Mitchell v. City of Elgin

• Citation: 912 F.3d 1012
• Decision Date: 02 January 2019
• Docket Number: No. 16-1907,16-1907
• Parties: Sharon MITCHELL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF ELGIN, Illinois, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit)

912 F.3d 1012

Sharon MITCHELL, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.CITY OF ELGIN, Illinois, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 16-1907

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued July 6, 2017

Decided January 2, 2019

Mark William DeMonte, Attorney, Patrick J. Beisell, Attorney, JONES DAY, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

James L. DeAno, Attorney, James L. DeAno, Attorney, Laura Scarry, Attorney, Chicago, IL, for Defendant-Appellee.

Before Kanne and Sykes, Circuit Judges.^*

Sykes, Circuit Judge.

Sharon Mitchell enrolled in an online criminal-justice course offered by the Elgin Community College. Her participation in the class did not go smoothly. The instructor—an officer of the Elgin Police Department—eventually advised her that she was failing the course. Soon after, the Elgin Police Department received anonymous threats and a harassing email targeting the officer. A second officer swore out a criminal complaint accusing Mitchell of electronic communication harassment. She was arrested, immediately bonded out, and two years later was acquitted after a brief bench trial. Mitchell then sued the City of Elgin and several of its officers seeking damages for wrongful prosecution under various federal and state legal theories.

A district judge dismissed the case, concluding that the federal claims were either untimely or not cognizable and relinquishing supplemental jurisdiction over the state-law claims. Mitchell appealed. We heard argument in July 2017 but held the case to await further developments in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Manuel v. City of Joliet ("Manuel I "), ––– U.S. ––––, 137 S.Ct. 911, 197 L.Ed.2d 312 (2017), which overturned the circuit caselaw that defeated Mitchell’s Fourth Amendment claim below. Manuel I clarified that pretrial detention without probable cause is actionable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 as a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Id . at 920. But the Court did not decide when the claim accrues. Instead, the Court left that issue open for this court to decide on remand. Id. at 922. In September a panel of this court answered that lingering question, holding that a Fourth Amendment claim for unlawful pretrial detention accrues when the detention ends. Manuel v. City of Joliet ("Manuel II "), 903 F.3d 667, 670 (7th Cir. 2018).

We asked the parties to file position statements addressing whether Mitchell’s claim is timely under Manuel II . They have done so. Based on the current state of the record and briefing, however, we find ourselves unable to decide the timeliness question. The parties have not adequately addressed whether and under what circumstances a person who is arrested but released on bond remains "seized" for Fourth Amendment purposes. Moreover, we do not know what conditions of release, if any, were imposed on Mitchell when she bonded out after her arrest. The most we can say at this juncture is that Mitchell might have a viable Fourth Amendment claim under Manuel I and II . We therefore reverse the judgment on that claim alone and remand to the district court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. In all other respects, the judgment is affirmed.

I. Background

We take the following factual account from Mitchell’s amended complaint. In the fall of 2010, Mitchell enrolled in an online criminal-justice course at Elgin Community College taught by Elgin Police Officer Ana Lalley. Officer Lalley required her students to post responses to discussion topics in an online forum. One topic related to students’ attitudes toward law enforcement. Mitchell’s posts on this topic were so upsetting to Officer Lalley that she removed them, barred Mitchell from posting in the forum, and informed her that she may have violated school policies regarding student behavior. The friction between the two continued the following semester, and at some point Lalley informed Mitchell that she was failing the course.

In May 2011 the Police Department received two anonymous threats against Officer Lalley. First, Officer Todd Ramljak, another Elgin police officer who also taught at the college, found a document containing threats against Lalley in his school mailbox. Officer Ramljak filed a report about the incident. Two weeks later Officer Kevin Senne filed a supplement to Ramljak’s report stating that someone had sent a harassing email to Lalley’s college email account. Lalley identified Mitchell as the only possible source of the threats and the harassing email. Sergeant Danner (first name unknown) approved and signed these reports. In August 2011 Senne filed a criminal complaint accusing Mitchell of electronic communication harassment. A warrant for her arrest followed, and on August 17, 2011, Mitchell was arrested and transferred to the custody of the Kane County Sheriff’s Department. She posted a $250 bond and was released that same day. The amended complaint is silent about the conditions of her release.

The case dragged on for two years. Mitchell was offered several plea deals but declined them all. On August 22, 2013, she was acquitted after a one-day bench trial.

On May 23, 2014, Mitchell filed suit pro se against the City of Elgin and several police officers seeking damages under § 1983 for violation of her rights under the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, and the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. She also asserted various claims under state law. The district judge dismissed the federal claims and most of the state claims but allowed Mitchell to go forward on a state-law malicious-prosecution claim against Officer Senne and Sergeant Danner and an indemnification claim against the City. The judge recruited pro bono counsel to assist Mitchell on these remaining claims.

The defendants moved to alter the judgment, urging the judge to relinquish supplemental jurisdiction over the state-law claims since no federal claim remained. Through newly recruited counsel, Mitchell moved for an extension of time to respond to the motion and to seek leave to file a second amended complaint. The judge ordered counsel to identify the claims he proposed to add in an amended complaint.

Mitchell’s counsel responded as directed. As relevant here, counsel explained that he sought leave to replead the § 1983 claim for "malicious prosecution," framing it as a violation of the Fourth Amendment or the Due Process Clause. The judge declined to allow the proposed amendment, relying on longstanding circuit precedent holding that the Fourth Amendment has no role to play after the initiation of formal legal process (e.g., an arrest warrant or a probable-cause hearing) and that the existence of adequate remedies under Illinois law foreclosed a federal "malicious prosecution" claim under the Due Process Clause.

Newsome v. McCabe , 256 F.3d 747, 750 (7th Cir. 2001). The judge then reconsidered his earlier decision to retain supplemental jurisdiction over the state-law claims that had survived dismissal on the pleadings. He reversed course, relinquished supplemental jurisdiction, and entered final judgment for the defendants. Mitchell appealed.

II. Analysis

The Supreme Court’s decision in Manuel I arrived just as the briefing of this appeal was wrapping up, substantially altering the legal framework of Mitchell’s case. Manuel I abrogated our circuit precedent foreclosing Fourth Amendment claims for unlawful pretrial detention after the initiation of formal legal process. The Court held that "pretrial detention can violate the Fourth Amendment not only when it precedes, but also when it follows, the start of legal process in a criminal case." Manuel I , 137 S.Ct. at 918.

Discarding the "malicious prosecution" analogy, the Court grounded its analysis in the basic Fourth Amendment principle that law enforcement must have probable cause to detain a person on suspicion of a crime:

The Fourth Amendment prohibits government officials from detaining a person in the absence of probable cause. That can happen when the police hold someone without any reason before the formal onset of a criminal proceeding. But it can also occur when legal process itself goes wrong—when, for example, a judge’s probable-cause determination is predicated solely on a police officer’s false statements. Then, too, a person is confined without constitutionally adequate justification. Legal process has gone forward, but it has done nothing to satisfy the Fourth Amendment’s probable-cause requirement. And for that reason, it cannot extinguish the detainee’s Fourth Amendment claim—or somehow ... convert that claim into one founded on the Due Process Clause.

Id. at 918–19 (citations omitted). So it’s now clear that "the Fourth Amendment governs a claim for unlawful pretrial detention even beyond the start of legal process." Id. at 920.

Manuel I recasts the legal framework for part of Mitchell’s case. To the extent that her claim is one for unlawful detention without probable cause, it may survive beyond the pleading stage—provided , however, that she sued on time. Manuel I did not decide when the claim accrues. Instead, the Court returned Elijah Manuel’s case to this court to decide that question. Id. at 921–22. On remand the Manuel panel reheard the case and recently held that a claim for unlawful pretrial detention accrues when the detention ceases. Manuel II , 903 F.3d at 670.

In light of these developments, we asked the parties to address the timeliness of Mitchell’s Fourth Amendment claim under Manuel II . A two-year limitations period, borrowed from state law, governs § 1983 claims in Illinois, Wallace v. Kato , 549 U.S. 384, 388–89, 127 S.Ct. 1091, 166 L.Ed.2d 973 (2007), but the parties disagree about when that two-year clock started to run.

Mitchell contends that her Fourth Amendment claim accrued on August 22, 2013, when the state judge entered a verdict of acquittal in her criminal case. She filed suit on May 23, 2014, less than two years later, so if she is correct on the accrual question, her claim is...