USCA1 Opinion
October 13, 1994
[NOT FOR PUBLICATION]
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
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No. 94-1660
JOHN YATES,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
MICHAEL A. GAWEL,
Defendant, Appellee.
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APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND
[Hon. Ernest C. Torres, U.S. District Judge]
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Before
Cyr, Circuit Judge,
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Bownes, Senior Circuit Judge, and
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Stahl, Circuit Judge.
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Arthur E. Chatfield, III on brief for appellant.
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Marc DeSisto and Kathleen Powers, on brief for appellee.
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Per Curiam. Appellant John Yates appeals the granting
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of judgment as a matter of law to appellee Officer Michael
Gawel of the Foster Police Department on appellant's claims
of civil rights violations, due to appellee's alleged
malicious prosecution and false arrest of appellant, and
appellant's state law claim of malicious prosecution. We
affirm.
Judgment as a matter of law was properly granted on
appellant's claim for malicious prosecution under 42 U.S.C.
1983 because appellant failed to show that he had suffered a
deprivation of either his substantive or procedural due
process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. See Senra v.
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Cunningham, 9 F.3d 168, 173 (1st Cir. 1993). Appellant
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produced no evidence, such as that he had been physically
abused, detained or prosecuted on racial or political
grounds, which would support a jury finding that he had
suffered a substantive due process violation.1 See id. His
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failure to demonstrate that the Rhode Island state law remedy
for malicious prosecution was inadequate to rectify any harm
he might have suffered is fatal to his procedural due process
claim. Id.
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1. Moreover, the recent Supreme Court case of Albright v.
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Oliver, 114 S.Ct. 807 (1994), "would appear virtually to
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foreclose reliance on substantive due process as the basis
for a viable malicious prosecution claim under section 1983."
Perez-Ruiz v. Crespo-Guillen, 25 F.3d 40, 42 (1st Cir. 1994).
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To establish a claim of malicious prosecution under
Rhode Island state law, appellant needed to prove, inter
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alia, that Officer Gawel lacked probable cause to initiate a
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criminal proceeding against him. Id. at 174. Such a finding
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was precluded in the instant case, by the fact that appellant
had previously been found guilty of the criminal charge in
question after trial in the Rhode Island District Court.
Even though this verdict was reversed after a jury trial in
the Rhode Island Superior Court, the determination by the
Rhode Island District Court is nevertheless determinative on
the issue of probable cause under Rhode Island law. See Nagy
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v. McBurney, 120 R.I. 925, 931, 392 A.2d 365, 368 (1978) ("a
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judicial determination by a court of original jurisdiction in
favor of the person who initiated . . . proceedings is
generally held to be conclusive evidence of probable cause,
even though that determination is ultimately reversed on
appeal, unless it is shown to have been obtained by fraud or
other imposition upon the court") (citing cases).
Finally, Gawel presented sufficient, uncontradicted
evidence to demonstrate that he had a reasonable belief that
probable cause existed to arrest appellant. Therefore, Gawel
was entitled as a matter of law to qualified immunity from
the claim that he had violated appellant's civil rights
through a false arrest. See Ricci v. Urso, 974 F.2d 5, 7
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(1st Cir. 1992).
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Affirmed.
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