Cairel v. Alderden
| Decision Date | 05 May 2016 |
| Docket Number | No. 14–1711.,14–1711. |
| Citation | 821 F.3d 823 |
| Parties | Jeremy D. CAIREL and Marvin Johnson, Plaintiffs–Appellants, v. Jacob ALDERDEN, et al., Defendants–Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Jeffrey J. Neslund, Attorney, Robert J. Robertson, Attorney Law Office of Jeffrey J. Neslund, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiffs–Appellants.
Sara K. Hornstra, Attorney, City of Chicago Law Department, Chicago, IL, for Defendants–Appellees.
Before POSNER, MANION, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.
This appeal presents several issues concerning the scope of civil remedies available to people who are mistakenly arrested and charged with crimes. In 2007, plaintiffs Jeremy Cairel and Marvin Johnson were helping a friend repossess cars lawfully when they were stopped for a traffic violation. The officers conducting the stop, aware of a recent string of robberies in the area, grew suspicious and called a robbery victim to the scene. The victim identified Cairel and Johnson as the men who had robbed him the night before. The officers arrested them on the spot. When questioned later by detectives, Cairel eventually confessed to several robberies and implicated Johnson in one.
Prosecutors filed charges against both Cairel and Johnson. Johnson pled guilty in exchange for probation. Further investigation, however, revealed that both Cairel and Johnson were actually innocent. Over a year after the arrests, prosecutors dismissed Cairel's case and allowed Johnson to withdraw his guilty plea. Neither Cairel nor Johnson was imprisoned; Cairel was never convicted.
Plaintiffs Cairel and Johnson sued the defendant detectives under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging three federal due process claims: fabricating Johnson's confession, failing to disclose a potential alibi witness, and coercing Cairel's confession. Plaintiffs also alleged state-law claims for malicious prosecution and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The district court granted summary judgment for defendants, and plaintiffs appealed.
We affirm. First, summary judgment was properly granted on plaintiffs' federal due process claims. Plaintiffs' fabrication claim is foreclosed because they were not deprived of sufficient liberty to support their claim. Plaintiffs' suppression claim fails because they have no evidence that defendants concealed evidence unknown to plaintiffs supporting their alibi or that any failure to disclose caused a deprivation of liberty. Cairel's substantive due process claim for coercion fails because no reasonable jury could find that his interrogation “shocked the conscience.” Plaintiffs' state-law claims also fail. Probable cause for the criminal charges defeats the claims for malicious prosecution, and no reasonable jury could find that defendants' conduct was so “extreme and outrageous” as to prove intentional infliction of emotional distress.
This suit arises out of the arrest and subsequent treatment of the two plaintiffs in this case, Jeremy Cairel and Marvin Johnson. In 2006, both spent some time repossessing cars for a friend, Eric Moore, who worked for a car repossession company. Neither plaintiff was actually employed by the company. They helped Moore informally in return for cash.
Plaintiffs were arrested on the evening of January 24, 2007, when they and Moore were out repossessing cars. Two police officers stopped plaintiffs' car after seeing several traffic violations. Johnson told the officers that they were in the area to repossess cars. Moore provided the officers with paperwork showing that they were doing legitimate repossessions.
The incident might not have aroused the officers' suspicions, but they knew that in the weeks before the traffic stop, the area had seen a string of robberies in which robbers had impersonated police officers, pulled over cars, and robbed the occupants. Just the night before the plaintiffs were stopped, Joseph Micetich had been robbed in this way.
The police asked Micetich to come to the scene of plaintiffs' traffic stop. Defendants contend that, upon arriving, Micetich identified Cairel and Johnson as the men who robbed him. Plaintiffs offer evidence that Moore overheard Micetich express uncertainty and that Micetich never actually affirmatively identified plaintiffs at the scene. We assume that Moore's account is true, but it is also undisputed that Micetich later told police he was confident in his identification. Even years later he said he was still “absolutely sure that Jeremy Cairel and Marvin Johnson are the men who robbed me.” Following this disputed identification, the police arrested Cairel and Johnson and took them back to the station.
At that point, Detectives Jacob Alderden and Patrick Johnson—both defendants in this case—became involved. First, the detectives spoke with the arresting officers and then with Micetich, who confirmed his identification of Cairel and Johnson as the men who robbed him. This time, Micetich said he was absolutely sure of his identifications. Second, the detectives compared Micetich's descriptions of the robbers from the night before to Cairel and Johnson. There were discrepancies. Micetich, who viewed the robbers from his car while being robbed, had previously described the robbers as a black man who was five feet, six inches tall and a Hispanic man who was six feet tall. Johnson is black and five feet, eight inches tall, while Cairel is white and six feet, five inches tall. The detectives did not think these discrepancies were particularly great, especially given Micetich's certainty and the fact that the initial observation occurred at night.
The detectives then questioned Cairel. He appeared upset throughout the interrogation. Although Cairel initially denied having committed the robbery and later turned out to be innocent, he eventually told the detectives that he, Moore, and Johnson had actually robbed several people, including a man who might have been Micetich.
To support their claims that the detectives took unfair advantage of Cairel, plaintiffs emphasize that Cairel had been diagnosed with an unspecified learning disability and had low IQ scores consistent with that diagnosis. A psychological examination suggested that Cairel's disability could cause him to agree mistakenly with someone else's statements. The detectives have produced expert testimony suggesting that they would not have been able to tell that Cairel lacked the ability to comprehend the content and consequences of his confession simply from talking to him. Plaintiffs have offered evidence that Moore told the detectives that Cairel had been in special education classes and had a learning disability.
The detectives then confronted Johnson with what Cairel had said. Plaintiffs and defendants disagree about the events that followed. According to defendants, Johnson corroborated Cairel's confession. Johnson denies that he ever confessed to the robberies. (He would later plead guilty in exchange for probation.) For purposes of summary judgment, we must assume that Johnson's confession was fabricated by the detectives.
Finally, Detective Alderden interviewed Moore. Moore denied committing any robberies and provided an alibi for the Micetich robbery. He made it clear that he, Cairel, and Johnson had been transporting cars elsewhere. Other detectives, including Luis Otero, who is also a defendant in this case, visited the repossession company the next day. The detectives confirmed that Moore worked for the company and had repossessed cars on the day of the Micetich robbery. The alibi was not airtight, though. Nothing in the records confirmed the exact times when plaintiffs were repossessing the cars that day.
The detectives then brought in Elias Arias, who had also been robbed by men impersonating police officers. He identified Cairel in a line-up as one of the robbers. Arias's initial description had suggested that he was robbed by one white male who was in his forties and was five feet, two inches tall, and another white male who was between five feet, eight inches and ten inches tall. Even though these also differed considerably from Cairel, in Detective Alderden's view these discrepancies did not exclude Cairel because witness estimates of height and age are often imprecise and because Arias seemed confident about his identification in the line-up.
At that point, Detective Alderden felt he had enough to take Cairel's case to Assistant State's Attorney Elizabeth Ciaccia. Cairel maintains that the detective told him that if he helped out Ciaccia, he would be able to go home. Ciaccia initially met with Cairel alone and asked him if he had been treated well. Cairel said that he had been, and he confirmed that he had not been threatened or promised anything. Cairel told the prosecutor about the Arias and Micetich robberies. The prosecutor then put Cairel's confession in writing, reading aloud each page while Cairel made changes as she went along. Cairel said that he and Johnson had robbed Micetich and that he and Moore had robbed Arias. Cairel admits that he signed the documents and agreed to them at the time they were written, but now it is clear that none of it was actually correct. The prosecutor then interviewed Johnson, but he did not admit to her any criminal activity.
Cairel was charged with armed robbery for the Arias robbery, aggravated robbery for the Micetich robbery, and two counts of aggravated false “personation” of a peace officer. See 720 ILCS 5/32–5.2 (2007). Johnson was charged with aggravated robbery of Micetich and aggravated false “personation” of a peace officer. Moore was not charged. Johnson and Cairel were released from Cook County Jail after a few days in police custody when their families posted bond.
Over the next several months, however, the cases against Cairel and Johnson weakened and eventually collapsed. Detective...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
T.S. v. Twentieth Century Fox Television
..., 207 Ill. 2d 263, 269278 Ill.Dec. 228, 798 N.E.2d 75, 80 (2003) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also, e.g. , Cairel v. Alderden , 821 F.3d 823, 835 (7th Cir. 2016) (same). "[M]ere insults, indignities, threats, annoyances, petty oppressions, or other trivialities" do not give rise ......
-
Viamedia, Inc. v. Comcast Corp.
...evidence must be admissible at trial, though ‘the form produced at summary judgment need not be admissible.’ " Cairel v. Alderden , 821 F.3d 823, 830 (7th Cir. 2016) (quoting Wragg v. Village of Thornton , 604 F.3d 464, 466 (7th Cir. 2010) ). With those principles and the Rule 56 standard i......
-
Hyung Seok Koh v. Graf
...damages." Sang Ken Kim v. City of Chi. , 368 Ill.App.3d 648, 306 Ill.Dec. 772, 858 N.E.2d 569, 574 (2006) ; accord Cairel v. Alderden , 821 F.3d 823, 834 (7th Cir. 2016) (applying Illinois law). Both the malicious prosecution claim and the extended Fourth Amendment claim are stymied by the ......
-
Nucap Indus., Inc. v. Robert Bosch LLC
...127 S.Ct. 1769, 167 L.Ed.2d 686 (2007) ; Blasius v. Angel Auto., Inc. , 839 F.3d 639, 644 (7th Cir. 2016) (citing Cairel v. Alderden , 821 F.3d 823, 830 (7th Cir. 2016) ). The party seeking summary judgment has the burden of establishing that there is no genuine dispute as to any material f......