Plaintiff Thomas Aletta, a former police officer for the Hackensack Police Department sued the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, State of New Jersey, Prosecutor John Molinelli, Assistant Prosecutor Daniel Keitel, and Prosecutor Investigator Lieutenant Jay Haviland after he was acquitted of official misconduct, conspiracy and evidence tampering. He alleged a politically motivated conspiracy to prosecute him contrary to state and federal law. The issue in Aletta v. Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, 2024 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 976 (App. Div. May 29, 2024), was whether the plaintiff had stated a constitutional claim and/or a claim under the New Jersey Tort Claims Act against the defendants.
This case was dismissed at the summary judgment level as to all defendants based upon immunity under the Tort Claims Act, as well as prosecutorial immunity under §1983 and the New Jersey Civil Rights Act (“NJCRA”). Further, the defendants had argued that the Prosecutor defendants enjoyed qualified immunity due to the existence of probable cause for the charges against plaintiff.
The Appellate Division found that as to the entity defendants, the claims were properly dismissed. However, as to the individual defendants, the Appellate Division agreed that the defendants were entitled to immunity for their roles in plaintiff’s prosecution except for the allegations against the individual defendants that they pressured witnesses to lie or change their statements, destroyed exculpatory evidence, and presented false testimony to the court and/or grand jury.
Plaintiff’s prosecution arose from an assault against a juvenile in which the Prosecutor’s office claimed that the plaintiff improperly sought to secure another juvenile’s involvement in the case. Plaintiff alleged that his prosecution arose from a political conspiracy due to his support of the Hackensack Police Chief. Plaintiff, however, was acquitted from the criminal proceedings brought against him and, thereafter, filed this civil suit against the defendants.
As for the entity defendants, the Appellate Division agreed that they were absolutely immune from plaintiff’s § 1983 and NJCRA. claims. The court noted that prosecutors have absolute immunity from claims arising out of their governmental function. That immunity is based on “concern that harassment by unfounded litigation would cause a deflection of the prosecutor’s energies from their public duties, and the possibility that they would shade their decisions instead of exercising the independence of judgment required by their public trust.”
Activities which are an integral part of the judicial process are protected. The court noted that acts undertaken by a prosecutor in preparing for the initiation of judicial proceedings and for trial, which occur in the course of their role as an advocate for the State, are entitled to the protections of absolute immunity. In fact, courts have granted immunity from claims alleging a prosecutor failed to disclose exculpatory evidence and use false testimony in connection with the prosecution “so long as they did so while functioning in their prosecutorial capacity.”
However, prosecutors do not have immunity outside their role as an advocate. A prosecutor is not entitled to absolute immunity “when performing administrative duties and those investigatory functions that do not relate to an advocate’s preparation for the initiation of a prosecution or for judicial proceedings.” Further, the Court noted that a prosecutor “is not entitled to absolute immunity if they acted out of personal motive, with malicious intent, or in excess of their jurisdiction.” However, a government official may be entitled to qualified immunity “for discretionary acts that do not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.”
As to the entity defendants, the Appellate Division agreed with the trial court that plaintiff’s NJCRA and §1983 claims against the State failed because it is not amenable to suit under either statute. The Court noted that the State is not subject to suit because it did not waive its sovereign immunity for either a 1983 or a NJCRA claim.
The Appellate Division also agreed that the prosecutor’s office was properly dismissed. A public entity may be held liable under the NJCRA or § 1983 if it causes harm through the “implementation of an official municipal policy which caused a constitutional violation.” The public entity cannot be held liable under the doctrine of respondeat superior. Liability can only be imposed “when the policy or custom itself violates the Constitution or when the policy or custom, while not unconstitutional itself, is the moving force behind a constitutional tort of one of its employees.” Where the policy or custom at issue is a failure to train or supervise, “the plaintiff must show that this failure amounts to deliberate indifference to the rights of persons with whom the municipality’s employees will come into contact.”
Here, plaintiff alleged generally that the prosecutor’s office had a custom of “condoning the actions of their agents, servants and/or employees by virtue of their training, supervision, policies, procedures, and/or directives.” However, the Appellate Division noted that this “conclusory, undetailed statement” did not identify any specific and constitutional component or how this custom was the “moving force” behind any allegedly tortious conduct. The plaintiff had alleged that all named prosecutor defendants “failed to follow proper and lawful guidelines, policies, procedures, and methods for conducting criminal investigations and prosecutions.” However, the Court found that plaintiff had failed to identify any specific training he claimed would be necessary nor any pattern of similar constitutional violations to put the prosecutor’s office on notice that a new training program was necessary. Hence, the Appellate Division agreed that the dismissal against the prosecutor’s office was proper.
However, the Appellate Division disagreed with the dismissal of the common law claims against the individual defendants. These claims were governed by the Tort Claims Act. The Appellate Division grouped the plaintiff’s allegations based upon the purported underlying conduct as the following:
(1) Improper charging and prosecution of plaintiff based on personal and/or political motives, (2) coercion of witnesses to lie or change their statements, (3) use of those false statement, (4) purposeful destruction of exculpatory evidence.
As for the allegations concerning charging and prosecuting plaintiff, the Court found that the individual defendants had immunity under N.J.S.A. 59:3-8 in which there was immunity for “instituting or prosecuting any judicial . . . proceeding within the scope of defendant’s employment.” As for pressuring witnesses to lie, the Court concluded that the record was insufficient for a determination whether defendants were entitled to Tort Claims Act immunity. The Appellate Division ruled that the plaintiff must specify each instance forming the basis for these claims and defendants may then renew their motion as appropriate.
As for the knowing use of false testimony before the grand jury and/or trial, the Court found that this claim, as pled, constituted willful misconduct. Thus, the two prosecutors were not entitled to immunity for this alleged willful misconduct. As for the allegation of destruction of exculpatory evidence, the Court found that the plaintiff did not provide any specific details as to how the prosecutors were involved. However, as to the investigator, the court found that the plaintiff had presented sufficient facts suggesting that he was not entitled to immunity for purportedly ordering and/or participating in the destruction of evidence. Thus, the Appelate Division found that the investigator Haviland was not entitled to prosecutorial immunity under the Tort Claims Act for allegedly destroying evidence.
As for the common law claims asserted against the entity defendants, the court noted that while a public entity may be held responsible for acts or omissions of its employees under a theory of respondeat superior under the Tort Claims Act, it is “not liable for an injury resulting from an act or omission of a public employee where the public employee is not liable.” Further, under N.J.S.A. 59:2-10, it is not liable “where the employee’s acts or omissions constitute a crime, actual fraud, actual misconduct.”
Thus, the Appellate Division ruled that to the extent it has determined that any of the individuals are entitled to immunity, neither the prosecutor’s office nor the State can be held liable on a respondeat theory related to those claims. Further, the Appellate Division ruled that to the extent any individual defendant engaged in willful misconduct or acted outside the scope of their employment such that they were not entitled to immunity, the entity defendants cannot be held liable for those actions.
The defendants also argued that the plaintiff’s complaint should be dismissed for failure to meet the verbal threshold under N.J.S.A. 59:9-2(d). Under this provision, no damages may be awarded against a public entity for pain and suffering, except for cases of “permanent loss of a bodily function, permanent disfigurement or dismemberment where the medical treatment expenses are in excess of $3,600.” Emotional distress is considered to be pain and suffering. However, where a public employee’s actions constitute willful misconduct, the plaintiff did not need to satisfy the verbal threshold.
The Appellate Division agreed that the record did not reflect medical treatments in excess of $3,600. However, based upon the allegation of the investigator’s purported destruction of evidence and the prosecutor’s alleged use of false testimony constituting willful misconduct, they found that the verbal threshold provision would be inapplicable.
In summary, the court agreed that all claims against the prosecutor’s office and the State were properly dismissed. Further, all claims based upon defendants’ allegedly improper motivation to prosecute the plaintiff, the constitutional claims based upon the defendants’ alleged known use of false testimony before the grand jury or at plaintiff’s trial, and all claims against the two prosecutors based upon their alleged destruction of evidence were all properly dismissed.
However, the Court reversed and vacated the dismissal against the investigator Haviland based upon his alleged destruction of evidence, all claims against the individual defendants based upon their alleged coercion of witnesses and the common law claims against the two prosecutors based upon their alleged presentation of false testimony to the grand jury and/or at trial. But, upon remand, the plaintiff was ordered “to provide specific details about the purported coercion, including the specific defendant(s) alleged to be involved, when the conduct occurred, and whether the witness later testified before the grand jury or at plaintiff’s trial.”
