Jogi v. Voges

• Decision Date: 27 September 2005
• Docket Number: No. 01-1657.,01-1657.
• Citation: 425 F.3d 367
• Parties: Tejpaul S. JOGI, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Tim VOGES, Ron Carper, David Madigan, and John Piland, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

425 F.3d 367

Tejpaul S. JOGI, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Tim VOGES, Ron Carper, David Madigan, and John Piland, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 01-1657.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued September 3, 2003.

Decided September 27, 2005.

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Brad P. Rosenberg (argued), Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw, Washington, DC, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Jerome P. Lyke (argued), Flynn, Palmer & Tague, Champaign, IL, for Defendants-Appellees.

Before RIPPLE, ROVNER, and WOOD, Circuit Judges.

WOOD, Circuit Judge.

Since 1969, the United States has been a party to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (Vienna Convention), Apr. 24, 1963, 21 U.S.T. 77, T.I.A.S. No. 6820, 596 U.N.T.S. 261, a multilateral treaty. Among other things, the Vienna Convention requires its member states to ensure that a foreign national charged with a violation of host country law knows that he or she has the right to contact an official representative of his or her native country for assistance with legal proceedings. Tejpaul S. Jogi is an Indian citizen who was charged with aggravated battery with a firearm in Champaign County, Illinois. Jogi pleaded guilty to the crime and served six years of a twelve-year sentence at that point, he was removed from the United States and returned to India. No state official ever advised him of his right under the Vienna Convention to contact the Indian consulate for assistance, nor is there any hint that the Champaign County law enforcement officials ever contacted the Indian consulate on their own initiative on Jogi's behalf.

At some point after Jogi was in prison, he learned about the Vienna Convention. This prompted him to file several lawsuits, but the only one that is pertinent for our purposes is his present case, in which he filed a pro se complaint seeking compensatory, nominal, and punitive damages to remedy this violation. He named as defendants various Champaign County law enforcement officials, including the two investigators who questioned him after his arrest. Jogi's complaint relied on the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), 28 U.S.C. § 1350, which establishes jurisdiction in the district courts over a civil action by an alien for a tort committed in violation of a treaty of the United States. See generally Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692, 124 S.Ct. 2739, 159 L.Ed.2d 718 (2004). The district court found that the state officials had violated the Vienna Convention, but it concluded that Jogi's allegations were insufficient to trigger subject matter jurisdiction under the ATS.

To put it mildly, this case raises a bewildering array of complex issues. Although we find that the district court erred in granting the defendants' motion to dismiss on the ground it chose, we recognize the difficulty of the questions that lie just below its surface. With the benefit of the Supreme Court's Sosa decision, which was not available at the time the district court ruled, we conclude that the court had jurisdiction over the case. We further conclude that Jogi had an individual right to consular notification under the Vienna Convention. We therefore reverse and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I

A citizen of India, Jogi emigrated to the United States in 1990, at the age of fourteen. On October 6, 1995, he was charged in Champaign County, Illinois, with aggravated battery with a firearm. Jogi turned himself in to the authorities on October 18, 1995. When Jogi surrendered, Ron Carper, a Champaign County investigator, took him to a conference room where Tim Voges, another investigator, and Jogi's mother were present. Carper advised Jogi of his Miranda rights, but he did not inform Jogi that he had the right under the Convention to contact the Indian consulate. Carper knew, however, that Jogi was Indian; his interview report listed Jogi as "Indian/Male" and Carper discussed with Jogi's mother the location of his father and sister in India and the possibility that Jogi might leave the country. (Another investigator not named as a defendant in this lawsuit also spoke with Jogi's mother about the location of Jogi's father in India and the status of Jogi's passport.) On July 9, 1996, Jogi pleaded guilty to aggravated battery with a firearm. As we noted earlier, he received a sentence of 12 years' imprisonment, but he was released after serving six years. At no time was Jogi ever informed of his right to contact the Indian consulate.

On May 15, 2000, Jogi filed suit in federal court, alleging a violation of the Vienna Convention; he cited the ATS, 28 U.S.C. § 1350, as a basis for the district court's jurisdiction. He named Voges, Carper, David Madigan (the Champaign County Sheriff) and John Piland (the Champaign County State's Attorney who prosecuted Jogi) as defendants. Jogi's pro se complaint sought damages "not only to compensate Plaintiff, for violation of his International Rights but also to deter the Champaign County Law Enforcement Agency or any other Law Enforcement Agency across the nation from committing the same violation." He attached an affidavit asserting that he was unaware of his Vienna Convention rights and that he would have contacted the Indian consulate to avail himself of its assistance with the Champaign County prosecution had he been informed of his right to do so.

The district court held that it did not have subject matter jurisdiction over the complaint because Jogi had failed to sufficiently plead a tort under the ATS. Jogi v. Piland, 131 F.Supp.2d 1024, 1027 (C.D.Ill.2001). The court doubted that Jogi could show harm from the treaty violation, noting that Jogi had been advised of his Miranda rights and had been represented by counsel throughout his legal proceedings. Id. It concluded that the defendants' omissions may have "technically violated" the treaty, but that they did not trigger jurisdiction under the ATS because the statute applies only to "shockingly egregious violations of universally recognized principles of international law." Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). After deciding that the alleged conduct in this case did not meet the "shockingly egregious" standard, the district court dismissed the complaint with prejudice. Id.

After Jogi filed a timely notice of appeal in this court, we appointed counsel and ordered additional briefing. Order, Jogi v. Voges, No. 01-1657 (7th Cir. Oct. 29, 2002). As a result of his criminal conviction, Jogi was removed to India on September 17, 2002. Because his action seeks only money damages, however, his removal did not render the case moot.

II

We review de novo the district court's dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, accepting the complaint's factual allegations as true and drawing all reasonable inferences in Jogi's favor. Transit Express, Inc. v. Ettinger, 246 F.3d 1018, 1023 (7th Cir.2001). We bear in mind that Jogi's pro se complaint should be liberally construed. Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520, 92 S.Ct. 594, 30 L.Ed.2d 652 (1972); Kyle v. Patterson, 196 F.3d 695, 697 (7th Cir.1999). At this stage, it makes no difference whether Jogi pleaded the proper legal theories in his complaint. His only task, once he established a proper jurisdictional basis for his suit, was to satisfy the notice pleading standards of Rule 8. In that connection, we ask whether "the facts he has presented would entitle him to relief under any applicable legal theory." McCullah v. Gadert, 344 F.3d 655, 659 (7th Cir.2003) (noting that "it is well established that plaintiffs are under no obligation to plead legal theories").

We begin this opinion, as we must, with the question of the district court's subject matter jurisdiction. We then turn to the question whether Jogi has stated a claim upon which relief can be granted, when he asserts that he has an individually enforceable right under the Vienna Convention that he is entitled to raise in a private civil action. Next, we ask whether Jogi's action is barred under the Supreme Court's decision in Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994), on the theory that recovery here would be inconsistent with the validity of his criminal conviction. Finally, we address several additional points that cannot be resolved at this stage of the litigation.

A

The district court made it clear that it was "considering whether to dismiss [Jogi's] section 1350 claim for lack of subject matter jurisdiction." 131 F.Supp.2d at 1026. In reviewing its decision to do just that, we take as our starting point the Supreme Court's decision in Sosa. There, the respondent Humberto Alvarez-Machain had brought a civil action against Mexican citizen José Francisco Sosa, who (along with several other Mexicans) had abducted Alvarez from his home in Mexico and transported him to the United States, at the behest and allegedly as the agent of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Alvarez relied on the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b)(1), §§ 2671-2680, and the ATS as a basis for both jurisdiction and his right to recover. The Supreme Court rejected both theories, but we need discuss only the ATS portion of its opinion.

The ATS, which the Sosa Court reminded us was dubbed a "legal Lohengrin" by Judge Friendly, see IIT v. Vencap, Ltd., 519 F.2d 1001, 1015 (2d Cir.1975), quoted at 124 S.Ct. at 2754-55, is a model of brevity, if not clarity. On the books since the First Judiciary Act of 1789 and essentially unchanged since then, it now reads as follows: "The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States." 28 U.S.C. § 1350. The first question the Court had to decide was whether the statute was jurisdictional only, or if it also authorized the creation of a new cause of action for torts in violation of international law. It concluded that "the statute was intended as jurisdictional in the sense of...