Willis v. Bell

726 F. Supp. 1118

Maceo G. WILLIS, Jr., Plaintiff, v. Ernest BELL, et al., Defendants.

No. 86 C 9589.

United States District Court, N.D. Illinois, E.D.

December 4, 1989.

Robert O. Case, Jeffrey Schiller, and Michael Braun, Schuyler, Roche & Zwirner, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff.

Diane J. Larsen and Kelly R. Welsh, Corp. Counsel, Chicago, Ill., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER¹

SHADUR, District Judge.

Maceo Willis ("Willis") has sued several City of Chicago ("City") police officers (collectively "Officers"),² Chicago Police Superintendent LeRoy Martin ("Martin")³ and City itself under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 ("Section 1983"), claiming numerous violations of Willis' constitutional rights incident to his arrest and detention by Officers from February 11 to 13, 1985.⁴ In May 1988 all defendants moved for summary judgment under Rule 56. This Court's May 27, 1988 memorandum opinion and order (the "Opinion," 687 F.Supp. 380⁵) dismissed several of Willis' claims on grounds stated there.⁶ Only two of Willis' claims—those challenging the length and conditions of his detention before he received a hearing—survived that first round of attack.

Now Kukulka and O'Connor have moved for summary judgment on Count I of Willis' Third Amended Complaint ("Complaint") concerning the conditions of Willis' detention. City and Martin have moved for summary judgment on Count II of the Complaint concerning the length of Willis' detention before he received a hearing. Willis has filed a cross-motion for summary judgment on Count II only. For the reasons stated in this memorandum opinion and order:

1. Kukulka's and O'Connor's motion is denied.

2. City's and Martin's motion is denied and Willis' corresponding cross-motion is granted.

Facts⁷

Opinion at 383 set out a brief factual background—all that was needed in the context of the then-pending motion. Because the current Rule 56 motions concern a considerably narrower set of issues and stand on a different footing, it is necessary to recapitulate the now-relevant facts.

At about 9 a.m. February 11, 1985⁸ Officers met Willis at his place of employment and urged him to accompany them to police headquarters to aid the police in an investigation. Willis agreed and went with Officers to Area 3 Violent Crimes Police Headquarters at 39th and California. Shortly after Willis' arrival at Area 3 (about 1:30 p.m.) Jones prepared an arrest report on Willis. There was no warrant for the arrest.

Willis remained at Area 3 in the custody of Kukulka and O'Connor⁹ until approximately 11 p.m. During that time Willis was placed in a series of lineups resulting in his identification by eight witnesses regarding seven separate sexual assaults. By 7 p.m. the lineups had concluded. At 9 p.m. an Assistant State's Attorney approved filing charges against Willis, and Kukulka immediately drafted the criminal complaints and felony minute sheets.

At 11:45 p.m. Willis was transported to the 9th District Police Station lockup and the police began to process him. At 4:15 a.m. February 12 the 9th District watch commander, or another police officer authorized by the watch commander, approved the charges against Willis. That concluded the processing.

Instead of Willis being taken to court at that point (a subject dealt with a bit later in this factual summary), Willis remained in police hands for different purposes. Early in the afternoon of February 12 he was moved from the 9th District lockup to Area 2 Violent Crimes Police Headquarters to allow the Area 2 officers to place Willis in another series of lineups — this time relating to the investigation of other sexual assaults — that the police scheduled for 8 p.m. that evening. No arrest warrant had been issued against Willis for those crimes either.

No Area 2 lineups were ever conducted, because the police were unable to locate enough men fitting Willis' general description. Thus the only witness the police summoned to Area 2 viewed a photographic rather than corporeal lineup and was unable to identify Willis. No charges against Willis resulted from the Area 2 investigation. Willis was returned to the 9th District lockup some time after 9 p.m. February 12.

On February 13 Willis had a bond hearing. Bond was set at $300,000. Willis could not post bond and remained in custody. Later that day a grand jury indicted Willis for four sexual assaults.

Chicago Police Department ("Department") General Order ("GO") 78-1 establishes a general policy requiring that each arrestee be brought to court on the first available court date after the completion of processing. GO 78-1 ¶ VI.C.2 ("Paragraph C-2") recognizes an exception to that policy:

2. Extended Detention

a. In the event Criminal Investigation Division personnel ascertain that there is a necessity for the detention of an arrestee for a period of time longer than that which might routinely be expected, in order that they may continue the investigation, a request for such detention will be made by the unit commanding officer or the area coordinator to the watch commander of the facility where the arrestee is detained.

b. The watch commander will ordinarily honor such requests....

There was in fact a 9:30 a.m. holiday court call on February 12.¹⁰ Although the booking procedure on the Area 3 charges had been completed in plenty of time for Willis to appear at that February 12 court call, Willis was held past that call pursuant to Paragraph C-2. Indeed, he was not arraigned until February 13.

Conditions of Detention

Complaint Count I charges Kukulka and O'Connor with having violated Willis' Fourteenth Amendment due process rights by (1) not feeding him and (2) not allowing him to use the washroom during the 12-hour period that he was in their custody on February 11. This opinion will consider the first of those claims in detail, then turn briefly to the second.

Though Kukulka and O'Connor dispute Willis' claim that he was not offered nor did he eat any food during the entire time he was at Area 3, they recognize Willis' version must be accepted for current purposes. They contend they are nevertheless entitled to judgment as a matter of law because, they say:

1. There is no constitutionally protected right to food during a 12-hour detention period.

2. Even if such a right exists, Willis cannot show a deprivation of that right in violation of the Constitution.

3. Willis cannot prove Kukulka and O'Connor intentionally deprived him of his rights.

4. Even if a constitutional violation did occur, Kukulka and O'Connor are entitled to qualified immunity.

Willis responds that resolution of the first three issues requires their presentation to a trier of fact and, as to the fourth issue, that qualified immunity is inappropriate in this setting. This Court agrees with Willis on both scores.

Donald v. Polk County, 836 F.2d 376, 379 (7th Cir.1988) teaches that to prevail on a Section 1983 due process claim a plaintiff must prove¹¹ that (1) plaintiff held a constitutionally protected right, (2) plaintiff was deprived of that right in violation of the Constitution, (3) defendants intentionally caused the deprivation and (4) defendants acted under color of law. Of course Kukulka and O'Connor concede that they acted under color of law, so they direct all their energies toward refuting the existence of the first three factors.

They first urge this Court to find as a matter of law that 12 hours without food does not constitute a "genuine privation and hardship over an extended period of time" so as to implicate the Due Process Clause in the manner set out in Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 542, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 1875, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979). Bell, id. at 538, 99 S.Ct. at 1873 (citations omitted) focuses the constitutional evaluation of pretrial detention conditions on the issue of punishment:

A court must decide whether the disability is imposed for the purpose of punishment or whether it is but an incident of some other legitimate governmental purpose.... Absent a showing of an expressed intent to punish on the part of detention facility officials, that determination generally will turn on "whether an alternative purpose to which the restriction may rationally be connected is assignable for it, and whether it appears excessive in relation to the alternative purpose assigned to it."

While deprivation of food for 12 hours may not strike defendants as particularly harsh,¹² no legitimate governmental purpose has been (or could be) offered as justification for that deprivation. Certainly the trier of fact could reasonably find the deprivation of food here was intentional and calculated to punish Willis. Such a conclusion finds theoretical support in another area of constitutional jurisprudence: determinations of the voluntariness of consent to search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment.¹³ In that context Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 226, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 2047, 36 L.Ed.2d 854 (1973) and like cases have looked to the totality of circumstances surrounding the consent and have identified "the use of physical punishment such as the deprivation of food or sleep" as one factor to be considered in deciding voluntariness. If deprivation of food can be characterized as punishment for that purpose, it may rationally be viewed as punitive in the present setting as well.

As a fallback position if they were to lose on the basic due process right-not-to-be-deprived-of-food issue (as they just have), Kukulka and O'Connor say that Willis will be unable to make the second Donald showing—that Kukulka and O'Connor intentionally infringed that right in violation of the Constitution.¹⁴ They offer no cogent support for that mystifying contention. After all, if a trier of fact credits Willis' story sufficiently for him to get past the first hurdle, the second poses no other (or greater) difficulty. Once it has been established that extended deprivation of food can constitute intentional due-process-violative punishment (the Bell v....