Wilson v. City of Phila.

• Decision Date: 08 April 2016
• Docket Number: CIVIL ACTION NO. 04-05396
• Parties: Harold C. Wilson, Plaintiff, v. City of Philadelphia, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania

177 F.Supp.3d 885

Harold C. Wilson, Plaintiff,

v.City of Philadelphia, et al., Defendants.

CIVIL ACTION NO. 04-05396

United States District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania.

Signed April 8, 2016

Cindy Tsai, Gayle Horn, Jon Loevy, Scott R. Rauscher, Loevy & Loevy, Chicago, IL, Richard F. Ostriak, Law Office of Sue Ann Eckell, Matthew Toll, Law Office of Robert J. Garnick, Philadelphia, PA, for Plaintiff.

Suzanne Reilly, City of Philadelphia Law Dept., Mark Maguire, Philadelphia Office of City Solicitor, Elizabeth J. Rubin, Brad P. Bender, Peter Carr, Priya M. Travassos, Michael Robert Scalera, Ronald Eisenberg, Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, Philadelphia, PA, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM

PAPPERT, District Judge.

In April of 1986 the United States Supreme Court decided the case of Batson v. Kentucky , 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), holding that the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause prohibits prosecutors from challenging potential jurors based on their race. Id. at 89, 106 S.Ct. 1712. Prior to Batson , the Court's opinion in Swain v. Alabama , 380 U.S. 202, 85 S.Ct. 824, 13 L.Ed.2d 759 (1965) governed the analysis of alleged racial discrimination in jury selection. Under Swain , it was much more difficult for a criminal defendant to show that the prosecutor used preemptory strikes for racial reasons; rather than focus on a prosecutor's actions in the specific case at hand, the defendant had to show the “repeated striking of blacks over a number of cases.” Id. at 92, 106 S.Ct. 1712.

Batson lowered the burden of proof required to establish a prima facie case of purposeful discrimination in jury selection. See Batson , 476 U.S. at 96–98, 106 S.Ct. 1712. The Court stated that a criminal defendant can establish a prima facie case of purposeful discrimination in jury selection solely on evidence concerning the exercise of peremptory challenges in that particular case . Id. at 96, 106 S.Ct. 1712. If the defendant meets that burden, the prosecutor can then offer a race-neutral explanation for his challenges. Id. at 97, 106 S.Ct. 1712. To do so, the prosecutor needs to do more than merely state that “he challenged jurors of the defendant's race on the assumption—or his intuitive judgment—that they would be partial to the defendant because of their shared race.” Id. The trial court, considering the prosecutor's explanation, then determines if the defendant has established “purposeful discrimination.” Id. at 98, 106 S.Ct. 1712.

At some point in 1986 or 1987, but certainly after the Batson decision, Jack McMahon (“McMahon”), an experienced prosecutor in the Homicide Unit of the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office (“DAO”), gave a presentation on jury selection to less experienced prosecutors in the office. McMahon's lecture was videotaped. The “McMahon Tape” became public in 1997 and quickly gained a measure of infamy as an example of what not to say and how not to say it. Ostensibly intended to be educational and, at least in part, to explain how the younger prosecutors could select juries in a manner that complied with Batson , parts of the lecture came to be interpreted as a lesson in how to circumvent Batson 's requirements.

Someone who took a particular interest in the McMahon Tape was the Plaintiff in this case, Harold C. Wilson (“Wilson”). Wilson, who is black, was on death row having been prosecuted by McMahon and convicted of three counts of first degree murder in 1989. In the months and years following his conviction, Wilson filed numerous post-trial motions and appealed the denial of those motions—one of which contended that McMahon violated Batson —to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which upheld the lower court's decisions.

Wilson then relied on the McMahon Tape in another round of post-conviction relief filings contending again, among other things, that McMahon unconstitutionally excluded blacks from his jury. After a hearing on Wilson's Batson claim, the Post-Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”) Court held that the prosecution violated Batson at Wilson's trial. Wilson's conviction was set aside and he was granted a new trial. Wilson was eventually acquitted of all charges after his retrial and he thereafter filed this lawsuit against the DAO, the City of Philadelphia (“the City”) and a number of former Philadelphia Police Department officers.

Wilson's claims against the DAO allege: (1) a violation of his equal protection rights under the Fourteenth Amendment; and (2) a 42 U.S.C. Section 1983Monell claim contending that the DAO had a policy or custom of racial discrimination in jury selection which caused Wilson's constitutional injury. (Second Am. Compl. ¶¶ 56–67, ECF No. 89.)¹ Wilson also asserts a Monell claim against the City. He alleges that the City's policies, customs or failure-to-train its officers on their obligations under Brady v. Maryland , 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963) violated Wilson's Fourteenth Amendment due process rights. (Id. ) Wilson alleges the following against former officers of the Philadelphia Police Department: (1) Brady violations by former Homicide Detective Walter Hoffner (“Hoffner”) and Laboratory Technician Lewis Brenner (“Brenner”);² (2) malicious prosecution claims under Section 1983 and Pennsylvania state law against Hoffner; and (3) intentional infliction of emotional distress claims against Hoffner and Brenner. (Id. ¶¶ 49, 51, 63–65.)

Before the Court are the Defendants' motions for summary judgment. For the reasons that follow, the City, Hoffner and Brenner's motion is granted in its entirety and those Defendants are dismissed from the case. The DAO's motion is denied as to Wilson's claim that the DAO had a custom of racial discrimination in jury selection because there are genuine issues of material fact which preclude the Court from determining as a matter of law that no such custom existed.

I. A Triple Homicide, the Investigation and Criminal Charges Against Wilson

At 10:13 a.m. on April 10, 1988, officers from the Philadelphia Police Department responded to a disturbance call at 1516 South Stillman Street (“the Stillman House”). (Joint Appendix (“JA”) 5930.)³ Upon arrival, the officers discovered the bodies of Dorothy Sewell (“Sewell”), Tyrone Mason and Cynthia Goines (“Goines”). (Id. ) Each had sustained multiple stab, chop and slash wounds

to the head, neck, trunk and upper extremities. (Id. ) At 10:30 a.m., Sergeant Thomas Burke assigned Hoffner as the lead investigator. (JA 5931.) Dr. Jonathan Briskin pronounced Sewell, Tyrone Mason and Goines dead on the scene at approximately 11:40 a.m. (JA 5937.)

A. April 10, 1988 Interviews and Evidence

At 11:20 a.m. on April 10, Hoffner interviewed Rachel Mason (“Mason”),⁴ the woman who first discovered the bodies. (JA 5948–52.) Mason told Hoffner that she was Sewell's niece and was inside the Stillman House until 4:00 a.m. on April 10. (Id. ) Mason admitted that she was smoking cocaine during the time she was at the Stillman House, and that five or six people came by throughout the day to purchase cocaine from Sewell.⁵ (Id. ) She stated that Sewell kept “a lot of money in her pocketbook,” sometimes amounting to thousands of dollars. (Id. )

Mason told Hoffner that when she left the Stillman House at 4:00 a.m., the only people who remained were Goines, Sewell, Tyrone Mason, Harry Mandeville (“Mandeville”) and Wilson. (Id. ) Mandeville was Mason's 98 year-old grandfather and lived at the Stillman House. (Id. ) Mason returned to the Stillman House around 10:00 a.m. on April 10 to cook breakfast for Mandeville. (Id. ) It was at that point she discovered the bodies. (Id. )

Mason told Hoffner that Wilson was staying at the Stillman House for the weekend and that throughout that time she observed Wilson in Tyrone Mason's bedroom smoking cocaine. (Id. ) She also stated that Wilson was “wearing a tan waist length windbreaker type jacket.” (Id. ) Mason left around 4:00 a.m. because she was tired, could not sleep and because Tyrone Mason was “crazy” and always talked “about sticking knives in people.” (Id. ) According to Mason, Tyrone Mason kept “all kinds of knives and stuff” in his room. (Id. )

At 11:45 a.m. on April 10, Hoffner interviewed Vernon Gillespie (“Gillespie”). (JA 5955–57.) Gillespie said that he smoked cocaine at the Stillman House until approximately 2:00 a.m. on April 10. (Id. ) At some point before 2:00 a.m., Gillespie and Tyrone Mason left to buy more cocaine. (Id. ) Rachel Mason asked Gillespie to buy the cocaine because Goines, Wilson and Mason “didn't have [any] money.” (Id. ) When Gillespie returned, he took two hits of the new cocaine and left. (Id. ) At the time he left, Gillespie stated that everyone was in Tyrone Mason's room smoking. (Id. )

Detectives also interviewed Valyncia Craig (“Craig”) on April 10. (JA 5961–67.) Craig told detectives that Mason came to her house around 4:00 a.m. to stay the night. (Id. ) She also stated that she saw Wilson standing in the doorway of the Stillman House at 3:00 a.m. wearing a green sweater with a yellow stripe. (Id. )

Detectives recovered, among other things, the following pieces of physical evidence from the Stillman House on April 10: (1) a hatchet, approximately 1ft. 4 in. long, with a hair or fiber on the blade; (2) a pair of scissors; (3) a knife with a bent blade and red stains; (4) a red stain sample from the top step leading into the Stillman House; (5) a red stain sample from the door of a yellow station wagon parked in front of the Stillman House; and (6) a red stain sample from the sink in one of the bathrooms. (JA 6050.)

B. April 11, 1988 Interviews, Evidence and Charges

At approximately 4:50 a.m. on April 11, Wilson came to the police station for questioning. (JA 7152–55.) Detective Roy J. Gibson (“Gibson”) interviewed Wilson at 5:15 a.m. (Id. ) During the interview, Gibson observed injuries to Wilson's hands. (JA 2716.) Specifically, Gibson noticed a scrape on Wilson's palm, an injury to the webbing of Wilson's hand and a scrape...