Williams v. City of Chi.

315 F.Supp.3d 1060

Omar WILLIAMS, Plaintiff,

v.CITY OF CHICAGO, Cook County, Illinois, Carol Maresso, Marco Garcia, Donald Hill, and Megan Goldish, Defendants.

No. 17 C 5186

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

Signed June 1, 2018

Paul K. Vickrey, Dylan Michael Brown, Gretchen Lynne Schmidt, Patrick F. Solon, Vitale, Vickrey, Niro & Gasey LLP, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff.

Anna Davis Walker, Vincent Michael Rizzo, City of Chicago, Department of Law, Mary Sara McDonald, Corporation Counsel's Office, James E. Hanlon, Jr., Allyson Lynn West, Scott A. Golden, Cook County State's Attorney's Office, Eric S. Palles, Gary Jay Ravitz, Ravitz & Palles, P.C., Chicago, IL, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Hon. Virginia M. Kendall, United States District Judge

Plaintiff Omar Williams has filed this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action alleging multiple constitutional rights and state law violations by Defendants City of Chicago (the "City"); Cook County, Illinois; Chicago Police Officers Carol Maresso, Marco Garcia, and Donald Hill (collectively, "Officers"); and former Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Megan Goldish. All Defendants have moved to dismiss the claims against them. See (Dkts. 32, 41, 45). The City has also moved, alternatively, to bifurcate the Monell claims. (Dkt. 22). For the reasons stated below, Goldish's and Cook County's motion is granted in part and denied in part, the Officers' motion is granted in part and denied in part, the City's motion to dismiss is denied, and the City's motion to bifurcate is granted.

BACKGROUND ¹

On July 1, 2011, some 30–40 people were socializing in a parking lot in the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago when two men—Andre Gladney and Javonne Oliphant—were shot. Id. at ¶¶ 14–15. Gladney, who had been drinking and had earlier taken ecstasy and PCP, survived; Oliphant did not. Id. at ¶¶ 14–19. Gladney had been in possession of a Ruger .45 caliber handgun, which he discarded as he fled the scene after being shot. Id. at ¶¶ 16, 20. Antoine Williams ("Antoine"), Plaintiff's cousin, also had been in the parking lot at the time of the shooting. Antoine is a paraplegic who requires a wheelchair and a specially equipped van for transportation. Williams and another individual, Keith Slugg, a parolee confined to house arrest, were employed by the Illinois Department of Human Services to drive Antoine's van in the summer of 2011. Williams drove the van during the day and Slugg drove the van at night. Slugg had left his home for his driving shift on July 1, and he was with Antoine in the parking lot at the time of the shooting. Id. at ¶¶ 17–18.

Officers Garcia and Hill immediately began to investigate the shooting. Specifically, on July 2, 2011, the two officers interviewed Gladney, who was still in the hospital being treated for his wounds. Gladney, who had been shot from behind while texting, told the officers that he did not know who shot him. The officers recorded their interview of Gladney in a General Progress Report ("GPR") that they later provided to Officer Maresso and that Maresso lost or destroyed. Id. at ¶¶ 21–23. Others present at the scene also were interviewed. One such witness, Jason Jones, gave a description of the shooter that was inconsistent with Williams's appearance; the GPR for the Jones interview did not include any mention of Williams. Another witness, Kenneth McNeal, was interviewed twice, and first explained to Hill and Garcia who he saw at the lot on the night of the shootings. The GPR of this interview was lost or destroyed. Id. at ¶ 25. McNeal later explicitly told Garcia and Hill that he did not see Williams at the parking lot on the night of the shooting. Id. at ¶ 31. Despite this statement, the GPR for this interview did not mention Williams, and McNeal was not asked about Slugg. Id. at ¶¶ 31–32.

In August 2011, Garcia and Hill obtained surveillance video footage of the shootings that reflected that Antoine's van was present and that the shooter or gunman was associated with the van. Williams contends that Garcia and Hill "were told" that Williams was the driver of the van and therefore they immediately suspected that he was a shooter or the shooter. So Garcia and Hill summoned Gladney to review the surveillance footage. According to Williams, even after watching the footage, Gladney continued to tell the officers that he did not see who had shot him. Garcia and Hill allegedly used the recovered Ruger handgun to threaten Gladney (presumably with criminal charges) and "successfully pressured Gladney to say" that it was Williams who shot him. Id. at ¶ 28. A GPR for the interview was created, and notably, it only discussed the shooting of Gladney; it did not mention the shooting of Oliphant. Id. at ¶ 29.

At some point after this interview, Garcia and Hill "realized that Slugg, and not [Williams], was driving the van" on the night of the shooting. Id. at ¶ 33. Accordingly, Slugg was detained and questioned extensively about the shootings, but again, the GPR of his interview was lost or destroyed. Id. at ¶ 34. Shortly thereafter, Slugg was murdered, and, according to Williams, Defendants decided to charge Williams with the crimes. Id. at ¶ 35. To do so, Garcia and Hill conducted a third interview of Gladney, which began on September 27, 2011; Assistant State's Attorney Goldish was present for this interview. Williams alleges that Garcia, Hill, and Goldish "made very clear what they wanted Gladney to ‘say’ in a statement." Id. at ¶ 36. Gladney allegedly refused to make the requested statement, and his refusal was met with renewed threats concerning his handgun and additional threats to turn him over to federal authorities, since a federal warrant for his arrest for a heroin trafficking offense in Iowa was outstanding. Some 17 hours later, Gladney signed a 17–page statement dated September 28, 2011, that Williams contends was authored by Goldish and Garcia and that contained numerous false statements, including that Gladney saw Williams charge at Oliphant and shoot him at close range, that Gladney had been unarmed, and that he was not drunk. Id. at ¶¶ 37–38. After signing the statement, Gladney was permitted to leave the police station. Mere hours later, Goldish approved felony charges against Williams—who had been arrested the previous day. In addition to Gladney's new statement, Williams contends that Garcia authored (1) a false "Supplementary Report" dated September 22, 2011, that identified Williams to match Jones's description of the shooter, and (2) a false GPR dated September 28, 2011, regarding an interview with Antoine stating that Antoine relayed that Williams had been driving his van on the night of July 1 even though Antoine had not said that and Garica already knew that Slugg had been driving the van. Id. at ¶ 47. A grand jury hearing was held on October 11, 2011; McNeal was asked 107 questions, which Williams alleges were intentionally selective because none of them regarded whether McNeal saw Williams at the parking lot the night of the shooting. Id. at ¶ 31.

After Williams was indicted and before he went to trial, Maresso attempted to link Williams to physical evidence from the crime scene. Specifically, Williams alleges that Garcia authored a January 28, 2012 Supplementary Report that falsely identified the Ruger as belonging to and used by Williams. Id. at ¶ 47. Also, in October 2012 Maresso requested a comparison of Williams's DNA with that of evidence collected from the handlebars of a bicycle recovered from the scene, despite the fact that Maresso already know that fingerprints on the bicycle did not match Williams's. Id. at ¶¶ 40–41. The DNA results, which were returned in July 2014, were negative. In January 2016, Maresso requested a comparison of Williams's DNA to that found on the Ruger handgun despite the fact that the gun was known to be Gladney's; the results did not implicate Williams. Id. at ¶¶ 43–44. Those results were not forwarded to Williams's attorney until January 12, 2017. Id. at ¶ 44.

Williams was tried on charges of first degree murder, attempted first degree murder, and reckless discharge of a firearm in 2017. Notably, McNeal testified at trial and identified Slugg as the driver of the van. Id. at ¶ 32. On June 8, 2017, a jury acquitted Williams of all charges after deliberating for less than 90 minutes. By that date, Williams had spent more than five-and-a-half years in custody at the Cook County Jail.

Five days later, Williams filed this seven-count lawsuit alleging: malicious prosecution and violation of his rights to due process and a fair trial against Garcia, Hill, and Goldish (Count I); federal § 1983 conspiracy against Garcia, Hill, Goldish, and Maresso (Count II); a Monell² claim against the City for its policies and practices of (a) conducting coercive witness interrogations, (b) producing false reports and giving false statements and testimony, (c) pursuing prosecutions based on statements obtained in unlawful interrogations, and (d) failing to pursue and disclose exculpatory evidence (Count III); vicarious liability against the City (Count IV); indemnification by the City and Cook County (Count V); Illinois conspiracy (Count VI); and Illinois malicious prosecution against Garcia, Hill, Maresso, and Goldish (Count VII). Specific to Count III, Williams alleges that the Chicago Police Department has a history and practice of keeping "street files," which include (and conceal from the defense) potentially exculpatory material. See id. at ¶ 45 (citing Chicago Tribune, February 13, 2016, "Old police street files raise question: Did Chicago cops hide evidence?" http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-chicago-police-street-files-met-20160212-story.html). According to Williams, "Defendants followed that practice in this case as well," because three GPRs were lost or destroyed. Id. at ¶ 46. In addition, Williams alleges that Garcia falsified reports linking Plaintiff to the crimes and that Defendants ...