Arkebauer v. Kiley
| Citation | 985 F.2d 1351 |
| Decision Date | 18 March 1993 |
| Docket Number | No. 91-1058,91-1058 |
| Parties | Roger ARKEBAUER, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Michael KILEY, Individually and as State's Attorney of Shelby County, Illinois, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
D. Peter Wise (argued), Metnick, Barewin, Wise & Cherry, Springfield, IL, for plaintiff-appellee.
Jerald S. Post, Asst. Atty. Gen. (argued), Office of the Atty. Gen., Civil Appeals Div., Chicago, IL, Carol J. Barlow, Asst. Atty. Gen., Office of the Atty. Gen., Environmental Control Div., Springfield, IL, for defendant-appellant.
John X. Breslin, Office of the State's Atty., Ottawa, IL, Michael M. McFatridge, Patrick J. Delfino, Darien, IL, for amicus curiae Illinois State's Attorneys Ass'n.
George F. Taseff, Jennings, Novick, Taseff, Smalley & Davis, Bloomington, IL, J. Steven Beckett, Beckett, Crewell & Kelso, Urbana, IL, for amicus curiae Illinois Attorneys for Criminal Justice.
Jeffrey S. Weiner, Weiner, Robbins, Tunkey & Ross, Miami, FL, for amicus curiae National Ass'n of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
Before CUDAHY and RIPPLE, Circuit Judges, and FAIRCHILD, Senior Circuit Judge.
In exchange for a promise that he would not be prosecuted, the appellee, Roger Arkebauer, gave information to the Macon County State's Attorney regarding Raymond Ruhl's plan to murder his wife. Mr. Arkebauer was later indicted in Shelby County for his involvement in the scheme. The Illinois state trial court denied his motion to dismiss the indictment. The district court, however, entered a permanent injunction against the state prosecution on the ground that the doctrine of equitable immunity insulated Mr. Arkebauer from suit. Arkebauer v. Kiley, 751 F.Supp. 783 (C.D.Ill.1990). The State's Attorney for Shelby County has appealed the imposition of the injunction. For the reasons that follow, we reverse the judgment of the district court.
The facts, at least to the extent they were developed in the earlier proceedings, are not in dispute, and we rely heavily on the accounts recited in both Arkebauer v. Kiley, 751 F.Supp. 783 (C.D.Ill.1990), and People v. Arkebauer, 198 Ill.App.3d 470, 144 Ill.Dec. 643, 555 N.E.2d 1162 (1990).
On January 15, 1988, Jack Ahola, then First Assistant State's Attorney of Macon County, Illinois, met with Illinois State Police Agents McClearen and Bensyl. The agents had obtained information that Raymond Ruhl was attempting to hire someone to kill his wife. They also had been informed that Roger Arkebauer was a key figure in the plot. The officers questioned Mr. Arkebauer; during the course of the interrogation Ahola told Mr. Arkebauer that, if he cooperated, "we" would not prosecute him, and Mr. Arkebauer agreed to help. 1 Arkebauer, 144 Ill.Dec. at 645, 555 N.E.2d at 1164. Events relating to the murder plot had taken place in Shelby, Champaign, and Christian Counties in addition to Macon County. Nevertheless, Ahola did not tell Mr. Arkebauer that the agreement applied only to Macon County. Ahola denied that he promised the defendant immunity, and he stated that he never discussed transactional immunity with the defendant. Id. However, "Ahola admitted that he could not say with absolute certainty that the term 'immunity' was not used in Following surveillance, the agents engaged Ruhl in a shoot-out while attempting to arrest him. In the course of this encounter, both Ruhl and Agent Bensyl were killed and another police agent was wounded. The agents at first suspected that Mr. Arkebauer had tipped off Ruhl that the police were coming for him, but, following several interrogations and a polygraph test, they became convinced that Mr. Arkebauer had not done so. Id. at 645-46, 555 N.E.2d at 1165-66. Soon after the shoot-out Mr. Arkebauer was interviewed by Jack Eckerty, a sergeant with the Illinois State Police, and Agent Erlenbush. At the outset of questioning, Mr. Arkebauer told Sergeant Eckerty that he had been promised immunity by Ahola. He was not corrected; nor did Sergeant Eckerty attempt to confirm this statement.
his discussion with [Arkebauer]." Id. It is also clear that, in his discussions with the defendant, Ahola did not place geographic limitations on the promise not to prosecute. Id. Mr. Arkebauer agreed to cooperate and supplied information relating to the planned murder to Ahola and the State Police. On the basis of that information, a search warrant and an eavesdrop order were obtained. 2 Subsequently, Mr. Arkebauer participated in the eavesdrop by calling Ruhl from the State's Attorney's office. Ahola testified that Mr. Arkebauer did all that was expected of him, 3 although it was also anticipated that Mr. Arkebauer would testify against Ruhl at a later date. Id
On February 3, 1988, Michael Mannix, a special agent with the Illinois State Police in the Division of Internal Investigation, and Agent Erlenbush questioned Mr. Arkebauer at his home. They advised Mr. Arkebauer of his Miranda rights, and Agent Mannix testified that Mr. Arkebauer told them that he had immunity in Macon County. Agent Mannix said that they were not engaged in a Macon County investigation and proceeded to question him. They also told Mr. Arkebauer that it was police procedure to advise everyone of their rights prior to questioning.
On February 9, 1988, Agent Mannix interviewed Mr. Arkebauer after advising him of his rights. Agent Erlenbush had told Agent Mannix that he had heard of a promise not to prosecute or a promise of immunity for Mr. Arkebauer in Macon County. Finally, the agents attempted again to question Mr. Arkebauer, but he refused to speak with them because he had learned that his bank records had been subpoenaed.
On March 17, 1988, Mr. Arkebauer first spoke with Guy Casey, an attorney, and told him that he believed he had been given immunity and that all of his conversations with police agents had been covered by this grant. Casey spoke with Ahola on several occasions. Casey remarked that the agreement not to prosecute had been made but had not been formalized. See Ill.Rev.Stat. ch. 38, para. 106-1 (1987). 4 Ahola declined the invitation to formalize it at that point because Ruhl was dead and no case was pending.
Prior to the shoot-out, Agent Bensyl had contacted Michael Kiley, Shelby County State's Attorney, advising him of the Ruhl plot and discussing possible prosecution of Ruhl in Shelby County. Mr. Kiley memorialized this conversation in a letter to the Illinois State Police dated January 20, 1988. Mr. Kiley maintains that he learned from Agent Bensyl that someone had been promised "immunity" for providing information in relation to the matter, but only later learned that it was Mr. Arkebauer. Mr On April 12, 1988, Mr. Arkebauer was indicted in Shelby County on substantially the same charges (solicitation and conspiracy to commit murder) from which he enjoyed freedom from prosecution in Macon County.
Kiley testified that Agent Bensyl asked him if he would be interested in arriving at a similar arrangement with the informant in Shelby County.
Mr. Arkebauer's first line of attack against the charges was to file with the Illinois trial court a motion to suppress the statements he had made to the police and a motion to dismiss the indictment. The trial court determined that the statements to the police had been involuntary and granted the motion to suppress. The court refused, however, to dismiss the Shelby County indictment. With respect to the suppression motion, the trial court ruled that, because Mr. Arkebauer had not been told that his freedom from prosecution was limited to Macon County, "he reasonably believed that he had been promised immunity from prosecution and that the promise could be fulfilled as long as Arkebauer cooperated with the prosecution and the police investigation of Raymond Ruhl." People v. Arkebauer, No. 88-CF-17, Circuit Court Record Sheet (Dec. 22, 1988). The court also found that Mr. Arkebauer had "fulfilled his promise of cooperation until he discovered that he was going to be prosecuted in Shelby County." Id.
As for the motion to dismiss the charges, the trial court grounded its decision on the fact that Ahola had not sought statutory transactional immunity for Mr. Arkebauer, which would have immunized Mr. Arkebauer in Shelby as well as Macon County. The court relied on People v. Staten, 158 Ill.App.3d 971, 110 Ill.Dec. 761, 511 N.E.2d 938 (1987), for the proposition that a state's attorney of one county cannot bind a state's attorney from another county regarding activity in the latter county. The court found that Ahola never promised Mr. Arkebauer immunity from any crime committed in Shelby County and that the Shelby County State's Attorney never ratified Ahola's promise. Circuit Court Record Sheet. The court stated that "the application of the doctrines [in Rowe v. Griffin, 676 F.2d 524 (11th Cir.1982) and People v. Bogolowski, 326 Ill. 253, 157 N.E. 181 (1927) ] to this case does not require dismissal." Circuit Court Record Sheet.
The State appealed the suppression of statements and the Appellate Court of Illinois affirmed. Arkebauer, 198 Ill.App.3d 470, 144 Ill.Dec. 643, 555 N.E.2d 1162. The court noted that, although Mr. Arkebauer had not been granted transactional immunity pursuant to statute or use immunity, id. 144 Ill.Dec. at 652, 555 N.E.2d at 1171, Mr. Arkebauer was promised that he would not be prosecuted for the crimes under investigation by both the Assistant State's Attorney for Macon County and by the Illinois State Police. Id. at 644, 652, 555 N.E.2d at 1163, 1171. However, said the court, statements are not necessarily voluntary because a warning about Miranda rights has been administered and waived or because the statements were obtained on a promise of immunity. The totality of circumstances must be...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Phelps v. Hamilton, 93-4148-SAC.
...against a single criminal prosecution." Id. These "exceptions provide a very narrow gate for federal intervention." Arkebauer v. Kiley, 985 F.2d 1351, 1358 (7th Cir.1993).1 Though the courts have grappled with these exceptions on several occasions, they have eluded any distinct or precise f......
-
Phelps v. Hamilton
...is equivalent to a showing of irreparable injury for purposes of the comity restraints defined in Younger.'" Arkebauer v. Kiley, 985 F.2d 1351, 1358 (7th Cir.1993) (quoting Wilson v. Thompson, 593 F.2d 1375, 1382 (5th Cir. 1979). The injury is irreparable because the prosecution itself is t......
-
Phelps v. Hamilton
...and federalism explain why the exceptions to Younger only provide for a "very narrow gate for federal intervention." Arkebauer v. Kiley, 985 F.2d 1351, 1358 (7th Cir.1993). 11 We first address the exception to Younger abstention for flagrantly and patently unconstitutional statutes. The sta......
-
Oltremari v. Kansas Social & Rehabilitative Service
...it has been clear, from the very beginning, that the exceptions provide a very narrow gate for federal intervention." Arkebauer v. Kiley, 985 F.2d 1351, 1358 (7th Cir.1993). As one noted commentator has There is no case since Younger was decided in which the Supreme Court has found that the......
-
Suppressing involuntary confessions
...warning about Miranda rights has been administered and waived. The totality of the circumstances must be evaluated. Arkebauer v. Kiley , 985 F.2d 1351 (7 th Cir. 1993). 11. The length of the interrogation, isolation of the accused and the practice of questioning in relays of teams of police......
-
Suppressing involuntary confessions
...warning about Miranda rights has been administered and waived. The totality of the circumstances must be evaluated. Arkebauer v. Kiley , 985 F.2d 1351 (7 th Cir. 1993). 11. The length of the interrogation, isolation of the accused and the practice of questioning in relays of teams of police......
-
Litigating Miranda Rights
...warning about Miranda rights has been administered and waived. The totality of the circumstances must be evaluated. Arkebauer v. Kiley , 985 F.2d 1351 (7 th Cir. 1993). 13. Deception does not, standing alone, render an otherwise voluntary confession involuntary. State v. Albrecht , 516 N.W.......
-
Litigating miranda rights
...warning about Miranda rights has been administered and waived. The totality of the circumstances must be evaluated. Arkebauer v. Kiley , 985 F.2d 1351 (7 th Cir. 1993). 13. Deception does not, standing alone, render an otherwise voluntary confession involuntary. State v. Albrecht , 516 N.W.......