Engel v. Buchan
| Decision Date | 12 November 2013 |
| Docket Number | No. 10 C 3288.,10 C 3288. |
| Citation | 981 F.Supp.2d 781 |
| Parties | Daniel ENGEL, as personal representative of the Estate of Gary Engel, deceased, Plaintiff, v. Robert BUCHAN, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Jonathan I. Loevy, Elizabeth N. Mazur, David Benjamin Owens, Arthur R. Loevy, Loevy & Loevy, Chicago, IL, Attorney for Plaintiff.
Andrew D. Silverman, Leah Brownlee Taylor, Siegmund Fred Fuchs, Department of Justice, Civil Division, Washington, DC, Thomas R. Weiler, John Anthony Masters, Langhenry, Gillen, Lundquist & Johnson, LLC, Chicago, IL, Attorney for Defendants.
Gary Engel (“Engel”) has sued former FBI Agent Robert Buchan (“Buchan”) and the United States (“Government”)(collectively “Federal Defendants”) as well as former Village of Buffalo Grove police officers Robert Quid (“Quid”) and Gary Del Re (“Del Re”), charging each of them with violations of state and federal law following Engel's release in 2010 after 19 years of incarceration. 1 More precisely, Engel claims that all three individual defendants are liable under both the seminal Bivens decision and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (“ Section 1983”) for fabricating evidence of his guilt, for inducing false testimony by witnesses and for then failing to disclose that evidence in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963) and Newsome v. McCabe, 256 F.3d 747 (7th Cir.2001). Engel also maintains related claims that the individual defendants failed to intervene to prevent the violations of his due process rights and engaged in civil conspiracy to violate those rights. Finally Engel charges Quid and Del Re, and the United States via the Federal Tort Claims Act, with malicious prosecution under Missouri state law.
After the litigants had spent some time slugging it out on the discovery front, followed by a bizarre set of unrelated events that culminated in Engel's suicide, they have now brought Fed.R.Civ.P. (“Rule”) 56 cross-motions for summary judgment.2 While the case includes a number of legal twists and turns, the ultimate result is best captured by our Court of Appeals' teaching in Payne v. Pauley, 337 F.3d 767, 770 (7th Cir.2003):
Where the parties present two vastly different stories—as they do here—it is almost certain that there are genuine issues of material fact in dispute.
In that respect even a brief glance at the parties' LR 56.1 statements of fact is itself instructive, for each side contests all but the most basic of facts offered by its opponent. That fundamental clash in the parties' narratives compels this Court to deny all of the motions for the reasons described below.
Every Rule 56 movant bears the burden of establishing the absence of any genuine issue of material fact (Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322–23, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986)). For that purpose courts consider the evidentiary record in the light most favorable to nonmovants and draw all reasonable inferences in their favor (Lesch v. Crown Cork & Seal Co., 282 F.3d 467, 471 (7th Cir.2002)). Courts “may not make credibility determinations, weigh the evidence, or decide which inferences to draw from the facts” in resolving motions for summary judgments (Payne, 337 F.3d at 770). But a nonmovant must produce more than “a mere scintilla of evidence” to support the position that a genuine issue of material fact exists (Wheeler v. Lawson, 539 F.3d 629, 634 (7th Cir.2008)) and “must come forward with specific facts demonstrating that there is a genuine issue for trial” ( id.). Ultimately summary judgment is warranted only if a reasonable jury could not return a verdict for the nonmovant (Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986)).
As with any summary judgment motion, this Court accepts each nonmovant's version of any disputed facts, but only so long as it is supported by record evidence. Where as here cross-motions for summary judgment are involved, the principles of Rule 56 demand a dual perspective that this Court has sometimes described as Janus-like: As to each motion the nonmovant's version of any disputed facts must be credited, an arrangement that sometimes causes the denial of both motions.
That has unfortunately proved to be the case here, for each party has shown that genuine issues of material fact remain that must be addressed before the claims may be resolved. In any case, what follows is a summary of the facts, with material disagreements between the parties' narratives noted where appropriate. That factual “summary” is a good deal longer than this Court would have preferred, but that length has been compelled by the proliferation of cross-motions for summary judgment and the consequent need to identify contested material facts.
This case concerns two former police officers, friends and occasional criminal associates, Steve Manning (“Manning”) and Engel, who were separately tried and convicted of kidnapping and ransoming a major drug dealer. They were convicted largely through the efforts of Buchan and Quid, and the conviction relied heavily on the testimony of Anthony Mammolito (“Mammolito”).
Both Engel and Manning were released from prison after successfully seeking habeas corpus review, and each separately brought suit against federal and state law enforcement officers and the United States. For his part, Manning succeeded in convincing a jury that officers had violated his constitutional rights by fabricating evidence and withholding Brady material from prosecutors, but that favorable verdict was vacated after this Court's colleague Honorable Matthew Kennelly found against Manning on his state law claims. Engel now tries his hand where Manning ultimately failed.
Engel's saga is best understood by starting with that of Manning, a former Chicago Police Officer who had lost his job after either a conviction for or investigation into his criminal behavior (compare E. St. ¶ 5 with B.R.E. St. ¶ 5), then served for several years as an FBI informant (E. St. ¶ 5). In that role Manning would report on the activities of Thomas McKillip (“McKillip”) (E. St. ¶ 6), who was murdered in 1986, after which Buchan attempted to terminate Manning's involvement with the FBI ( id. at ¶ 7).
In 1989 the FBI opened an investigation into Manning under the Interstate Transportation of Stolen Property Top Thief Target (B. St. ¶ 6). That investigation was assigned to Buchan, who pursued it on multiple fronts, attempting to link Manning to burglaries, drug dealing and murders (E. St. ¶ 10).
Those investigative efforts did not bear significant fruit until Buchan visited then Buffalo Grove Police Officers Quid and Del Re, who were investigating the McKillip murder. Although Quid and Del Re had previously exhausted all of the available leads in the McKillip investigation (E. St. ¶ 11), the pair traveled on August 12, 1989 to visit Mammolito in a federal prison in Louisiana (E. St. ¶ 12). Mammolito (a former Manning associate) resented Manning and considered him responsible for his own conviction (E. Add. St. ¶ 14).
Mammolito was unable to provide concrete evidence regarding the McKillip murder, so Quid asked Mammolito whether he knew of any other crimes involving Manning that could be investigated (E. St. ¶ 15). In an effort to induce Mammolito to share information, Quid and Del Re showed Mammolito multiple photographs of murder victims, including one of a man with his hands and head chopped off—actions that they attributed to Manning.
After that prodding Mammolito offered the investigators a lead, telling Quid and Del Re that he, Engel, McKillip and Manninghad participated in the kidnapping of drug dealer Charles Ford (“Ford”) in Kansas City, Missouri. According to Mammolito, Manning and Engel had posed as DEA agents, handcuffed and blindfolded Ford and an associate, and brought the victims to a safe house (B. St. ¶ 7). Mammolito claimed that the group convinced one of Ford's family members to pay a ransom, which Mammolito and McKillip drove to pick up (E. Add. St. ¶ 20). That last detail differs from Mammolito's testimony at trial, where he stated that he and Manning (rather than he and McKillip) had gone to pick up the ransom.
As part of their dispute on many issues of fact involving Mammolito, the parties disagree on both the tenor and content of that meeting. First (based on seemingly conflicting statements in Mammolito's deposition) the two sides argue over whether Mammolito claimed to have knowledge of the McKillip murder (B. R.E. Add. St. ¶ 15). They also dispute whether or not Quid asked Mammolito if he “knew anything to help us get this guy off the streets” ( id. ¶ 18) and whether or not Mammolito initially refused to testify at any trial that might result from his tips ( id. ¶ 21). Their disagreements extend to whether Quid's report of the interview is in general an accurate representation of the meeting or omits key details mentioned by Mammolito in his deposition (compare B. St. ¶ 10 with E. Add. St. ¶ 25).
In addition, the parties differ as to the extent of Buchan's involvement with Mammolito. They agree that during that period Buchan had no actual contact with Mammolito: Mammolito strongly disliked the FBI, which he claimed had framed him (E. R.B. St. ¶ 9), and he therefore refused to work directly with the Bureau. Buchan insists—relying largely on his own testimony at trial—that he did not talk to Mammolito “through” Quid or guide Quid's discussions with Mammolito. Because of Mammolito's antipathy toward the FBI, he assertedly refused to deal with federal agents and was handled “exclusively” by the Buffalo Grove people (B. St. ¶ 8).
On the other hand, Engel points to statements by Buchan and others that suggest the outsized contributions of Buchan to the investigation, and Engel insists that Buchan was...
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