Young v. City of Chi.

425 F.Supp.3d 1026

Joshua YOUNG, Plaintiff,

v.CITY OF CHICAGO, et al., Defendants.

No. 17 C 4803

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

Signed November 27, 2019

Marko Andrew Duric, Robert Joseph Lane Robertson, Robertson Duric, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff.

Lawrence S. Kowalczyk, Megan Kathleen Monaghan, Querrey & Harrow, Ltd., Chicago, IL, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Elaine E. Bucklo, United States District Judge

In this action, Joshua Young sues defendants the City of Chicago and Chicago police officers under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and several state law theories in connection with his 2015 arrest, detention, and ensuing prosecution. After Young voluntarily dismissed two counts of the complaint,¹ the following counts remain:

II. § 1983 – Unlawful detention under the Fourth Amendment

IV. § 1983 – Deprivation of Due Process

V. § 1983 – Failure to intervene

VI. § 1983 – Conspiracy to deprive constitutional rights

VII. Malicious prosecution under Illinois Law

VIII. Civil conspiracy under Illinois Law

IX. Respondeat Superior against the City

X. Indemnification against the City

Defendants seek summary judgment. Dkt. No. 51. For the reasons that follow, their motion is granted.

I.

The facts are set forth as favorably to Young, the non-moving party, as permitted by the record and Local Rule 56.1. See Hanners v. Trent , 674 F.3d 683, 691 (7th Cir. 2012).

On July 2, 2015, around 11:30am, Young took his childhood friend Corey Hughes to get a haircut in Chicago. Hughes had been shot the week before and was on crutches. As Young drove to the barbershop, Hughes told Young he had a gun. Young had never seen Hughes possess or talk about possessing a firearm before then. Young started to turn the car around and told Hughes he needed to take the gun back. Hughes said the person who gave him the gun was at the barbershop and he would return it to him there. At the barbershop, Young greeted a few people, then left, without Hughes, to visit his son. After several hours, Young returned to the barbershop to pick Hughes up. Young did not ask Hughes if he had gotten rid of the gun.

That same day, defendant City of Chicago police officers Anthony Pavone, Robert Peraino, and Nathaniel Warner (the "defendant officers") were conducting a street stop for a drug transaction they had witnessed. At some point during this stop, Warner received information from an anonymous citizen or confidential informant that Young and Hughes had been seen nearby in a white Chevy sedan with a gun. Warner told Pavone and Peraino that there were "two male blacks" in a white Chevy with a gun and provided a location and direction of travel. Dkt. No. 53-4, Peraino Dep. at 30:8–17. Pavone and Peraino left to search for the car.

A. Stop and Arrest

Pavone and Peraino soon found a white Chevy sedan and observed the rear-seat passenger was not wearing a seatbelt, a traffic violation. Pavone and Peraino approached the car with guns drawn and yelled "freeze" and "let me see your hands." Dkt. No. 53-5, Young Dep. at 72:2–8. As the officers approached, Hughes, sitting in the rear seat, told Young "take this." Id. at 72:6–22. Young, sitting in the driver seat, saw Hughes was wiping a gun on his shirt. Young had never handled or owned a firearm; he responded "hell no." Id. at 68:10–12. Young put his hands up, and Hughes placed the gun on the car's armrest. Young felt the gun poke him for a few seconds. Pavone and Peraino contend that they did not see any occupants moving while they approached.

Pavone ordered Young to exit the vehicle and he complied. Pavone maintains that Young then told him there was a gun in the car. Young maintains he denied having a gun when Pavone asked. The officers soon noticed a gun on the center console of the car and asked Young about the gun. Young responded the gun was not his and it belonged to Hughes. Pavone denies that Young ever said the gun was Hughes's.

Hughes and Young were arrested around 6:45pm. They were then taken to the 15th District, placed in separate interview rooms, and advised of their Miranda rights. At some point, the defendant officers learned Young and Hughes were convicted felons. Warner and Peraino knew Hughes was a high-ranking member of the Mafia Insane Vice Lords, but none of the defendant officers had heard of or met Young before that day.

Hughes was interrogated first and told the officers that the gun was the "block's gun." Dkt. No. 62 at ¶ 32. Hughes argued he could not have carried the gun as he was wearing sweatpants and on crutches and stated that Young better have a gun on him because Hughes had recently been shot. At some point, one of the officers accompanied Hughes to the hospital because his gunshot wound needed cleaning.

Young was interrogated next. He repeatedly told the officers that the gun was not his. He testified that Warner told him that Hughes said the gun was his and he responded that was not true. According to Young, Warner then showed him a cell-phone video of Hughes in which Hughes claimed that he didn't know the gun was in the car or that Young had the gun. Defendant officers deny there was ever a video taken of Hughes and that Young was ever shown such a video. Young also testified that Warner told him he knew the gun belonged to Hughes and that Young would be released and could go home in a few hours. Warner denies he said as much.

Defendant officers also prepared various police reports, which all list Hughes as the possessor and owner of the gun recovered from the white Chevy. Warner testified that the reports only allowed officers to list one owner and possessor of a gun, and he could have listed Young instead. However, Officer Pavone did not know why Hughes, rather than Young, was listed as the gun's owner on the reports.

Warner then called the State's Attorney's office. Assistant State's Attorney Liam Reardon returned the call and Warner told him what Hughes and Young had said. Reardon suggested that Warner obtain written statements from Hughes and Young if they were willing. Hughes, then at West Suburban Hospital, made the following written statement:

I Corey Hughes is giving this statement on July 2, 2015 without coerced. I did not handled the firearm on this day but did in the past month. As a result my prints may be on the firearm.

Dkt. No. 62 at ¶ 64.

Young also agreed to provide a written statement. Young wrote that he picked up Hughes, Hughes said he had a gun but would drop it off at the barbershop, Young dropped off Hughes at the barbershop, left, then returned to pick Hughes up. Young also wrote the gun was not his.

Young testified that Warner read his statement, told him there was information he could leave out, crumpled the statement into a ball, provided Young another sheet of paper, and told him to write another statement. Warner then instructed Young to write that he was not being coerced, then asked Young questions and instructed Young to write out the answers to those questions on the statement. Young also testified that Pavone and Peraino were present for Warner's actions, read Young's second statement, and agreed on it. Defendant officers deny all three of them were present, that Young wrote more than one statement, that his first statement was rejected by Warner, that Warner coached Young about what to include on the second statement, and that they agreed to any of Young's statements. The parties, however, agree that Young's second (or, rather, only) statement reads:

I'm giving this statement of my own free will. Without being coercesed (sic). On 7/2/2015 at around 2:00p.m. I picked up Corey Hughes at Chicago Ave. and Waller. Then I helped him into the vehicle to go to the Barber Shop. After driving around for a while we pulled up to the Barbershop. He stated that "I got the Pipe on me." After leaving the Barbershop, we was driving on Cicero, I turned into the gas station on Adams and was approached by law enforcement. They instructed us to show our hands upon raising my hands I felt a poke in my back. I slightly turn while simultaneously raising my hands I felt a poke in my backside. There was a gun. The police ordered me out of the vehicle and ask if anything was in the vehicle. I said yes a gun.... When Corey stated "I got pipe" that's slang for handgun.

Dkt. No. 62 at ¶ 53.

Young maintains he was never told he could write what he wanted in the second statement and was not given the opportunity to add what he believed were important facts, namely that he did not know Hughes initially had a gun, he believed Hughes left that gun at the barbershop, he did not know Hughes still had a gun when he picked Hughes up, and did not learn Hughes still had that gun until he was pulled over. Defendants dispute this and claim that Warner merely told Young to write about his day before he was stopped. In either event, Young admitted that everything contained in that statement was true. Young, however, admitted that the video of Hughes he was shown did not influence him to make a written statement or the content of that statement.

B. Legal Proceedings

Warner then relayed Hughes and Young's written statements to the felony review department of the State's Attorney's office, which approved felony charges for unlawful use of a weapon and armed habitual criminal offenses. Generally, the State's Attorney's office will rely on the information provided by police to determine whether to approve felony charges and defendant officers knew the information they provided would be used to criminally prosecute Young. Peraino signed criminal complaints for those charges.

On July 9, 2015, Young had a preliminary hearing in front of Judge Ann O'Donnell in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois. Peraino testified that Young stated Hughes told him he had a handgun on the way to the barbershop, and that after the barbershop, he was stopped by police and felt a poke in his back, he was ordered out of the vehicle, and a handgun was recovered from the vehicle. Peraino also testified that Hughes...