Moran v. Calumet City

• Citation: 54 F.4th 483
• Decision Date: 23 November 2022
• Docket Number: 22-1043
• Parties: Nakiya MORAN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CALUMET CITY, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

54 F.4th 483

Nakiya MORAN, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.CALUMET CITY, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 22-1043

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued September 22, 2022

Decided November 23, 2022

Paul A. Castiglione, Kasif Khowaja, Attorneys, Khowaja Law Firm, LLC, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

James G. Sotos, Laura M. Ranum, Attorneys, Sotos Law Firm, P.C., Chicago, IL, for Defendants-Appellees Calumet City, Mitchell Growe, and Kevin Rapacz.

James G. Sotos, Laura M. Ranum, Attorneys, Sotos Law Firm, P.C., Chicago, IL, K. Austin Zimmer, Attorney, Del Galdo Law Group, LLC, Berwyn, IL, for Defendant-Appellee Marco Glumac.

Before Wood, Hamilton, and St. Eve, Circuit Judges.

St. Eve, Circuit Judge.

A jury convicted Nakiya Moran of attempted murder and aggravated battery with a firearm for a 2006 shooting in Calumet City, Illinois. After the trial, the prosecution learned that exculpatory evidence, including a ballistics report linking the gun used in the Calumet City shooting to a different shooting, had not been turned over to the defense as required by Brady v. Maryland , 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963). Moran sought postconviction relief based on the Brady violation, and a state court vacated his conviction. Moran was retried in a bench trial and acquitted in 2017.

Moran then filed this suit in federal court, seeking redress for the decade he spent behind bars. He brought federal and state claims against the city, two detectives who investigated the shooting, and a crime scene technician who mishandled the ballistics report. The district court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment. In its ruling, the district court noted a mistaken allegation in Moran's complaint. This allegation was a judicial admission that negated an essential element of one of Moran's theories of liability. Hoping for another chance to pursue this legal theory, Moran moved for leave to amend his complaint, but the court denied his motion. Moran appealed.

We affirm. The district court properly entered summary judgment in the defendants' favor and did not abuse its discretion in denying Moran leave to amend his complaint.

I. Background

A. The Calumet City Shooting

The summer of 2006 was a time of conflict for the Latin Dragons and Latin Kings, two rival street gangs active in the Calumet City area. In the evening of August 22, 2006, the Rostro family and several friends gathered outside the Rostros' Calumet City home. At least one member of the Rostro family, Eduardo, was a member of the Latin Kings. At around 9:00 p.m., a man emerged from the bushes in an alley across the street and opened fire, hitting Tomas Rostro, Eduardo's father; Yadira Rostro, his sister; and Desiree Dolata, a friend of Yadira's. Tomas ran toward the shooter and was within 16 feet of him when the shooter fled. Eduardo and Yadira were farther away, but they recognized the shooter as Nakiya Moran, a member of the Latin Dragons whom they had known since childhood.

The police arrived soon after, including Detectives Mitchell Growe and Kevin Rapacz of the Calumet City Police Department ("CCPD"), who are defendants in this lawsuit. The record indicates that Eduardo identified Moran to the police at the scene, but it is disputed when Yadira first identified Moran as the shooter. Although she has never wavered in her identification of Moran as the shooter, Yadira denies that she identified him on the night of the shooting. Detective Growe, however, indicated in a police report written in 2008 and in testimony at a pretrial hearing that Yadira had identified Moran at the crime scene.

B. The Investigation

The next day, August 23, 2006, Detectives Growe and Rapacz interviewed Yadira, Eduardo, and Tomas separately. Yadira stated that Moran was the shooter and identified him in a photo array the detectives showed her. In a second photo array, Yadira identified Horatio "Bobby" Loera, another member of the Latin Dragons. She later testified that it was possible she told the detectives she saw Loera in the alley with Moran during the shooting, and she stated that she thought Eduardo had said something about Loera. The detectives presented Eduardo with a clean copy of the first photo array; he too identified Moran as the shooter. Tomas described the shooter as "a young Asian male who was wearing glasses and a baseball hat" but was unable to positively identify the shooter when shown photos of potential suspects. Neither Loera nor Moran is of Asian descent.

That evening, police arrested Loera and a woman named Amanda Torres on information "that they drove [Moran]." Loera and Torres were given Miranda warnings, interrogated by Detectives Growe and Rapacz, and released approximately 26 hours later. Little is known about the content of the interrogations. Detectives Growe and Rapacz could not recall details but thought that the long duration of the detention "was consistent with Yadira identifying [Loera] as being in the alley at the time of the shooting" and therefore implicated in the crime. While preparing for trial, Frank Celani, Moran's attorney, took a sworn statement from Torres, but that statement is not in the record. A note in the Cook County State's Attorney's Office file indicates that Loera and Torres were cleared because "their alibis checked out."

Based on Eduardo's and Yadira's identification of Moran as the shooter, police arrested him on August 24, 2006. A grand jury indicted Moran for attempted first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm, and aggravated discharge of a firearm. He remained incarcerated while awaiting trial.

C. The Hammond Shooting and Ballistics Evidence

Another gang-related shooting occurred on October 22, 2006, this time in Hammond, Indiana, just across the state line from Calumet City. Several days later, police arrested and recovered a 9 mm handgun from a suspect in the shooting: Nicholas Chavez, a member of the Latin Dragons who resembled Moran. Ballistics analysis performed on Chavez's gun indicated that it was a possible match for shell casings recovered from the Calumet City shooting.

On January 7, 2009, while Moran's prosecution was still pending, Cook County forensic scientist Leah Kane informed Marco Glumac, a CCPD crime scene technician and a defendant in this case, about the potential match. Kane asked Glumac to resubmit the Calumet City shell casings for analysis, which he did in April 2009. In May 2009, Kane told Glumac that the Calumet City shell casings had been fired from the gun used in the Hammond shooting, and in June 2009, Kane faxed Glumac an Illinois State Police ("ISP") ballistics report containing the same information.

The ballistics match was exculpatory evidence that should have been turned over to the defense under Brady v. Maryland. Under CCPD procedures, Glumac should have forwarded the ISP report to Detectives Growe and Rapacz, who would then have turned it over to the prosecution. Although Glumac wrote the detectives' "star numbers" on the report, he never forwarded it to them. Why he did not is a hotly contested issue. Glumac testified that he intended to forward the report and his failure to do so was an "inadvertent omission." For their part, Detectives Growe and Rapacz testified that they were unaware of the ISP report prior to Moran's trial. Moran disputes both points, arguing that Glumac intentionally or at least recklessly failed to produce the report and that the detectives knew about it before the trial.

In any event, lead prosecutor Assistant State's Attorney ("ASA") Cordelia Coppleson testified that the prosecution did not receive the report prior to Moran's trial.¹ As a result, Moran's counsel did not receive the report in time to use it in Moran's defense.

D. State Court Proceedings

Moran went to trial in August 2009. The prosecution's evidence included testimony about Eduardo's and Yadira's prior identifications of Moran, in-court identifications of Moran as the shooter by Eduardo and Yadira, and testimony from Glumac and Detectives Growe and Rapacz. Moran presented an alibi defense, offering testimony from witnesses who stated that Moran had been with them until 9:00 p.m. on August 22, 2006, so it was "physically impossible" for Moran to have shot the victims. The jury found Moran guilty of five counts of attempted murder and two counts of aggravated battery with a firearm.

In October 2010, while Moran's direct appeal was pending, ASA Coppleson spoke with a CCPD detective who informed her that a shell casing from the Calumet City shooting matched the gun recovered from the suspect in the Hammond shooting. ASA Coppleson obtained a copy of the ISP report and sent it to the public defender representing Moran on appeal and Celani, who had represented Moran at trial. Moran took no immediate action, and the Illinois Appellate Court upheld his conviction in February 2013.

Moran then sought postconviction relief in state court, arguing that the failure to produce the ISP report violated Brady v. Maryland. The court agreed and vacated Moran's conviction in June 2015. Moran was retried in a bench trial in November 2016 and January 2017. Eduardo and Yadira maintained that Moran was the shooter, but the trial court found that their testimony was insufficient evidence to prove Moran's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt given the alibi witnesses' testimony and the subsequent use of the gun in a different shooting. The court acquitted Moran in February 2017, and he was released after more than 10 years' imprisonment.

E. District Court Proceedings

Moran brought this suit in federal district court in March 2017 and amended his complaint six days later. He asserted claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and state law against Glumac, Detectives Growe and Rapacz, and Calumet City. The following claims survived the motion-to-dismiss stage: (1) a § 1983 claim against the individual defendants, alleging that they suppressed exculpatory evidence in violation of Brady ; (2) a § 1983 claim against...