Saunders-El v. Rohde

Citation778 F.3d 556
Decision Date30 January 2015
Docket NumberNo. 14–1570.,14–1570.
PartiesOmar SAUNDERS–EL, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. Eric ROHDE, et al., Defendants–Appellees.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit)

Scott T. Kamin, I, Chicago, IL, for PlaintiffAppellant.

Kerry Franklin Partridge, Rockford, IL, for DefendantAppellee.

Before FLAUM, EASTERBROOK, and KANNE, Circuit Judges.

Opinion

FLAUM, Circuit Judge.

Subsequent to his acquittal by a jury on burglary charges, Omar Saunders–El sued members of the Rockford, Illinois police department, alleging that they planted his blood at the crime scene in an attempt to frame him. His complaint included a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim—contending that by fabricating evidence, the officers offended his due process rights—and Illinois state law claims for malicious prosecution and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The district court granted summary judgment for the officers on the federal claim and dismissed the state law claims without prejudice to refiling in state court. In the district court's view, fabricating evidence does not violate a's due process rights and cannot support a § 1983 action; such an allegation must instead be brought as a state law claim for malicious prosecution, the district court reasoned. That holding is mistaken. A criminal's due process rights may be violated—actionable by way of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 —when the evidence against him is fabricated. However, due process is not implicated when, as here, the defendant is released on bond following his arrest and acquitted at trial. And this rule cannot be circumvented, as Saunders–El attempts to do, simply by re-framing such an allegation as a Brady claim—that is, by alleging that the police officers who supposedly fabricated the evidence failed to reveal their misconduct to the prosecution. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district court, but on other grounds.

I. Background

Omar Saunders–El was arrested, released on bond, charged, and ultimately stood trial for a burglary that occurred on August 10, 2006 at the Sports Dome retail store in Rockford, Illinois. Rockford police officers claimed that they spotted Saunders–El on the store's roof, observed him jump off the building, and apprehended him following a foot chase. According to the prosecution, Saunders–El broke into the Sports Dome by carving a hole in the roof and ceiling and, in the process, cut himself on jagged metal, leaving his blood at the scene.1 Saunders–El, however, insists that he was minding his own business that evening, when a Rockford police officer stopped him on the street to question him about the break-in. While they spoke, Saunders–El says, another officer bludgeoned him over the head, splitting open his skull and knocking him out. While unconscious, he believes, the officers collected his blood in order to smear it at the crime scene and frame him for the burglary. Despite the ostensible strength of the evidence against him, a jury acquitted Saunders–El. He then sued various Rockford police officers based on his allegations of evidence fabrication, asserting a due process claim by way of 42 U.S.C. § 1983, as well as Illinois state claims of malicious prosecution and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

With respect to the § 1983 claim, the district court granted summary judgment in the officers' favor, holding that an allegation of evidence fabrication cannot support a constitutional tort claim and is only redressable in Illinois as a state law claim for malicious prosecution. The district court relinquished jurisdiction over the state law claims and dismissed them without prejudice to refiling in state court. On appeal, Saunders–El focuses the bulk of his attention on the issue of whether a district court properly may find in favor of defendants at summary judgment on the ground that a plaintiff has not stated a legally cognizable claim. In his view, the court may do so only on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, and, therefore, impermissibly ruled against him. On the merits, Saunders–El argues that the fabrication of evidence, as well as the failure of police officers to inform the prosecution of that fabrication, violates a criminal defendant's due process rights and, as such, that his case should be reinstated.

II. Discussion

We review the district court's grant of summary judgment de novo. Huang v. Cont'l Cas. Co., 754 F.3d 447, 450 (7th Cir.2014). We first address Saunders–El's claim of impropriety regarding the district court's dismissal of his case at summary judgment for failing to state a constitutional claim. Summary judgment is appropriate where there is no genuine issue of material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(a) ; Bluestein v. Cent. Wisc. Anesthesiology, S.C., 769 F.3d 944, 951 (7th Cir.2014). Naturally, then, if Saunders–El's claim had no legal grounding, the district court not only was permitted to dismiss it, it was required to do so. Where a claim has no legal basis, there can be no genuine issue of material fact and the movant, by definition, is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.

Saunders–El suggests that the officers—by arguing that his § 1983 claim was legally insufficient—styled what should have been brought as a motion to dismiss as a motion for summary judgment, and that they did so to skirt Rule 12(b)'s requirement that motions to dismiss for failure to state a claim be made prior to the filing of an answer. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b) ( “A motion asserting [failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted] must be made before pleading if a responsive pleading is allowed.”). But [a] motion to dismiss made after the filing of an answer serves the same function as a motion for judgment on the pleadings and may be regarded as one.” Schy v. Susquehanna Corp., 419 F.2d 1112, 1115 (7th Cir.1970). And Rule 12(h)(2) expressly authorizes a party to file a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim pursuant to Rule 12(c), which permits the filing of a motion for judgment on the pleadings [a]fter the pleadings are closed—but early enough not to delay trial.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(c), (h)(2). Therefore, Saunders–El's effort to characterize defendants' motion as a motion to dismiss masquerading as a motion for summary judgment is futile. No matter the label or the rule under which defendants' motion was filed, the district court was required to dismiss any legally untenable claims.

On the merits, Saunders–El maintains that allegations of evidence fabrication can support a due process claim under § 1983. We agree with him. In its two-page opinion, the district court did not address our recent case law in this area and, instead, focused on our prior decisions in Fox v. Hayes, 600 F.3d 819 (7th Cir.2010) ; Brooks v. City of Chicago, 564 F.3d 830 (7th Cir.2009) ; and Newsome v. McCabe, 256 F.3d 747 (7th Cir.2001) —interpreting them as an edict from this court that evidence fabrication—based due process claims can never form the basis of a constitutional tort. That reading, not uncommon among district courts in this circuit it seems, is inaccurate and requires clarification. In Newsome, we established that the existence of a state law claim for malicious prosecution renders unavailable § 1983 as a vehicle for bringing a federal malicious prosecution claim. 256 F.3d at 750. In Brooks, we affirmed the dismissal of plaintiff's allegation that “criminal proceedings were instituted against him based on false evidence or testimony,” remarking that “such a claim ‘is, in essence, one for malicious prosecution, rather than a due process violation.’ 564 F.3d at 833 (quoting McCann v. Mangialardi, 337 F.3d 782, 786 (7th Cir.2003) ). Finally, in Fox, we counseled against “shoehorning into the more general protections of the Fourteenth Amendment claims for which another amendment provides more specific protection.”600 F.3d at 841. There, we deemed the plaintiff's allegation that the defendants violated his due process rights by causing him to be falsely arrested, imprisoned, and prosecuted by “deliberately fabricat[ing] false statements and ... obstruct[ing] justice” to be a hybrid of a malicious prosecution claim and a Fourth Amendment claim, rather than a due process claim. Id. at 841.

None of these decisions—individually or as a collection—stands for the proposition that fabricating evidence does not violate a defendant's due process, actionable pursuant to § 1983. Instead, they merely establish that allegations that sound in malicious prosecution must be brought pursuant to state law. To the extent that these decisions may have rendered the law in this area uncertain, our more recent decisions have been explicit. In Whitlock v. Brueggemann, 682 F.3d 567, 580 (7th Cir.2012), we expressly stated that “a police officer who manufactures false evidence against a criminal defendant violates due process if that evidence is later used to deprive the defendant of [his] liberty in some way.” We have reiterated this position several times since then. For instance, just two weeks before the district court issued its opinion in this case, we decided Fields v. Wharrie, 740 F.3d 1107 (7th Cir.2014) (“Fields II ”), wherein we made clear that fabricating evidence, including witness testimony, violates a clearly established constitutional right, such that qualified immunity does not shield the manufacturers of such evidence from liability. Id. at 1114 ; see also Petty v. City of Chicago, 754 F.3d 416, 422 (7th Cir.2014) (“In Fields II, we stated that a prosecutor who falsely creates evidence against a defendant violates the defendant's due process right.”). Accordingly, the district court erred in holding, categorically, that a claim of evidence fabrication cannot form the basis of a due process claim under § 1983 and must instead be brought as a state law malicious prosecution claim.

Not every act of evidence fabrication offends one's due process rights,...

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