Amore v. Novarro

On October 19, 2001, Andrew Novarro (defendant), a New York police officer serving undercover, was approached by Joseph Amore (plaintiff), who offered to perform a sexual act on Novarro. Novarro identified himself as a police officer and told Amore that he was being charged with loitering for the purpose of deviant sexual activity. Novarro looked up the violation in the New York Penal Law booklet during the arrest. The charge was later dismissed because the loitering statute pursuant to which Amore had been charged had been declared unconstitutional in 1983. Novarro was unaware that the statute had been declared unconstitutional at the time he arrested Amore. Despite the declaration that the law was unconstitutional, New York had never repealed the law, which continued to appear in the New York Penal Code. Amore filed a civil-rights complaint against Novarro, seeking damages for false arrest, malicious prosecution, abuse of process, and violation of the right to equal protection. The district court dismissed all of Amore’s claims except for the false-arrest claim, holding that Novarro did not have probable cause to arrest Amore under a law that had been declared unconstitutional. As part of the ruling, the court held that Novarro was not entitled to qualified immunity because it was unreasonable for Novarro to have believed that the arrest was lawful. Novarro appealed the court’s determination that he was not entitled to qualified immunity.