United States Ninth Circuit

Summary judgment for defendants in 1983 action for false arrest, false imprisonment, and malicious prosecution is reversed and remanded, because plaintiff's action was not barred by the doctrine of issue preclusion, where: 1) even though a magistrate had found probable cause to believe that plaintiff committed attempted murder at a state court preliminary hearing, plaintiff raised a genuine dispute in his section 1983 action as to whether the lead detective on the case fabricated evidence by falsely testifying at the hearing that the victim had identified plaintiff as the shooter; 2) the identity-of-issues requirement for issue preclusion was not met because the evidence available and known to the detective was different from the evidence presented to the court at the preliminary hearing; and 3) the preliminary hearing did not decide whether the detective or the witness should be believed, and that was the issue plaintiff sought to litigate in his section 1983 action.

Appellate Information

• Decided 04/16/2013
• Published 04/16/2013

Judges

• WATFORD

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel