Payton v. County of Carroll

Decision Date18 January 2007
Docket NumberNo. 05-3428.,05-3428.
Citation473 F.3d 845
PartiesDelvin C. PAYTON, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. COUNTY OF CARROLL, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit
473 F.3d 845
Delvin C. PAYTON, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
COUNTY OF CARROLL, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
No. 05-3428.
United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.
Argued June 7, 2006.
Decided January 18, 2007.

Page 846

Thaddeus L. Wilson (argued), Brookins & Wilson, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Patricia J. Lord, Office of the State's Attorney of Kane County, Geneva, IL, Robert W. Trevarthen, Ottosen Britz Kelly Cooper & Gilbert, Wheaton, IL, Steven M. Puiszis (argued), Hinshaw & Culbertson, Terry A. Fox, McKenna, Storer, Rowe, White & Farrug, Myers, Miller, Standa & Krauskopf, Michael M. O'Hear, Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal, Chicago, IL, Heinz M. Rudolf, Becker, Paulson, Hoerner & Thompson, Belleville, IL, Julie Ann Hofherr Bruch, O'Halloran, Kosoff, Geitner & Cook, Northbrook, IL, Kevin L. Halligan, Bush, Motto, Creen & Koury, Davenport, IA, Jeff Terronez, Rock Island State's Attorney Office, Rock Island, IL, William D. Emmert, Office of the State's Attorney of Winnebago County, Rockford, IL, for Defendants-Appellees.

Before BAUER, RIPPLE, and WOOD, Circuit Judges.

WOOD, Circuit Judge.


When a person is arrested in Illinois, he or she is arraigned, and when possible, the court releases the detainee either on bail or on personal recognizance. See Illinois Bond Statute, 725 ILCS 5/110-2 (own recognizance); 5/110-4 (bailable offenses). (In People v. Purcell, 201 Ill.2d 542, 268 Ill.Dec. 429, 778 N.E.2d 695 (2002), the Illinois Supreme Court held unconstitutional the part of this statute that governs bail for capital defendants. Id. at 700. This holding has no effect on the present case.) In addition, Illinois sheriffs are entitled to charge detainees an administrative fee for the privilege of posting a 10 percent bond with the sheriff (rather than, say, the county clerk). 55 ILCS 5/4-5001 [¶ 8] ("Fee Act"). The fee is $1, id., unless the county justifies a higher fee through an acceptable cost study, id. at ¶ 39.

The present appeal is a sequel to an earlier one we heard, in which a putative class of former arrestees challenged those administrative fees on a variety of constitutional grounds. See Payton v. County of Kane, 308 F.3d 673 (7th Cir.2002) (Payton I). In our earlier decision, we held (1) that the named plaintiffs had standing to

Page 847

sue the particular counties in which they had been detained; (2) that there was no standing bar to the proposed class actions against DuPage and Kane Counties; and (3) that before the court could decide whether the suit could proceed against the other 17 counties plaintiffs had named, it had to resolve the question of class certification. On remand, the district court first dismissed 12 of the 13 counts in the Fourth Amended Complaint, which named as defendants 39 Illinois counties and relevant officials. It preserved only the claim that the Fee Act violates the Equal Protection clauses of the United States and Illinois Constitutions, for the reason that the bond fee is not the same throughout the state. Next, the court found that a statewide class action was not warranted because of lack of typicality. See FED. R.CIV.P. 23(a)(3). Without a statewide class, the court found, the named plaintiffs lacked standing to pursue the remaining claim against the 37 other counties (apart from DuPage and Kane) and their officials. The court accordingly entered judgment under Rule 54(b) permitting all of the case except the claims against DuPage and Kane counties to be appealed immediately.

Plaintiffs urge strenuously that the district court's dismissal of the 12 counts flouted this court's opinion in Payton I, which they read as a definitive holding that they had stated a claim for purposes of Rule 12(b)(6). They also argue that the court erred in denying the motion for class certification and in granting summary judgment for the 37 county defendants and associated officials. In our view, however, plaintiffs have read too much into our earlier opinion. We conclude that the district court properly followed our mandate, that it correctly dismissed the 12 counts at issue here, and that it did not abuse its discretion in denying class certification. We therefore affirm.

I

With respect to the plaintiffs' challenge to the district court's ruling on the motion to dismiss, our review is of course de novo. County of McHenry v. Ins. Co. of the West, 438 F.3d 813, 817 (7th Cir. 2006). Our review of the court's decision to deny class certification is for abuse of discretion. Mace v. Van Ru Credit Corp., 109 F.3d 338, 340 (7th Cir.1997). As the background facts in this case are uncontested, we proceed immediately to a consideration of the plaintiffs' arguments on appeal.

A

We first take up the 12 counts that were dismissed for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. Because there is some duplication of theory among those counts, we have grouped them here into five different categories.

1. Count I: Excessive Bail

The Fourth Amended Complaint, which is the one that now governs the case, alleges in Count I that the Fee Act violates both the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on excessive bail and the rule of Art. I, § 9 of the Illinois Constitution, which guarantees bail except in cases of serious offenses where a court determines that there is a risk to public safety. The district court rejected the Eighth Amendment argument on the ground that the fee here was a de minimis administrative charge that could not, as a matter of law, be deemed "excessive." It found that it was immaterial that this fee is paid upon release from custody, rather than upon the return of the deposit following appearance at trial, as in Schilb v. Kuebel, 404 U.S. 357, 92 S.Ct. 479, 30 L.Ed.2d 502 (1971). The court also pointed out that Illinois arrestees have alternatives to paying the

Page 848

fee. For example, they may pay the clerk rather than the sheriff, in which case the fee does not apply. Illinois judges have the power to adjust bail to compensate for the fee, if this would make a meaningful difference. Moreover, arrestees may seek bail reduction to free up funds to pay the fee. The district court did not address the state constitutional argument separately, nor has anyone done so in the briefs before this court. That argument is therefore waived.

As the district court recognized, the Supreme Court's decision in Schilb has some bearing on this case. There, the Court upheld an earlier Illinois bail law that permitted the court clerk, upon the conclusion of the trial, to retain as "bail bond costs" 1 percent of the specified bail or 10 percent of the amount actually deposited. Schlib, who had posted $75 to secure bonds of $500 and $250 on two charges, was acquitted at trial on one and convicted on the other. When his bond was returned, the clerk deducted $7.50 for administrative costs. Schlib sued, claiming that the statute permitting this fee violated both the Due Process and the Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court was unpersuaded. It held that the right to be free from a minor administrative cost like this was not fundamental and thus that rational basis review applied. From that, it was an easy step to uphold Illinois's decision to impose the fee, as well as its decision not to impose a fee in the distinguishable circumstances of release on personal recognizance and payment of the full amount of the bail. See 404 U.S. at 367-68, 92 S.Ct. 479. The Court noted that it did not have any question about the Eighth Amendment before it. Id. at 364-65, 92 S.Ct. 479.

The Eighth Amendment issue came before the Fifth Circuit in the case of Broussard v. Parish of Orleans, 318 F.3d 644 (5th Cir.2003). For guidance, that court turned first to the Supreme Court's decision in Stack v. Boyle, 342 U.S. 1, 72 S.Ct. 1, 96 L.Ed. 3 (1951). There, the Court held that:

[l]ike the ancient practice of securing the oaths of responsible persons to stand as sureties for the accused, the modern practice of requiring a bail bond or the deposit of a sum of money subject to forfeiture serves as additional assurance of the presence of an accused. Bail set at a figure higher than an amount reasonably calculated to fulfill this purpose is "excessive" under the Eighth Amendment.

Id. at 5, 72 S.Ct. 1. The Fifth Circuit also looked to the Supreme Court's later decision in United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739, 107 S.Ct. 2095, 95 L.Ed.2d 697 (1987), which dealt with the constitutionality of federal bail reform legislation. In that opinion, the Court underscored the fact that the amount charged for bail depends on what is at stake:

Nothing in the text of the Bail Clause limits permissible Government considerations solely to questions of flight. The only arguable substantive limitation of the Bail Clause is that the Government's proposed conditions of release or detention not be "excessive" in light of the perceived evil. Of course, to determine whether the Government's response is excessive, we must compare that response against the interest the Government seeks to protect by means of that response.

Id. at 754, 107 S.Ct. 2095.

In Broussard, the Fifth Circuit observed that the case before it "concern[ed] neither the State's attempt to deny bail nor an extremely high bail amount. Rather, it concerns relatively modest fees imposed, over and above the amount of bail, on all arrestees who exercise bail." 318 F.3d at

Page 849

651. Although the court conceded that the fees did not advance a compelling interest like public safety, it pointed out on the other hand that "[i]t is also clear that the restriction . . . does not implicate the kind of excessiveness of past decisions." Id. The deprivation imposed by the fees, in short, was "more theoretical than actual," in the absence of any evidence of an arrestee who was otherwise able to make bail but who could not because of the administrative fee. Id.

We see the Illinois system in much the same way. The...

To continue reading

Request your trial
23 cases
  • Markadonatos v. Vill. of Woodridge
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit
    • July 21, 2014
    ...a cost of prosecution imposed under [Illinois law] only upon the convicted defendant” (citations omitted). And in Payton v. County of Carroll, 473 F.3d 845, 852 (7th Cir.2007), we read that “the sheriffs have a legitimate interest in recouping some of the costs of administering the bail sys......
  • Markadonatos v. Vill. of Woodridge
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit
    • March 17, 2014
    ...should be permitted under the reasoning of Schilb v. Kuebel, 404 U.S. 357, 92 S.Ct. 479, 30 L.Ed.2d 502 (1971), and Payton v. County of Carroll, 473 F.3d 845 (7th Cir.2007), even for arrestees who are never convicted of a crime. A closer look at the more precise reasoning of those decisions......
  • People v. Lovelace
    • United States
    • United States Appellate Court of Illinois
    • May 22, 2018
    ...instance. Id. § 110–5; Platt v. Brown , No. 16 C 3898, 2017 WL 1196921, *4 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 31, 2017) ; see also Payton v. County of Carroll , 473 F.3d 845, 851–52 (7th Cir. 2007) (holding ability to petition court for lower bail was one factor which indicated the charging of a bail bond fee......
  • Suchanek v. Sturm Foods, Inc.
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit
    • September 22, 2014
    ...(7th Cir. July 2, 2014). Our review of the decision to deny class certification is for abuse of discretion. Payton v. Cnty. of Carroll, 473 F.3d 845, 847 (7th Cir.2007). Rule 23(a)(2).—One of the requirements for a class action in federal court is the existence of “questions of law or fact ......
  • Request a trial to view additional results

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT