The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on Wednesday heard arguments from a former city man who is seeking to hold the city liable for an $8 million judgment for wrongful conviction he won against two city police officers in 2022.
Natale Cosenza, a former city man jailed for 16 years on a later-vacated armed burglary conviction, has been trying to collect on the $8 million judgment since shortly after it was issued.
Wednesday’s hearing represented what his lawyers wrote in court documents might be the “only way” he receives compensation on the judgment, as a complicated turn of events has frustrated his efforts to collect.
The hearing centered on whether the federal judge who heard the case in Worcester, Timothy Hillman, erred in dismissing the City of Worcester as a defendant in the case prior to trial.
While the federal civil jury ruled Cosenza had been wrongfully convicted based on fabricated and suppressed evidence, Hillman ruled prior to trial that legal standards only allowed the two officers, Kerry Hazelhurst and John Doherty, to be put on trial — not the city.
Cosenza’s lawyers appealed that ruling Wednesday, arguing the city should be held liable as a defendant during a second trial because it did not have proper policies in place governing the issues at play in the case.
The lawyers and the city, on Wednesday and in hundreds of pages of briefings in the Appeals Court, argued over whether the city bore liability, with the city arguing Hillman’s original ruling was correct.
A three-justice panel of the U.S. Appeals Court tersely questioned the lawyers Wednesday in a hearing that, adhering to that court’s practice, lasted only about half an hour, official audio shows .
The Appeals Court judges, during a highly technical argument in which they cut off the lawyers multiple times, asked for clarification on a number of the arguments and contentions in the case.
Their ruling will be pivotal to the case as a result of a string of legal issues surrounding the judgment that have prevented Cosenza from collecting from the officers.
While the judgment was for $8 million, the city's lack of liability made the prospect of collecting large sums from two police officers difficult.
Cities are typically allowed to indemnify officers on court judgments at up to $1 million per officer. However, the city in this case argued that a $30,000 award for punitive damages prevented it from doing so under state law.
A civil rights lawyer the T&G consulted opined the decision by Cosenza’s out-of-state lawyers to seek punitive damages was ill-advised , but also one that lawyers for the officers, whose representation was paid by the city, might have considered drawing their attention to.
A lawyer for Hazelhurst and Doherty has alleged to the T&G that his clients were not properly advised in the case, allegations a lawyer for their lawyers denied.
The two officers ended up, in order to avoid efforts to garnish their wages and attach their properties, settling with Cosenza.
The terms of that settlement were that the officers dropped their appeal of the jury verdict, and also assigned any rights, including malpractice rights, against their city-funded lawyers to Cosenza .
It was unclear from Wednesday’s hearing whether Cosenza has filed a malpractice suit, and Cosenza’s lawyer, Steve Art, did not consent to an interview for this story.
A lawyer representing Worcester, Douglas Radigan, said Thursday the city would not comment, citing the ongoing litigation.
Court papers indicate the two sides’ arguments largely boil down to a disagreement over whether Worcester’s policies at the time of Cosenza’s 2000 conviction were deficient enough to meet a series of complicated legal standards.
Cosenza’s lawyers argued that evidence in the record showed the city had woefully deficient policies in 2000 — including a complete lack of written policies on witness identification and interviews — that met the legal standard needed to hold it liable.
The city, while not contesting a lack of written policies in several pertinent policy areas, argued that Hillman correctly ruled Cosenza had not met the high legal bar needed to prove the city bore responsibility.
In court papers and in arguments Wednesday, the city did not dispute that Hazelhurst and Doherty had committed misconduct.
In one court brief, it argued it was “undisputed that the City had some trainings and policies in place and that the Officers did not comply with them.”
The city wrote that Cosenza “has simply worked backwards with the benefit of hindsight and relied solely on the improper actions of the Officers who investigated him to attempt to hold the City vicariously liable for the Officers’ actions.”
Cosenza’s lawyers disputed such arguments, writing in court briefs that there are genuine questions over what policies the city did or did not have that have bearing on the question of the city’s liability.
The lawyers argued the city never produced sufficient evidence that officers were properly trained on the procedures implicated in the case, and said its expert showed the city, at the time of Cosenza’s trial, should have known its policies were deficient.
“A jury could conclude based on the evidence … that Worcester had no policies whatsoever,” Cosenza's lawyers argued, and that, as their expert opined, the lack of guidance created an atmosphere conducive to police misconduct.
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Man who served 16 years after wrongful conviction now battling Worcester in federal court
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