Case against prosecutor for retaliation over forfeiture advances

A ruling from the Michigan Court of Appeals means that a prosecutor in Wayne County now must face a court case that charges him with retaliation against a resident for challenging the county’s money-making car forfeiture scheme.

It is the Institute for Justice that explained Robert Reeves sued the county and prosecutor Dennis Doherty.

The decision clears the way for Reeves’s First Amendment and malicious prosecution claims to proceed through the court system.

“Today’s decision sends a powerful message: When government officials abuse their authority to silence critics, they don’t get a free pass,” explained Kirby Thomas West, a lawyer with IJ. “Robert stood up to Wayne County’s unconstitutional forfeiture program, and today the court has confirmed that he has a right to hold the prosecutor accountable for retaliating against him for taking that stand.”

Reeves charged that Doherty twice dragged him into baseless criminal proceedings “to punish him for challenging the county’s civil forfeiture machine,” the IJ explained.

And the court rejected the prosecutor’s claim of absolute immunity, concluding “the assistant prosecutor can be sued for using the criminal process as a tool of retaliation.”

The appeals court explained what had happened.

“After Robert Reeves challenged Wayne County’s controversial civil forfeiture program in federal court, he says the County retaliated—reviving a dormant criminal case and selectively prosecuting him for bringing that suit. The charges against Reeves were ultimately dismissed (twice) for lack of evidence. This appeal asks whether Reeves’s claims of retaliatory prosecution can survive governmental immunity and pleading challenges.”

It said, “Doherty’s immunity turns on the legal character of the conduct alleged—an issue that can be resolved on the face of the original pleadings. Plaintiff alleged that Doherty contacted the new officer in charge of the task force to seek clarification, recommended submission of the warrant request, and directed the officer in charge to file that request. Those allegations suggest that Doherty’s conduct was aimed at reviving a dormant prosecution and falls within the category of investigative or administrative acts, not quasi-judicial ones. Because the alleged conduct is not protected by absolute immunity, the trial court erred in dismissing the claims against Doherty on that basis.”

The fight developed when Javone Williams—an associate with whom plaintiff had previously worked—asked him to meet at a job site, where plaintiff demonstrated that he knew how to operate a skid-steer loader.

“Plaintiff then drove to a nearby gas station, where he was stopped by officers assigned to a Michigan State Police task force investigating thefts of rental equipment from Home Depot. Officers questioned plaintiff about the skid-steer loader, detained him briefly in a local jail, and then released him without filing charges.”

They also grabbed his 1991 Chevrolet Camaro and $2,280 in cash, which were retained as part of “omnibus forfeiture proceedings” submitted to the Wayne County Prosecutor.

Later in 2019 police sought arrest warrants for several individuals, including plaintiff and Williams, but did not follow through with them.

The next year, plaintiff helped lead a federal class action challenging the constitutionality of Wayne County’s forfeiture program, the ruling said.

The day after the case was filed, the county directed state police to release the assets seized from him.

And that same day, Doherty “instigated” a filing for which Doherty again was arrested, leading to a district court to dismiss the charges for lack of evidence.

A second filing also was dismissed sometime later.

The IJ explained the forfeiture scheme was a “controversial legal tool called civil forfeiture” because it let the county confiscate private property without charging any crime.

The IJ said, “While today’s ruling does not end the litigation, it breathes new life into Reeves’s quest to expose the county’s vendetta and to secure damages for the years-long cloud that wrongful felony charges cast over his life and his landmark effort to reform forfeiture in Detroit.”