Haywood v. City of Chicago

• Decision Date: 10 August 2004
• Docket Number: No. 03-3175.,03-3175.
• Citation: 378 F.3d 714
• Parties: David HAYWOOD, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF CHICAGO, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

378 F.3d 714

David HAYWOOD, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF CHICAGO, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 03-3175.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued March 30, 2004.

Decided August 10, 2004.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Matthew F. Kennelly, J.

Jon Loevy (argued), Loevy & Loevy, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Meera Werth (argued), Office of the Corporation Counsel, Chicago, IL, for Defendants-Appellees.

Before POSNER, RIPPLE, and MANION, Circuit Judges.

POSNER, Circuit Judge.

David Haywood brought suit for damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the City of Chicago and two of its police officers, charging false arrest and detention in violation of his federal constitutional rights. He appeals from the grant of the defendants' motion for summary judgment, and so we construe the facts as favorably to him as the record permits, simplifying them where possible.

When arrested, Haywood was employed by a pawnshop as an armed security guard. He was just beginning his commute to work from his home on Chicago's south side one day when the defendant police officers, Maras and Marozas, acting on a tip that Haywood was armed, pulled him over. They asked him where he was going; he explained that he was on his way to the pawnshop. They noticed that he had two guns with him; he told them he had papers that proved he was authorized to carry them and he showed them the papers. The papers included a firearm owner's identification card and a "blue card," which certifies eligibility to work for a licensed security agency, 225 ILCS 446/80 (2002), reenacted at 225 ILCS 447/35-30, but did not include either a Chicago gun registration certificate or a "tan card," which certifies that the cardholder, being employed by a licensed security agency (which Haywood probably was not, although this is uncertain) and having received firearms training, may carry a weapon while working or commuting. 225 ILCS 446/185(a), (b), (e) (2002), reenacted at 225 ILCS 447/35-35(a) through (d); 720 ILCS 5/24-2(a)(5). He also had a memo from the police department stating that individuals licensed by the state under the Private Detective, Private Alarm, Private Security, and Locksmith Act of 1993, 225 ILCS 446/1 et seq. (2002), do not have to register their weapons; Haywood probably was not licensed, but again this is uncertain. The officers arrested him, though apparently only because he failed to show them a Chicago gun registration certificate, the failure being "presumptive evidence that he [was] not authorized to possess such firearm." Chicago Municipal Code § 8-20-150. The officers seem to have been unaware that he should have had a tan card as well.

Haywood was jailed, and the next day taken before a state court judge for a probable-cause hearing. No one testified at the hearing. The only evidence submitted (besides the arrest report, on which the defendants no longer place any weight) to persuade the judge to find probable cause to detain Haywood was a complaint charging him with knowingly carrying a concealed, loaded firearm without a license, in violation of 720 ILCS 5/24-1.6(a)(1), (3)(A). He was not charged with having failed to register his guns; they may have been registered, though this is uncertain and he hadn't had a registration certificate with him when he was arrested.

In the space in the complaint for the "complainant's signature" appeared Officer Marozas's name, but in fact Maras had written the complaint and had signed Marozas's name to it. There was no indication of this anywhere in the document, however; nor did the prosecutor mention the fact, of which she may have been unaware, at the hearing. In the place in the complaint for a judge's or court clerk's signature (the "jurat " — Latin for "he swears"), attesting that Marozas had both signed the complaint and sworn to the truth of its contents, Maras had written and signed the name of still another police officer, Brumley. Chicago police officers are eligible to sign the jurat because they are appointed as deputy clerks of the Cook County circuit court. But Brumley, even if he'd signed the jurat, could not have truthfully sworn that Marozas had signed the complaint, because he hadn't.

On the basis of the complaint, the judge ruled that there was probable cause to hold Haywood, and it took the latter 10 days to raise bail money and get out of jail. The charge against him was later dropped. Haywood contends, and for purposes of ruling on summary judgment we must assume, that until the defendants began to prepare their defense against his suit neither the prosecutor, nor the police officers who had arrested Haywood, were aware that his failure to have a tan card was a crime.

He contends that the arrest violated his Fourth Amendment rights because it was not based on probable cause to believe he'd violated any law. The defendants counter with the principle that if arresting officers know facts that indicate that the person they arrested has committed a crime, the fact that they didn't know the legal significance of those facts does not invalidate the arrest. E.g., United States v. Reed, 349 F.3d 457, 462-63 (7th Cir.2003); Biddle v. Martin, 992 F.2d 673, 676-77 (7th Cir.1993); Richardson v. Bonds, 860 F.2d 1427, 1430-31 (7th Cir.1988); Bingham v. City of Manhattan Beach, 341 F.3d 939, 950-53 (9th Cir.2003). After all, they are not lawyers, and to award a criminal damages because, though he engaged in conduct that any legally trained observer would have noticed was criminal, he had the good fortune to be arrested by officers who didn't have the requisite training and so didn't know he had indeed committed a crime, would be to turn their mistake into his windfall.

The defendants point to two facts known (though their legal significance probably was not) to the officers that demonstrate probable cause to arrest Haywood. The first is that he was arrested at about 7:45 a.m., and when one of the officers called the pawnshop to verify Haywood's employment the person who answered the phone told him that Haywood's starting time was 9 a.m. It is illegal for a security guard to carry a weapon to and from work unless "such commuting is accomplished within one hour from departure from home or place of employment, as the case may be." 720 ILCS 5/24-2(a)(5). So if Haywood, having left his home sometime before 7:45 (in fact, he testified, at 7:39), would not arrive at work until 9, he would violate the one-hour rule. But the fact that Haywood's official start time is 9 a.m. is weak evidence that he wasn't planning to arrive until then. To be on time, one has to plan to arrive somewhat early (especially if the employee is expected to change into a uniform, or make other preparations, at his place of employment before actually beginning to work) — and in fact Haywood testified (and had told the arresting officers) that he was due at the pawnshop by 8:45. If that was the expectation, to satisfy it he would have to arrive a few minutes before then. If he arrived at 8:39, he would have been commuting for only an hour.

So there was only slight reason to think he was going to violate the one-hour rule. This was provided the police believed that he was expected to show up at work 15 minutes before his official starting time. But though they didn't have to believe him, they didn't call the pawnshop and learn about Haywood's 9 a.m. start time until after they had arrested him. So it was not a fact that they knew at the time of his arrest; and "what an arresting officer does not know is inadmissible to show that he had probable cause for the arrest — otherwise hindsight would validate every arrest of a person who turned out to be a criminal." Villanova v. Abrams, 972 F.2d 792, 799 (7th Cir.1992); see also Beck v. Ohio, 379 U.S. 89, 91, 85 S.Ct. 223, 13 L.Ed.2d 142 (1964); Thompson v. Wagner, 319 F.3d 931, 934-35 (7th Cir.2003); United States v. Copeland, 321 F.3d 582, 592-93 (6th Cir.2003).

We needn't resolve the one-hour issue, however, because there is still the missing tan card and its absence clearly created probable cause to arrest Haywood. Of course, not knowing that Haywood should have had a tan card, it is only in an attenuated sense that the officers can be said to have "known" that he did not have it. But he purported to exhibit to them the papers that authorized him to carry a gun, and a police officer who knew the law would have seen that the array was incomplete. See People v. Mourecek, 208 Ill.App.3d 87, 152 Ill.Dec. 964, 566 N.E.2d 841, 845-46 (1991).

So Haywood was arrested lawfully. But he could not, consistent with the Fourth Amendment, be continued in custody beyond 48 hours (with inapplicable exceptions) unless a judicial officer determined that there was probable cause to believe that he had committed a crime. County of Riverside v. McLaughlin, 500 U.S. 44, 56-57, 111 S.Ct. 1661, 114 L.Ed.2d 49 (1991); Chortek v. City of Milwaukee, 356 F.3d 740, 746 (7th Cir.2004); Kyle v. Patterson, 196 F.3d 695, 696 (7th Cir.1999); Luck v. Rovenstine, 168 F.3d 323, 324 (7th Cir.1999). The defendants argue, rather desperately as it seems to us, that although an arrest warrant may not be issued except on the basis of a sworn affidavit or other sworn testimony (the Fourth Amendment is explicit that "no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation"), a person may be detained indefinitely on the basis of an unsworn complaint; that anyway the complaint purportedly signed by Marozas was sworn, albeit falsely, or at least that "the complaint purports to be signed under penalty of perjury" (emphasis added) — whatever that means; that Marozas and Brumley consented to have their names forged; and that the practice of misrepresenting the names of the signing officer and notary is merely a "procedural shortcut" made "in the service of convenience." At oral argument the City of Chicago's...