United States District Court, N.D. Illinois, Eastern Division
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
SUNIL
R. HARJANI, UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE
Plaintiffs
Arturo DeLeon-Reyes and Gabriel Solache filed these wrongful
conviction cases against the City of Chicago, several members
of the Chicago Police Department, and certain Cook County
Assistant State's Attorneys under 42 U.S.C. § 1983
alleging that Defendant Reynaldo Guevara and others violated
their constitutional rights by, among other things, coercing
their false confessions, manipulating witnesses and
fabricating evidence, and suppressing exculpatory
information. Plaintiffs also bring claims against the City
under Monell v. Department of Social Services of the City
of New York, 436 U.S. 658 (1978), alleging that the City
maintained unconstitutional policies and practices that
caused their wrongful convictions. The City's motion to
bifurcate discovery related to Plaintiffs'
Monell claims was denied by the district court. The
parties have been proceeding with fact discovery and now
dispute the appropriate scope of Monell discovery.
For the reasons set forth below, the Court rejects the
City's contention that it should only have to produce
Area Five homicide investigative files for which there exists
a corresponding Cook County State's Attorney's Office
(CCSAO) file and the complaint register files (CR files) for
every fifth detective at Area Five for the period from 1992
to 1998. The Court also rejects the Plaintiffs' request
for the full seven years of discovery of these two categories
of files with no limitations. The Court orders that the
City's production is limited to the years 1995 through
1998 for all Area Five homicide investigative files and CR
files for detectives.
BACKGROUND
In
these lawsuits brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983,
Reyes and Solache contend that they were wrongfully convicted
and served almost 20 years in prison for the 1998 double
murder of Mariano and Jacinta Soto and the abduction of their
infant daughter and 3-year old son. On December 21, 2017,
following post-conviction hearings, Cook County Circuit Court
Judge James Obbish vacated Reyes's and Solache's
convictions and ordered them released from prison. The Cook
County State's Attorney voluntarily dismissed all charges
against Reyes and Solache.
On
February 9, 2018, Reyes filed his complaint in No. 18 C 1028
for injuries arising out of his alleged wrongful conviction.
Reyes's complaint contains twelve claims against the City
of Chicago, eleven Chicago Police Department officers and/or
detectives, five Cook County Assistant State's Attorneys,
and Cook County: Section 1983 claims for violations of Due
Process and the Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments,
failure to intervene, conspiracy, policy and practice against
the City, and state law claims for intentional infliction of
emotional distress, malicious prosecution, civil conspiracy,
indemnification, and respondeat superior. Reyes alleges that
“false evidence fabricated by Defendants caused [his]
arrest, indictment, prosecution, and conviction, ”
including an involuntary and false confession attributed to
Reyes. Reyes, No. 18 C 1028, Doc. 1 at ¶¶
4, 5. Reyes further alleges that Defendants “coerced
statements they knew to be false from Solache and other
witnesses, which falsely implicated [Reyes] in the
crime” and “also suppressed and destroyed
evidence that would have shown [Reyes] was innocent, as well
as evidence that could have been used to undermine the
testimony of State's witnesses, including the testimony
of Defendants themselves.” Id. at ¶¶
7, 8.
Solache
filed his complaint on March 30, 2018 in No. 18 C 2312.
Solache's complaint includes nine claims against the City
and nine police officer defendants: Section 1983 claims for
violations of Due Process and the Fifth and Fourteenth
Amendments, failure to intervene, Monell policy
claims, and state law claims for malicious prosecution,
intentional infliction of emotional distress, civil
conspiracy, respondeat superior, and indemnification.
Solache's complaint alleges that “Defendant Guevara
prepared fraudulent police reports memorializing the
fabricated, false inculpatory statements he coerced from
[Solache] and Reyes, and never disclosed to prosecutors, the
court, [Solache] or his attorney the fact that he beat,
threatened and otherwise coerced [Solache] and witnesses to
give the fabricated, false statement implicating [Solache] in
the Soto crimes, resulting in [Solache's] wrongful
imprisonment for two decades.” Solache, No. 18
C 2312, Doc. 1 at ¶ 54. Solache's complaint also
alleges that “before and after [his] convictions, the
Defendants further conspired to fabricate inculpatory
evidence and also deprive Plaintiff of exculpatory
information to which he was lawfully entitled and which would
have led either to his not being charged, his acquittal, or
his more timely exoneration.” Id. at ¶
55. Defendants deny Reyes and Solache were wrongfully
convicted and deny there exists any basis for Reyes's and
Solache's claims against them.
On
April 24, 2018, these cases were consolidated for purposes of
coordinated discovery before District Judge Andrea R. Wood.
Reyes, No. 18 C 1028, Doc. 49.[1] The question of
whether the cases will be consolidated for trial will be
determined by the district court at a later date.
Id. On August 16, 2018, the district court referred
discovery supervision in these cases to Magistrate Judge
Gilbert, the predecessor magistrate judge. Id., at
Doc. 80. These cases were reassigned to the undersigned
magistrate judge on January 10, 2019. Id., at Doc.
133. On April 24, 2019, Judge Wood denied the City's
Motion to Bifurcate Monell Claim for purposes of
discovery and trial. Id., at Doc. 174.
The
parties' present dispute involves the appropriate scope
of discovery regarding Plaintiffs' Monell claims
in these two cases. Monell discovery is also
underway in two other similar cases in this district,
Sierra v. City of Chicago, No. 18 C 3029 (N.D. Ill.)
(Lee, J. & Weisman, MJ.), and Gomez v. City of
Chicago, No. 18 C 3335 (N.D. Ill) (Kocoras, J.). All
four cases allege that Defendant Guevara and others violated
plaintiffs' constitutional rights by, among other things,
coercing their false confessions, manipulating witnesses and
fabricating evidence, and suppressing exculpatory information
resulting in their wrongful convictions.[2] In all four
cases, plaintiffs also allege that the City maintained
unconstitutional policies and practices that caused their
wrongful convictions, the City's motion to bifurcate
those Monell claims was denied, and Monell
discovery has been ordered to proceed. The underlying
homicide investigations in these four cases occurred during
the following years: Sierra - 1995; Gomez -
1997; and Reyes & Solache - 1998.[3]
The
parties conferred and tried to reach an agreement regarding
the appropriate scope of Monell discovery in all
four cases. The City agreed that if an agreement was reached
between the parties in this case, that agreement would apply
to all four of the cases. However, no agreement was reached
between the parties regarding the scope of Monell
discovery in these two cases or in the Sierra and
Gomez cases. Nor did the parties agree that a ruling
in this case would presumptively apply to the Sierra
and Gomez cases. While Plaintiffs encourage this
Court to consider the other two cases in evaluating the scope
of Monell discovery, this Court declines to do so.
Although this Opinion may address issues common to
Sierra and Gomez and other cases in
district, other judges may not agree with this ruling. Nor
does the Court have any basis to order discovery that
essentially determines the scope of discovery (and as a
result, additional time frame for discovery) in other cases
that are being handled by other judges in this district.
Accordingly, this ruling applies only to the Reyes
and Solache cases and does not apply those cases
assigned to other judges in this district.
DISCUSSION
Federal
Rule of Civil Procedure 26 governs the scope of civil
discovery and allows parties to “obtain discovery
regarding any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any
party's claim or defense and proportional to the needs of
the case.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(b)(1). However, a court
“must limit the frequency or extent of discovery
otherwise allowed by [the] rules” if “the
discovery sought is unreasonably cumulative or
duplicative” or “the proposed discovery is
outside the scope permitted by Rule 26(b)(1).”
Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(b)(2)(C). Rule 1 likewise directs that the
civil rules should be “construed, administered, and
employed by the court to secure the just, speedy, and
inexpensive determination of every action and
proceeding.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 1. Finally, magistrate judges
“enjoy extremely broad discretion in controlling
discovery.” Jones v. City of Elkhart, 737 F.3d
1107, 1115 (7th Cir. 2013). With these principles in mind,
the Court considers and resolves the Monell
discovery issues presented by the parties.
The
parties' Monell discovery dispute involves two
categories of documents: (1) homicide investigative files and
(2) CR files reflecting the investigation and disposition of
allegations of officer misconduct. As a threshold matter, the
City argues that discovery of other homicide investigative
files is not warranted absent a showing by Plaintiffs that
exculpatory evidence was in fact suppressed in these cases.
Should discovery of other Area Five homicide investigation
files be allowed, the parties have agreed on a time frame for
production of 1992-1998. The City seeks to limit its
production of Area Five homicide investigation files during
this time period to homicide files for which there exists a
corresponding CCSAO file. Plaintiffs object to the City's
proposed limitation on its production of other Area Five
homicide investigation files.
As to
the requested CR files, the parties have agreed that the City
will identify officers who worked as Area Five homicide
detectives during the period from 1992-1998. The City
proposes to produce the CR file from every fifth detective on
this list. Plaintiffs object to this limitation.
As
explained below, the Court rejects the City's threshold
objection to production of any other homicide investigative
files at this time, and also finds that neither side's
proposal as to the scope of Monell discovery strikes
the appropriate balance between permitting relevant discovery
with limiting the burden of discovery to what is proportional
to these cases.
A.
Homicide Investigative Files
Plaintiffs
seek to hold the City liable on the basis that a number of
its official policies and customs were the moving force
behind their wrongful convictions. A municipality is liable
under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 “when execution of a
government's policy or custom, whether made by its
lawmakers or by those whose edicts or acts may fairly be said
to represent official policy, inflicts the injury.”
Monell, 436 U.S. at 694. A municipal policy can be
shown in one of three ways: “(1) an express policy that
would cause a constitutional deprivation if enforced; (2) a
common practice that is so widespread and well settled as to
constitute a custom or usage with the force of law even
though it is not authorized by written law or express policy;
or (3) an allegation that a person with final policy-making
authority caused the constitutional injury.”
Lawrence v. Kenosha Cty., 391 F.3d 837, 844 (7th
Cir. 2004). Monell therefore “requires a
plaintiff suing a municipal or comparable entity to
demonstrate that the entity's official policy, widespread
custom, or action by an official with policy-making authority
was the ‘moving force' behind his constitutional
injury.” Dixon v. County of Cook, 819 F.3d
343, 348 (7th Cir. 2016).
As part
of the Monell discovery sought in these cases,
Plaintiffs requested other CPD Area Five homicide
investigation files from 1992 through 1998. Plaintiffs intend
to use the homicide files to prove that the City maintained a
number of unconstitutional policies and practices, including
that the City suppressed evidence, fabricated evidence,
including witness statements, used against them, and coerced
confessions from suspects.[4] Reyes, 18 C 1028, Doc. 185-1
at 2. In response to questions posed by the Court, Plaintiffs
explained specifically how other investigative homicide files
may support these Monell claims. Id., Doc.
212 at 4-5, 8-10. For example, with respect to their
suppressed evidence theory, Plaintiffs state that the Area
Five homicide investigative files can be: (1) examined
themselves and (2) compared to other files concerning the
same investigation and prosecution. By way of illustration,
Plaintiffs explain that in Rivera v. Guevara, No. 12
C 4428 (N.D. Ill.), the homicide file contained a number of
General Progress Reports (GPRs) on which CPD officers were
required to take notes, but the Investigative File Inventory
included with the file reflected that multiple GPRs created
on key dates and logged into the file shortly thereafter were
missing. In addition to the corresponding CCSAO files, the
homicide investigative files can be compared to the Permanent
Retention File maintained by the City, which reports the
official account of a criminal defendant's guilt in a
homicide case, and to the corresponding criminal defense
files. Homicide investigative files could also contain
evidence supporting allegations of coercion. For example, the
homicide files will contain arrest reports indicating when
the individual was arrested, and when the individual gave a
statement, information about the length of an interrogation,
the participants in the interrogation, and a copy of the
handwritten confessions. Finally, Plaintiffs state that
homicide investigative files can reveal evidence of
fabricated police reports. With this explanation, the Court
has no trouble concluding that the Area Five homicide files
in question are relevant to Plaintiffs' stated
Monell claims.
The
City argues, however, that at this point in the litigation,
the production of other homicide investigative files is
irrelevant, unduly burdensome, and disproportionate to the
needs of the cases because discovery has not yet shown that
Plaintiffs' homicide investigative file based
Monell theories have any viability in the context of
the facts of these cases. The City objects to production of
any other Area Five homicide investigation files, arguing
that Plaintiffs must first make a threshold showing that some
evidence was withheld from them. As to Plaintiffs'
suppression of evidence claims, the City claims that despite
being in possession of the Soto investigative file since
September of 2018, Plaintiffs have not identified a single
document that was not produced to them. Without such a
showing that a specific document or piece of evidence was
withheld from them, the City claims that the production of
hundreds of other homicide investigative files is unduly
burdensome and not proportional to the needs of the case. The
City contends that if Plaintiffs cannot identify what
documents were allegedly withheld from them, then production
of other investigative files “seems purposeless.”
Reyes, No. 18 C 1028, Doc. 178, at 11; see
Elizarri v. Sheriff of Cook County, 901 F.3d 787, 791
(7th Cir. 2018) (citing Los Angeles v. Heller, 475
U.S. 796 (1986)) (“[I]t is established that a
municipality cannot be held liable [under Monell]
without an underlying violation of the Constitution by a
municipal employee.”).[5]According to the City, Plaintiffs
should be obligated to identify some document that existed at
the time of the Soto homicide investigation that was not
produced to them in violation of Brady before
beginning Monell discovery related to
Plaintiffs' underproduction theory.
The
Court rejects the City's contention that Plaintiffs are
required to make some kind of threshold evidentiary showing
that certain items of exculpatory evidence were withheld from
them to justify proceeding with discovery of other Area Five
homicide investigation files. First, the district judge
rejected the City's motion for bifurcation of the
individual constitutional claims from the Monell
claims. As a result, discovery on Plaintiffs' individual
constitutional claims and the Monell claims are
occurring simultaneously. The Court cannot require a
threshold showing when discovery is not complete on the
individual claims - such a process would essentially be a
de facto bifurcation and would also not be
appropriate because the Court cannot be sure that all
discovery has been uncovered yet as to the individual claims.
The Court has worked to phase discovery in this case, so that
the individual constitutional claims could proceed while the
parties debated and decided the scope of the Monell
discovery. However, the Court has not mandated that discovery
on the individual claims be completed first, and indeed, the
parties continue to locate witnesses and take their
depositions on the individual claims.[6] While the Court has some
sympathy for the City's argument, because it may turn out
to be true that without a basis in the individual claims, the
burdensome Monell discovery is unnecessary, the City
lost that battle with a denial of its motion for bifurcation.
The City must now live with those consequences.
Thus,
under that analysis, Plaintiffs are only required to
plausibly allege a suppression of evidence based
Monell claim to engage in discovery to explore their
claims. Plaintiffs have satisfied their pleading burden with
respect to their claims that the City had a policy, among
other policies, of failing to produce exculpatory and/or
impeaching material to the criminal justice system, and the
City did not move to dismiss those claims. Reyes,
No. 18 C 1028, Doc. 1 at ¶¶ 95-122, 170-182;
Solache, No. 18 C 2312, Doc. 1 at ¶¶
62-73, 91-95. Nothing more is required to justify
Monell discovery at this time.
Second,
and contrary to the City's contention, Plaintiffs have
identified some evidence that they believe was suppressed in
the complaint in Reyes, their interrogatory
responses, and their Joint Status Report. Reyes, No.
18 C 1028, Doc. 1 at ¶¶ 73, 74 & Doc. 178 at 4.
The suppressed evidence Plaintiffs allege in these cases
includes photos of the crime scene that undermine
Plaintiffs' confessions, Defendants' notes of
interviews with witnesses including Alfredo Aranda, Leobardo
Mejia, and others, and information about vehicles that the
police suspected may have been involved in the crime and
pointed to alternate suspects. Id. The City
acknowledges that in response to written discovery requests,
Plaintiffs stated that “Defendant Officers (1)
destroyed crime scene photos, and (2) suppressed notes,
memos, and other evidence in secret files.”
Id., Doc. 178 at 11. According to Plaintiffs,
additional items of evidence were allegedly suppressed,
including: (1) Norma Salazar, who was implicated by
Plaintiffs' co-defendant Adriana Mejia, was placed in a
lineup during the investigation, and Plaintiffs received no
documentation of the lineup; (2) parts of Adriana Mejia's
confession was excluded from handwritten statements and
police reports; (3) members of the Soto and Mejia families
were treated as alternative suspects by police, unbeknownst
to Plaintiffs; and (4) GPRs reflecting interviews with
witnesses and suspects are missing. Id., Doc. 212 at
6. By filing Reyes's complaint and submitting their Joint
Status Report and Second Supplemental Brief, Plaintiffs'
counsel has certified that “the factual contentions
[regarding the suppressed evidence] have evidentiary support
or . . . will likely have evidentiary support after a
reasonable opportunity for further investigation or
discovery.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 11(b)(3). In addition, by
signing interrogatory responses, Plaintiffs certified that
their discovery responses are not interposed “for an
improper purpose, such as to harass, cause unnecessary delay,
or needlessly ...