United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted August 28, 2012

*

Decided August 28, 2012

Before

RICHARD A. POSNER, Circuit Judge

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge

DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge

 

No. 12-2047

NEAL CONROY,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

CITY OF CHICAGO,

Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District

Court for the Northern District of Illinois,

Eastern Division.

No. 12-cv-2325

John W. Darrah,

Judge.

O R D E R

Neal Conroy sued the City of Chicago under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claiming that he was

deprived of a $2 road flare and a bulletproof vest without due process of law. The district

court screened and dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim, see 28 U.S.C.

1915(e)(2)(B)(ii), and Conroy appeals. We affirm the judgment.

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with

 Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

The appellee was not served with process in the district court and is not

*

participating in this appeal. After examining the appellant’s briefs and the record, we have

concluded that oral argument is unnecessary. Thus, the appeal is submitted on the

appellant’s brief and the record. See FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).
No. 12-2047 Page 2

Conroy’s complaint has two similar claims, which he calls “stories.” The first dates

to the summer of 2010 when police officers responding to a citizen’s complaint that he was

shirtless detained him briefly at a street festival and confiscated the road flare from his

pocket. (Conroy does not contest the detention.) He said nothing about an effort to reclaim

the flare. Conroy’s second “story” is that, five months before the flare incident, different

police officers had arrested him for entering a sewer and confiscated the bulletproof vest he

was wearing. Conroy’s lawyer succeeded in getting the criminal charge of reckless conduct

dismissed but could not persuade the judge to order return of the vest—and anyway,

Conroy surmises, the police earlier had destroyed the vest without authorization. Conroy’s

appeals to the state appellate and supreme courts were not successful in obtaining an order

to return the vest. His claim in this suit about the vest is copied word-for-word from a

complaint he filed in an earlier federal lawsuit against the City that was dismissed for

failure to state a claim. See Conroy v. Chicago Police Dep’t, No. 12-cv-1579 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 21,

2012). The district court described these “stories” as patently frivolous.

So too is this appeal. Conroy does not challenge the dismissal or develop a legal

argument for us to review, see FED. R. APP. P. 28(a)(9)(A); Anderson v. Hardman, 241 F.3d 544,

545 (7th Cir. 2001), nor could he. Regarding the vest—claim preclusion aside, see Matrix IV,

Inc., v. Am. Nat’l Bank and Trust Co., 649 F.3d 539, 547 (7th Cir. 2011); Johnson v. Cypress Hill,

641 F.3d 867, 874 (7th Cir. 2011)—Conroy appears to concede that it was a state judge, not

the City’s police force, who decided that the vest should not be returned, but the judge is

not a defendant and if he was would enjoy absolute immunity for this judicial act,

see Stump v. Sparkman, 435 U.S. 349, 355–56 (1978); Smith v. City of Hammond, 388 F.3d 304,

306 (7th Cir. 2004). And Conroy does not allege that seizing and keeping lawfully

possessed property is police policy, so the City is not the appropriate defendant either.

See Monell v. Dep’t of Social Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 694 (1978); Matthews v. City of E. St. Louis, 675

F.3d 703, 708 (7th Cir. 2012). Conroy’s failure to allege a department policy also dooms his

claim about the road flare. At all events he cannot claim that the actions of the unnamed

police officers deprived him of due process because Illinois provides him with adequate

post-deprivation remedies, the existence of which precludes a due process claim, like this

one, based on a random and unauthorized act of government officials. See Stewart v.

McGinnis, 5 F.3d 1031, 1036 (7th Cir. 1993).

AFFIRMED.