Garcia v. City of Chicago, Ill.

• Decision Date: 15 August 1994
• Docket Number: No. 92-4090,92-4090
• Citation: 24 F.3d 966
• Parties: Rafael GARCIA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, Anna Gall, County of Cook, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 966

24 F.3d 966

Rafael GARCIA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, Anna Gall, County of Cook, et

al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 92-4090.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued Nov. 2, 1993.

Decided May 19, 1994.

Rehearing and Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc Denied Aug. 15, 1994.

John B. Cashion, Chicago, IL (argued), for Rafael Garcia.

Diane Larsen, Robert W. Barber, Asst. Corp. Counsel, (argued), Office of Corp. Counsel, Lawrence Rosenthal, Deputy Corporate Counsel, Frederick S. Rhine, Asst. Corp. Counsel (argued), Kelly R. Welsh, Asst. Corp. Counsel, Geri L. Yanow, Benna R. Solomon, Office of Corp. Counsel, Appeals Div., Chicago, IL, for City of Chicago, IL and Anna Gall.

David R. Butzen, Connie R. Barba, Terry L. McDonald, Asst. State Atty., Office of State's Atty., of Cook County, Federal Litigation Div., Chicago, IL, for County of Cook, C. Richard English, Jack O'Malley and Michael F. Sheahan.

Before WOOD, Jr., CUDAHY, and MANION, Circuit Judges.

HARLINGTON WOOD, JR., Circuit Judge.

On March 15, 1991, Chicago Police Officer Anna Gall arrested Rafael Garcia, who at the time was on probation for two felonies and had an outstanding bond forfeiture warrant, for possession of a controlled substance. Officer Gall had discovered by Garcia's feet a plastic bag containing a white, powdery substance, but did not test the substance before making the arrest. In the process of arresting Garcia, Gall struck him in the head with her flashlight, ¹ and the police took Garcia to St. Mary of Nazareth Hospital for treatment of his injuries. The next day a hearing took place in the Circuit Court of Cook County (the Gerstein hearing) ² to determine whether probable cause existed to detain Garcia.

At that time, Garcia remained hospitalized under twenty-four hour guard and therefore was unable to attend the Gerstein hearing. ³ Instead, a Public Defender represented Garcia at the hearing and asked for reasonable bond on his behalf. The prosecutor petitioned the court to issue a warrant and set bail for Garcia's violation of probation. The court found probable cause to detain Garcia, and set his bond for violating probation and possessing a controlled substance.

On March 18, while Garcia remained hospitalized, the court set a preliminary hearing for April 10. St. Mary of Nazareth Hospital released Garcia on March 20, and personnel from the Sheriff's office immediately placed Garcia, who did not make bond, in custody at the Cook County Jail. On March 26, the Chicago Police Department laboratory tested the powder and found it to be negative for any controlled substances. The laboratory communicated that information to the State's Attorney's office, and at the preliminary hearing on April 10, Judge Mary Maxwell Thomas granted the prosecutor's request for a nolle prosequi. On April 12, the court reinstated Garcia's probation status. Cook County Jail released Garcia on April 15.

Garcia then filed this lawsuit for money damages in the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Garcia's first amended complaint named as defendants Officer Gall, the City of Chicago, the Cook County Department of Corrections, Director of the Cook County Department of Corrections C. Richard English, Cook County State's Attorney Jack O'Malley, and Cook County Sheriff Michael F. Sheahan. Garcia claimed that: (1) the Gerstein hearing was inadequate because he was not brought before the judge, due to his hospitalization; (2) Gall used excessive force against him and did not have probable cause to arrest him; (3) O'Malley, Sheahan, and English were responsible for detaining him without probable cause; and (4) the City of Chicago's procedures for testing substances seized as narcotics were constitutionally inadequate. All defendants filed dispositive motions in response to Garcia's complaint.

The district court dismissed State's Attorney O'Malley and the Cook County Department of Corrections based on Eleventh Amendment immunity from civil liability, and dismissed all of Garcia's Gerstein claims; the court did not dismiss Sheriff Sheahan and Director English because that issue was not before the court. Garcia then filed a motion to reconsider, as well as a motion to file a second amended complaint that in essence repeated the Gerstein claims from the first amended complaint. Sheahan and English filed a motion for summary judgment. The district court denied both of Garcia's motions, and dismissed Sheahan and English.

Garcia then filed a motion to file a third amended complaint, which included new claims against the City of Chicago and Officer Gall, but included none of the other defendants. The district court granted the motion, and the City of Chicago and Gall moved to dismiss counts three through six of the complaint, which the district court granted. Counts I and II, for excessive force and false arrest, named only Gall as the defendant. Gall and Garcia settled those claims for $25,000, and Garcia reserved the right to appeal earlier rulings of the district court. Garcia now appeals from the dismissals of O'Malley, Sheahan, and English, the denial of leave to file his second amended complaint, and the dismissals of the fifth and sixth counts of his third amended complaint, which alleged that the City's procedures for testing substances to determine if they are controlled were constitutionally deficient.

A. Defendant O'Malley

The Eleventh Amendment prohibits federal courts from deciding suits brought by private litigants against states or their agencies, and that prohibition extends to state officials acting in their official capacities. Will v. Michigan Dept. of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 71, 109 S.Ct. 2304, 2312, 105 L.Ed.2d 45 (1989). Whether a particular official is the legal equivalent of the State itself is a question of that State's law, Santiago v. Daley, 744 F.Supp. 845, 845 & n. 1 (N.D.Ill.1990), and the Illinois Supreme Court decided in 1990 that State's Attorneys are state officials. Ingemunson v. Hedges, 133 Ill.2d 364, 140 Ill.Dec. 397, 400, 549 N.E.2d 1269, 1272 (1990) (State's Attorneys are state, not county, officials); see also Scott v. O'Grady, 975 F.2d 366, 371 (7th Cir.1992) (those who prosecute cases pursuant to state statute are state officials for the purposes of constitutional liability); Santiago, 744 F.Supp. at 845-46. Because O'Malley was acting in his official capacity as Cook County State's Attorney, Garcia cannot recover money damages from him.

Garcia does argue that he is entitled to injunctive relief from O'Malley, and the Eleventh Amendment provides no shield against such requests. Will, 491 U.S. at 71, 109 S.Ct. at 2312. When Garcia requested injunctive relief in his second amended complaint, however, Cook County jail had already released him from their custody, and Garcia alleged no facts to show that he was in danger of being arrested in the future and detained in a similar manner. See City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95, 101-02, 103 S.Ct. 1660, 1664-65, 75 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983) (no standing to seek injunction if not in danger of being arrested and subjected to future mistreatment). Thus, the district court correctly dismissed O'Malley.

B. The Gerstein Claims

Garcia's only claims for relief against defendants Sheahan and English relate to his inability to be present at the probable cause hearing held the day after Officer Gall arrested him. Garcia also named the City of Chicago and Cook County in those claims. ⁴ The Fourth Amendment, however, does not require that probable cause hearings be adversarial in nature, Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 121-22, 95 S.Ct. 854, 866-67, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1975); the Fourth Amendment allows the issuance of warrants in the absence of the arrestees, and its scope does not expand for probable cause determinations that take place after arrests. Id. at 120, 95 S.Ct. at 866; see also McLaughlin v. County of Riverside, 888 F.2d 1276 (9th Cir.1989) ("Those arrested with a warrant have not attended the probable cause determination made before issuance of the warrant. We perceive no basis for holding that the fourth amendment grants warrantless arrestees such a right."). The record in this case demonstrates that Garcia, who never contended that he was physically capable of leaving the hospital, received a timely and constitutionally sufficient probable cause hearing in which an attorney represented Garcia without objection by Garcia. The district court therefore correctly dismissed the City of Chicago, Cook County, Sheahan, and English notwithstanding Garcia's inability to attend the hearing.

C. The Second Amended Complaint

We must ask whether the district court abused its discretion when it denied Garcia leave to amend his complaint. See Bower v. Jones, 978 F.2d 1004, 1008 (7th Cir.1992). A district court does not abuse its discretion in denying leave to amend if the proposed repleading would be futile, DeSalle v. Wright, 969 F.2d 273, 278 (7th Cir.1992), and futile repleadings include restating the same facts using different language, Wakeen v. Hoffman House, Inc., 724 F.2d 1238, 1244 (7th Cir.1983), reasserting claims previously determined, id., failing to state a valid theory of liability, Verhein v. South Bend Lathe, Inc., 598 F.2d 1061, 1063 (7th Cir.1979), and the inability to survive a motion to dismiss, Glick v. Koenig, 766 F.2d 265, 268 (7th Cir.1985).

Garcia's second amended complaint reiterated his excessive force and Fourth Amendment claims against the City of Chicago and Officer Gall, and restated the Gerstein claims the district court had dismissed previously. The district court reasoned that because the second amended complaint stated no new claims, it was futile, and the district court therefore denied Garcia leave to amend his complaint. That decision, far from being an abuse of discretion, stood on firm legal ground.

D. The Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment Claims

Garcia argues that the Fourth Amendment...