Steidl v. Fermon

• Decision Date: 18 July 2007
• Docket Number: No. 06-2017.,06-2017.
• Citation: 494 F.3d 623
• Parties: Gordon STEIDL, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Steven M. FERMON, Diane Carper, Charles E. Brueggemann, et al., Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

494 F.3d 623

Gordon STEIDL, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Steven M. FERMON, Diane Carper, Charles E. Brueggemann, et al., Defendants-Appellants.

No. 06-2017.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued December 5, 2006.

Decided July 18, 2007.

G. Flint Taylor (argued), People's Law Office, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Iain D. Johnston (argued), Holland & Knight, Chicago, IL, Karen L. McNaught,

Office of the Attorney General, Springfield, IL, for Defendants-Appellants.

Before FLAUM, WOOD, and EVANS, Circuit Judges.

WOOD, Circuit Judge.

Gordon "Randy" Steidl spent more than seventeen years in jail for a double homicide that he insists he did not commit. What makes this even worse is the fact (according to Steidl) that from the outset Illinois state police officers knowingly possessed and concealed evidence of his innocence, and they never disclosed this evidence to him, throughout his trial, his appeals, and most of his post-conviction proceedings. Steidl was finally released in 2004 after a federal district court, concluding that "acquittal was reasonably probable if the jury had heard all of the evidence," granted his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Steidl v. Walls, 267 F.Supp.2d 919, 940 (C.D.Ill.2003). Following his release from prison, Steidl brought a suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Illinois police officers Steven M. Fermon, Diane Carper, Charles E. Brueggemann, Andre Parker and Kenneth Kaupus and others for violating his due process right to be told about exculpatory evidence in accordance with Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963).

The wrinkle in this case is the fact that the present five defendants (to whom we refer as the ISP Officials) were not involved in Steidl's case during its earlier stages. While Steidl's post-conviction proceeding was pending in state appellate court, however, they did learn about the existing exculpatory evidence and that the state had possessed this evidence all along. Rather than advise the state appellate court that the state had prosecuted the wrong man, the defendants kept mum and took steps actively to conceal the exculpatory evidence.

Faced with Steidl's § 1983 suit, the defendants moved to dismiss on the basis of qualified immunity; the district court denied their motion; and this interlocutory appeal followed. As things now stand, Steidl is relying on two theories for recovery: in Count II he claims that he was deprived of a fair trial and was wrongfully convicted because the ISP Officials concealed exculpatory evidence from the courts during his post-conviction proceedings; in Count III he claims that he was denied proper access to the courts. We agree with the district court that the Brady line of cases has clearly established a defendant's right to be informed about exculpatory evidence throughout the proceedings, including appeals and authorized post-conviction procedures, when that exculpatory evidence was known to the state at the time of the original trial. Steidl is thus entitled to proceed under his first theory. We conclude, however, that the ISP Officials were entitled to qualified immunity on the access-to-courts theory.

I

We begin, as we frequently do, with the question of our jurisdiction over this appeal. "`Under the collateral order doctrine the district court's denial of [a] motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity is an immediately appealable `final decision' within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 1291 to the extent that it turns on legal rather than factual questions.'" Via v. La Grand, 469 F.3d 618, 622 (7th Cir.2006), quoting from Wernsing v. Thompson, 423 F.3d 732, 741 (7th Cir. 2005). As we explained in Borello v. Allison, 446 F.3d 742 (7th Cir.2006),

[t]he Court's jurisdiction extends to interlocutory appeals such as this one challenging a district court's determination that a set of facts demonstrate a violation of "clearly established" constitutional law and preclude the defendants from proffering a qualified immunity defense. When deciding whether a public official is entitled to qualified immunity, we simply assume the disputed facts in the light most favorable [to the plaintiff], and then decide, under those facts, whether the [defendants] violated any of [the plaintiff's] clearly established constitutional rights.

Id. at 747 (internal citations and quotations omitted). See also Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001).

Taking the facts in that light, the following story emerges. Steidl is innocent of the crimes for which he was convicted in 1987. He spent 17 years in prison, including 12 on death row, for the July 1986 murders of Dyke and Karen Rhoads and for arson. The investigation that led to his conviction was conducted by police chief Gene Ray of Paris, Illinois, with the help of lead detective James Parrish, Edgar County State's Attorney Michael McFatridge, and Illinois State Police investigator Jack Eckerty. These men are defendants in this case, but they are not parties to this interlocutory appeal. Together, they ignored evidence that would have demonstrated Steidl's innocence, including especially a credible lead pointing to an influential Paris businessman (called John Doe here) and some of his employees as the guilty parties. Ray, Parrish, McFatridge, and Eckerty based their case against Steidl on the coerced testimony of two unstable witnesses. Ray and his team also elicited false inculpatory statements from other witnesses, including a compensated jailhouse informant. No one turned over any exculpatory evidence to Steidl throughout his trial, appeal, or post-conviction proceeding. Some of the available evidence would have shredded the state's case, such as the fact that one of the state's witnesses named "Jim and Ed" as the perpetrators.

In April 2000, the Illinois State Police assigned Lieutenant Michale Callahan to review the Rhoads murders. Callahan discovered much of the evidence in the file that had been available to Eckerty and the other original investigators and recognized immediately that it was exculpatory. In a memorandum on May 17, 2000, he listed fact after fact that undermined the credibility of the state's witnesses and identified John Doe as the suspect who "was at one time and should still be the focus of the investigation." Doe, Callahan's memo noted, had made significant campaign contributions to high-ranking elected officials in the area. Neither the information Callahan uncovered nor his memorandum was disclosed to Steidl, despite the fact that the post-trial proceedings in Steidl's case were not yet over. Instead, Callahan circulated the memo to three of the present appellants: Carper, Parker and Fermon. Callahan wrote additional memos to those three in July 2000 and August 2001; these too spelled out exculpatory evidence in the state's possession. Defendant Brueggemann was informed about some of the exculpatory evidence at this time. The memos admitted that the exculpatory evidence was never disclosed to Steidl because "McFatridge did not want any negative reports." At one point during his investigation, Callahan interviewed Eckerty's wife, who offered him a houseboat to spare Eckerty's career.

Carper, Parker, Fermon, and Brueggemann, newly aware of the exculpatory evidence, actively blocked a full investigation into Doe and instructed Callahan to focus on other work. They also enlisted defendant Kaupas to help discredit Callahan's conclusions. As before, neither Steidl nor his lawyers learned anything of this.

In 2002, Steidl petitioned the Governor of Illinois for a pardon on the basis of actual innocence. In January 2003, the Governor's office called Callahan and told him that Steidl would be pardoned if Callahan's investigation had revealed his actual innocence. Callahan was ready to make that representation, but he needed the consent of the Illinois State Police before he could do so. He made a presentation to defendants Fermon, Carper, and Brueggemann in which he reported his conclusion that the jury never heard the truth and that Steidl was in fact innocent. He was persuaded, through his investigation, that the only trial witnesses against Steidl had been utterly discredited, that there were no other witnesses or other credible evidence implicating Steidl in the murders, and that the available information suggested instead that Doe was a more likely suspect. Callahan also found evidence of wrongdoing by the initial investigating team. After hearing Callahan's presentation, defendants Fermon, Carper, and Brueggemann decided not to allow him to tell the Governor that he had concluded, based on his investigation, that Steidl was innocent.

Steidl's next step was his habeas corpus petition in the district court. As we noted earlier, he was finally successful there. After his petition was granted, on May 27, 2005, Steidl filed this § 1983 action against the City of Paris, Illinois, numerous police officers, and State's Attorney McFatridge. The ISP Officials filed a motion to dismiss on the basis of qualified immunity, among other things. On March 31, 2006, the district court rejected their immunity defense, and this appeal followed.

II

The Supreme Court has established a two-step analysis for assessing claims of qualified immunity. Saucier, 533 U.S. at 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151. First, the court must determine whether the official's conduct violated a constitutional right. Second, the court must determine whether the right was clearly established at the time of the conduct. The second inquiry, the Court has stressed, must be conducted at the correct level of specificity. It must be "clear to a reasonable [official] that his conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted" before immunity can be denied. Id.; see also Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982); Davis v. Scherer, 468 U.S. 183, 191, 104 S.Ct. 3012, 82 L.Ed.2d 139 (1984).

The...