Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-24-01112/USCOURTS-ca7-24-01112-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted December 18, 2024*

Decided December 18, 2024 

Before

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge

DORIS L. PRYOR, Circuit Judge

NANCY L. MALDONADO, Circuit Judge

No. 24-1112 

SHEDRICK BOWES-NORTHERN,

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

CITY OF CHICAGO, et al., 

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Northern District of 

Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 1:21-cv-03351 

Virginia M. Kendall, 

 Chief Judge. 

O R D E R

Shedrick Bowes-Northern appeals the stay of his suit alleging that persons 

connected to his arrest and state-court prosecution violated his constitutional rights. 

* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and 

record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not 

significantly aid the court. FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with FED. R. APP. P. 32.1

Case: 24-1112 Document: 42 Filed: 12/18/2024 Pages: 3
No. 24-1112 Page 2 

Because Bowes-Northern waited until his reply brief to argue that the stay was 

improper, he has waived those arguments, and we affirm. 

We recount the facts as Bowes-Northern alleges them. Chicago police officers 

arrested Bowes-Northern in 2020, without probable cause, for aggravated and unlawful 

use of a weapon. The handcuffs cut off his circulation, exacerbating diabetes-related

issues. Bowes-Northern reported this to the officers and urged them to loosen the cuffs, 

but they did not. After his arrest, Bowes-Northern was charged with the weapons 

offense and detained at Cook County Jail. While there, jail officers denied his requests 

for diabetic shoes and treatment for foot pain. They also put him in a cell with an 

offender who the officers knew would (and did) expose himself to Bowes-Northern. 

While his state charges were pending, Bowes-Northern sued in federal court, 

raising several claims. First, he contends that defendants associated with the City of 

Chicago lacked probable cause to arrest and charge him. Second, he contends that they 

used excessive force and provided inadequate care. Third, he argues that defendants 

associated with Cook County failed to provide medical attention and housed him in 

unconstitutional conditions. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. He also invoked state-law claims.

The district court stayed the case upon the defendants’ motion. Agreeing with 

the defendants that litigating the federal claims would interfere with the state’s criminal 

prosecution, the court stayed the case under Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971), 

pending resolution of the criminal charges. It ended the stay after Bowes-Northern 

pleaded guilty in state court. But when he later retracted that plea, the defendants 

moved to reinstate the stay, and the district court did so. It did not specify the basis for 

the stay, but we presume that it invoked Younger again because the state prosecution

had resumed. Bowes-Northern timely appealed the second stay order. 

We begin our analysis with the issue of appellate jurisdiction, which we have an 

independent obligation to assess. Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 94 

(1998). We may review stay orders that require “an essential part of the federal suit to 

be litigated in a state forum.” Loughran v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 2 F.4th 640, 646 

(7th Cir. 2021) (quoting Moses H. Cone Mem’l Hosp. v. Mercury Constr. Corp., 460 U.S. 1, 

10 n.11 (1983)). The parties do not dispute that an essential part of this suit is 

Bowes-Northern’s claim that the defendants lacked a basis to arrest him and charge him 

with unlawful use of a weapon. Nor do they dispute that the state prosecution is 

expected to consider that issue. Therefore, we have jurisdiction to review the stay order. 

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No. 24-1112 Page 3 

With our jurisdiction secure, we conclude that we must affirm. The defendants 

argue that Bowes-Northern waived his opposition to the stay, correctly pointing out 

that his opening brief focuses only on the merits of his claims instead of arguing that a 

stay was improper. But a stay order is collateral to the merits; thus we cannot address 

the merits now. See Mohawk Indus., Inc. v. Carpenter, 558 U.S. 100, 106–07 (2009). Further, 

arguments that an appellant waits until a reply brief to raise are waived. E.g., Appvion, 

Inc. Ret. Sav. & Emp. Stock Ownership Plan ex rel. Lyon v. Buth, 99 F.4th 928, 954–55 

(7th Cir. 2024). The rationale for this rule is important: Belated attempts to raise issues 

in a reply brief “violate the need of the judicial system for order and efficiency” and

“seek to expand the issues on appeal without effective notice to the opposing party and 

come at a time when the opposing party has no opportunity to make a written 

response.” Commonwealth Edison Co. v. U.S. Nuclear Regul. Comm’n, 830 F.2d 610, 621 n.7 

(7th Cir. 1987). The defendants ask us to enforce that rule and affirm on the basis that 

Bowes-Northern has waived any argument that the stay is improper. In his reply brief, 

he gives us no reason to create and to apply an exception to this waiver rule. We 

therefore enforce it. Appvion, Inc. ex rel. Lyon, 99 F.4th at 954–55. 

We thus AFFIRM the district court’s decision to stay this litigation pending the 

resolution of the state criminal charges. Bowes-Northern’s four currently pending 

motions, all of which assume incorrectly that we reach the merits of this case or raise 

issues outside the scope of his notice of appeal, are also DENIED. We reiterate that the 

district court has not resolved the merits of Bowes-Northern’s claim, and when it does, 

any adversely affected party will have an opportunity to timely appeal the merits. 

Case: 24-1112 Document: 42 Filed: 12/18/2024 Pages: 3