Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

Chicago Officers stopped Martin for non-functioning tail and brake lights. Martin claims he had not committed any traffic violations. Martin explained that he did not have his driver’s license. The officers asked Martin to step out of the car as additional officers arrived. Martin claims the officers forced him from the car, conducted a pat-down search, handcuffed him, put him into a police car, then searched his car, where they recovered a semiautomatic handgun with a defaced serial number and a baggie of crack cocaine. Martin had previously been convicted of first-degree murder and unlawful use of a weapon by a convicted felon. Martin was charged with various crimes under Illinois law and spent 65 days incarcerated. The state court granted Martin’s motion to suppress the evidence. The charges were dismissed. Martin filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983. The officers argued that even if the stop was unlawful, once officers saw the handgun and cocaine, they had probable cause for Martin’s arrest, which limited Martin’s damages to the period between his stop and his arrest. The district court agreed. The jury awarded him $1.00. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The jury concluded that the officers unlawfully seized Martin without reasonable suspicion, but found against Martin on the claim that officers either arrested him or searched him or his car without probable cause. The only Fourth Amendment injury being redressed is the brief initial seizure before officers asked for Martin's license. View "Martin v. Marinez" on Justia Law

Lavite, a combat veteran, works in the Administration Building of Madison County, Illinois, as superintendent for the County’s Veterans Assistance Commission. In 2015, Madison County officials banned Lavite from the Administration Building indefinitely after learning that Lavite had experienced a PTSD episode during which he threatened a police officer and then kicked out the windows of a squad car. The ban lasted for nearly 20 months. Lavite kept his job but had to work remotely. Lavite had previously resisted efforts to use funds from the Commission’s budget for other county needs. Before the ban was lifted, Lavite filed suit. The district court granted summary judgment for the defendants. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Lavite’s right to assemble on government property was not violated because the ban on his presence in the building was viewpoint-neutral and reasonably motivated by legitimate safety concerns. None of the evidence supports a reasonable inference of causation between the ban imposed on Lavite in 2015 and his 2013 objections to the proposals to divert some of his Commission’s budget to other purposes. Lavite, having no alleged liberty or property interest, did not establish any due process violation. View "Lavite v. Dunstan" on Justia Law

Evans, a state prisoner with multiple health issues, alleged that he developed nasal polyps and that the prison medical staff refused to authorize surgery, the only effective remedy. He sued under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging Eighth Amendment violations. The district court dismissed Evans’s case with prejudice as a discovery sanction. Kayira, one of the defendants, attempted to depose Evans. Kayira noticed the deposition by mail on February 16, for February 21. Evans swears that he did not receive that notice until February 22. When, on the 21st, he was taken from his cell to meet with the defendants’ lawyers, he says that he had no idea why they were there and was feeling ill and could not sit for the deposition. Evans refused to be sworn or to answer questions. The Seventh CIrcuit reversed. Although dismissal is sometimes the proper sanction for a discovery violation, it is one of the harshest sanctions a court can impose. Courts must be especially careful before taking that step. If a party appears for his deposition but refuses to cooperate, the proper procedure is to obtain a Rule 37(a) order, directing him to be sworn and testify. The order permitting Evans’s deposition was far from an order compelling Evans to do anything. In addition, Evans was entitled at least to actual notice. View "Evans v. Griffin" on Justia Law

Until 2013, Wozniak had tenure on the University of Illinois faculty. He waged an extended campaign against students who did not give him a teaching award. As he had done before when the University enforced school policies, Wozniak filed suit. Disagreeing with the University’s Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure, the Board of Trustees terminated Wozniak. After the Committee had issued its report, Wozniak posted the entire document and evidence on his website, revealing the identities of the students involved. Wozniak also filed a state court civil suit seeking damages from the students, planning to get a judicial order requiring the students to sit for depositions. Wozniak sued the University alleging violations of the First Amendment. The district court granted the defendants summary judgment. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Wozniak was fired for intentionally causing hurt to students, and refusing to follow the Dean’s instructions, not simply for publicizing the effects of his actions. Wozniak acted in his capacity as a teacher and used his position to inflict the injuries that precipitated his discharge. The First Amendment does not govern how employers respond to speech that is part of a public employee’s job. How faculty members relate to students is part of their jobs. Speech that concerns personal job-related matters is outside the scope of the First Amendment, even if that speech is not among the job’s duties. View "Wozniak v. Adesida" on Justia Law

In 1997, Campos began working as a Cook County Sheriff’s Office correctional officer. In 2011, he was arrested for driving under the influence, striking a vehicle, and leaving the scene of an accident. Campos self-reported. The sheriff suspended him without pay and referred him for termination. The Merit Board has exclusive authority to terminate Sheriff’s Office employees. While the Board proceedings were ongoing, a state court granted Campos’s motion to suppress and quashed his arrest. The Board voted to terminate Campos. The circuit court vacated that decision as too vague to allow for judicial review and remanded. In 2017, the Board again voted to terminate Campos. The circuit court again remanded based on a defect in the Board’s composition. It had been almost seven years since the sheriff suspended Campos without pay. Rather than wait for a third Board decision, Campos filed suit in federal court, arguing that the protracted proceedings have violated his substantive due process rights. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of his claims. Campos has not met the high standard for stating a substantive due process claim. Employment rights are not fundamental rights and Campos identified no independent constitutional violation. The eight-year process is not so arbitrary or outrageous as to violate substantive due process. View "Campos v. Cook Countyx" on Justia Law

Three Chicago police officers stopped three black men in a grey sedan to investigate a shooting that had happened nearby a few hours earlier. When the passengers sued a year later, none of the officers remembered the Terry stop. They relied on other evidence to show that reasonable suspicion had existed. Cell phone footage taken by one of the plaintiffs during the encounter depicted Sergeant King, the officer who initiated the stop, citing the plaintiffs’ suspicious behavior in the area of the shooting as the reason that he had pulled them over. A police report showed that dispatches to officers, including King, identified the suspects as three black men in a grey car. The descriptions of the car’s model varied. The district court held that these descriptions were close enough to justify the Terry stop and that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity because the stop did not violate clearly established law. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting a “suggestion” that the defendants’ failure of memory was a concession of liability. The Fourth Amendment does not govern how an officer proves reasonable suspicion for a Terry stop; he can rely on evidence other than memory. The police report demonstrates what King knew and the cell-phone video shows him giving the shooting as the reason for the stop. View "cTorry v. City of Chicago" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against a correctional officer, her supervisor, and the warden, claiming that the officer's behavior violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. In this case, plaintiff alleged that he suffered from PTSD, that he asked the officer not to stand directly behind him so as to not trigger his symptoms, but the officer repeatedly refused to do so. The district court denied defendants' motion for summary judgment.The Seventh Circuit reversed, holding that defendants were entitled to qualified immunity because, at the relevant times, it did not violate clearly established constitutional law for non-medical correctional staff to refuse to provide a prisoner with what amounts to a medical accommodation that had not been ordered by medical staff and the need for which was not obvious to a layperson. Accordingly, the court remanded with instructions to grant summary judgment in favor of defendants. View "Leiser v. Kloth" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a prison inmate, filed suit alleging that he was punished based on his race, that he was deprived of liberty without due process of law, and that the prison staff's conduct in the wake of his mental health crisis amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. On appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court's summary judgment decision and sought a new trial based on his Batson claim. The Seventh Circuit held that plaintiff's Batson claim was timely and that the district court's decision otherwise was not harmless. The court remanded for an evidentiary hearing on the Batson claim and, if necessary, a new trial on all claims that were tried.The court also reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment for the nurse on plaintiff's taunting claim, holding that the Eighth Amendment can apply to an extreme case where medical staff use an inmate's known psychological vulnerability to cause psychological anguish. In this case, the nurse taunted plaintiff for his failed suicide attempts and encouraged him to try again. The court affirmed in all other respects. View "Lisle v. Welborn" on Justia Law

The Seventh Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of a class action suit challenging the red light camera program of the Village of Lakemoor. Plaintiffs alleged that the violation notices they received were invalid because the notices lack a proper municipal code citation, and that Lakemoor denied them due process by limiting the defenses that can be asserted before a hearing officer to contest a violation.The court held that the process that plaintiffs received was constitutionally sufficient and therefore they have failed to state a federal due process claim. The court also held that plaintiffs' argument that the violation notices were void ab initio failed as a matter of law, because the "specific reference" provision was directory rather than mandatory. Accordingly, plaintiffs' unjust enrichment claim also failed. View "Knutson v. Village of Lakemoor" on Justia Law

Two Stateville inmates, struck by buckshot fired by prison guards, sued under 42 U.S.C. 1983, asserting that the guards violated their Eighth Amendment rights when they discharged their shotguns over a crowded prison dining hall. The guards claimed that they fired the shots as a necessary warning to two other inmates who were fighting and resisting the efforts of guards on the floor, armed only with pepper spray, who were trying to break up the conflict. The inmates claimed that the shots were fired after the fight had been broken up and that the officers did not aim their shots at a "shot box" intended to prevent ricochets. The district court granted the defendants summary judgment. The Seventh Circuit vacated, noting that the force was more than de minimus and that the allegations would support findings of intent to make contact and of malice. Many of the facts are disputed. Construing the facts in favor of the plaintiffs, the force applied was grossly disproportionate to the force that could plausibly have been thought necessary. View "McCottrell v. White" on Justia Law