his due process claim, i.e., as arising under Brady or under Rule 3:13-3, Plaintiff has alleged that the Estate's financial records will substantiate his allegations that Galfy paid an expert witness not to testify, paid the medical examiner not to collect evidence of sexual assault, and paid the investigators in Plaintiff's case to destroy evidence of sexual assault, all of which deprived Plaintiff of the expert testimony and physical evidence he needed to prove he was drugged and raped by Galfy and acted in self-defense when he killed Galfy. Success on Plaintiff's claims would substantiate his defense(s) to the murder charge and necessarily undermine his first-degree murder conviction. For that reason, these claims, however framed, are barred by Heck.

Plaintiff asks the Court to “reanalyze” his claims under Kentucky Dept. of Corrections v. Thompson, 490 U.S. 454 (1989), Bd. of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564 (1972), and Skinner v. Switzer, 562 U.S. 521 (2011).^[5] The latter decision illustrates when a post-conviction claim for evidence is not barred by the favorable termination rule, but Skinner is readily distinguishable from Plaintiff's case. There, the Supreme Court held “that a postconviction claim for DNA testing is properly pursued in a § 1983 action” and not barred by Heck because “[s]uccess in the suit gains for the prisoner only access to the DNA evidence, which may prove exculpatory, inculpatory, or inconclusive.” As explained by the Court, “a judgment that simply orders DNA tests” would not “necessarily impl[y] the unlawfulness of the State's custody.”^[6] Skinner, 562 U.S. at 525 (citing Wilkinson v. Dotson, 544 U.S. 74, 81 (2005)),

In contrast to the plaintiff in Skinner, Plaintiff is not seeking access to evidence that could be tested for DNA that might exonerate him, inculpate him, or prove inconclusive. Instead Plaintiff has consistently asserted that that the Estate's financial records will show that Galfy made payments to Dr. Pandina, the medical examiner, and various investigators in order to deprive Plaintif...