The appeals court said it was “beyond debate” the tactics the defendants used to identify a suspect violated the accused suspect’s rights.
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — Two San Francisco police inspectors charged with fabricating evidence and maliciously prosecuting a man who served more than 30 years in prison for a crime he did not commit are not protected by federal immunity, a federal appeals court panel ruled Friday.
In a 2-1 decision, the appeals panel said it was clearly established that San Francisco Police Department Inspectors James Crowley and Arthur Gerrans’ conduct violated Joaquin Ciria’s due process right not to be charged on the basis of false evidence that was deliberately fabricated by the government.
The panel also affirmed a reasonable jury could find Crowley and Gerrans lacked probable cause to arrest and charge Ciria with the murder of his friend Felix Bastarrica.
“Officers do not need a case on point to know that it is unlawful to charge first-degree murder principally on the basis of a single coerced and false statement, particularly when the only other available evidence is rumor and a weak match to a generic physical description,” Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Richard A. Paez wrote for the majority.
Ciria was 29 when he was charged and convicted of first-degree murder in the shooting death of Bastarrica in 1990. According to the San Francisco District Attorney’s Innocence Commission, the defendants threatened to charge George Varela, the star witness of Ciria’s criminal trial and accomplice to the actual shooter, with murder if he did not identify Ciria as the shooter they were looking for.
Ciria was officially exonerated in 2022 at the age of 61 after spending most of his life behind bars. In the same year, he sued the city, claiming officials deprived him of his civil rights by fabricating evidence “despite obvious evidence of his innocence.”
In the majority opinion, Paez, a Bill Clinton appointee, wrote that even in 1990, it was “beyond debate” that feeding a witness a fabricated story naming Ciria constituted fabricating evidence, and that fabricating evidence violated Ciria’s constitutional rights.
“Any reasonable officer would know that threatening a young witness and offering him a story that insulates him from liability to get him to falsely implicate a suspect violates the accused suspect’s due process rights,” Paez said.
The panel also found the law at the time also gave the defendants “fair warning” they lacked probable cause to arrest and charge Ciria with first-degree murder.
Paez noted there was no physical evidence linking Ciria to the crime, no one had placed him at the scene of the crime, and no eyewitness could identify him as the shooter. Further, he said the officers knew of at least one person who matched the description of the shooter, but did not investigate him.
“Considering this evidence as a whole, viewed in the light most favorable to Ciria, a reasonable jury could find that there was less than a ‘fair probability’ that Ciria was the shooter,” he said.
Senior Circuit Judge Mary M. Schroeder, a Jimmy Carter appointee, joined Paez in the majority.
U.S. Circuit Judge Eric D. Miller, a Trump appointee, dissented, finding the defendants should be entitled to qualified immunity. Miller said that even if the defendants violated Ciria’s constitutional rights, he could not show the relevant rights were established at the time of the investigation in 1990.
In a statement to Courthouse News, George Harris of the Norton Law Firm said they were pleased with the court’s ruling and are proceeding towards trial.
“We look forward to presenting our case and seeking some compensation for Mr. Ciria’s 32 years of wrongful imprisonment,” he said.
Jen Kwart, the communications director for San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu, told Courthouse News they were disappointed by the court’s ruling and were reviewing the decision to determine any appropriate next steps.
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