Taylor v. Womack et al

Filing 42

OPINION entered by Judge Sue E. Myerscough on 2/14/2017. Defendants' motion for summary judgment is denied 36 . Plaintiff's motion for status is denied as moot 41 . This case is referred to the Magistrate Judge for a settlement conference. (MAS, ilcd)

E-FILED

Tuesday, 14 February, 2017 10:04:27 AM
Clerk, U.S. District Court, ILCD

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE CENTRAL DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
FRANCHOT TAYLOR,
Plaintiff,
v.
DEPUTY WOMACK, et al.,
Defendants.

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15-cv-3113

OPINION
SUE E. MYERSCOUGH, U.S. District Judge.
Plaintiff, proceeding pro se from his incarceration in Dixon
Correctional Center, alleges that Defendants, officers of the
Sangamon County Sheriff’s Department, violated Plaintiff’s Fourth
Amendment rights by entering and searching his home without his
consent and by arresting him without probable cause.
Defendants’ summary judgment motion is before the Court.
At the summary judgment stage, the evidence is viewed in the light
most favorable to the nonmovant, with material factual disputes
resolved in the nonmovant's favor. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc.,
477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986). A genuine dispute of material fact exists
when a reasonable juror could find for the nonmovant. Id.
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The parties agree that Defendant Knowski, a Lieutenant with
the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office, and Defendant Womack, a
Deputy, came to the door of Plaintiff’s home in the early morning
hours of February 18, 2015. Lieutenant Knowski and Deputy
Womack entered the home, retrieved a jacket and shoes, and
arrested Plaintiff for criminal damage to property,
resisting/obstructing a police officer, and stealing a leaf blower and
a girl’s bicycle.
Defendants maintain that they tracked Plaintiff from the site of
a reported burglary to Plaintiff’s home. Defendants also maintain
that Plaintiff consented to Defendants’ entering the home and that
evidence incriminating Plaintiff was found in plain sight. Plaintiff,
in contrast, contends that he had been home sleeping all night and
was awakened by Defendants banging on the door, threatening to
break the door down and send their dog in if Plaintiff did not open
the door. Plaintiff maintains that he either did not give consent for
Defendants to enter the home or was coerced into doing so.
Plaintiff also contends that he did not give consent for the search.
On September 25, 2015, in a negotiated plea, Plaintiff plead
guilty to attempted burglary, admitting that he:
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[w]ith the intent to commit the offense of burglary
performed a substantial step toward the commission of
the offense, in that he knowingly and without authority
attempted to enter a building of Daniel Downey, with the
intent to commit therein a theft.
(State’s Attorney Statement, d/e 36-3, p. 4.) The other
charges against Plaintiff were dropped as part of the plea
agreement.
Defendants argue that Plaintiff’s guilty plea bars Plaintiff’s
claims in this case because Plaintiff had an opportunity to litigate
the constitutionality of the search and seizure when Plaintiff filed a
motion to suppress in his criminal proceedings. That argument
would be correct if Plaintiff’s motion to suppress had been denied
on the merits, but the motion to suppress was never ruled on due
to the negotiated plea.
Further, the facts which formed the basis of Plaintiff’s guilty
plea do not bar him from pursuing his claims. Plaintiff could
succeed on his claims for illegal entry, search, and seizure without
impugning the validity of his conviction for attempted burglary. In
Simpson v. Rowan, 73 F.3d 134 (7th Cir. 1995), the Seventh Circuit
held that Fourth Amendment claims for false arrest and an illegal
search of the plaintiff’s apartment could proceed despite Plaintiff’s
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murder conviction, a conviction based in part on evidence found
during the purportedly illegal search. The Seventh Circuit reasoned
that the Fourth Amendment claims did not necessarily challenge
the validity of the conviction because “an illegal search or arrest
may be followed by a valid conviction . . . .” 73 F.3d at 136; see
also Rollins v. Willett, 770 F.3d 575 (7th Cir. 2014)(pleading guilty
on driving violations did not bar claim for unreasonable seizure: “A
finding that the defendant was illegally seized—the finding he seeks
in this suit—would therefore have no relevance to the validity of his
guilty plea and ensuing conviction.”); Copus v. City of Edgerton,
151 F.3d 646, 649 (7th Cir. 1998)(“The point is that it is possible for
an individual to be properly convicted though he is unlawfully
arrested, or his home unlawfully searched. The remedy for those
constitutional violations is a civil action under § 1983 for money
damages, . . . .”) The claims in Simpson were ultimately dismissed
because the plaintiff had lost a motion to suppress in his criminal
proceedings regarding the same claims of unreasonable search and
seizure. Simpson v. Rowan, 125 Fed.Appx. 720 (7th Cir. 2005)(not
published in Federal Reporter). However, as discussed above, no
ruling was made on Plaintiff’s motion to suppress. Like the claims
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in Simpson, Plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment claims in this case do
not necessarily undermine the facts underlying his conviction.
Defendants also argue that Plaintiff consented to the search
because Plaintiff opened the door voluntarily and allowed
Defendants to enter. But whether Plaintiff consented to
Defendants’ entry, and, if so, whether that consent was coerced or
included a consent to the search, are disputed material facts.
Consent must be voluntary, not the product of coercion or duress.
Valance v. Wisel, 110 F.3d 1269 (7th Cir. 1997). According to
Plaintiff, the officers announced through the closed door, “Open the
door, we know you in there, we going to kick it down, we going to
send the dog in.” (Pl.’s Dep. 9.) Even if Plaintiff did voluntarily
consent to Defendants’ entry, Plaintiff did not voluntarily consent to
the search of the apartment, according to Plaintiff. Plaintiff
maintains that he opened the door, whereupon the officers entered
and began searching the apartment while Plaintiff “was grabbing
them by the arms and asking them what they was doing, they need
to explain themselves, what do you all want.” (Pl.’s Dep. 12-13.)
Plaintiff “was telling them you all ain’t got no business in the house,
you don’t have no search warrant to be in this home, man, what’s
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up, what you all want.” (Pl.’s Dep. 11.) On this record, whether
Plaintiff consented to the entry and search are disputed questions
of fact.
Defendants argue that the terms of Plaintiff’s mandatory
supervised release agreement with the Illinois Department of
Corrections required him to consent to the search of his residence.
Paragraph ten of that agreement states, “[y]ou shall consent to a
search of your person, property, or residence under your control;
including computer(s), peripherals and any and all media.”
(Mandatory Supervised Release Agreement para. 10, d/e 36-3.)
Plaintiff was bound by this agreement on the date of the search.
There is legal support for Defendants’ argument. In Samson v.
California, 547 U.S. 843 (2006), the Supreme Court upheld a
suspicionless search of a parolee which resulted in the plaintiff’s
drug conviction. Relying on Samson, the Illinois Supreme Court
upheld a warrantless, unconsented search of a parolee’s home
based on an anonymous tip that the defendant was violating his
parole. People v. Wilson, 228 Ill.2d 35 (2008). The Illinois Supreme
Court stated in Wilson that the release agreement, which contained
a search provision identical to the provision in Plaintiff’s release
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agreement, “reduced his expectation of privacy in his residence to a
level that society would not recognize as legitimate.” See also
People v. Absher, 242 Ill.2d 77 (2011)(probationer’s agreement to
suspicionless search amounted to prospective consent and a waiver
of probationer’s Fourth Amendment rights); U.S. v. Barnett, 415
F.3d 690 (7th Cir. 2005)(upholding Illinois probationer’s blanket
waiver of Fourth Amendment rights in release agreement to “submit
to searches of [his] person, residence . . . at any time such requests
are made by the Probation Officer . . .) State law informs a federal
court’s Fourth Amendment inquiry into an individual’s legitimate
expectations of privacy. U.S. v. White, 781 F.3d 858, 861 (7th Cir.
2015)(warrantless search of Illinois parolee’s bag reasonable where
release agreement required parolee to consent to search).1
However, Plaintiff makes the point that Defendants did not
know about Plaintiff’s status as a parolee or the supervised release
agreement. He argues that Defendants could not have based their
entry and search on facts unknown to them. There is legal support
for Plaintiff’s argument, too. In Samson, the Supreme Court
Imposing such a broad search requirement in federal sentencing would be difficult. In U.S. v.
Farmer, 755 F.3d 849, 855 (7th Cir. 2014), the Seventh Circuit vacated a blanket waiver of
Fourth Amendment rights imposed as a special condition of supervised release on a federal
defendant where the district court had not adequately justified the condition.
1

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observed that, “[u]nder California precedent, we note, an officer
would not act reasonably in conducting a suspicionless search
absent knowledge that the person stopped for the search is a
parolee.” 547 U.S. 843 n. 5 of majority opinion2; see also U.S. v.
Williams, 702 F.Supp.2d 1021 (N.D. Ill. 2010)(valid parole search
requires knowledge of parolee status and release agreement);
Wofford v. Celani, 2013 WL 315744 (N.D. Ill. 2013)(agreeing with
Williams).
Defendants do not assert that they knew that Plaintiff was a
parolee or knew about his release agreement. They argue that
Plaintiff would have violated his release agreement if he did not
consent, and therefore he did consent. Yet Plaintiff’s own
knowledge of his release agreement is not imputed to Defendants.
See U.S. v. Walton, 763 F.3d 655 (7th Cir. 2014)(rejecting
government’s “astonishing proposition” that parolee’s knowledge of
parole violation rendered every parole search constitutional).
Defendants do not explain how the agreement gave them a

2Samson

was decided after U.S. v. Knights, 534 U.S. 112, 121 (2001), in which the U.S.
Supreme Court upheld the search of a parolee’s residence which was based on a reasonable
suspicion of criminal activity.

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reasonable basis to enter and search the home if they did not know
about the agreement.
Defendants next argue that they are entitled to qualified
immunity, but, looking at the record in the light most favorable to
Plaintiff, Plaintiff did not consent to the entry or the search and he
had been sleeping at home all night. Kentucky v. King, 563 U.S.
452, 459, 131 S.Ct. 1849, 179 L.Ed.2d 865 (2011)(“searches and
seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively
unreasonable.”)(internal quotes and quoted citation omitted).
Defendants’ qualified immunity argument depends on accepting
their version of disputed facts, which the Court cannot do.
Defendants argue that Plaintiff has no damages because
Defendants would have been successful in obtaining a warrant.
However, the harm is the search without a warrant, however
nominal the damages may be. Plaintiff’s slim chance of succeeding
at trial and recovering anything but nominal damages are not
grounds for granting summary judgment. See Giddeon v. Flynn,
830 F.3d 719 (7th Cir. 2016)(reversing summary judgment claim of
illegal stop of car, even though probable cause existed for arrest
and plaintiff was convicted). However, these probabilities do
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suggest that the case should be referred to the Magistrate Judge for
a settlement conference before the trial is scheduled.
On a separate matter, Defendants argue that Plaintiff fails to
state a claim against the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Department
for an unconstitutional practice or policy. The Sangamon County
Sheriff’s Department was named as a Defendant in Plaintiff’s
original complaint but not in his Amended Complaint, which
completely replaced the original. The merit review order did not
identify an unconstitutional policy claim against the Sangamon
County Sheriff’s Office, and the Sangamon County Sheriff is not
listed as a Defendant. Therefore, dismissal of this claim is
unnecessary because the claim is not before the Court. The Court
does note, however, that nothing in the record suggests that
Plaintiff’s purported constitutional deprivations were caused by an
unconstitutional policy attributable to the Sangamon County
Sheriff’s Office.
IT IS ORDERED:
(1) Defendants’ motion for summary judgment is denied
(36).
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(2) Plaintiff’s motion for status is denied as moot (41).
(3) This case is referred to the Magistrate Judge for a
settlement conference.
(4) The clerk is directed to notify the Magistrate Judge of
the referral.
ENTERED: February 14, 2017
FOR THE COURT:
__s/Sue E. Myerscough_____
SUE E. MYERSCOUGH
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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