Hill v. City of Chicago
| Decision Date | 01 September 2011 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 06 C 6772 |
| Parties | HAROLD HILL, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF CHICAGO, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
AMY J. ST. EVE, District Court Judge:
Before the Court is Defendants' motion in limine to bar the prior trial testimony of Dan Young, Jr., who is deceased, arguing that it is hearsay without an exception. See Fed.R.Evid. 804(b)(1). In the alternative, Defendants maintain that Young's prior testimony does not fall under the residual exception to hearsay under Rule 807.1 For the following reasons, the Court, in its discretion, grants Defendants' motion in limine. See Jenkins v. Chrysler Motors Corp., 316 F.3d 663, 664 (7th Cir. 2002) ().
Plaintiff Harold Hill brought this civil rights lawsuit against the City of Chicago, Chicago police officers, and a Cook County Assistant State's Attorney after his conviction for sexualassault and homicide was vacated based on post-conviction DNA evidence that excluded Hill from samples taken from the victim's fingernails. After the Court's ruling on summary judgment, the following claims against Defendant Officers Kenneth Boudreau and John Halloran remain: (1) Hill's Fifth Amendment coerced confession claim; (2) Hill's Section 1983 conspiracy claim based on his coerced confession claim; and (3) Hill's failure to intervene claim based on his coerced confession claim.
Hill's case arises out of the October 14, 1990 sexual assault and murder of Kathy Morgan. She was murdered and left in an abandoned building on West Garfield Boulevard in Chicago, Illinois. The building and Morgan's body were set on fire in an apparent attempt to hide the crime. On March 20, 1992, two Chicago police officers arrested Hill for possession of a stolen automobile and possession of a handgun, and then transported him to the Seventh District Police Station in Chicago. At the police station, Hill admitted to committing two armed robberies - one in Chicago and one in Oak Lawn, Illinois. During the follow-up investigation of the Chicago armed robbery, Hill participated in a line-up at the Area 3 Station at 39th Street and California Avenue on March 21, 1992. Defendant Officers Boudreau and Halloran participated in conducting the line-up and questioned Hill about other crimes. Approximately twenty-six hours after his arrest, Hill gave a court-reported statement implicating himself and two other men, Dan Young and Peter Williams, in the Morgan crimes. Hill contends that Defendant Officers Boudreau and Halloran, along with an Assistant State's Attorney, coerced his confession. Over the next few days, Chicago police detectives obtained written confessions from both Young and Williams.
Hill's criminal case commenced on March 22, 1992 with a probable cause to detain andbond hearing in the Circuit Court of Cook County. On April 13, 1992, Hill was indicted for the murder and sexual assault of Morgan. In September 1994, Hill and his co-defendant Dan Young were tried simultaneously - but to separate juries - for Morgan's sexual assault and homicide. The State introduced Hill's confession as evidence against him during trial. In addition, both Hill and Young testified at trial maintaining their innocence and asserting that law enforcement coerced them into giving their confessions. In September 1994, the juries convicted Hill and Young for Morgan's sexual assault and homicide. Over a decade later, the results of DNA testing resulted in the trial court vacating Hill's and Young's convictions and the State dropping the charges against them. On April 27, 2006, a hit and run driver killed Young.
"Federal Rule of Evidence 804 ... permits hearsay testimony in certain circumstances if the declarant is unavailable to testify." United States v. Jones, 600 F.3d 847, 853 (7th Cir. 2010). More specifically, "Rule 804(b)(1) provides that certain out-of-court statements are not excluded by the hearsay rule if the declarant is 'unavailable as a witness,'" including '[t]estimony given as a witness at another hearing of the same or a different proceeding, or in a deposition taken in compliance with law in the course of the same or another proceeding, if the party against whom the testimony is now offered, or, in a civil action or proceeding, a predecessor in interest, had an opportunity and similar motive to develop the testimony by direct, cross, or redirect examination.'" McGowan, 590 F.3d 446, 451 (7th Cir. 2009) (citation omitted); see also United States v. Loggins, 486 F.3d 977, 981 (7th Cir. 2007). "Federal Rule of Evidence 804(a) states that a person who "'is unable to be present or to testify at the hearing because of death or then existing physical or mental illness or infirmity' is unavailable as awitness." McGowan, 590 F.3d at 451 (citation omitted).
Here, there is no dispute that Young is unavailable to testify at the upcoming trial because he died in 2006. See Fed.R.Evid. 804(a)(4). Instead, Defendants argue that Young's prior testimony at his criminal trial is hearsay without an exception because the Cook County Assistant State's Attorney in Young's September 1994 criminal prosecution, who cross-examined Young at trial, is not the predecessor in interest to the present Defendant Officers. Put differently, Defendant Officers argue that the Assistant State's Attorney - representing the People of the State of Illinois - was not their predecessor in interest because the prosecutor did not have the same requisite stake in the criminal proceeding as Defendant Officers have in the present civil rights lawsuit. The Court agrees.
"Under Rule 804(b)(1), once a declarant has been deemed unavailable, his former testimony may be admitted into evidence, as long as the party against whom the testimony is admitted had an opportunity and a similar motive to develop the testimony." United States v. Reed, 227 F.3d 763, 767 (7th Cir. 2000); see also United States v. Salerno, 505 U.S. 321-22, 112 S.Ct. 2503, 120 L.Ed.2d 255 (1992) (same). The similar motive "requirement operates to screen out those statements, which although made under oath, were not subject to the scrutiny of a party interested in thoroughly testing its validity." United States v. Pizarro, 717 F.2d 336, 349 (7th Cir. 1983). "When considering whether this requirement has been met, courts look to the similarity of issues and the purpose for which testimony was given." Reed, 227 F.3d at 768. "Circumstances or factors which influence motive to develop testimony include '(1) the type ofproceeding in which the testimony is given, (2) trial strategy, (3) the potential penalties or financial stakes, and (4) the number of issues and parties.'" United States v. Feldman, 761 F.2d 380, 385 (7th Cir. 1985) (citation omitted).
Young's criminal trial testimony does not fulfill the second and third Feldman factors. First, Defendant Officers in this civil litigation were not parties to the criminal proceedings against Young. Instead, the Cook County State's Attorneys Office prosecuted Young at his criminal trial and "[i]t is well-settled that strategies for civil and criminal trials may differ greatly." See id. Indeed, prosecutors in criminal cases are not ordinary parties to a lawsuit, but represent the sovereign, in this case - the People of the State of Illinois. See Robertson v. United States ex rel. Watson, 130 S.Ct. 2184, 2188-89 (2010) (per curiam); see also Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 88, 55 S.Ct. 629 (1935) (). Thus, a prosecutor's motive in securing just result differs from a civil attorney's motive when representing a defendant in a civil rights lawsuit. To clarify, as then-United States District Court Judge David Hamilton articulated in a civil rights case against the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department:
Prosecutors in criminal trials (as well as in depositions) usually have their hands full trying to protect the public and secure a just result in the criminal prosecution. Under [plaintiff's] theory here, those busy prosecutors would also need to think and act as surrogate defense counsel for future civil rights lawsuits against officers who are not their clients.
Second, the motive of a prosecutor to cross-examine a witness is different than the motive of a defendant in a later-filed civil rights lawsuit in relation to the potential penalties or financial stakes involved. See id. As Judge Hamilton explained:
The police officer faces the prospect of personal liability, particularly for punitive damages, which may not be the subject of any indemnity agreement with the local government, as well as the prospect of harm to professional reputation that may result if a court or jury finds a violation of constitutional rights. The police officer has powerful financial and professional motives to pursue the reasons for the complaining witness's change of story and to attack the witness's credibility. The city has similar financial and reputational motives. Those differences between the prosecutor's and the police officer's and city's motives weigh heavily against using Rule 804(b)(1) to allow plaintiff ... to use in his civil trial the deposition of [his girlfriend] in the criminal prosecution.
Judge Hamilton's opinion in Butler is persuasive and consistent with Seventh Circuit precedent. See Reed, 227 F.3d at 768; Feldm...
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