Wilkinson v. Ellis

• Decision Date: 21 January 1980
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 77-869.
• Citation: 484 F. Supp. 1072
• Parties: Robert WILKINSON et al. v. John ELLIS et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania

484 F. Supp. 1072

Robert WILKINSON et al. v. John ELLIS et al.

Civ. A. No. 77-869.

United States District Court, E. D. Pennsylvania.

January 21, 1980.

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Jack Levine, Robert J. Matthews, David Kairys, Philadelphia, Pa., for plaintiffs.

Stephen T. Saltz, Asst. City Sol., Philadelphia, Pa., for the police and city defendants.

Michael F. Henry, Asst. Dist. Atty., Philadelphia, Pa., for defendant Fitzpatrick.

Donald E. Matusow, Philadelphia, Pa., for defendant Haines.

John Rogers Carroll, Philadelphia, Pa., for defendant Berman.

Dennis J. Cogan, Philadelphia, Pa., for defendant Harris.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

EDWARD R. BECKER, District Judge.

I. Preliminary Statement

This civil rights action arises out of the state investigation and prosecution that followed the October 5, 1975 firebombing of the home of Radames Santiago in the Feltonville section of Philadelphia which killed five persons. The lead plaintiff is Robert Wilkinson ("Wilkinson"), who was convicted in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas of five counts of murder in connection with the firebombing, but who was subsequently, after serving 439 days in prison, cleared of any involvement in the crime.¹ The other plaintiffs are Wilkinson's wife, Christine Wilkinson, and his son, Robert Wilkinson, Jr. Defendants, all of whom are alleged to have been involved in some phase of the investigation or prosecution, include a number of Philadelphia police officers,² supervisory personnel of the police department and the District Attorney's office,³ and the City of Philadelphia itself.⁴ Advancing federal and pendent state law claims, plaintiffs seek both compensatory and punitive damages.⁵ Before us are several motions to dismiss plaintiffs' claims, raising a variety of legal issues. We herein address and dispose of all but one of the issues raised by these motions,⁶ while reserving decision on the final point until a later time.⁷ Before our legal discussion, it will be useful to outline briefly plaintiffs' allegations. The complaint, which chronicles the factual basis for the plaintiffs' claims in enormous detail, alleges the following facts.

On October 5, 1975, plaintiff Robert Wilkinson was taken into custody for questioning concerning the firebombing of the Santiago residence. He was subsequently charged with the crime on the basis of an eyewitness account by sixteen-year-old Nelson Garcia, who stated that he had seen Wilkinson throw the firebomb. During interrogation, Wilkinson was beaten, threatened, and coerced by police defendants, and an involuntary statement, later suppressed on the ground that plaintiff did not understand the Miranda warnings he was given, was forcibly extracted from him. In addition to assaulting Wilkinson, the police defendants are alleged to have threatened and physically coerced suspects and witnesses, including plaintiff Christine Wilkinson, into making false statements consistent with Garcia's version of the incident.

On October 5 and 6 and November 3, 1975, the defendant detectives received written statements to the effect that plaintiff Robert Wilkinson was not involved in the crime, but that one David McGinnis, in the presence of others, had thrown the bomb. This information was, however, never investigated and, although defendants Berman, Haines, and Ellis knew of the statements prior to trial, defense counsel was never informed of them. Nor was counsel informed that, on November 14, 1975, Nelson Garcia gave a statement to police which differed materially from his previous statements.

On the eve of plaintiff's trial, March 26, 1976, David McGinnis came forward to explain to defendants Berman, Ellis, Brennan, and Harris his involvement in the firebombing, exonerating Wilkinson. McGinnis' written statement, the complaint alleges, was not revealed to defense counsel until midway into the trial; not until even later was it disclosed that a tape-recording had existed of a portion of the interview with McGinnis, but that the tape had been destroyed by defendant Berman. During the trial, defendants Ellis, Haines, and Berman made false statements to the court concerning disclosure of exculpatory material to defense counsel.

On October 4, 1976, after their own investigation of the firebombing incident, federal authorities furnished defendants Haines and Ellis with the entire federal investigative file. Although this investigation exculpated Wilkinson, defendant Haines refused to comply with the federal request to seek plaintiff's release. Because of this inaction, federal indictments against McGinnis and another were pursued, resulting in convictions.⁸ The testimony at the federal trial again exonerated Wilkinson.

Furthermore, in November, 1976, Nelson Garcia stated in a sworn deposition that he had not seen Wilkinson throw the firebomb and, on December 20, 1976, he formally recanted his state trial testimony before a state judge. At the conclusion of the hearing, Wilkinson was finally released from prison. Nonetheless, on March 3, 1977, defendants Haines and Fitzpatrick, again without disclosing to defense counsel exculpatory evidence in their possession, approved and announced a decision to retry Wilkinson, who immediately moved to dismiss the indictment. During the hearing on this motion, the complaint further alleges, defendants Ellis and Berman again perjured themselves concerning their conduct in the firebombing investigation. On March 10, 1977, the complaint in this action was filed. On June 2, 1977, the state court granted Wilkinson's motion to dismiss, holding that the prosecution was being maintained in bad faith without reasonable expectation of obtaining a supportable verdict.⁹

Thus, in summary, plaintiffs have alleged:

Starting in October, 1975, Defendants intentionally and maliciously engaged in a pattern and course of conduct that included their ignoring, secreting, and destroying evidence that Wilkinson had neither thrown the bomb nor been involved — evidence that, viewed fairly, amounted to conclusive proof of Wilkinson's innocence. This pattern and course of conduct was intended by the defendants to justify their continued prosecution of Plaintiff Wilkinson and thereby avoid or soften exposure of the irresponsible and unlawful course of the investigation.

Starting in early October, 1975, the defendants, under color of the laws and authority of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, having first pursued an erroneous course in their investigation and utilized unlawful and brutal methods, proceeded to knowingly, intentionally, and maliciously deprive Plaintiff Robert Wilkinson of his liberty and other rights secured by the Constitution of the United States after there was no sufficient or believable cause that he was guilty in an apparent attempt to foreclose or minimize the repercussions of their irresponsible, illegal, and unjustifiable acts.

Complaint, ¶¶ 51 & 54.¹⁰ We turn now to the issues raised by defendants' motions.

II. The Statute of Limitations Issues

Defendants contend that some or all of Wilkinson's federal and state law claims were time-barred when he filed his complaint on March 10, 1977.¹¹ We assess these contentions by first setting forth the general principles governing limitations in civil rights cases, and then by applying these principles to each of Wilkinson's claims.

There being no limitations period written into the Civil Rights Act, as a federal court sitting in Pennsylvania we must apply the Pennsylvania limitations period(s) for the tort or torts most analogous to the conduct alleged in the complaint. See Polite v. Diehl, 507 F.2d 119, 122 (3d Cir. 1974); Ammlung v. City of Chester, 494 F.2d 811 (3d Cir. 1974). Where the analogous state causes of action are "inextricably intertwined," all of the defendant's alleged conduct may be subsumed under one limitations period, see, e. g., Gagliardi v. Lynn, 446 Pa. 144, 285 A.2d 109 (1971), but where the analogous causes of action are "separable," different statutes of limitations may be applied. See, e. g., Polite v. Diehl, supra.

Wilkinson contends that the assault and battery, malicious prosecution, abuse of process, and intentional infliction of emotional distress causes of action alleged in his complaint are separable and thus governed by different statutes of limitations. He submits that the assault and battery and intentional infliction claims are governed by 12 P.S. § 34, which allows two years to bring personal injury actions; that the abuse of process claim is governed by 12 P.S. § 31, a two-year statute for other kinds of personal actions; and that the malicious prosecution claim is governed by the one-year period of 12 P.S. § 51. We agree with Wilkinson's analysis of these causes of action and the applicable limitations period for each,¹² and conclude that they are separable and not time-barred.¹³

Wilkinson's assault and battery claim accrued on October 5, 1975, when he was allegedly beaten by the police defendants sometime after his arrest. See complaint ¶ 23. Some of the defendants contend that Wilkinson's assault and battery claim is "inextricably intertwined" with his false arrest claim, and thus is subsumed under the one-year false arrest statutory period. However, this identical argument was rejected by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Polite v. Diehl, supra. The Polite Court, explaining Gagliardi v. Lynn, supra, the leading case on the scope of Pennsylvania's statute of limitations for false arrest actions, said that a "touching" committed in accomplishing a false arrest would be subsumed under the one-year provision but that any "touching" not so "inextricably intertwined" as, for example, an assault while the arrestee is being held at the police station, would be governed instead by the two-year personal injury limitations statute. Polite v. Diehl, supra, at 122-23. Here Wilkinson has alleged not a "touching" in the course of effecting an arrest,...