Aguirre v. City of Chicago

• Decision Date: 04 April 2008
• Docket Number: No. 1-06-2837.,1-06-2837.
• Citation: 887 N.E.2d 656
• Parties: Omar AGUIRRE, Edar Zavier Duarte Santos, and Robert Gayol, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. The CITY OF CHICAGO, a Municipal Corporation; and City of Chicago Police Officers Robert Rodriguez, Carlos Velez, Alfonso Bautista, Al Perez, Paul Lopez, and Michael Chasen, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

887 N.E.2d 656

Omar AGUIRRE, Edar Zavier Duarte Santos, and Robert Gayol, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. The CITY OF CHICAGO, a Municipal Corporation; and City of Chicago Police Officers Robert Rodriguez, Carlos Velez, Alfonso Bautista, Al Perez, Paul Lopez, and Michael Chasen, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 1-06-2837.

Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, Fifth Division.

April 4, 2008.

Rehearing Denied May 1, 2008.

Corporation Counsel of the City of Chicago, Chicago, IL (Mara S. Georges, Benna Ruth Solomon, Myriam Zreczny Kasper, and Christopher S. Norborg, of counsel), for Appellants.

Cochran, Cherry, Givens, Smith, & Montgomery, LLC, Chicago, IL (James D. Montgomery, James D. Montgomery, Jr., and Melvin L. Brooks, of counsel) and Michael W. Rathsack Law Office, Chicago, IL (Michael W. Rathsack, of counsel), for Appellees.

Justice GALLAGHER delivered the opinion of the court:

Plaintiffs filed a complaint against defendants alleging malicious prosecution. Following a trial, the jury returned a verdict for plaintiffs and, in answer to special interrogatories, found that defendants lacked probable cause and acted with malice when they prosecuted plaintiffs. Defendants appeal, raising two issues. First, defendants argue that the circuit court abused its discretion in admitting the testimony of the confessed murderer describing the crime. Second, defendants contend that the circuit court erroneously excluded evidence of the defendants' use of polygraph examinations to facilitate their investigation of the crime. For the following reasons, we affirm.

BACKGROUND

In 2003, plaintiffs filed a complaint alleging that the defendants maliciously prosecuted them for the kidnapping and murder of Sindulfo Miranda. After amending their complaint and dismissing several defendants, the case proceeded to a jury trial against the named defendants.

Before trial, the circuit court made two decisions that are germane to this appeal. First, the circuit court ruled that when referring to polygraph examinations that were administered to some objects of the investigation, the witnesses and parties could not use the term "polygraph" to refer to the examinations or examiners. Further, the examination results could not be discussed. Instead, the circuit court ruled that officers would have to testify that a person submitted to further questioning from an independent interviewer at 1121 South State Street when discussing a polygraph examination. If deception was indicated, the circuit court directed the witness to say, "After questioning him, I wasn't satisfied. I wanted to question him further." In addition, witnesses were to refer to the polygraph examiners as police officers, and to the examinations as interviews. Second, the circuit court allowed the confessed murderer, Daniel Perez, to testify as to how and why he murdered Miranda and how his confession came to fruition.

The case then proceeded to trial and the following evidence was adduced at trial. In the early morning hours of July 18, 1997, police responded to a burning Mercedes near 33rd and Pulaski. After the fire was extinguished, police found the burned body of Miranda inside the burned Mercedes. Detectives Carlos Velez and Robert Rodriguez were assigned to the case. Early in the investigation, police determined that someone used Miranda's cell phone four times the night of the murder to call a pager.

On July 20, 1997, police interviewed Hector Cruz, who told police that on the morning of July 18, 1997, he was driving down 33rd Street and saw a two-tone maroon van parked next to a Mercedes. The van blocked his path down 33rd Street. A short, bald Hispanic man, standing 5 feet 3 inches, thin, and shirtless, but wearing shorts and gym shoes told Cruz to proceed down an alley. Suspicious, Cruz drove around the block and returned to the scene, where the van was gone but the Mercedes was ensconced in flames.

Later, police learned that Joey Baez owned a van similar to the one Cruz described, but after taking a polygraph examination, he was cleared of suspicion. Baez told police that Robert Toro had a van like the one described; however, Toro was cleared of suspicion after he passed a polygraph examination.

On October 21, 1997, police contacted Ronnie Gamboa, proprietor of Ronnie's Bar, to see if he knew what happened to Miranda. Gamboa agreed to a polygraph examination, which concluded that he was deceiving police when he told them that he last saw Miranda three weeks before the murder. As a result, police continued to investigate Gamboa. Meanwhile, they contacted Leticia Martinez, a bartender at Café Salsa who had told police that Miranda stopped at Café Salsa before going to Ronnie's Bar on the night of the murder, and asked her to submit to a polygraph examination. After doing so, the examiner concluded that deception was indicated and recommended further investigation of Martinez.

On November 6, 1997, police finally located Miguel LaSalle, to whom the pager, which Miranda's cell phone called the night of the murder, was registered. LaSalle testified that he was held in custody for five days. Initially, LaSalle told police that he had seen plaintiff Robert Gayol and Luis Ortiz, a member of the Latin Kings who LaSalle called "Pac-Man," in a Mercedes the night of the murder. LaSalle also told police that the day after the murder, Gayol offered to sell him a cell phone, bracelet, and a ring with a blue stone, all of which Gayol told him he had taken from "some old guy" Gayol had "knocked."

On November 7, 1997, LaSalle took a polygraph examination, in which deception was indicated. Upon being confronted with this result, LaSalle changed his story. He now told police that plaintiff Edar Zavier Duarte Santos paged him on the night of the murder and told him to come up to Ronnie's Bar. Upon arriving at Ronnie's Bar, LaSalle told police, Santos informed him that Gamboa offered to pay him, Ortiz, and Gayol money to kill Miranda, who was sitting at the bar. LaSalle indicated that he then left the bar and stayed home the rest of the night. A month later he saw Santos, who was wearing a bracelet with "Miranda" in diamonds and who asked LaSalle for the cell phone that Gayol had sold to LaSalle, which had a wood-grain finish—the same kind of phone Miranda owned.

After hearing LaSalle's story, the police learned that Ortiz was in the 14th District lockup on an unrelated warrant, so they brought him to Area 4 and interviewed him early on November 8, 1997. Ortiz said that after he denied knowledge of the incident, detectives screamed at him and physically abused him in an attempt to get him to confess. Ortiz agreed to a polygraph examination, which indicated deception, and the examiner advised detectives to further question Ortiz. Ortiz claimed that the police continued to abuse him after the polygraph examination.

After the examination Ortiz gave police a statement, which included the following information. Ortiz told them that around 10:45 p.m. on July 17, 1997, he and Gayol smoked cocaine. He noticed that Gayol was wearing a gold watch, a gold ring with a blue stone, and had a cell phone, which Gayol explained he got from an old man. Around 1:30 a.m. on July 18, 1997, the pair traveled to Ronnie's Bar, where Gamboa asked Gayol if he had killed Miranda yet. After being told "no," Gamboa told Gayol to "torch him" and reminded Gayol that the contract was for $25,000. Ortiz told police that Gamboa wanted Miranda killed because Gamboa did not want Miranda to take over his business. Ortiz said that Gayol told him that Aguirre, LaSalle, and Santos were involved in beating Miranda.

Ortiz then related that he and Gayol went to 33rd and Pulaski where Aguirre was waiting in a maroon van owned by Jose Chapa with Miranda tied up in the back of the van. According to Ortiz, Gayol placed Miranda in the Mercedes, poured paint thinner on Miranda, and lit him on fire. At trial, Ortiz testified that he made this statement only because he thought the police would release him and stop beating him. However, the assistant State's Attorney (ASA) stated that Ortiz told him that the police had treated him well and that Ortiz showed no signs of injury. After giving his statement, Ortiz was charged with murder. He eventually pled guilty in exchange for a 25-year sentence.

On November 9, 1997, police went to a garage behind 2737 W. Chanay Street, where they found Aguirre, Santos, Chapa, Domingo Ayala, and Hector Camacho. A maroon van that matched the description provided by Cruz was parked outside the garage. Detectives interviewed each of the men. All five men initially denied involvement in the murder. At trial, Chapa testified that he was kept at the police station for three days without anything to eat, physically abused, and threatened with jail time if he did not cooperate.

Meanwhile, Aguirre testified to numerous instances in which detectives physically abused him in order to obtain a confession. Aguirre also claimed that officers threatened that he would never see his children again. In addition, Santos testified that he saw a bruise on Aguirre's side when he was transferred to lockup. However, Aguirre's criminal defense attorney testified that Aguirre's records revealed no signs of physical abuse.

Aguirre was interviewed again later on November 9, 1997, and suggested that he was working at Marcells Paper on the night in question. While records later showed that Aguirre did not work on the night of the crime, on November 9, 1997, the company's owner did not know whether Aguirre had worked on July 17, 1997. Aguirre eventually told police that he was at Ronnie's Bar on the night of the murder and witnessed Gayol, Santos, and Ortiz attack Miranda, after which Aguirre said that he went home.

Initially, Santos also denied involvement in the crime when he arrived at the police station and sought to verify this claim with records showing that he was at work at the time of the murder. Police...