07-1345 David Joseph Munchinski v. Gerald Solomon

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
Nos. 06-4093 / 07-1345
DAVID JOSEPH MUNCHINSKI,
Appellant
v.
GERALD SOLOMON, in his official capacity
as District Attorney of Fayette County, Pennsylvania;
RALPH WARMAN, in his official capacities as
District Attorney and First Assistant District Attorney
of Fayette County, Pennsylvania; JOHN A. KOPAS, III,
in his official capacity as First Assistant District Attorney of
Fayette County, Pennsylvania; HUMPHREY LUKACHIK,
in his official capacity as Chief County Detective,
Fayette County, Pennsylvania;
GEORGE FAYOUCK, in his official capacity as Chief County
Detective, Fayette County, Pennsylvania;
ROBERT MANGIACARNE, in his official capacity as Chief
County Detective, Fayette County, Pennsylvania
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. Civil Action No. 05-cv-01125)
District Judge: Honorable David S. Cercone
Submitted Under Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)
September 28, 2007
Before: AMBRO, JORDAN and ROTH, Circuit Judges

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(Opinion filed October 26, 2007 )
OPINION
AMBRO, Circuit Judge
David Joseph Munchinski appeals the dismissal of his claims brought under 42
U.S.C. § 1983 and state tort law. At issue are the classification of prosecutors for
purposes of sovereign immunity, the application of Supreme Court precedent regarding
federal courts’ respect for state-court decisions, and the application of the statute of
limitations for § 1983 and state-tort claims. We affirm the District Court’s decision in all
respects.
I.
In 1986, Munchinski was convicted (at re-trial) for the 1977 murder of two men in
Fayette County, Pennsylvania. In October 2004, in a Post-Conviction Relief Act (PCRA)
proceeding, the Commonwealth Court of Common Pleas vacated Munchinski's conviction
because of prosecutorial misconduct. While Pennsylvania's appeal of that decision was
pending in state court, Munchinski brought an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against
appellees Gerald Solomon, Ralph Warman, John A. Kopas III, Humphrey Lukachik, and
Robert Mangiacarne in their official and individual capacities, and appellee George
Fayouck in his individual capacity. The first three appellees are former District Attorneys
and First Assistant District Attorneys. The latter three are retired detectives and police

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officers.
Munchinski alleged six violations of his constitutional rights under the Fourth,
Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments to our Constitution: false arrest, false imprisonment,
malicious prosecution, abuse of process, deprivation of his right to a fair trial, and
conspiracy to violate his civil rights. He also brought state tort claims for false arrest,
false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, and abuse of process. Finally, he alleged
municipal liability for all the torts involved.
After Munchinski filed his § 1983 claim in the United States District Court for the
Western District of Pennsylvania in August 2005, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania
reversed the decision of the Court of Common Pleas and reinstated Munchinski's
conviction. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania denied Munchinski's application for
appeal. Commonwealth v. Munchinski, 918 A.2d 744 (Pa. 2007). In August 2006, the
District Court granted appellees' motion to dismiss on all counts. In January 2007, it
denied Munchinski’s motion to take the deposition of Montgomery Goodwin, a witness in
ill health. Munchinski appeals these decisions.
II.
The District Court’s opinion rested on three grounds. First, Heck v. Humphrey,
512 U.S. 477 (1994), bars § 1983 claims that would challenge the validity of a state-court
conviction unless “the conviction or sentence has been reversed on direct appeal,
expunged by executive order, declared invalid by a state tribunal authorized to make such

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determination, or called into question by a federal court's issuance of a writ of habeas
corpus.” Id. at 486-87. Second, the counts not barred by Heck v. Humphrey were outside
the two-year statute of limitations for personal injury lawsuits in Pennsylvania that our
Court applies to § 1983 actions. Sameric Corp. of Delaware, Inc. v. City of Phila., 142
F.3d 582, 599 (3d Cir. 1998). Finally, Munchinski's claim of municipal liability failed to
state a claim on which relief can be granted because Warman and Solomon acted in their
prosecutorial capacity, not as municipal policymakers.
Munchinski appeals the District Court's decision and alleges that the District Court
erred: (1) in its reasoning on the municipal liability claim; (2) in failing to read the PCRA
court's decision as barring a new trial and granting his release; (3) by not applying
equitable estoppel; and (4) by denying him leave to depose Goodwin. We exercise
plenary review over Rule 12(b)(6) dismissals, “accepting all well-pleaded allegations as
true and drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of plaintiffs.” In re Adams Golf, Inc.
Secs. Litig., 381 F.3d 267, 273 (3d Cir. 2004). We review the District Court's decision
not to allow the deposition for abuse of discretion. See Gallas v. Supreme Court of Pa.,
211 F.3d 760, 778 (3d Cir. 2000).
The District Court correctly analyzed the role of the prosecutors in this case and
properly applied McMillan v. Monroe County, 520 U.S. 781 (1997). We agree that the
prosecutors' decisions were not Fayette County policy but rather were undertaken in the
course of their prosecutorial duties. As a result, the prosecutors have the benefit of

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Pennsylvania’s sovereign immunity and the District Court properly dismissed
Munchinski’s claim for municipal liability.
We also agree with the Court's reasoning that Heck v. Humphrey bars
Munchinski's claims of malicious prosecution and denial of a right to a fair trial, as well
as his conspiracy claim, state-tort claims, and municipal liability claim to the extent they
rely on the invalidity of his conviction. The Pennsylvania Superior Court decision
reversing the PCRA court's decision makes moot Munchinski’s second argument to the
contrary. Regardless whether the PCRA court barred a new trial, Munchinski no longer
has a favorable final result in a state-court proceeding that would allow his claims to
survive the bar of Heck.
We choose not to apply equitable estoppel in this case because we find
Munchinski's reasoning unpersuasive. The District Court concluded that the statute of
limitations barred Munchinski's allegations of false arrest, false imprisonment, and abuse
of process, as well as his conspiracy, state-tort, and municipal-liability claims to the
extent they do not rely on the invalidity of his conviction. Even if the statute of
limitations ran from the time Munchinski discovered the evidence that appellees allegedly
withheld (rather than the time of the withholding), arguably as late as 2001, Munchinski
failed to file his § 1983 claims within two years of that discovery, waiting until August
2005. Munchinski protests that prosecutorial misconduct is the very source of his delay
in filing these claims. But the reason for the delay in discovering the alleged misconduct

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This might seem to put Munchinski between a rock and a hard place, requiring him to1
wait for some of his claims to ripen (conditional on a favorable state-court outcome) and
to avoid delay in filing any claims not barred by Heck v. Humphrey. But Munchinski’s
position was far from impossible. One possible legal strategy would have been to file all
of his § 1983 and state-tort claims in federal court within two years of the discovery of the
alleged prosecutorial misconduct. Once the case was filed and the appellees put on
notice, the District Court could have stayed the entire case while the state-court
proceedings played out or ruled only on the claims not barred by Heck while staying the
remaining claims. But the timing of Munchinski’s complaint here—waiting for a
favorable state-court outcome before filing any of his claims—cannot succeed with
respect to the claims not barred by Heck. That delay does not satisfy the statute of
limitations and does not respect the well-known policies behind it, such as notice and
repose.
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has nothing to do with the timing of his legal actions once that discovery had been made.1
Finally, because Munchinski's claims are barred and because we do not apply
equitable estoppel in this case, we do not believe that the District Judge abused his
discretion in not allowing Goodwin’s deposition. The deposition could not affect the
outcome in this case, since it could not overcome the impediments of Heck v. Humphrey
and the statute of limitations.
* * * * *
For these reasons, we affirm the District Court's decision to dismiss Munchinski's
§ 1983 claims against all appellees.

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