Cairel v. Alderden

821 F.3d 823, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 8354, 2016 WL 2641836
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedMay 5, 2016
DocketNo. 14-1711
StatusPublished
Cited by265 cases

This text of 821 F.3d 823 (Cairel v. Alderden) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cairel v. Alderden, 821 F.3d 823, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 8354, 2016 WL 2641836 (7th Cir. 2016).

Opinion

HAMILTON, Circuit Judge.

This appeal presents several issues concerning the scope of civil remedies available to people who are mistakenly arrested and charged -with crimes. In 2007, plaintiffs Jeremy Cairel and Marvin Johnson were helping a friend repossess cars lawfully when they were stopped for a traffic violation. The officers- conducting the stop, aware of a recent string, of robberies in the area, grew suspicious and called -a robbery victim to the scene. The victim identified Cairel and Johnson as the men who had robbed him the night before. The officers arrested them on the spot. When questioned later by detectives, Cair-el eventually confessed to several robberies and implicated Johnson in one.

Prosecutors filed charges against both Cairel and Johnson. Johnson pled guilty in exchange for probation. Further investigation, however, revealed that both Cair-el -and Johnson were actually innocent. Over a'year after the arrests, prosecutors dismissed Cairel’s case and allowed Johnson to withdraw his guilty plea. Neither Cairel nor Johnson was imprisoned; Cairel was never convicted.

Plaintiffs Cairel and' Johnson sued the defendant detectives under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging three federal due process claims: fabricating Johnson’s confession, failing to' disclose a potential alibi witness, and coercing Cairel’s confession. Plaintiffs also alleged state-law claims for malicious prosecution and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The district court granted summary judgment for defendants, and plaintiffs appealed.

We affirm. First, summary judgment was properly granted on plaintiffs’ federal due process claims. Plaintiffs’ fabrication claim is foreclosed because they were not deprived of sufficient liberty to support their claim. Plaintiffs’ suppression claim fails because they have no evidence -that defendants concealed evidence unknown to plaintiffs supporting their alibi or that any failure to disclose caused a deprivation of liberty. Cairel’s substantive due process claim for coercion fails because no reasonable jury could find that his interrogation “shocked the conscience.” Plaintiffs’ state-law claims also fail. .Probable cause for the criminal charges defeats the claims for malicious prosecution, and no reasonable jury could find that defendants’ conduct [828]*828was so “extreme and outrageous” as to prove intentional infliction of emotional distress.

I. Facts for Summary Judgment

A. The Traffic Stop

This suit arises out of thé arrest and subsequent-treatment of the two plaintiffs in this case, Jeremy Cairel and Marvin Johnson, In 2006, both spent some time repossessing cars for a friend, Eric Moore, who worked for a car repossession company. Neither plaintiff was actually employed by the company. They helped Moore informally in return for cash.

Plaintiffs were arrested on ’the evening of January 24, 2007, when they and Moore were, out repossessing cars. Two police officers stopped plaintiffs’ car after seeing several traffic violations. Johnson told the officers that they were in the area to repossess cars. Moore provided the officers with paperwork showing that they were doing legitimate repossessions.

B. Evidence Supporting Probable Cause

The incident might not have aroused the officers’ suspicions, but they knew that in the weeks before the traffic stop, the area had seen a string of robberies in which robbers had impersonated police officers, pulled over cars, and robbed the occupants. Just the night before the plaintiffs were stopped, Joseph Micetich had been robbed in this way.

The police asked Micetich to come to the scene of plaintiffs’ traffic stop. Defendants contend that, upon arriving, Micetich identified Cairel and Johnson as the rilen who robbed him. Plaintiffs offer evidence that Moore overheard Micetich express uncertainty and that Micetich never actually affirmatively identified plaintiffs at the scene. We assume that Moore’s account is true, but it is also undisputed that Micetich later told police he was confident in his identification. Even years later he said he was still “absolutely sure that ■ Jeremy Cairel and Marvin Johnson are the men who robbed me.” Following this disputed identification, the police arrested Cairel and Johnson and took them back to the station.

At that point, Detectives Jacob Alderden and Patrick Johnson — both defendants in this case — became involved. First, the detectives spoke with the arresting officers and then with Micetich, who confirmed his identification, of Cairel and Johnson as the men who robbed him. - This time, Micetich said he was absolutely sure of his identifications. Second, the detectives compared Micetich’s descriptions of the robbers from the night before to Cairel and Johnson. There were discrepancies. Micetich, who viewed the robbers from his car while being robbed, had previously described the robbers as a black man who was five feet, six inches tall and a Hispanic man who was six feet tall. Johnson is black and five feet, eight inches tall, while Cairel is white and six feet, .five -inches tall. The .detectives did not think these discrepancies were- particularly great, especially given Micetich’s certainty and the fact that the initial observation occurred at night.

The detectives then- questioned Cairel. He appeared upset throughout the interrogation. Although Cairel initially denied having committed the robbery and later turned out to be innocent, he eventually told the detectives .that he, Moore, and Johnson had actually robbed several people, including a man who might have been Micetich.

To support their .claims that the detectives took unfair, advantage, of Cairel, plaintiffs emphasize that Cairel had been diagnosed with an unspecified learning disability.and had low IQ scores consistent with that diagnosis. A psychological examination suggested that Cairel’s disability [829]*829could cause him to agree mistakenly with someone else’s-statements. The detectives have produced expert testimony suggesting that they would not have been able to tell that Cairel lacked the ability to comprehend the content and consequences of his confession simply from talking to him. Plaintiffs have offered evidence that Moore told the detectives that Cairel had been in special education classes and had a learning disability. , -

The detectives then confronted--Johnson with what Cairel had said. Plaintiffs and defendants disagree about the events that followed. According to defendants, Johnson corroborated Cairel’s confession. Johnson denies that he ever confessed to the robberies. (He would later plead guilty in exchange for probation.) For purposes of summary judgment, we must assume that Johnson’s confession was fabricated by the detectives.

Finally, Detective Alderden interviewed Moore. Moore denied committing any robberies and provided an alibi for the Micetich robbery. He made it clear that he, Cairel, and Johnson had been transporting cars elsewhere. Other detectives, including Luis Otero, who is also a defendant in this ease, visited the repossession company the next day. The detectives confirmed that Moore worked for the company and had repossessed cars on thb day of the Micetich robbery. The alibi was not airtight, though. Nothing in the records confirmed the exact times when plaintiffs were repossessing the cars that day.

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Bluebook (online)
821 F.3d 823, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 8354, 2016 WL 2641836, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cairel-v-alderden-ca7-2016.