Martinez v. Sun

896 F. Supp. 2d 710, 2012 WL 4055075, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 130397
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Illinois
DecidedSeptember 13, 2012
DocketNo. 09 C 5422
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 896 F. Supp. 2d 710 (Martinez v. Sun) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Martinez v. Sun, 896 F. Supp. 2d 710, 2012 WL 4055075, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 130397 (N.D. Ill. 2012).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION

JOHN F. GRADY, District Judge.

Before the court is the motion for summary judgment of defendants Shani Sun and Sherman Tidwell. For the reasons explained below, we grant the defendants’ motion.

BACKGROUND

The parties agree on many of the central facts of this civil rights case, but they disagree about a detail that is usually uncontroversial: the plaintiffs name. The plaintiff contends that his name is “Aurelio Ruiz-Martinez” — “Ruiz” is his father’s last name and “Martinez” is his mother’s maiden name. (See Pl.’s Rule 56.1 Stmt. Of Add’l Facts (hereinafter, “Pl.’s Stmt.”) ¶ 2.) We will assume that he goes by that name and refer to him throughout this opinion as “Ruiz-Martinez.” But the defendants correctly point out that the hyphen in “Ruiz-Martinez” does not appear in any of the legal documents in the record, including the ‘Welcome Notice” that the plaintiff received from the INS when he was granted permanent resident status (“Aurelio R. Martinez”), his social security card (“Aurelio Ruiz Martinez”), and the case caption (same). (See Welcome Notice, dated Aug. 20, 2003, attached as part of Group Ex. M to Pl.’s Stmt., at FCRL000067; Social Security Card, attached as part of Group Ex. M to PL’s Stmt., at FCRL000068.) Ruiz-Martinez immigrated to the United States from Mexico in 1989 and was granted permanent resident status in 2002. (Pl.’s Stmt. ¶ 1.) In 1997, he married Annette Arce, who took the last name “Ruiz.” (Id. at ¶ 3.) Ruiz-Martinez has lived in Ligonier, Indiana with his wife since 2002. (Id. at ¶ 4.)

On Saturday, September 1, 2007, Ruiz was driving with the plaintiff in the passenger seat when they were stopped by the Indiana State Police (“ISP”) near LaPaorte, Indiana. (Id. at ¶ 6.) The state troopers told Ruiz that they had pulled her over because her license plate registration had expired. (Id. at ¶ 7.) Ruiz had the registration stickers in the car’s glove compartment, but had forgotten to place them on her license plates. (Id. at ¶ 8.) According to the police report, state trooper Maggie Short entered Ruiz’s name and vehicle information into her squad car’s on-board computer, which returned information about a “Protection Order.” (See Supp. Case Report, dated Sept. 17, 2007, attached as Ex. D to Pl.’s Stmt., at 2-3.) This prompted the state troopers to ask the plaintiff for his identification. (Id. at 3; Pl.’s Stmt. ¶¶ 10-11.) The case report states that the plaintiff, who appeared “very nervous,” gave the state troopers his [713]*713Indiana driver’s license identifying him as “Aurelio Ruiz Martinez.” (Supp. Case Report at 3.) Short then entered the plaintiffs information into the computer and discovered a warrant for a man named “Aurelio Martinez” wanted in connection with a 1981 murder committed in Chicago, Illinois. (Id. at ¶ 12.) Ruiz-Martinez insists that his name did not match the murder suspect’s, (see id. at ¶32), but Short concluded otherwise. (See Dep. of M. Short, attached as Ex. J to Pl.’s Stmt., at 14 (testifying that the name “matched”); Supp. Case Report at 3 (same).) His birth date also matched the murder suspect’s, and his height and weight were similar. (Def. Officers’ L.R. 56.19(a) Stmt, of Undisputed Facts (hereinafter, “Defs.’ Stmt.”) ¶ 7.) However, his social security number was different. (Pl.’s Stmt. ¶ 16.) In fact, Ruiz-Martinez is not the person identified in the warrant, as his wife attempted to explain. (See Pl.’s Stmt. ¶¶ 5, 13-15.) Ruiz told the troopers that her husband— who does not speak English — had been mistakenly detained on the same warrant on October 3, 1999 in Ligonier, Indiana. (Id. at ¶ 13.) On that occasion, the officers promptly recognized their mistake after contacting authorities in Chicago and receiving a photograph of the warrant suspect that did not match Ruiz-Martinez. (Id. at ¶ 14.) Apparently, there is no record in Indiana or Illinois of Ruiz-Martinez’s mistaken identification in 1999. (Cf. Group Ex. E to PL’s Stmt, (records indicating that the plaintiff was cited for driving without a license without mentioning the warrant issue).) Despite Ruiz’s protests, the officers took her husband into custody and notified the Chicago Police Department (“CPD”). (Defs.’ Stmt. ¶ 8.)

Upon arrival at the LaPorte County Jail Short contacted defendant Tidwell, a police officer assigned to the CPD’s Extradition Unit. (Id. at ¶¶ 4, 9.) Tidwell, or another Extradition Unit officer, faxed Short a copy of the warrant and a CPD bulletin from 1981 containing a picture of the person named in the warrant. (Id. at ¶ 10.) Short concluded that the photograph, which was small (“approximately 2 inches square”) and 26 years old by that time, was insufficient to “confirm whether or not Mr. Martinez was their [CPD’s] suspect.” (Supp. Case Report at 5.) An officer in the CPD’s Extradition Unit — apparently not one of the defendants — told Short that the CPD wanted the ISP to detain Ruiz-Martinez on the warrant. (See Defs.’ Resp. to PL’s Stmt. ¶48; see also Supp. Case Report at 5 (stating that a person identified as “Officer Harper” asked the ISP to hold Ruiz-Martinez in LaPorte County Jail while the CPD continued its investigation).) But for that request, the ISP would have released Ruiz-Martinez because he had not been charged with any crime in Indiana. (PL’s Stmt. ¶¶ 48-49) Ruiz-Martinez insists that Short also determined that there were “[in]sufficient identifiers to keep him in custody.” (Id. at ¶ 49.) We tend to agree with the defendants that the plaintiff is reading too much into Short’s testimony,1 but the issue is not material: whether Short would have de[714]*714tained the plaintiff if she had been in the defendants’ shoes is irrelevant.

The defendants contend that the Extradition Unit merely does the bidding of the CPD’s Detective Division and/or the State’s Attorney’s Office, the entities responsible for investigating and prosecuting the warrant suspect. (See Defs.’ Mem. at 8-10; see also Defs.’ Stmt. ¶¶ 12-14.) However, there is no evidence that any Extradition Unit officer consulted these entities before asking the ISP to detain the plaintiff. And Defendant Sun — the Extradition Unit’s supervising officer— testified that she has the authority to release a suspect held in another jurisdiction. (See Pl.’s Stmt. ¶ 39; see also PL’s Resp. to Defs.’ Stmt. ¶ 12.) As Tidwell explained in his deposition, police officers in the CPD’s Extradition Unit use their judgment when deciding whether to detain a person arrested in another state on an Illinois warrant. (See Tidwell Dep. at 9-10 (“[0]ur job as being police officers in the extradition unit was to just make the basic determination if we had good enough reason to detain the individual.”); see also id. at lb-20 (testifying about the kinds of identifying information officers consider when making the decision whether to detain a suspect in another jurisdiction — name, gender, height, weight, etc.).) On the other hand, it is effectively undisputed that the Extradition Unit does not make the ultimate decision whether to extradite and prosecute the suspect. (See Defs.’ Stmt. ¶¶ 20, 24.) That decision is made by the State’s Attorney’s Office and/or the Detective Division. (Id.; see also id. at ¶ 12 (officials in the Detective Division and the State’s Attorney’s Office “can stop the extradition at any point”).)

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Bluebook (online)
896 F. Supp. 2d 710, 2012 WL 4055075, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 130397, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/martinez-v-sun-ilnd-2012.