Peck v. Robinson

• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois
• Writing for the Court: SARA L. ELLIS, United States District Judge
• Citation: Peck v. Robinson, 641 F.Supp.3d 467 (N.D. Ill. 2022)
• Docket Number: 19 C 3279
• Decision Date: 15 November 2022
• Parties: Brian PECK (#2017-1031144), Plaintiff, v. Heather ROBINSON and Anthony Rigano, Defendants.

641 F.Supp.3d 467

Brian PECK (#2017-1031144), Plaintiff, v. Heather ROBINSON and Anthony Rigano, Defendants.

No. 19 C 3279

United States District Court, N.D. Illinois, Eastern Division

Signed November 15, 2022

Christopher James Barber, Williams & John, Ltd., Chicago, IL, Andrew Chamberlain, Bradley Riley Jacobs PC, Chicago, IL, Joseph Franklin Bozdech, U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Arizona, Phoenix, AZ, for Plaintiff.

James L. DeAno, Laura Lee Scarry, DeAno & Scarry, LLC, Chicago, IL, Raymond John Byrne, Clark Baird Smith LLP, Rosemont, IL, for Defendant Heather Robinson.

OPINION AND ORDER

SARA L. ELLIS, United States District Judge

Plaintiff Brian Peck brings this lawsuit against Defendants Elgin Police Detectives Heather Robinson and Anthony Rigano (the "Detectives"). Peck alleges that Detective Robinson deprived him of his Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights against self-incrimination when she denied Peck his right to an attorney during custodial interrogation and otherwise coerced his confession, and Detective Rigano failed to intervene. The Detectives now move to dismiss the first amended complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). Because a Miranda violation alone cannot form the basis of a § 1983 claim, the Court grants the Detectives' motion only to the extent Peck seeks relief for a Miranda violation. Peck's claims, however, rest on more than a violation of Miranda; thus, his coerced confession claims may proceed and the Court denies the remainder of the Detectives' motion.

BACKGROUND¹

On October 27, 2017, Detective Robinson visited Peck at his home in connection with a missing person report Peck filed earlier that day. Detective Robinson assured Peck that he was not under arrest or being charged with a crime and that instead Detective Robinson wanted to show Peck aerial maps relating to his missing person report that would have been too large to bring to his home. Peck agreed to go to the Elgin Police Station to view the maps. At the station, Detective Robinson informed Peck of his Miranda rights and began questioning him in connection with the missing person report. Detective Rigano observed the questioning from another room. The questioning began at approximately 11 p.m. Around 2 a.m., Detective Robinson told Peck that he could not leave the station that night, and so Peck spent the night in a jail cell. Questioning resumed the following day, with Detective Robinson again reading Peck his Miranda rights. After about twenty minutes, Peck invoked his right to counsel and requested to speak with his family members. Detective Robinson denied both requests, and Detective Rigano, who was also present, did not intervene. Over the course of the seventy-eight hours he spent in detention, Peck made self-incriminating statements. Ultimately, Peck was charged with murder and several other offenses.

At Peck's bail hearing, the judge denied Peck bail, based in part on Peck's self-incriminating statements. Peck then filed a motion to suppress the statements he made after he invoked his right to counsel. At the motion to suppress hearing, the State conceded that the statements made after Peck requested counsel were obtained in violation of his constitutional rights, and the judge entered an order suppressing these statements. The suppressed statements were not introduced at his trial. On February 1, 2022, a jury found Peck guilty of murder, dismemberment, and concealment of those crimes.

LEGAL STANDARD

A motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) challenges the sufficiency of the complaint, not its merits. Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6); Gibson v. City of Chicago, 910 F.2d 1510, 1520 (7th Cir. 1990). In considering a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the Court accepts as true all well-pleaded facts in the plaintiff's complaint and draws all reasonable inferences from those facts in the plaintiff's favor. Kubiak v. City of Chicago, 810 F.3d 476, 480-81 (7th Cir. 2016). To survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the complaint must assert a facially plausible claim and provide fair notice to the defendant of the claim's basis. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009); Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007); Adams v. City of Indianapolis, 742 F.3d 720, 728-29 (7th Cir. 2014). A claim is facially plausible "when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged." Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937.

ANALYSIS

I. Miranda Claim

Peck contends that Detective Robinson's interrogation deprived him of his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in part because Detective Robinson refused Peck's request for counsel in violation of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). The judge in Peck's criminal case agreed and suppressed the statements Peck made after he requested an attorney. Peck now seeks civil damages.

The Fifth Amendment, made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment, prevents any person from being "compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." U.S. Const. amend. V; see Chavez v. Martinez, 538 U.S. 760, 766, 123 S.Ct. 1994, 155 L.Ed.2d 984 (2003). In Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. at 479, 86 S.Ct. 1602, the Court imposed "a set of prophylactic rules" intended to safeguard the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Vega v. Tekoh, — U.S. —, 142 S. Ct. 2095, 213 L.Ed.2d 479 (2022). One of the safeguards identified in Miranda was the right to counsel during custodial interrogations. Miranda, 384 U.S. at 479, 86 S.Ct. 1602.

During the pendency of the Detectives' motion to dismiss, the United States Supreme Court issued its opinion in Vega, holding that a Miranda violation cannot form the basis of a claim under § 1983. 142 S. Ct. at 2106 ("[A] violation of Miranda does not necessarily constitute a violation of the Constitution, and therefore such a violation does not constitute 'the deprivation of [a] right . . . secured by the Constitution [under § 1983.]' " (second alteration in original) (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 1983)). Vega thus forecloses Peck's claims to the extent they rely solely on a Miranda violation. See Fosnight v. Jones, 41 F.4th 916, 923 (7th Cir. 2022) ("[T]he Supreme Court recently made clear that a Miranda violation is not redressable in a suit for damages[.]"); Dukes v. Washburn, 600 F. Supp. 3d. 885, 897 (N.D. Ill. Apr. 26, 2022) ("Like a claim based on failure to give Miranda warnings, a claim based on deprivation of a plaintiff's right to counsel 'is also not the source of a stand-alone constitutional claim, because the right to counsel is derived from the holding in Miranda.' " (citation omitted)) Although Peck cannot bring a claim based solely on a Miranda violation, that he was denied counsel may support his argument that his confession was coerced in violation of the Fifth Amendment.

II. Coerced Confession Claim

Although Vega bars claims based solely on Miranda violations, Peck argues that his claim of "actual" coercion remains viable. Doc. 60 at 3. The Court agrees. To bring a successful coerced confession claim, Peck must show (1) that his confession was improperly coerced, and (2) that his confession was used against him in a criminal case. Chavez, 538 U.S. at 770, 123 S.Ct. 1994. Courts consider the totality of all the surrounding circumstances and ask whether a defendant's "will was overborne in such a way as to render his confession the product of coercion." Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 288, 111 S.Ct. 1246, 113 L.Ed.2d 302 (1991).

The Detectives argue that Peck's coerced confession claim fails because: (1) the statements were not introduced at trial and thus were not "used in a criminal case"; (2) the coerced statements were not the proximate cause of Peck's injury; and (3) Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994), bars his claim.²

A. "Used in a criminal case"

That Peck's statements were not used at trial does not necessarily mean they were not "used in a criminal case." Peck's complaint alleges that his coerced statements were used to indict him and at a bail hearing at which he was denied bail. The Fifth Amendment prohibits the use of coerced confessions at pre-trial hearings—not only at trials. Jackson v. Curry, 888 F.3d 259, 265 (7th Cir. 2018) ("The government violates the Self-Incrimination Clause by using coerced confessions at pre-trial hearings or trials in criminal cases."); see also Hurt v. Wise, 880 F.3d 831, 845 (7th Cir. 2018) (finding that a plaintiff stated a claim based on a statement's use in a probable cause affidavit and at a pre-trial hearing, noting that "[w]e have already rejected such a cramped understanding of what it means to 'use' a confession against someone in a criminal case.") (citing Sornberger v. City of Knoxville, 434 F.3d 1006, 1026-27, n.15 (7th Cir. 2006)); Sornberger, 434 F.3d at 1026-27 (finding confession was "used in a criminal case" when introduced at a probable cause hearing, bail hearing, or arraignment and "refus[ing] to hold that the right against self-incrimination cannot be violated unless a confession is introduced in the prosecution's case-in-chief at trial before the ultimate finder of fact.").

Notwithstanding the long line of Seventh Circuit cases holding to the contrary, the Detectives argue that Johnson v. Winstead, 900 F.3d 428 (7th Cir. 2018), Chavez, 538 U.S. 760, 123 S.Ct. 1994, and Martin v. Marinez, 934 F.3d 594 (7th Cir. 2019), require the coerced statements to have been used at trial. The Court disagrees. First, Johnson addressed when a Fifth Amendment claim accrues for statute of limitations purposes, not whether use prior to trial qualifies as being "used in a criminal case." Johnson, 900 F.3d at 434. In Chavez, the plaintiff made incriminating statements during police questioning but was never prosecuted. 538 U.S. at 764, 123 S.Ct. 1994. The...