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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS

EASTERN DIVISION

DEMETRIUS JOHNSON,

Plaintiff,

vs.

REYNALDO GUEVARA, JOANN HALVORSEN, 

as Personal Representative to the 

Estate of Ernest Halvorsen, DARRYL 

DALEY, WILLIAM ERICKSON, JOHN 

HEALY, and the CITY OF CHICAGO, 

Defendants.

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No. 20 C 4156 

Chicago, Illinois

January 25, 2024

9:45 a.m.

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

BEFORE THE HON. SARA L. ELLIS

APPEARANCES:

For the Plaintiff: MR. ANAND SWAMINATHAN 

MS. MARGARET N. GOULD 

MS. ALYSSA MARTINEZ 

Loevy & Loevy,

311 North Aberdeen Street, 3rd Floor, 

Chicago, Illinois 60607 

 

For Defendant

Guevara: MS. THOMAS M. LEINENWEBER

Leinenweber, Baroni & Daffada, LLC,

120 North Lasalle Street, Suite 2000,

Chicago, Illinois 60602 

For Defendants Daley,

Halvorsen, Erickson,

and Healy: MR. JOSH M. ENGQUIST

MR. DAVID A. BRUEGGEN 

The Sotos Law Firm, P.C.,

141 West Jackson Boulevard, Suite 1240A,

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Patrick J. Mullen, Official Court Reporter

United States District Court

219 South Dearborn Street, Room 1412

Chicago, Illinois 60604

 (312) 435-5565

Case: 1:20-cv-04156 Document #: 306 Filed: 02/29/24 Page 1 of 10 PageID #:14918
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APPEARANCES: (Continued.)

For Defendant City

of Chicago: MS. EILEEN E. ROSEN

Rock, Fusco & Connelly, LLC, 

333 West Wacker Drive, 19th Floor,

Chicago, Illinois 60606

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(Telephonic proceedings on the record.) 

THE COURT: 2020 CV 4156, Johnson versus Guevara. 

MR. SWAMINATHAN: Good afternoon, Your Honor. Anand 

Swaminathan for the plaintiff along with my colleagues Alyssa 

Martinez and Meg Gould, and just to note we have our client, 

Mr. Demetrius Johnson, here as well today. 

The COURT: All right. 

MR. ENGQUIST: Good morning, Your -- or good 

afternoon, Your Honor. Josh Engquist on behalf of defendants 

Healy, Erickson, Halverson, and Daley. 

MS. ROSEN: Good afternoon, Judge. Eileen Rosen on 

behalf of defendant City of Chicago. 

MR. BRUEGGEN: Good afternoon, Judge. Dave Brueggen 

also on behalf of defendants Healy, Daley, Erickson, and I 

forget the other. 

MR. ENGQUIST: Daley. 

MR. BRUEGGEN: Daley, there we go. 

MR. LEINENWEBER: Excuse me. Tom Leinenweber on 

behalf of Reynaldo Guevara. 

THE COURT: All right. Good afternoon. 

Okay. So the reason you're here is that this is 

looking a bit like a hot mess, and I don't do hot messes over 

the phone. I will tell you, you know, it's also a little bit 

like a ticky-tacky pointing of fingers which, again, I'm not 

going to do over the phone. 

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So to cut to the chase -- and I'm not interested in 

any finger pointing or playing -- where are you in terms of 

working out a document that I can look at that tells me what 

your issues and disputes are? 

MR. ENGQUIST: For my clients, Your Honor, we started 

off with 133. Plaintiff added 12, and then we were able to 

work it down to 122. It came back again. We had about 80 

agreed. Right now I believe there's 42 in dispute. They just 

came back at a little after 11:00 o'clock today. Mr. Brueggen 

and I were working through it. We've worked through until we 

came here almost half of those, and then a lot of the disputes 

afterwards pretty much seem to be the same dispute over and 

over again. 

So that's where we're at right now. We're working 

through it. Mr. Brueggen and I will keep on working on that 

part of it, and we're going to respond back to him on the last 

one he sent to us this afternoon probably before tomorrow 

morning. 

THE COURT: All right. So when can you get something 

narrowed down where I am looking at the true disputes? 

MR. ENGQUIST: The way I look at it, Your Honor, it's 

just making sure that we have the objections in. There's only 

a couple that are in there that I've gone through so far in the 

disputed category that I think we just need a clarification on 

so far just to see if they're disputed or not. It has to do 

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with some language issues. But once we get those in line with 

this back-and-forth, we can get it done before Monday. 

MR. SWAMINATHAN: We should be able to get it on file 

tomorrow as far as I'm concerned. I think there's really just 

a few things we've got to resolve on whether we think they 

really are in dispute and, otherwise, we've just got to put 

some exhibit numbers on stuff and get it on file. 

MR. ENGQUIST: The only reason I -- 

THE COURT: Well, here's the thing. I'm not here next 

week. So even if you file something tomorrow, I'm not going to 

see you next week. 

So, Ms. Johnson, what does the 14th or 15th look like? 

(Discussion off the record.) 

THE CLERK: So 10:30 on the 14th of February. 

THE COURT: Yes. So then if you can get it -- well, I 

don't care what day next week. You tell me. 

MS. ROSEN: Judge, we still have to -- this would 

apply for the city's as well? 

THE COURT: Yes. 

MS. ROSEN: So if we can send it back because we now 

have had three amendments from the plaintiffs that I think now 

can put us in a better position to at least narrow it to what 

actually is in dispute, so if we can get it on file February 

2nd, that would give us time. We have a summary judgment 

motion due tomorrow and another due on Monday. So we can get 

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our position back to plaintiff, and if plaintiff can promptly 

turn it around then I think we can get something on file by 

February 2nd. 

THE COURT: Okay. So is that going to work? 

MR. SWAMINATHAN: Yeah. My client is here, and he's 

here because he cares about this issue. I understand the 

Court's ruling. I'm not debating it and I'm not here to point 

fingers, but I have to say that this feels unfair to plaintiff. 

I mean, this has been -- by not sending us anything until 

December 22nd, we're now in a position where understandably we 

need more time. 

I mean, there's no question that we're actually 

completing this process, and it can't be done in time for Your 

Honor to have had an opportunity to adjudicate these issues. 

The person who loses is nobody but Demetrius Johnson, and 

that's extremely frustrating. I understand the Court's ruling 

and I understand what you're saying, but from plaintiff's 

perspective this has been something we've raised with the Court 

over and over. There have been repeated extensions over our 

objections, and there was no reason. 

No one has ever told us or given an explanation to the 

Court for why if we finished fact discovery in December of 2022 

we didn't get a joint statement of fact until December 22nd, 

which is the reason we are in this position that we have to 

take extensions and the summary judgment schedule will extend 

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another month or more. 

I just wanted to put that on the the record. My 

client is here. It matters to him, but I understand your 

ruling. 

THE COURT: And I understand his frustration. 

Nonetheless, you know, I set up this process for a reason, and 

I expect that all sides participate in good faith. When I see 

objections -- well, I haven't necessarily seen them in this 

case, but I have seen them from your firm where at times I am 

struck by the nature of the objections in that they're not 

really objections. They're arguments, and they're not really 

objections. 

So I'm not saying that that is happening here because 

I haven't seen them, but I expect that people go into this 

process on both sides in good faith. You cannot object to 

something simply because it's not in your favor or you don't 

like it or it's a bad fact. There are lots of bad facts. 

That's why we're here. There are lots of bad facts which, you 

know, in part, not wholly, in part was what led to 

Mr. Johnson's conviction in the first place. 

If Mr. Johnson had been, you know, sitting in church 

when everything went down, you know, talking to a priest, he 

would not be here, right? So there were some facts that at 

least a jury the first time around thought weren't good facts 

for Mr. Johnson. There certainly can be an explanation for 

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those facts, but some facts are just bad, right? On the 

defendants' side, some facts are just bad, and you've got to 

live with them. 

So I will expect on both sides that people are 

reasonable and that the objections, if there is a dispute, it's 

that somebody testified to this, somebody else testified to 

that, and that is the basis of the objection, not an argument 

that I need to draw some kind of inference, none of that. 

MR. SWAMINATHAN: And I think that's the biggest 

challenge, Your Honor, that we've had in this back-and-forth 

dispute. I mean, it really is the -- I'm not going to preview 

for you the arguments, but the real problem that we are having 

in the back-and-forth between the parties is that fundamentally 

there are facts that are bad for us and bad for them and they 

often are butting up against each other. 

In defendants' view, that means you can say that you 

cite to the fact that's good for them and bad for you and say 

so-and-so witness testified at the criminal trial or at their 

deposition to blah, blah, blah, because you like that. Then we 

say here's this other fact that we like. 

We're fundamentally in a problem where we're saying we 

can't create a statement of facts that just says here's the 

fact defendants like, here's the fact plaintiff likes, and 

create a joint statement of facts that way. That's not a joint 

statement. That's a series of disputes, right? 

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THE COURT: But there's going to be a series of 

disputes, right? It may very well be that witness X testified 

at trial that, you know, he saw Mr. Johnson come out of the 

car, right? There could then be another fact in the joint 

statement of facts that is also undisputed that in 

Mr. Johnson's post-conviction brief as an affidavit witness X 

recanted her testimony. That belongs in there, too. 

MR. SWAMINATHAN: Yeah. 

THE COURT: Both of those things are undisputed. Both 

of those things are true. You put them together, and what that 

can mean for summary judgment is that there is a dispute of 

material fact as to, you know, the issue relating to 

Mr. Johnson's guilt and his claims of fabrication, witness 

tampering, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, right? 

So you can take undisputed facts and argue them in the 

motion and say that here's why summary judgment isn't 

appropriate, but that doesn't mean that it's disputed that this 

particular witness testified this way at trial. The witness 

either did or didn't, right? The witness could have recanted 

later, and that is also true. 

MR. SWAMINATHAN: Yep. 

THE COURT: So that's what I expect to see. 

MR. SWAMINATHAN: That's useful guidance, Judge. 

Thank you. 

THE COURT: Okay. 

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MS. ROSEN: And, Judge, I think technically you need 

to vacate the deadline for the summary judgment. 

THE COURT: I am, yes, and I will reset the summary 

judgment briefing schedule once we get through this process. 

So I'll see everybody on the 14th. 

MS. ROSEN: Thanks, Judge.

MR. SWAMINATHAN: Thank you, Your Honor. 

MR. ENGQUIST: Thank you, Your Honor. 

MR. LEINENWEBER: Thank you, Your Honor. 

(Proceedings concluded.) 

C E R T I F I C A T E

I, Patrick J. Mullen, do hereby certify that the 

foregoing is a complete, true, and accurate transcript of the 

proceedings had in the above-entitled case before the Honorable 

SARA L. ELLIS, one of the judges of said Court, at Chicago, 

Illinois, on January 25, 2024.

/s/ Patrick J. Mullen

Official Court Reporter

United States District Court

Northern District of Illinois

Eastern Division 

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