Opinion ID: 600370
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Earlier Judicial Proceedings

Text: 11 Mr. Arkebauer's first line of attack against the charges was to file with the Illinois trial court a motion to suppress the statements he had made to the police and a motion to dismiss the indictment. The trial court determined that the statements to the police had been involuntary and granted the motion to suppress. The court refused, however, to dismiss the Shelby County indictment. With respect to the suppression motion, the trial court ruled that, because Mr. Arkebauer had not been told that his freedom from prosecution was limited to Macon County, he reasonably believed that he had been promised immunity from prosecution and that the promise could be fulfilled as long as Arkebauer cooperated with the prosecution and the police investigation of Raymond Ruhl. People v. Arkebauer, No. 88-CF-17, Circuit Court Record Sheet (Dec. 22, 1988). The court also found that Mr. Arkebauer had fulfilled his promise of cooperation until he discovered that he was going to be prosecuted in Shelby County. Id. 12 As for the motion to dismiss the charges, the trial court grounded its decision on the fact that Ahola had not sought statutory transactional immunity for Mr. Arkebauer, which would have immunized Mr. Arkebauer in Shelby as well as Macon County. The court relied on People v. Staten, 158 Ill.App.3d 971, 110 Ill.Dec. 761, 511 N.E.2d 938 (1987), for the proposition that a state's attorney of one county cannot bind a state's attorney from another county regarding activity in the latter county. The court found that Ahola never promised Mr. Arkebauer immunity from any crime committed in Shelby County and that the Shelby County State's Attorney never ratified Ahola's promise. Circuit Court Record Sheet. The court stated that the application of the doctrines [in Rowe v. Griffin, 676 F.2d 524 (11th Cir.1982) and People v. Bogolowski, 326 Ill. 253, 157 N.E. 181 (1927) ] to this case does not require dismissal. Circuit Court Record Sheet. 13 The State appealed the suppression of statements and the Appellate Court of Illinois affirmed. Arkebauer, 198 Ill.App.3d 470, 144 Ill.Dec. 643, 555 N.E.2d 1162. The court noted that, although Mr. Arkebauer had not been granted transactional immunity pursuant to statute or use immunity, id. 144 Ill.Dec. at 652, 555 N.E.2d at 1171, Mr. Arkebauer was promised that he would not be prosecuted for the crimes under investigation by both the Assistant State's Attorney for Macon County and by the Illinois State Police. Id. at 644, 652, 555 N.E.2d at 1163, 1171. However, said the court, statements are not necessarily voluntary because a warning about Miranda rights has been administered and waived or because the statements were obtained on a promise of immunity. The totality of circumstances must be evaluated. The court concluded that 14 [i]t was eminently reasonable for the defendant to believe that his agreement applied to his subsequent interviews, for there was a continuity of agents conducting the interviews, in that the agents were all with the Illinois State Police; the subject matter of the interviews related to the same ongoing investigation as the one covered by his agreement; and the defendant was never disabused of his belief that he would not be prosecuted by any of the agents at the interviews. 15 Id. at 62, 555 N.E.2d at 1171. Finally, taking into consideration the totality of the circumstances under which Mr. Arkebauer gave his statements, the court found that the statements were indeed involuntary. 16 Although the issue was not before it on appeal, 5 the appellate court remarked at the close of its opinion: 17 We note that while the State is correct that a State's Attorney of one county cannot bind another State's Attorney of another county with his promises, that problem does not arise here. The circuit court determined that the defendant could be prosecuted in Shelby County, and we find this a proper determination.... 18 Id.
19 Mr. Arkebauer next brought an action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to enjoin the state prosecution because of the immunity he had been promised. The district court issued a preliminary injunction, and the State moved to dismiss. The district court, however, entered a permanent injunction, holding that the doctrine of equitable immunity precluded the prosecution. Arkebauer v. Kiley, 751 F.Supp. 783 (C.D.Ill.1990). 20 In beginning its analysis, the district court focused on the State's challenge to the propriety of federal injunctive relief because of the rule set forth in Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669 (1971). It acknowledged that Younger would not pose a bar to a federal injunction against ongoing state criminal proceedings only if there were a showing of bad faith, harassment, or other unusual circumstances calling for equitable relief. Arkebauer, 751 F.Supp. at 784 (citing Younger, 401 U.S. at 54, 91 S.Ct. at 755). Likewise, the district court also noted that to qualify for an injunction, there must be great and immediate irreparable injury and a threat to federally protected rights that cannot be remedied in the state prosecution. Id. (citing Younger, 401 U.S. at 46, 91 S.Ct. at 751). 21 Nevertheless, the district court concluded that injunctive relief was warranted. The district court grounded its decision on the reasoning of the Eleventh Circuit in Rowe v. Griffin, 676 F.2d 524 (11th Cir.1982). In that case, the court held that a former FBI informant who had been granted immunity from prosecution by the attorney general of the state in return for his testimony in other prosecutions was entitled, as a matter of federal due process, to equitable immunity when, some thirteen years later, another prosecutorial official of the state attempted to prosecute him on the basis of newly discovered evidence. Relying on what it termed the [a]nalogous precedent, id. at 528, of Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S. 257, 92 S.Ct. 495, 30 L.Ed.2d 427 (1971), which held that a defendant who pleads guilty as a result of a plea bargaining agreement has a due process right to the enforcement of that bargain, the Rowe court employed a contractual analysis to determine that prosecution following a promise of immunity that is fully performed constitutes per se bad faith prosecution for purposes of an exception to the Younger doctrine. Rowe, 676 F.2d at 528. In effect, the Eleventh Circuit reasoned that the assurances of immunity from prosecution in return for the informant's testimony were the functional equivalent of a plea bargain and that failure of the state to abide by the agreement was a per se bad faith prosecution. 22 In the view of the district court, Mr. Arkebauer was entitled to the same treatment as Rowe. The court prefaced its analysis by noting this court's statement in United States v. Palumbo, 897 F.2d 245, 246 (7th Cir.1990), on the importance of promises of immunity in the fight against large-scale criminal enterprises. It then noted that Mr. Arkebauer had upheld his end of the bargain and his subsequent prosecution by the Shelby County State's Attorney is clearly upon the same charges for which he was promised immunity by Ahola and the State Police. Arkebauer, 751 F.Supp. at 788. Moreover, continued the district court, [t]he very prosecution of Arkebauer by the Shelby County State's Attorney violates Arkebauer's right to due process under the fourteenth amendment. Arkebauer's right not to be prosecuted for these offenses would be irretrievably lost if he were required to defend the state court prosecution and the irreparable harm he would suffer would be both great and immediate. Id. 23 In adopting the foregoing analysis, the district court rejected the state's submission that this case is controlled by the holding in Staten v. Neal, 880 F.2d 962 (7th Cir.1989), that a state's attorney in one county does not have the authority to bind a state's attorney in another county absent a judicially-approved grant of immunity. Id. at 964 (citing People ex rel. Cruz v. Fitzgerald, 66 Ill.2d 546, 6 Ill.Dec. 888, 363 N.E.2d 835 (1977)). The district court distinguished Staten on the ground that, in Staten, the State's Attorney for Fayette County had no authority to plea bargain regarding a crime that had actually occurred in another county; therefore equitable immunity could not have been implicated because there was no chance that proper transactional immunity could have been effectuated. Here, however, Ahola clearly had jurisdiction over the crime in Macon County and could have taken Mr. Arkebauer before a judge to obtain transactional immunity. Arkebauer, 751 F.Supp. at 787. Having determined that irreparable injury would flow from the prosecution itself under these circumstances, the district court applied the Rowe per se bad faith notion to except the case from the Younger bar. The district court accordingly entered a permanent injunction against the state court prosecution.