Phillips v. City of Chi.
| Decision Date | 13 March 2018 |
| Docket Number | No. 14 C 9372,14 C 9372 |
| Parties | PAUL PHILLIPS and LEWIS GARDNER, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF CHICAGO, CHICAGO POLICE OFFICERS ANTHONY VILLARDITA # 20849, THOMAS JOHNSON #20820, BRIAN KILLACKY #20748, TERRY O'CONNOR #20831, RICK ABREU #20796, ROBERT DELANEY #20383, SEAN GLINSKI #3122, MICHAEL BERTI #12881, UNIDENTIFIED EMPLOYEES OF THE CITY OF CHICAGO, and ESTATE OF ROBERT HEYRMAN, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
Plaintiffs Lewis Gardner and Paul Phillips were convicted of murder in 1995. Nearly twenty years later, they successfully petitioned to have their convictions vacated—apparently based on doubts about the reliability of their confessions, although the record is oddly silent on the exact circumstances of their exoneration. Gardner and Phillips now bring this action against the City of Chicago and nine Chicago police officers pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Illinois law, alleging, inter alia, deprivations of their constitutional rights, malicious prosecution, and civil conspiracy. The officers and the City have moved for partial summary judgment on certain claims directed against them. As explained below, the motions are granted in part and denied in part. Defendants are entitled to summary judgment on Plaintiffs' claims for the suppression of exculpatory evidence and for the failure of the now-deceased Officer Robert Heyrman to intervene to prevent the violations of Plaintiffs' rights. But because genuine disputes remain as to facts that are material to Plaintiffs' claims of evidence fabrication and malicious prosecution, the court denies Defendants' motions with regard to those claims.
On November 16, 1992, at approximately 8:43 p.m., Jeffrey Lassiter and Sharon Haugabook were shot and killed inside Lassiter's second-floor apartment, located at 910 W. Agatite Ave. in Chicago, Illinois. (Def. Officers Statement of Material Facts (hereafter "DSOF") [107], at ¶ 21.) Within minutes, police arrived at the scene, where a neighbor named Faye McCoy told them she had seen four African-American men leave Lassiter's building shortly after the shootings. (Id. at ¶ 22.)
Detectives Anthony Villardita and Thomas Johnson, both Defendants here, visited the crime scene that evening and spoke with Faye McCoy. (Id. at ¶ 24; Villardita Dep. 94-95, Ex. 6 to DSOF.) The parties dispute exactly what McCoy told the detectives. Plaintiffs claim, and McCoy has testified, that she told the detectives that one of the men she had seen leaving Lassiter's building was Dennis Mixon, a.k.a. "Goldie," whom she knew as a drug dealer from Chicago's West Side and whom she had previously warned to stay away from her teen-age daughter. Johnson denies that McCoy identified Mixon on the night of the murders. (Johnson Dep. 494-95, Ex. 7 to DSOF.) Villardita recalls that McCoy described the four men she saw leaving Lassiter's building but did not identify any of them by name. (Villardita Dep. 107-110.) The Defendant-officers admit, however, that "a couple days after the murders," the detectives showed McCoy several photographs, including one of Mixon, and that McCoy identified Mixon as one of the men she saw leave Lassiter's building shortly after the murders. (Defs.' Resp. to PSOF [134], at ¶ 5.)
Plaintiff Paul Phillips was seventeen years old in November 1992. (Phillips Aff. ¶ 2, Ex. 1 to PSOF.) He lived in an apartment located at 854 W. Agatite Ave. with his mother, his nineteen-year-old brother Dion (a.k.a, "Akia"), and several other people. Seventeen-year-oldDaniel Taylor stayed at the apartment sometimes, as did Plaintiff Lewis Gardner, who was fifteen. (Id.; DSOF ¶ 13; PSOF ¶¶ 16, 23.)
Paul Phillips has testified that at around 5:00 or 5:30 p.m. on November 16, 1992, he left his house to "see . . . where was everybody else at." (Phillips Dep. 114, Ex. 7 to PSOF.) He walked to the Clarendon Park field house, where he watched people playing basketball in the gym until approximately 6:00 p.m. (Id. at 117.) Phillips then decided to return home, but when he left the field house, he ran into two friends named Mohammed and Kerrick. (Id. at 119.) Mohammed, who lived in Phillips' building, told Phillips that he had recently been beaten up by a group of people now standing across the street. (Id. at 133, 119-121.) As Phillips was speaking with Mohammed and Kerrick, Daniel Taylor walked up and joined the conversation. (Id. at 121-22.) The four decided to confront the group across the street, and while the groups were exchanging words, a marked police car emerged from an alley nearby. (Id. at 125.) Phillips warned his friends about the police and they started to run away. (Id. at 128.) Phillips, Mohammed, and Kerrick managed to escape, but officers grabbed Taylor and placed him on the hood of the squad car. (Id. at 132-33.) Phillips ran straight home and did not see what happened to Taylor next. (Id. at 133.) Once home, Phillips turned on the television and watched the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Blossom, and Monday Night Football. (Id. at 135-37.)1 Phillips' mother was home at the time, along with her friend Elizabeth Reed and Reed's son. (Id. at 139-40.)
At some point after 8:00 p.m., Phillips' friend Mark Tillis knocked on the door and Phillips invited him inside. (Id. at 140.) The two ate ice cream and watched football for a few minutes. (Id. at 141-43.) Around 8:20 p.m, Phillips received a phone call from his upstairs neighbor April. (Id. at 143.) April suggested that Phillips and Tillis go to the back porch of Phillips' apartment, where they could see and talk to her through her window. (Id. at 143-45.) April also told Phillipsthat her parents were not home and that she "wanted me to come up there and probably, you know, fool around with her." (Id. at 145.) Phillips told April that she would have to wait until Tillis left his house. (Id. at 145-46.) Phillips and Tillis went outside to Phillips' back porch, where they played with a Nerf basketball hoop and talked with April for around forty minutes. (Id. at 146-48.)
Around 9:00 p.m., Tillis missed a shot and went downstairs to retrieve the ball. (Id. at 147, 150.) While Tillis was gone, Elizabeth Reed called to Phillips to come inside. (Id. at 149.) Phillips returned to the apartment and was immediately confronted by several police officers. (Id. at 150.) According to Phillips, the officers told him to "freeze." While he stood in the dining room, they entered his bedroom and found a small bag of drugs in his coat pocket. (Id. at 151.) The police then brought Phillips' mother into the dining room. (Id. at 155, 157.) Phillips says he told the police that the drugs were his but the officers responded that "since I was only 17 and [his mother] was the legal guardian of the house, then they got to charge that on her." (Id. at 159.) Phillips' mother was arrested and escorted from the apartment.
A police report on the incident, dated November 18, 1992, states that on November 16 the officers were responding to reports of gunfire at Lassiter's apartment building when they observed Mark Tillis "standing at the mouth of the alley." (Police Report of Nov. 18, 1992, Ex. 40 to PSOF.) The officers approached Tillis, who "began running eastbound through the alley to the rear of 854 W. Agatite." (Id.) Police followed Tillis, who was reportedly "yelling the police are chasing me," into "an open apartment door on the second floor." (Id.) At that point, the officers "clearly observed a female black, now known as [Phillips' mother], sitting at the dining room table attempting to hide numerous plastic packets which were scattered on the table." (Id.) Police arrested both Phillips' mother and Mark Tillis. (Id.) The report concludes by noting that "further investigation revealed [Tillis] had no knowledge" of the shootings to which the officers had originally responded. (Id.)
At some point on the night of November 16, after the police left Phillips' apartment, Daniel Taylor showed up there. (DSOF ¶ 20.) Taylor told Phillips that he "just got out," and Phillips assumed this meant that Taylor had been arrested following the altercation earlier that day and had come straight from police custody to the apartment. Phillips maintains that he did not learn of the shooting that took place at Jeffrey Lassiter's apartment at any point on the night of November 16, 1992. (Phillips Dep. 176.)
Plaintiff Lewis Gardner did learn of the Lassiter-Haugabook murders on the night of November 16. He has testified that he spent the morning of November 16, 1992, selling drugs on the 800 block of Agatite Ave. to "whoever come up and ask" for them. (Gardner Dep. 85-90, Ex. 8 to PSOF.) He recalls that he ate lunch at a restaurant in the neighborhood around noon, and then, when it got dark, went to his mother's apartment, located at 4408 N Hazel St., to play with his nephew and to give his sister money for diapers and other childcare expenses. (Id. at 90-92.) Gardner does not remember what he did between noon and the time he went to his mother's apartment, though he maintains that he did not go to Clarendon Park that day. (Id. at 92.) At some point after dark, while he was at his mother's apartment, Gardner remembers noticing "a lot of commotion" outside—"like ambulances and police cars and fire trucks coming past." (Id. at 95.) He went outside and followed the commotion around the corner to the 900 block of Agatite Ave., where he remembers "see[ing] them bringing bodies out." (Id. at 100.) After police told Gardner and other onlookers to leave the area, he went back to his mother's apartment. (Id. at 103-04.) He believes he stayed at his...
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