Marshall Dennehey Attorneys Obtained Dismissal of a Police Department and Six of Its Officers in Civil Rights Case

The plaintiff was engaged in a drug transaction on the street when uniformed officers who were watching approached him from a block away. When the plaintiff jumped into his car and sped away through residential streets in the middle of the day, the officers wisely abandoned the pursuit and obtained an arrest warrant for the plaintiff. After his acquittal, the plaintiff brought a malicious prosecution claim against the officers. Finding that the officers did the right thing in ending the pursuit and instead seeking a warrant, the judge also held that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity and that it was the District Attorney, not the Police Department, that pursued criminal charges against the plaintiff.