Antron Cannon v. Walker Filip

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
• Decided: December 31, 2025
• Docket: 24-3113
• Status: Published
• Author: Maldonado

Opinion

In the

United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

Nos. 24-2655 and 24-3113 ANTRON CANNON, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

WALKER FILIP, et al., Defendants-Appellees. ____________________

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 1:22-cv-03289 — Matthew F. Kennelly, Judge. ____________________

ARGUED APRIL 15, 2025 — DECIDED DECEMBER 31, 2025 ____________________

Before EASTERBROOK, KOLAR, and MALDONADO, Circuit Judges. MALDONADO, Circuit Judge. Antron Cannon sued the City of Aurora, Illinois, and several Aurora police officers alleging that the officers violated his Fourth Amendment rights when they entered his home without a warrant and arrested him for domestic battery in June 2021. The district court entered sum- mary judgment for the officers, finding that exigent 2 Nos. 24-2655 & 24-3113

circumstances justified their entry and that probable cause supported the arrest. It then dismissed Cannon’s suit and or- dered him to pay Defendants’ costs, rejecting his claim that his alleged indigency should excuse him from payment. Cannon now appeals the district court’s summary judg- ment order and its order taxing costs. We affirm both orders. We hold that the officers’ warrantless entry into Cannon’s home was reasonable under the exigent circumstances pre- sented, and that probable cause supported Cannon’s arrest. We also find that the district court did not abuse its discretion in awarding costs. BACKGROUND I. Facts The following facts are undisputed, except where other- wise noted, and are presented in the light most favorable to Cannon, the party opposing summary judgment. See Milligan- Grimstad v. Stanley, 877 F.3d 705, 708 (7th Cir. 2017). On the evening of June 27, 2021, Cannon was at his home in Aurora, Illinois with a female companion, Sarah Taylor, and his cousin, Jonathan. Cannon and Taylor were in a bed- room having sex when Jonathan attempted to enter the room. According to Cannon, he argued with Jonathan over his at- tempts to enter and kicked Jonathan out of the house. Jona- than, on the other hand, called his aunt, Aunt Ray, and told her that Cannon was arguing with and hitting a woman in his bedroom. Aunt Ray, who lives in nearby Oswego, Illinois, then placed a 911 call to Aurora police around 9:40 p.m. Aunt Ray gave her name and told the dispatcher that her nephew had just called to tell her that her other nephew, Cannon, was Nos. 24-2655 & 24-3113 3

locked in a bedroom in his home and was beating up a woman. Aunt Ray stated that Jonathan had told her that Can- non was drunk, violent, and had “lost his mind.” Aurora police officers Walker Fillip and Christopher Grandchamp were the first to respond to the 911 dispatch call, which was reported to them as a domestic violence incident. In particular, dispatchers informed officers—via radio and real-time dispatch notes in the officers’ patrol vehicles—that a family member staying at Cannon’s home had reported (through his aunt) that Cannon was beating a woman, and that he had “lost his mind.” Cannon, for his part, vigorously denies physically harm- ing Taylor that night. He asserts that the two were having con- sensual sex when Jonathan attempted to enter the bedroom. In any event, Officers Filip and Grandchamp arrived at Cannon’s home around 9:45 p.m. The parties present different versions about what happened after officers arrived and ap- proached the house. Filip and Grandchamp testified that they heard screaming and yelling coming from inside the home, and Grandchamp further testified that a neighbor on a nearby porch told the officers that he had not seen anybody leave the home. The officers further contend that they knocked on the door for several minutes, and that eventually Cannon an- swered and yelled at them to leave and get a warrant before he slammed the door and could be heard barricading it. Can- non, however, denies that there was any screaming inside the home and states that he is unsure what the officers think they heard, because he and Taylor were engaged in consensual sex at the time. Cannon further denies that he answered the door and yelled at the officers or that he barricaded the door. While 4 Nos. 24-2655 & 24-3113

he and Taylor testified that they heard knocking, they main- tain that they did not stop having sex to answer. In the meantime, while Filip and Grandchamp were at Cannon’s door, the 911 dispatcher called Aunt Ray back to tell her that officers had arrived but could not get anybody to an- swer. After some discussion, the dispatcher requested Jona- than’s number, which Aunt Ray provided. The dispatcher then called Jonathan; he confirmed the information that Aunt Ray had reported but he stated that he did not want to get involved further. During the conversation, Jonathan advised the dispatcher that a side door near the garage was unlocked. Back at the scene, Officers Filip and Grandchamp testified that they conferred and made the decision that they needed to enter the home because they believed there was the poten- tial for somebody inside to be hurt, seriously injured, or killed. Accordingly, Officer Grandchamp called Sergeant Jo- seph Howe, the shift manager, and informed him that the of- ficers believed there was exigency and planned to enter the home. At around 10:00 p.m., Officers Grandchamp, Driscoll and Pineda (and at least one more non-party officer) entered Can- non’s home through the unlocked side door, while Officer Filip remained at the front. When the officers entered, they found Cannon and Taylor naked in the living room. The of- ficers quickly handcuffed Cannon, had him sit on the stairs in the living room, and gave him a shirt and towel to cover his midsection. The officers separated Taylor from Cannon by moving her to the kitchen. Soon after, Officer Filip entered the home and briefly in- terviewed Taylor. Taylor told him that she was having Nos. 24-2655 & 24-3113 5

consensual sex with Cannon when she picked up her phone to see what her friends were doing, at which point Cannon “went crazy” and proceeded to choke, bite, and hit her. Can- non told officers that he was doing nothing illegal, and that he and Taylor were having “rough” consensual sex. Approximately 15 minutes after the first officers entered the house and detained Cannon, Officer Lisa Perez 1 arrived at the house after being dispatched to the scene. Officer Perez took over the interview from Officer Filip and invited Taylor outside to her patrol car to give a recorded statement. In the recorded interview, Taylor told Perez that she had just met Cannon the prior week on Facebook, and she claimed not to even know his real name. Taylor stated that the two were hanging out but when she tried to leave, Cannon attacked her, choked her, hit her, and told her he would not let her go. She went on to say that Cannon’s cousin was there telling Cannon to let her go, but that Cannon would not stop. Taylor further stated that she thought she lost consciousness at one point and that Cannon was trying to kill her. During the interview, Taylor consented to officers photographing her injuries, which included bruising, welts and scratches on different parts of her body. After Taylor was interviewed and photographed, the of- ficers arrested Cannon for domestic battery. He was ulti- mately charged with two counts of misdemeanor domestic battery which causes bodily harm, but the charges were later dropped without any further proceedings.

1 Officer Perez’s last name was Rodriguez at the time, which is how

she is named in the complaint, but we refer to her by her current surname. 6 Nos. 24-2655 & 24-3113

II. Procedural History Cannon initiated this lawsuit in June 2022 against six indi- vidual Aurora officers (Fillip, Grandchamp, Driscoll, Pineda, Perez, and Sgt. Howe) and the City of Aurora. Cannon’s op- erative complaint asserts claims for unlawful search, false ar- rest, and indemnification against the City. After discovery, the Defendants moved for summary judgment on all of Can- non’s claims, which the district court granted. In short, the court agreed that exigent circumstances justified the officers’ warrantless entry and that the officers had probable cause to believe Cannon committed a battery. The court also dismissed the indemnification claim against the City as it was depend- ent on the merits of the other claims. After the grant of summary judgment, Defendants filed a bill of costs in the amount of $4,071.33 (largely for deposition costs). Cannon objected, but did not challenge any particular item of cost. Instead, he argued that the court should decline to award costs because he was indigent. Cannon also argued that he should be excused from liability because the issues were close and he brought the lawsuit to vindicate his civil rights in good faith. The district court overruled Cannon’s objections and awarded costs. The court acknowledged that it could deny costs if the losing party was indigent, but that this required a showing “not just of whether the losing party can pay costs now, but whether he will be able to pay costs in the future.” R. 94 (citing Rivera v. City of Chicago, 469 F.3d 631, 635 (7th Cir. 2006)). The court found that, although Cannon had estab- lished the first proposition (current indigence), he had not es- tablished the latter “as the record contains no information that would indicate that plaintiff is likely to remain indigent into Nos. 24-2655 & 24-3113 7

the foreseeable future.” The court further rejected Cannon’s argument that it should consider his good faith in bringing the lawsuit. Id. Cannon now appeals the entry of summary judgment and the award of costs. DISCUSSION We review de novo the district court’s summary judgment ruling and draw all reasonable factual inferences in Cannon’s favor. Gaddis v. DeMattei, 30 F.4th 625, 630 (7th Cir. 2022). We review the district court’s cost award for abuse of discretion. Yates v. City of Chicago, Illinois, 58 F.4th 907, 910 (7th Cir. 2023). I. Warrantless Entry into Cannon’s Home The Fourth Amendment protects the right of the people “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” U.S. CONST. amend. IV. “It is a basic principle of Fourth Amendment law … that searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable.” Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403 (2006) (internal quotation marks omitted). But this presumption may be overcome in some cases, “because [t]he ultimate touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is reason- ableness.” Kentucky v. King, 563 U.S. 452, 459 (2011) (internal quotation marks omitted). “Accordingly, the warrant require- ment is subject to certain reasonable exceptions.” Id. One well-recognized exception is when exigent circum- stances “make the needs of law enforcement so compelling that [a] warrantless search is objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.” Id. at 460 (citations omitted). The Su- preme Court has recognized several types of exigencies that may justify warrantless searches, including, relevant here, the 8 Nos. 24-2655 & 24-3113

“emergency aid exception.” Brigham City, 547 U.S. at 403. Un- der the emergency aid exception, “officers may enter a home without a warrant to render emergency assistance to an in- jured occupant or to protect an occupant from imminent in- jury.” King, 563 U.S. at 460; see Sutterfield v. City of Milwaukee, 751 F.3d 542, 558 (7th Cir. 2014) (“[T]his doctrine recognizes that police play a service and protective role in addition to a law enforcement role … police officers may sometimes need to enter a dwelling in order to render aid to an occupant whom they believe to be in distress and in immediate need of their assistance.”). The test for the emergency aid exception, like other Fourth Amendment inquiries, is objective: “the question is whether the police, given the facts confronting them, reasonably be- lieved that it was necessary to enter a home in order to render assistance or prevent harm to persons or property within.” Sutterfield, 751 F.3d at 558; United States v. Maxwell, 85 F.4th 1243, 1246 (7th Cir. 2023) (“police need an ‘objectively reason- able basis for believing’ [] that ‘someone is in need of aid and there is a compelling need to act.’”) (citations omitted). “The reasonable belief must be based on actual knowledge the of- ficers had at the time of the entry, rather than on knowledge acquired after the fact.” Fitzgerald v. Santoro, 707 F.3d 725, 730- 31 (7th Cir. 2013) (citing United States v. Jenkins, 329 F.3d 579, 581 (7th Cir. 2003)). Here we conclude that, based on the undisputed facts, the officers had an objectively reasonable basis to believe that someone in Cannon’s home needed immediate aid and that there was a compelling need to enter without a warrant. The officers were informed, via radio and dispatch notes, that they were responding to a 911 call about a domestic violence Nos. 24-2655 & 24-3113 9

incident and that Cannon was in the home, had “lost his mind,” and was beating up a woman. This information, which the officers knew had been relayed to the 911 caller from somebody who had been in the home, would support a reasonable belief that a person was inside and needed imme- diate aid. We have previously held that information given to officers from emergency 911 calls alone may sometimes be enough to justify a warrantless entry. United States v. Richard- son, 208 F.3d 626, 630 (7th Cir. 2000) (“[m]any 911 calls are in- spired by true emergencies that require an immediate re- sponse … 911 calls reporting an emergency can be enough to support warrantless searches under the exigent circum- stances exception, particularly where … the caller identified himself.”). Reports of domestic violence in particular add to the exi- gency given the volatile and combustible nature of such inci- dents. See generally Tierney v. Davidson, 133 F.3d 189, 197 (2d Cir. 1998) (“Courts have recognized the combustible nature of domestic disputes and have accorded great latitude to an of- ficer's belief that warrantless entry was justified by exigent circumstances when the officer had substantial reason to be- lieve that one of the parties to the dispute was in danger.”); see also Georgia v. Randolph, 547 U.S. 103, 118 (2006) (observing that there is “[n]o question … about the authority of the police to enter a dwelling to protect a resident from domestic vio- lence; so long as they have good reason to believe such a threat exists[.]”). The 911 call reporting domestic violence, as relayed to the officers through the dispatch notes, thus pro- vided an objective and compelling basis to believe someone needed protection. 10 Nos. 24-2655 & 24-3113

Whether the 911 call alone justified the officers’ entry is not a question we need decide here because additional facts pointed to an immediate need for the officers to act. For one, the officers heard loud noises coming from within Cannon’s home after they arrived. Cannon denies the officer’s claim that there was any screaming or yelling, and he suggests that any noise the officers might have heard was attributable to consensual sexual activity. But even if we accept that the noises the officers heard were not domestic violence, there is nothing to suggest that a reasonable officer in the Defendants’ position would have been able to identify the source of the loud sounds. At the very least, there is no indication the noise, whatever its origin, should have caused officers to second- guess what was relayed to them from the 911 call, which sug- gested an active and ongoing domestic battery. The officers were not required to wait and deliberate the origin of the noises they heard. See Richardson, 208 F.3d at 630 (“[T]he busi- ness of policemen [] is to act, not to speculate or meditate on whether the report is correct. People could well die in emer- gencies if police tried to act with the calm deliberation associ- ated with the judicial process.”) (internal quotation marks omitted). Further, a neighbor had advised the officers that no- body had left the home, suggesting that the domestic violence incident that had been reported just minutes earlier was still ongoing. Taken together then, the 911 call, the report from the neighbor, and the noise provided the officers with an objec- tively reasonable basis to believe that there was an immediate need to enter the home to provide aid. The officers’ entry was therefore reasonable notwithstanding the lack of a warrant. See Jenkins, 329 F.3d at 582 (finding that exigent circumstances Nos. 24-2655 & 24-3113 11

justified officer’s warrantless entry, where officer was re- sponding to a 911 call about an assault in progress, found the home’s door open, and heard a noise from inside). Cannon’s arguments do not persuade us otherwise. He maintains that he and Taylor were engaged in consensual sex, that he never attacked her, and that Jonathan fabricated the story he told Aunt Ray and the 911 dispatcher. According to Cannon, the 911 call was not a true emergency report but an act of “swatting” by his disgruntled cousin upset about being kicked out of the home. In his view, his and Taylor’s later dep- osition testimony about that evening creates at least a dispute of fact as to whether the officers had an objectively reasonable belief that someone was in imminent danger to justify their warrantless entry. Setting aside that Cannon’s “swatting” claim is entirely unsupported by the record, the above facts are immaterial to the exigent circumstances analysis. “The key question in a warrantless entry case is whether ‘the circumstances as they appeared at the moment of entry would lead a reasonable, ex- perienced law enforcement officer to believe that someone in- side the house ... required immediate assistance.’” Fitzgerald, 707 F.3d at 731 (quoting United States v. Arch, 7 F.3d 1300, 1304 (7th Cir. 1993) (emphasis in Fitzgerald)). Cannon’s and Tay- lor’s subsequent deposition testimony that nothing happened but consensual sex, and Cannon’s claims about Jonathan’s motivations, are irrelevant because the officers did not have that information at the time. The officers were responding to what they understood to be an active domestic violence inci- dent. United States v. Richmond, 924 F.3d 404, 417 (7th Cir. 2019) (“[W]e judge from the perspective of a reasonably 12 Nos. 24-2655 & 24-3113

prudent person in the circumstances before us, not 20/20 hindsight.”). Nor does it matter that Cannon has disputed other parts of the officers’ testimony, such as their claims that he an- swered and then barricaded the door. Cannon points to his testimony that he never answered the door, yelled at officers to leave, or barricaded it—because, as he claims, he and Tay- lor were having sex at that time. Cannon suggests that his tes- timony, which must be credited at this stage, casts further doubt on the reasonableness of the officers’ actions. But these disputed facts too are immaterial because they do not change the outcome. See Hampton v. Ford Motor Co., 561 F.3d 709, 713 (7th Cir. 2009). Rather, the undisputed facts of what the offic- ers learned from the 911 call and heard once on the scene were sufficient to render their entry objectively reasonable. Whether Cannon also answered the door and yelled at them to leave does not matter. Cannon separately challenges the basis for the officers’ en- try by arguing that the 911 call was facially suspect and should have prompted further inquiry. He contends that dis- patchers—and by extension, the officers—should have ques- tioned why the report came from his aunt, who was not on the scene and in a different town, and further should have questioned why the original witness, Jonathan, refused to be involved or speak directly with police. According to Cannon, these irregularities should have led the officers to hesitate be- fore relying on the call and instead to investigate further be- fore entering the home. We are not convinced. There is nothing inherently suspect about a party calling 911 based on information learned from another person who does not wish to make the call Nos. 24-2655 & 24-3113 13

themselves, particularly when, as here, the caller identified herself and explained in detail how and from whom she learned about the emergency. And there is nothing else in the 911 call as conveyed to the officers that would suggest any- thing other than a legitimate report of an ongoing domestic violence emergency. Nor is there anything about the circumstances presented at the scene when officers arrived that would undermine what had been reported to the officers. As we stated in Rich- ardson, “we do not exclude the possibility of a case in which it would be objectively unreasonable for a police officer to rely on a 911 call, because of additional information available to the officer.” Richardson, 208 F.3d at 631. But that is not a con- cern here. The neighbor’s report and the loud noise at the scene would indicate to a reasonable officer that the emer- gency for which they had been dispatched was potentially on- going. Cf. United States v. Delgado, 701 F.3d 1161, 1163 (7th Cir. 2012) (finding that a 911 call reporting a shooting in the area of a residence did not create exigent circumstances for officers to enter the home, where the other information available to officers after they arrived gave no indication that the shooter or anybody in need of aid was inside). It was therefore objec- tively reasonable for officers to rely on the information they had and enter the home without investigating further. In sum, Cannon has failed to dispute the material facts that were known to the officers at the moment they entered his home, and that rendered their warrantless entry reasonable. His Fourth Amendment claim for unlawful entry thus fails as a matter of law. 14 Nos. 24-2655 & 24-3113

II. Cannon’s Arrest Cannon also challenges the district court’s dismissal of his false arrest claim. He argues that there is a genuine dispute of fact over whether the officers had probable cause to arrest him for domestic battery, and that the issue should have gone to a jury. We disagree. “Probable cause is an absolute bar to a claim of false arrest asserted under the Fourth Amendment and section 1983.” See Maniscalco v. Simon, 712 F.3d 1139, 1143 (7th Cir. 2013). Prob- able cause to arrest exists “when a reasonable officer with all the knowledge of the on-scene officers would have believed that the suspect committed an offense defined by state law.” Jump v. Vill. of Shorewood, 42 F.4th 782, 789 (7th Cir. 2022). “Probable cause does not require certainty”; instead, “[i]t is a fluid concept that relies on the common-sense judgment of the officers based on the totality of the circumstances.” Hart v. Mannina, 798 F.3d 578, 587 (7th Cir. 2015) (internal quotation marks omitted). Although the existence of probable cause is most often a jury question, the court can make the determina- tion on summary judgment when the underlying facts are un- disputed. Abbott v. Sangamon Cnty., Illinois, 705 F.3d 706, 714 (7th Cir. 2013). Here the undisputed facts known to the officers unques- tionably provided probable cause to arrest Cannon for battery under Illinois law. See 720 ILCS 5/12-3 (“A person commits battery if he or she knowingly without legal justification by any means (1) causes bodily harm to an individual or (2) makes physical contact of an insulting or provoking nature Nos. 24-2655 & 24-3113 15

with an individual.”). 2 Taylor’s statements to police on the scene provided such cause on their own. Taylor told Officer Filip that Cannon had “gone crazy” and attacked her, and she went further in her recorded statement to Officer Perez—tell- ing the officer that Cannon had beaten and choked her until she went unconscious, and that he had tried to kill her. These statements alone would lead a reasonable officer to believe that Cannon had intentionally caused bodily harm to Taylor, a conclusion further bolstered by the information the officers had learned from the 911 call and their observation of bruis- ing and scratching on Taylor (documented in photographs). Cannon tries to avoid the above conclusion by pointing to his and Taylor’s after-the-fact testimony that they were en- gaged in nothing but consensual rough sex. Cannon further notes Taylor’s later testimony that she did not remember giv- ing her statements to police because she was heavily intoxi- cated at the time, and that some of what she told the officers was not true. But as with the exigency issue above, we assess probable cause based on the information available to officers at the time, not with the benefit of hindsight. See, e.g., Johnson v. My- ers, 53 F.4th 1063, 1068 (7th Cir. 2022). Taylor and Cannon’s subsequent deposition testimony is immaterial to whether Taylor’s statements at the time supported probable cause. There is nothing in the record to suggest the officers should

2 It makes no difference that Cannon was arrested and charged with

domestic battery, not ordinary battery, because “an arrest is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment so long as there is probable cause to believe that some criminal offense has been or is being committed, even if it is not the crime with which the officers initially charge the suspect.” Fox v. Hayes, 600 F.3d 819, 837 (7th Cir. 2010) (emphasis in original). 16 Nos. 24-2655 & 24-3113

not have relied on Taylor’s statements as credible, consider- ing they were consistent with the 911 call and the injuries they observed, all of which supported probable cause for his arrest. *** For all the above reasons, we find the district court properly entered summary judgment on Cannon’s claims against the defendant officers, which also required dismissal of his indemnification claim against the city. 3 III. Taxation of Costs The final issue on appeal is the district court’s award of costs to Defendants. We will affirm the cost award as long as the lower court “applied the correct standards and avoided arbitrary decisionmaking[.]” See Montanez v. Simon, 755 F.3d 547, 555 (7th Cir. 2014). Cannon does not dispute the amount of the requested costs or challenge any specific item as unwarranted. Instead, he argues that the district court should have excused him from paying costs due to his indigency. He notes that he was appointed counsel in part because he could not afford an at- torney, and he contends that it is unfair to tax him for ex- penses that he incurred only because of that financial need.

3 Because Cannon’s claims fail on the merits, we need not address the

Defendants’ alternative argument that they are shielded by qualified im- munity. Cannon’s separate arguments that the entry of summary judg- ment violated his Fifth Amendment right to due process and his Seventh Amendment right to a trial by a jury are squarely foreclosed by precedent. See, e.g., Burks v. Wisconsin Dep't of Transp., 464 F.3d 744, 759 (7th Cir. 2006) (“we previously have rejected arguments that summary judgment violates either the Fifth or Seventh Amendments.”). Nos. 24-2655 & 24-3113 17

Cannon also argues that the district court erred by failing to consider additional equitable factors, including his good faith in bringing a civil rights suit and the closeness and difficulty of the issues presented. On the latter point, Cannon is only half right. In Rivera, we recognized that a court can consider factors such as good faith and the closeness of the issues in deciding whether an indi- gent defendant should be liable for costs. See Rivera, 469 F.3d at 635. But we also made clear that these equitable factors come into play only after the district court makes a threshold finding that the losing party is “‘incapable of paying the court-imposed costs at this time or in the future.’” Id. (citation omitted) (emphasis added). That’s where Cannon’s argument fails. The district court found that he had not shown an ina- bility to pay because he submitted no evidence about whether he could afford to pay the roughly $4,000 cost award in the foreseeable future. This conclusion was not an abuse of discretion. That Can- non required recruited counsel indicated his indigency then, but it does not establish that he would be unable to pay costs in the future. Something more was required, and Cannon failed to produce anything on this point. Cf. id. at 637 (“Given that Rivera did not provide the district court with a schedule of expenses and did not identify any basis for a finding that she will be incapable of paying the City's costs at some point in the future, the district court abused its discretion in deny- ing the City's costs.”). In short, the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding that Cannon had not established an inability to pay. The court was therefore not required to consider any other factors, and its ruling stands. 18 Nos. 24-2655 & 24-3113

CONCLUSION Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court and AFFIRM the award of costs.