Williams v. City of Chicago

CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Illinois
DecidedMarch 12, 2020
Docket1:17-cv-05186
StatusUnknown

This text of Williams v. City of Chicago (Williams v. City of Chicago) 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
Williams v. City of Chicago, (N.D. Ill. 2020).

Opinion

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS EASTERN DIVISION

OMAR WILLIAMS, )

)

Plaintiff, )

) No. 17 C 5186 v. )

) Judge Virginia M. Kendall CITY OF CHICAGO, ) MARCO GARCIA, ) DONALD HILL, )

Defendants. )

MEMORANDUM ORDER AND OPINION

On September 28, 2011, officers of the Chicago Police Department (“CPD”) arrested Plaintiff Omar Williams for the murder of Javonne Oliphant and attempted murder of Andre Gladney. On June 8, 2017, after Plaintiff had spent five years and eight months in jail, a jury acquitted Plaintiff of all charges following a three-day trial. Plaintiff subsequently filed this lawsuit against the City of Chicago and several government agents, alleging, inter alia, that Defendants violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures by arresting and detaining him without probable cause. Before the Court is Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment. (Dkt. 182.) For the reasons set forth below, the Motion is denied in part and granted in part. PRELIMINARY OBJECTIONS

I. Local Rule 56.1 Objections

As a preliminary matter, Defendants object to Plaintiff’s statement of facts on the grounds that it does not comply with Local Rule 56.1(b)(3)(C). Indeed, Plaintiff’s statements of facts consists of many paragraphs that are far from “short” as required by the rule. Paragraph 24, for example, includes twelve sentences. Plaintiff also includes argumentative statements and theories that lack substantiation in violation of the rules. For example, paragraph thirteen reads in part: “There was absolutely no basis for Garcia’s claim that the P345 was Omar Williams’ gun. Hill, likely seeking to downplay his partner’s outright fabrication, testified that the P345 ‘wasn’t

important.’” (Dkt. 196 ¶ 13.) This sort of language, which appears throughout Plaintiff’s statement of facts, is clearly argumentative and improper in a 56.1 statement of facts. Rather than take the drastic measure of striking Plaintiff’s statement of facts in its entirety, the Court took care to only consider material facts supported by citations to the record, rather than argumentation. See Flint v. City of Belvidere, 791 F.3d 764, 767 (7th Cir. 2015) (district courts have discretion to enforce Local Rule 56.1). II. Hearsay Objections Defendants object to Plaintiff’s reliance on hearsay statements made by Andre Gladney in Plaintiff’s underlying criminal trial. Defendants’ objections are unfounded at this stage of the litigation because the non-moving party on a motion for summary judgment need not “‘depose her

own witnesses or produce evidence in a form that would be admissible at trial in order to avoid summary judgment.’” Hummel v. St. Joseph Cty. Bd. of Com’rs, 817 F.3d 1010 (7th Cir. 2016) (quoting Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317 (1986)). Were Mr. Gladney to take the stand in an eventual trial in this case, he would be able to offer the same testimony that he offered in the earlier criminal trial. Likewise, were he to be declared unavailable to testify under Rule 804(a), his testimony from the earlier trial may fall within the 804(b)(1) hearsay exception. Accordingly, the Court takes Gladney’s trial testimony into account for purposes of this Motion. Defendants likewise object to Plaintiff’s reliance on a conversation he allegedly overheard on speakerphone between Antoine Williams and Keith Slugg. Without ruling on the issue, the Court notes for purposes of this Motion that this conversation arguably falls within the scope of the present-sense-impression hearsay exception. As such, there is a possibility that the conversation could be admissible at trial, so the Court will consider that conversation for purposes of this Motion.

BACKGROUND Unless otherwise indicated, the following facts are undisputed for purposes of this Motion. The Shooting On July 1, 2011 at approximately 11:07 PM, Andre Gladney (“Gladney”) and Javonne Oliphant (“Oliphant”) were shot multiple times in the parking lot of the ABLA-Robert Brooks Homes located on the 1300 block of West Hastings in Chicago, Illinois. (Dkt. 186 ¶ 4.) While Gladney survived the shooting, Oliphant did not. (Id.) The Investigation The CPD assigned Detective Carol Maresso as the scene detective on the night of the shooting. (Dkt. 186 ¶ 5.)1 Within a day of the shooting, CPD assigned detectives Marco Garcia

and Donald Hill to investigate the shooting. (Id. ¶¶ 6, 8.) Officers recovered twelve spent cartridge casings from a 9 mm Glock semiautomatic weapon, six .40 caliber casings, and a fully loaded Ruger P345 handgun at the scene. (Dkt. 196 ¶ 1.) Believing that ownership of the fully-loaded Ruger P345 was unimportant to his investigation, Detective Hill did not investigate to whom the Ruger P345 belonged. (Dkt. 186-18 at p. 11.) Detective Garcia states that he never determined ownership of the Ruger P345, although a report he wrote identified Plaintiff as the owner. (Dkt. 186-14 at pp. 3, 10.) Garcia states that the

1 Maresso was a Defendant in this case, but Plaintiff moved to dismiss her with prejudice on January 19, 2019. (Dkt. 142.) field within the report that identified the owner of the weapon was populated by error. (Id. at p. 10) At the time of the shooting, roughly twenty people were present in the parking lot. (Dkt. 196 ¶ 1.) Among the people present were Antoine Williams and Keith Slugg (“Slugg”).2

(Id. ¶ 2.) Antoine Williams is a quadriplegic who requires a specifically equipped van for transportation. (Id.) The Illinois Department of Human Services employed Omar Williams (“Plaintiff”) and Slugg as drivers of such a van for Antoine. (Id.) Omar typically worked the day shift, driving the van from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM daily, while Slugg typically worked the “next shift.” (Id.; Dkt. 186-12 at p. 5:1–11.) Slugg was a parolee confined to house arrest on electronic monitoring, but he was authorized to leave his home to drive the van. (Dkt. 196 ¶ 30.) His monitoring data show that he left his home at 4:39 PM on the night of the shooting and returned home at 1:59 AM the following morning. (Id.) Two days after the shooting, Detective Thomas Deacy of the Gang Investigations Unit—at the direction of Sergeant Charles Daley—issued an investigative alert for Slugg stating

that Slugg was a “Targeted Repeat Offender Apprehension and Prosecution” target. (Id. ¶ 32.) No documents presently exist explaining why the investigative alert was issued and Deacy and Daley testified that they do not recall why they issued the alert. (Id. ¶ 33.) On August 21, 2011, the University of Illinois at Chicago Police arrested Slugg for reckless driving. (Id. ¶ 35.) While in jail, police used Slugg as a filler in two line-ups for another homicide case. (Dkt. 196-6 at pp. 2– 3.) According to Plaintiff’s deposition testimony, after Slugg was released from jail, Slugg called Antoine Williams to tell Antoine that while he was in jail, police questioned him in connection

2 Defendants do not specifically admit that Slugg was present, but McNeal testified that he was, and Defendants provide no citation to the record indicating that he was not there. Because the only information in the record is that Slugg was present, the Court considers this an undisputed fact for purposes of this Motion. with Oliphant’s murder. (Dkt. 196 ¶ 35.) Plaintiff reports that he overheard this conversation because he was next to Antoine Williams who had his phone on speakerphone. (Dkt. 186- 12 at p.

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Williams v. City of Chicago, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/williams-v-city-of-chicago-ilnd-2020.