Morgan v. City of Chi.

• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit
• Writing for the Court: RIPPLE, Circuit Judge.
• Citation: Morgan v. City of Chi., 822 F.3d 317 (7th Cir. 2016)
• Decision Date: 06 May 2016
• Docket Number: No. 14–3307.,14–3307.
• Parties: Clifton MORGAN, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. CITY OF CHICAGO, et al., Defendants–Appellees.

822 F.3d 317

Clifton MORGAN, Plaintiff–Appellant

v.CITY OF CHICAGO, et al., Defendants–Appellees.

No. 14–3307.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued Sept. 29, 2015.

Decided May 6, 2016.

Jared S. Kosoglad, Jared S. Kosoglad, P.C., Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff–Appellant.

Sara K. Hornstra, Attorney, City of Chicago Law Department, Chicago, IL, for Defendants–Appellees.

Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and EASTERBROOK and RIPPLE, Circuit Judges.

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge.

Clifton Morgan was arrested by three Chicago Police Department (“CPD”) officers—Lieutenant Duane DeVries, Sergeant Christian Tsoukalas, and Sergeant Anthony Schulz—and charged with possession of crack cocaine and resisting arrest. The Circuit Court of Cook County dismissed the charges, and Mr. Morgan brought this civil action against the arresting officers and the City of Chicago (collectively, “the defendants”). Along with several state-law claims, he brought a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in which he alleged that the officers had conspired to violate and did violate his constitutional rights during the course of the arrest. Mr. Morgan's claims were tried to a jury, which returned a verdict for the defendants. Mr. Morgan filed a motion for a new trial, arguing that the defendants had violated the Equal Protection Clause by exercising their peremptory strikes on a racially discriminatory basis during jury selection and that the district court had committed multiple procedural and substantive errors, which had deprived him of a fair trial. The court denied the motion, and Mr. Morgan timely appealed. For the reasons set forth in this opinion, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

IBACKGROUND

A.

On May 2, 2011, Mr. Morgan was arrested outside a house at 7746 South Greenwood Avenue in Chicago. The arresting officers noticed Mr. Morgan as he crossed the street and pursued him on suspicion that he was in possession of a firearm. The officers apprehended Mr. Morgan outside the house, using force that Mr. Morgan would later contend was excessive but that the officers would maintain was reasonable because he was resisting arrest.

Mr. Morgan was charged with resisting arrest as well as possession of a controlled substance based on a small bag of cocaine, which the officers claimed to have found near Mr. Morgan after his arrest. The Circuit Court of Cook County dismissed the possession charge on the ground that there was not probable cause to prosecute, and the State's Attorney dropped the charge for resisting arrest.

B.

In December 2011, Mr. Morgan brought this civil action against the defendants in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. He asserted claims against the arresting officers under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the officers had unlawfully stopped, falsely arrested, and used excessive force against him. He also alleged that they had conspired to deprive him of his constitutional rights. Additionally, Mr. Morgan asserted several state-law claims against the officers as well as the City of Chicago.

Mr. Morgan's case then proceeded to trial. In September 2013, the parties filed a joint proposed pretrial order as well as several dozen motions in limine. In particular, the defendants requested that the district court bar evidence that, at Mr. Morgan's preliminary hearing, the state court had entered a finding of “no probable cause” as to the possession of a controlled substance charge because this finding rested on a stricter standard of proof than probable cause to arrest.¹ Mr. Morgan then moved to set a pretrial conference; the court granted the motion but never held a pretrial conference.

On the morning of the first day of trial, the parties brought to the court's attention the pending motions in limine. The court declined to address them; it explained that “during the course of the trial the Court will rule on motions as they are made” and directed the parties to “avoid any issue that is the subject of a motion in limine” during opening statements.²

The court then proceeded to jury selection. It provided a brief overview of the case to the venire, including the name of the parties, the nature of the claims, and the fact that Mr. Morgan had been arrested on May 2, 2011, near 77th and South Greenwood Avenue in Chicago. The court then called twelve members of the venire for voir dire and questioned them about their place of residence, marital status, number of children, prior jury service, and whether they were capable of being fair and impartial. The court excused one prospective juror on its own initiative; it then allowed the parties to ask additional questions of the panel.

After the parties had completed their questioning of the first twelve venirepersons, the court entertained challenges to specific potential jurors and stated that each party would be allowed three peremptory challenges. Mr. Morgan sought to remove two prospective jurors for cause. He challenged Juror Ten because she had several family members in law enforcement and had stated that she was not sure if she could be impartial; the district court granted the challenge. Mr. Morgan also challenged Juror Five, who had stated that she was friends with a police officer who had told her “stories about people in Chicago of color—nothing against you—white, blacks—and what they have on them when they stop them.”³ When asked by the district court whether she could put aside what she had heard from her friend and be fair and impartial in this case, Juror Five had responded, “I think so.”⁴ After Mr. Morgan's challenge, the district court asked for a response from the defendants' counsel, who replied, “I think [Juror Five] indicated that despite what she ... has learned through her friend, she could be fair and impartial.”⁵ The court granted Mr. Morgan's challenge of Juror Five for cause. Mr. Morgan also used peremptory challenges to strike two additional members of the first panel.

The defendants also challenged two members of the first panel for cause, Jurors Nine and Seven. Juror Nine lived on the south side of Chicago; when asked if she was familiar with the area of the 7700 block of South Greenwood Avenue, Juror Nine stated that she was and that she “live[d] not far away.”⁶ Juror Seven, in response to the same question, responded, “I know the area,” and, “I have a couple of friends that live in that area. Friend.”⁷ The defendants argued that the two prospective jurors should be removed because “th[e] case should be decided by people that have no familiarity with the area or may have contacts in any way.”⁸ The district court denied both challenges on the ground that a juror's familiarity with an area is not enough to support a challenge for cause. The defendants then exercised two of their peremptory challenges to strike Jurors Nine and Seven. Mr. Morgan objected to these strikes under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), noting that both Jurors Nine and Seven were African–American. The court responded that the defendants had “already stated a race-neutral basis for exercising the peremptory challenge”—familiarity with the neighborhood and contacts with neighborhood residents—and that it found this to be “a sufficient showing of a nondiscriminatory basis for the” strikes.⁹ The court therefore overruled Mr. Morgan's Batson objection.

The court then called another eight venirepersons for voir dire and again excused one juror on its own initiative. Both parties used their one remaining peremptory challenge, and the court seated the remaining jurors. Of those jurors, two—Jurors Six and Nineteen—were African–American, and both were seated without objection by either party.

Following the parties' opening statements, Mr. Morgan was the first to take the witness stand. He testified that he and four of his friends arrived at his cousin's home at 7746 South Greenwood Avenue to watch a Chicago Bulls game shortly before 7:00 p.m. on May 2, 2011. After standing outside the front gate of the house and talking for about twenty minutes, Mr. Morgan's friends headed toward the house to go inside. Mr. Morgan, however, walked across the street to his truck to retrieve his MP3 player. Then, Mr. Morgan testified, as he was starting to cross the street to go back to the house, he saw a car approaching and moved quickly across the street “to avoid from getting hit.”¹⁰ Mr. Morgan then entered through the front gate into his cousin's yard and closed the gate behind him. At that point, Mr. Morgan testified, he “heard a loud screech” that “sounded like some brakes on the car” and people yelling “[f]reeze” and telling him to open the gate.¹¹ Mr. Morgan stated that he did not open the gate because he was nervous and did not want to be involved with the police. Mr. Morgan then walked on a gangway along the side of his cousin's house, but, after progressing half of the way, turned around and proceeded to walk back toward the front of the house. At this point, a police officer drew his weapon and ordered Mr. Morgan to freeze. Mr. Morgan complied with the officer's orders to lock his hands behind his head and lay flat on the ground.

Mr. Morgan testified that another officer then jumped over a chain-link fence and onto his head while he was lying on the ground. He stated that he lost consciousness for several seconds and, when he regained it, realized that his lip had been cut and his two front teeth broken. The officers then handcuffed Mr. Morgan, lifted him over the chain-link fence, and placed him in the back of a police car. On the way to the police station, Mr. Morgan testified, he was told he would be charged with possession of crack cocaine. After spending some time in a conference room at the police station, Mr. Morgan was taken to the hospital where he received four stitches in his upper lip and was informed that he had two fractured teeth. He was also given pain medication and ibuprofen.

Mr. Morgan testified that he was next transported to the...