In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

No. 22-1067 

THOMAS MOORER, 

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. 18-cv-03796 — Manish S. Shah, Judge. 

____________________ 

ARGUED MARCH 29, 2023 — DECIDED FEBRUARY 9, 2024 

____________________ 

Before SYKES, Chief Judge, and ROVNER and BRENNAN, Circuit Judges. 

ROVNER, Circuit Judge. Thomas Moorer was arrested and 

indicted on charges including murder and attempted murder, 

and ultimately was acquitted by a jury of those charges. He 

then brought an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that 

the defendants, officers of the Chicago Police Department, violated his Fourth Amendment rights in that they lacked probable cause for his pretrial detention. The district court granted 
2 No. 22-1067 

summary judgment in favor of the defendants, and Moorer 

appeals that determination. 

We begin, as did the district court, with facts not disputed 

by the parties. At around midnight on August 27, 2010, a 

number of men went to the apartment shared by Edward Ramos, his brother Edwin Ramos, and three of his cousins, Miguel Velez, Walter Velez, and Eliezer Martinez, and their ensuing actions culminated in the murder of Edward.1

On the night of Edward’s murder, three friends, Jacklyn 

Hernandez, Alina Kindelan, and Delia Rivera, pulled up to 

the apartment shortly before midnight. Walter emerged from 

the apartment to speak with his girlfriend, Hernandez, in the 

car, and the other two women exited the car and began walking toward the apartment. At that time, a man dressed in 

black clothing and brandishing a gun stepped out from the 

gangway of the building and told them to go away. During 

that interaction, the lower part of his face was covered. Although the area was dark, as the man moved toward them, he 

traversed an area lit by streetlights. The two women got back 

into the car with Hernandez, and the man forced Walter to the 

apartment door. A second man then emerged from the gangway, at which time the three women drove away and called 

911. 

The first man then held a gun to Walter’s head and instructed him to knock on the apartment door. When Edward 

opened the door, the man rushed into the apartment and began shooting. In a struggle for the gun, Edward and Martinez 

fell to the ground. The armed man, whose face by now was 

1 We refer to Edward and Edwin Ramos and Miguel and Walter Velez 

by their first names to avoid confusion.
No. 22-1067 3

uncovered, then fired several shots while standing, striking 

Martinez in the leg. Hearing the shots from another room of 

the apartment, Miguel looked into the living room, saw Edward struggling with the man, and ran out the back door. Edwin also heard the struggle, saw a man on top of Edward and 

Martinez, and ran to assist. The armed man hit Edwin in the 

head with the gun, but Edwin punched him and he dropped 

his weapon. The man then ran out of the apartment with Edwin in pursuit. When he reached the outside, Edwin saw a 

second man pointing a gun at him. The first man instructed 

his accomplice to start shooting. As Edwin lunged backward 

into the doorway, Edward moved past him, entering into the 

line of fire, and was shot in the chest. The two men fled, and 

Edwin drove his brother Edward and Martinez to the hospital. Edward died later that night. 

Officers from the Chicago Police Department arrived at 

the scene within minutes after the shooting and began canvassing the area and gathering physical evidence. At the police station, interviews were conducted individually with witnesses Edwin, Miguel, Walter, Hernandez, Kindelan, and Rivera. Edwin informed Detective Valkner that he recognized 

the man who entered the apartment. He stated that the man’s 

nickname was “Boom,” and that his brother had sold drugs 

to the man and a dispute had arisen over an unpaid debt. Edwin further stated that Boom had made threatening phone 

calls to his brother in the week before the shooting. He told 

the detectives that Edward’s phone contained contact information for Boom.

A cell phone was recovered at the scene, but Detective 

McDermott instructed the forensic investigator to turn it over 

to him. The phone, however, was never properly inventoried 
4 No. 22-1067 

and its ultimate whereabouts is unknown. Police reports indicate that Edwin identified a cell phone at the station and 

that he and Valkner searched the phone and located an entry 

for “Boom” and a phone number associated with the name. 

Neither Edwin nor Valkner later remembered that event. 

An officer ran a nickname search for “Boom” in a database. Detective Gonzalez stated that the database search 

yielded a photograph of Moorer which was then placed in a 

photo array, although Gonzalez could not recall details as to 

how the search was conducted and the photo chosen. The detectives then had Edwin review two books or “a bunch of papers” that included photographs of six people on each page. 

From those pages, Edwin identified Moorer as having been 

involved in the shooting. The detectives then left and returned with a printout including Moorer’s image, and asked 

Edwin to confirm his identification, circle Moorer’s photo, 

and sign his name under the image.

A photo array was subsequently created of six photographs, including Moorer’s, and shown to Hernandez, Edwin, Kindelan, Rivera and Miguel. Before viewing the array, 

each witness signed an advisory form acknowledging that a 

suspect would not necessarily be in the spread and that the 

witness was not required to make an identification. Individually, each one of those five witnesses positively identified 

Moorer as being involved in the attack, and Hernandez, Edwin, and Miguel confirmed that they were 100 percent certain 

in their identification.

Assistant State’s Attorney Maria Augustus then came to 

the police station and was briefed on the investigation, reviewed police reports, and reinterviewed witnesses with 

McDermott. Following those interviews, McDermott and 
No. 22-1067 5

Augustus mutually agreed to issue an investigative alert with 

probable cause to arrest Moorer.

Once Moorer was taken into custody, detectives then 

learned that Moorer’s nickname was “Boomer” rather than 

Boom. Moorer informed them that he had been home on the 

day of the shooting with his sisters and his sisters’ children. 

He also told them the name of someone who could confirm 

that alibi, and the district court held that the reasonable inference from the context of his statement was that the person he 

was referring to was his girlfriend, Lakisha Shorter. The detectives did not interview her, although she answered the 

door when they went to Moorer’s residence. But they did 

speak with his sisters, who were the persons he claimed to be 

with, and the sisters were subsequently brought to the station 

to provide signed statements. One of them signed a statement 

stating that she was asleep from 10pm to 2am during the night 

of the offense and that she did not see Moorer between 7pm 

and 2am that night. The other sister’s statement provided that 

her cousin had a party with around ten people on the first 

floor of the home that night, that she was upstairs taking care 

of her child most of the time during that night, and that she 

saw Moorer some of the times that she went downstairs to the 

party but not every time. Dist. Ct. Docket 165, Exhs. 39, 40. 

Witnesses Edwin, Miguel, Walter, Kindelan, Hernandez, 

and Rivera returned to the station to view an in-person 

lineup, which included Moorer and four other individuals. 

The witnesses viewed the lineup independently of each other 

and waited in separate rooms following the viewing until all

the witnesses had finished viewing the lineup. Walter identified Moorer but was only 80 percent certain, and his identification was treated by Detective Gonzalez as a negative 
6 No. 22-1067 

identification. Rivera, Edwin, Hernandez, Kindelan, and Miguel positively identified Moorer as the perpetrator, and none 

of those witnesses expressed any doubt in their identification. 

Assistant State’s Attorney Augustus reinterviewed all six witnesses, who provided videotaped statements of their accounts. The next day, Martinez was released from the hospital 

and proceeded to the police station. The detectives assembled 

another physical lineup including Moorer and others, and 

Martinez, who had never viewed the photo array and therefore could not have been influenced by that prior exposure, 

identified Moorer as the assailant. 

On August 30, Augustus approved three felony charges 

against Moorer of first degree murder, attempted murder, 

and aggravated battery with a firearm. In September 2010, a 

grand jury returned a 135-count indictment charging Moorer 

with first-degree murder and other crimes. Moorer’s criminal 

trial was not held until July 2017—although the reason for 

that lengthy delay is neither discussed nor challenged in this 

case—and the jury found Moorer not guilty on all counts. 

Moorer then filed this lawsuit contesting the constitutionality 

of his pretrial detention.

Moorer argues that probable cause did not exist because 

each of the identifications were flawed in that they were 

coached, were based on descriptions of the event that would 

have been physically impossible for the witness to observe, 

were unreliable because the witness did not see the offender, 

or contained erroneous facts about the offender. He asserts 

that the unreliability of those identifications was further confirmed by facts that emerged when he was arrested. Although 

the district court rejected those arguments and granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants, Moorer argues that 
No. 22-1067 7

the district court improperly examined whether the identifications were coerced or manipulated, asserting that the correct framework for a probable cause determination should focus on reliability and the totality of the circumstances.

Summary judgment is appropriate when, taking all reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmoving party, there is 

no genuine issue of material fact, and the movant is entitled 

to judgment as a matter of law. Young v. City of Chicago, 987 

F.3d 641, 643 (7th Cir. 2021); Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). We review 

the district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo. Id. 

The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable 

seizures, and the “general rule [is] that Fourth Amendment 

seizures are reasonable only if based on probable cause to believe that the individual has committed a crime.” Bailey v. 

United States, 568 U.S. 186, 192 (2013) (internal quotation 

marks omitted); Lewis v. City of Chicago, 914 F.3d 472, 476 (7th 

Cir. 2019). “[T]he constitutional injury arising from a wrongful pretrial detention rests on the fundamental Fourth 

Amendment principle that a pretrial detention is a ‘seizure’—

both before formal legal process and after—and is justified only 

on probable cause.” Lewis, 914 F.3d at 476–77; Manuel v. City 

of Joliet, 580 U.S. 357, 366–67 (2017). Accordingly, the Fourth 

Amendment can be violated by a detention without probable 

cause “not only when it precedes, but also when it follows, 

the start of legal process in a criminal case.” Manuel, 580 U.S. 

at 366–67; Mitchell v. Doherty, 37 F.4th 1277, 1284 (7th Cir. 

2022). 

Probable cause is a fluid concept that is based on the totality of the circumstances. Garcia v. Posewitz, 79 F.4th 874, 879–

80 (7th Cir. 2023); Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 232–33 (1983).

It is established where a probability or a substantial chance of 
8 No. 22-1067 

criminal activity exists and does not require a certainty that a 

crime was committed. Gates, 462 U.S. at 243, n.13. As the 

Court has repeatedly noted, probable cause “’is not a high 

bar.’” District of Columbia v. Wesby, 583 U.S. 48, 57 (2018), quoting Kaley v. United States, 571 U.S. 320, 338 (2014). It is assessed 

objectively, based upon conclusions that an arresting officer 

reasonably could draw from the information known. Young, 

987 F.3d at 644. 

An unlawful detention without probable cause can occur 

in varied circumstances, such as “’when the police hold someone without any reason before the formal onset of a criminal 

proceeding, ... [b]ut it can also occur when the legal process 

itself goes wrong—when, for example, a judge’s probable 

cause determination is predicated solely on a police officer’s 

false statements.’” Lewis, 914 F.3d at 476, quoting Manuel, 580 

U.S. at 367; Coleman v. City of Peoria, Illinois, 925 F.3d 336, 344 

(7th Cir. 2019). Similarly, the withholding of information by 

officers that would be material to the probable cause determination can also undermine the probable cause determination 

and result in a violation of the Fourth Amendment. See Camm 

v. Faith, 937 F.3d 1096, 1106–07 (7th Cir. 2019). In those situations, although the defendant may have obtained legal process such as a hearing or a grand jury proceeding, that process 

itself has “done nothing to satisfy the Fourth Amendment’s 

probable-cause requirement ... [a]nd for that reason cannot 

extinguish the detainee’s Fourth Amendment claim.” Manuel, 

580 U.S. at 367; Young, 987 F.3d at 646. In Kuri v. City of Chicago, 990 F.3d 573, 575 (7th Cir. 2021), the defendants argued 

that the Fourth Amendment challenge to pretrial detention 

failed as a matter of law because the order detaining Kuri for 

trial was controlling unless the judicial process had been corrupted. We recognized that pre-Manuel that argument might 
No. 22-1067 9

have found some support, but that Manuel recognized that a 

Fourth Amendment challenge based on a lack of probable 

cause survives a judicial decision holding a suspect in custody, and therefore that “the right question is whether the arrest and detention are supported by probable cause.” Id. at 

575; see also Lewis, 914 F.3d at 474. Accordingly, the mere existence of legal process in the pretrial detention does not itself 

defeat a constitutional challenge under the Fourth Amendment. 

We have recognized that Manuel did not sub silentio overrule Kaley v. United States, 571 U.S. 320, 328 (2014), however, 

which held that a grand jury indictment cannot be challenged 

based on whether the probable cause finding was founded on 

sufficient proof. United States v. Schreiber, 866 F.3d 776, 781 n.8 

(7th Cir. 2017). But here, Moorer does not argue that the information presented to the grand jury was insufficient to establish probable cause. Similar to the plaintiff in Coleman, he argues that the indictment was obtained through improper or 

fraudulent means because the defendants withheld information and knew that the identifications were not reliable. 

See Coleman, 925 F.3d at 351. And as in Coleman, to succeed 

Moorer must demonstrate that the defendants knew they 

lacked probable cause to arrest him. Id.; Lewis, 914 F.3d at 477. 

Because the defendants did not lack probable cause here, the 

claim must fail.

Moorer alleges that the prosecutor was unaware of all of 

the facts known to the officers, and that the prosecutor would 

have concluded there was no probable cause if properly informed. Moorer fails to provide a sufficient factual basis for 

that argument, relying largely on speculation as to what was 

known by the prosecutors and the officers, but we need not 
10 No. 22-1067 

explore that argument because Moorer can point to no evidence known to the defendants that could have impacted the 

existence of probable cause. Even considering all of the evidence known to the officers at the time, there was probable 

cause to detain Moorer and therefore the district court 

properly granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants.

We have held that an identification by even one eyewitness who lacks an apparent grudge against the accused person is sufficient to demonstrate probable cause. Phillips v. Allen, 668 F.3d 912, 915 (7th Cir. 2012); Beauchamp v. City of Noblesville, Ind., 320 F.3d 733, 743 (7th Cir. 2003) (“The complaint 

of a single witness or putative victim alone generally is sufficient to establish probable cause to arrest unless the complaint 

would lead a reasonable officer to be suspicious, in which case 

the officer has a further duty to investigate.”) Here, seven witnesses to the offense independently identified Moorer as the

perpetrator. In addition, Moorer went by a nickname, Boom, 

that was similar to and indeed merely a shortened version of 

the “Boomer” name that had been identified as the name of 

the person involved. 

Moorer does not allege that those identifications were falsified. In fact, Moorer repeatedly disavows any argument that 

the identifications were coerced or manipulated, arguing the 

proper focus is on reliability. He fails, however, to point to 

evidence that would make the identifications so incredible 

that an officer could not reasonably believe the witnesses 

were telling the truth. Coleman, 925 F.3d at 351 (noting that 

even questionable witness identifications are enough to provide probable cause to arrest); Garcia, 925 F.3d at 351 (“[a]n 

officer need not even believe that a witness is reliable to 
No. 22-1067 11

determine that her statement supports probable cause for an 

arrest because the assessment of credibility rests with courts, 

not officers”); Cairel v. Alderden, 821 F.3d 823, 835 (7th Cir. 

2016). In fact, we have held that even the recantation of a statement by a witness does not on its own negate probable cause. 

Garcia, 79 F.4th at 880, citing Coleman, 925 F.3d at 351. Instead, 

Moorer consistently seeks to impose a trial-level burden of 

proof on a probable cause pretrial detention. He points to 

facts that undermine the identifications, which would be 

proper arguments to pursue on cross-examination and in 

closing arguments at trial, but which do not preclude reliance 

by the officers in establishing probable cause. 

For instance, Moorer argues that the viewing conditions 

were poor. He further asserts that the details of the eyewitness 

identifications “show that for each witness there was a specific reason to doubt their reliability.” Appellate Brief at 33. 

Toward that end he challenges details of and inconsistencies 

in the descriptions, or questions whether some witnesses 

could have seen Moorer sufficiently to provide a description. 

He points out that Moorer’s nickname was not an exact 

match, that Moorer lacked injuries to his body, that other potential alibi witnesses were not pursued, that Edwin was 

coached to pick Moorer’s photo out of the array, and that 

DNA evidence subsequently showed that Moorer was not at 

the scene. Some of those arguments overstate the factual record. The lack of DNA from Moorer on evidence found at the 

scene that ostensibly came from one or more of the attackers 

does not establish that Moorer was not at the scene; it just fails 

to provide support for the claim that Moorer was at the scene. 

And the identification of Moorer by Edwin from the pages of 

photos was not in any way compromised by the post-identification actions of copying the photo and having Edwin circle 
12 No. 22-1067 

and sign the photo to confirm the identity. Moorer’s use of 

those facts overstates their significance.

Moreover, all of those arguments by Moorer, and the 

many similar ones raised by him, are arguments for trial. The 

question for pretrial detention is not whether the officers have 

evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that Moorer committed 

the crime. Nor is it whether a judge or jury could choose to 

disbelieve the witnesses. As we noted in Coleman, police officers are constantly faced with reluctant witnesses, recanted 

confessions, and witness identifications replete with inconsistencies, but the weighing of evidence is for the judge and 

jury. Coleman, 925 F.3d at 351. “Where a reasonable person 

would have a sound reason to believe the suspect committed 

a crime, the police may arrest and allow the criminal justice 

system to determine guilt or innocence.” Id.: Beauchamp, 320 

F.3d at 743, 745 (holding that it is not the obligation of the police to exclude all suggestions that the witness is not telling 

the truth, and that “the responsibility of sorting out conflicting testimony and assessing the credibility of putative victims 

and witnesses lies with the courts”). Woods v. City of Chicago, 

234 F.3d 979, 987 (7th Cir. 2000) (“so long as a reasonably credible witness or victim informs the police that someone has 

committed ... a crime, the officers have probable cause to 

place the alleged culprit under arrest .... [and] once such a 

reasonably credible complaint has been made, the existence 

of probable cause to arrest does not depend upon the actual 

truth of the complaint”) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Moorer has not identified any facts known to the defendants 

that would eliminate probable cause, and therefore no evidence withheld from the prosecutor or the grand jury that 

could impact the probable cause determination. See Young, 

987 F.3d at 645 (upholding summary judgment for defendants 
No. 22-1067 13

even assuming they committed misconduct in falsifying evidence, because the evidence even as the plaintiff described it 

gave the officers adequate probable cause to detain him). 

None of the evidence negates the probable cause established 

by the witness identification—and here there is not one but 

seven independent witness identifications of Moorer as the

perpetrator. The undisputed evidence in the record establishes probable cause for the pretrial detention.

Accordingly, the decision of the district court is 

AFFIRMED.