McDonald v. State of Ill.
| Decision Date | 15 June 1977 |
| Docket Number | No. 76-1265,76-1265 |
| Citation | 557 F.2d 596 |
| Parties | Wilbur McDONALD, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. STATE OF ILLINOIS, City of Chicago, County of Cook, Edward v. Hanrahan, Bernard M. Carey, Joseph Woods, Richard Elrod, Department of Corrections of Cook County, Daniel Weil, James Rochford, James Conlisk, and William Arnos and Gerald Saternos, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Frederick F. Cohn, Chicago, Ill., John A. Dienner, III, Asst. State's Atty., Chicago, Ill, for plaintiff-appellant.
William R. Quinlan, Corp. Counsel, Edmund Hatfield, Asst. Corp. Counsel, Chicago, Ill, William J. Scott, Atty. Gen., Raymond J. McKoski, Asst. Atty. Gen., Chicago, Ill, for defendants-appellees.
Before CLARK, Associate Justice (Retired), * FAIRCHILD, Chief Judge, and HASTINGS, Senior Circuit Judge. **
Plaintiff, Wilbur McDonald, brought this civil rights action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 and the Fourteenth Amendment against the State of Illinois, Cook County, the City of Chicago, the Cook County Department of Corrections and various county and city officials. JUrisdiction was claimed under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1331 as well as Sec. 1343. Plaintiff claims that defendants arrested, convicted and sentenced him for a crime he did not commit, and, therefore, deprived him of his right to liberty, as well as other constitutional rights. He seeks money damages. The district court granted summary judgment as to certain defendants, and as to those remaining, dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. We reverse the dismissal of the case against defendant Daniel Weil. We affirm all other dismissals and the grants of summary judgment.
1. The Facts Leading to Plaintiff's Conviction for Murder and His Subsequent Parton
On July 11, 1970, Chicago police officers arrested Wilbur McDonald and charged him with the murder of Agnes Lehmann. Mrs. Lehmann's body had been found in a wooded area of Grant Park in downtown Chicago. Earlier, plaintiff had been found, semi-conscious, on railroad tracks near Grant Park. Police had taken him to a hospital where the arrest was subsequently made.
Plaintiff states that he happened to be in Grant Park on the day of Mrs. Lehmann's murder because he was seeking a cool refuge from July heat. Originally, he planned to go to the beach, but claims he was robbed on the way, a matter he reported to defendants William Arnos and Gerald Salternos, both Chicago police officers. Instead, then, he entered Grant Park where he claim to have been beaten by several men and again robbed. During his escape, which apparently took him near or through the wooded area where Mrs. Lehmann's body lay, plaintiff lost a shoe and his clothes somehow came in contact with the victim's blood. He collapsed at railroad tracks near the park.
On August 17, 1971, plaintiff was tried and convicted of the murder of Agnes Lehmann in the Circuit Court of Cook County. He was sentenced to 100-150 years imprisonment.
Close to two years later, in August, 1979, Lester Harrison, who was arrested by police in connection with a murder in Grant Park, confessed to the 1970 murder of Agnes Lehmann. When the State's Attorney for Cook County learned of Harrison's confession, he agreed to McDonald's release from custody. McDonald was thus freed on August 15, 1973. He was granted a new trial in which the state moved to nole prosse. One year later, on August 19, 1974, the Governor of Illinois granted McDonald a full pardon "based on innocence."
II. The Nature of Plaintiff's Claim
Plaintiff filed this suit on August 15, 1975. Simultaneously pending was his action for damages against the State of Illinois in the Illinois Court of Claims. The thrust of plaintiff's complaint in both suits is that the imprisonment of an innocent man for a crime which he did not commit is a violation of due process which must be compensated for by the state which is responsible for the incarceration.
Also alleged in the federal complaint is wrongdoing on the part of the various city and county officials named as defendants. Plaintiff claims that since this wrongdoing occurred while defendants were acting under color of state law, and since the result of the wrongdoing was the conviction and imprisonment of plaintiff for a crime which he did not commit is a violation of due process which must be compensated for by the state which is responsible for the incarceration.
Also alleged in the federal complaint is wrongdoing on the part of the various city and county officials named as defendants. Plaintiff claims that since this wrongdoing occurred while defendants were acting under color of state law, and since the result of the wrongdoing was the conviction and imprisonment of plaintiff for a crime he did not commit, the officials are liable to compensate plaintiff. Specifically, plaintiff alleges (1) that he was arrested and a blood sample taken without probable cause; (2) that his clothes were seized and fingernail scrapings taken without a warrant; (3) that he was denied adequate legal representation, in that defendant Daniel Weil, then Superintendent of the Cook County Department of Corrections, prevented his counsel from taking photographs of plaintiff shortly after his arrest, which photographs would have tended to corroborate plaintiff's testimony that he was beaten near the scene of the murder; (4) that he was deprived of his due process right to access to exculpatory evidence by the refusal of defendant police officers William Arnos and Gerald Saternos to discuss facts they knew prior to their testimony; and by their failure properly to report their initial encounter with plaintiff; and (5) that members of the Chicago Police Department and the State's Attorney's Office of Cook County failed fully to investigate plaintiff's version of what had occurred.
III. The Adequacy of Plaintiff's Claim Against the State of Illinois
The district court dismissed the case against the State of Illinois on the ground that plaintiff had failed to state a claim for which relief could be granted. Plaintiff's complaint alleges that by virtue of his imprisonment for a crime he did not commit, the State of Illinois deprived him of liberty in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Plaintiff apparently now concedes that no procedural flaws existed in his apprehension or conviction. But he argues that even absent such flaws, when the system results in the imprisonment of an innocent man, due process has been denied. 1 Accordingly, he seeks damages.
We must first consider certain procedural obstacles to any private claim brought against this particular defendant. Private actions for damages against the states have traditionally been barred from the federal courts by the doctrine of sovereign immunity as inferred from the Eleventh Amendment:
The judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.
While the Amendment by its terms does not bar suits against a state by its own citizens, the Supreme Court has consistently extended the concept of sovereign immunity to such suits. Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 662-63, 94 S.Ct. 1347, 39 L.Ed.2d 662 (1974) ().
The federal courts can exercise jurisdiction, however, in cases where the state waives its immunity. Cf. Edelman v. Jordan, supra, at 663, 94 S.Ct. 1347 (1974). Plaintiff cites us to Article 13, Section 4 of the Illinois Constitution of 1970 as evidence of that state's waiver of sovereign immunity. We have considered the section and find that while it does waive sovereign immunity, the waiver is made subject to such limitations as the state legislature may impose. Section 4 provides:
Except as the General Assembly may provide by law, sovereign immunity in this State is abolished.
[Emphasis added.]
And indeed, the General Assembly of Illinois has provided that in cases such as this, where damages are sought for wrongful imprisonment, sovereign immunity is waived only as to suits brought in the Illinois Court of Claims:
The court [of claims] shall have exclusive jurisdiction to hear and determine the following matters:
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(c) All claims against the State for time unjustly served in prisons of this State where the persons imprisoned shall receive a pardon from the governor stating that such pardon is issued on the ground of innocence of the crime for which they were imprisoned.
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Ill.Rev.Stat., Ch. 37, Sec. 439.8. Moreover, the Assembly has limited the amount of damages which can be awarded in cases of wrongful imprisonment to $15,000 for wrongful imprisonment of five years or less, to $30,000 for five to fourteen years, and to $35,000 for more than fourteen years. Ill.Rev.Stat., Ch. 37, Sec. 439.8.
Plaintiff nevertheless contends that sovereign immunity does not bar him from pursuing this federal suit because he claims that the monetary limitations on recovery imposed by section 439.8 are unconstitutional, (1) because Art. 13, Sec. 4 of the Illinois Constitution was not intended to allow the legislature to limit the amount of potential state liability, and (2) because the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the states from drawing irrational distinctions in the treatment of citizens. In the latter respect, plaintiff argues that it is irrational for the State of Illinois to single out the tort of wrongful imprisonment and tell citizens who suffer such harm that their recovery against the state is limited, while citizens who suffer other forms of tortious injury at the hands of the state are not subject to the same limitations.
In considering whether or not plaintiff's suit against the State of Illinois is barred by sovereign immunity, we begin our analysis by noting that pla...
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