The City of Utica, the Utica Police Department and UPD officers recently won two Appeals to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Both lawsuits involved alleged federal civil rights violations of Stephen Patterson and Willie Walker which were dismissed by the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York in 2014 and 2015, respectively. Additionally, the Second Circuit had ruled on a prior motion, by the City Defendants, to hear the cases “in tandem”, meaning one right after the other.
The first appeal was brought by Pro Se Plaintiff Stephen Patterson which challenged the District Court’s 2014 sixty-four page Memorandum-Decision and Order that dismissed false arrest, malicious prosecution and unlawful entry claims occurring on October 10, 2009, October 24, 2009 and January 1, 2010 concerning an establishment at 315 Nichols Street commonly referred to as Petes. The District Court’s ruling and judgment in favor of the Utica Police Department was affirmed in its entirety by the Second Circuit.
The second appeal was brought by Pro Se Plaintiff Willie Walker which challenged the District Court’s 2015 thirty-two page Memorandum-Decision and Order that dismissed false arrest, malicious prosecution and unlawful entry claims occurring on October 24, 2009 and January 1, 2010 concerning an establishment at 315 Nichols Street commonly referred to as Petes. The District Court’s ruling in favor of the Utica Police Department was also affirmed in its entirety by the Second Circuit.
All of the Defendants were represented by the Corporation Counsel’s Office for the City of Utica with Assistant Corporation Counsel Zachary C. Oren as lead attorney. The Office would like to thank the Oneida County Print Shop for printing the Walker appeal, which was almost a 1,000 pages long, at a much-discounted rate, which saved the City money on printing costs.