Court Opinion

ID: 9956376
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-01 21:00:44.299783+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:15:55.271731
License: Public Domain

In the

    United States Court of Appeals
                For the Seventh Circuit
                    ____________________
No. 23-2574
DANIEL A. MADERO,
                                                 Plaintiff-Appellant,
                                v.

OWEN MCGUINNESS,
                                                Defendant-Appellee.
                    ____________________

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the
          Northern District of Illinois, Western Division.
         No. 3:20-cv-50062 — Philip G. Reinhard, Judge.
                    ____________________

    ARGUED FEBRUARY 22, 2024 — DECIDED APRIL 1, 2024
                ____________________

   Before SYKES, Chief Judge, and RIPPLE and ST. EVE, Circuit
Judges.
    RIPPLE, Circuit Judge. At 4 a.m. on a snowy morning in
Rockford, Illinois, Officer Owen McGuinness responded to a
call that drivers involved in a hit-and-run accident were
fighting. When he arrived at the scene, Officer McGuinness
was faced with two different stories of the events that had
transpired. Three witnesses insisted that Daniel Madero had
been the driver of the hit-and-run vehicle and that, after a
2                                                   No. 23-2574

confrontation, Mr. Madero had struck Brandon Philbee, the
hit-and-run victim, in the face with a key. For his part,
Mr. Madero asserted his innocence, denying that he was the
driver of the hit-and-run car. He maintained that he had acted
in self-defense against Philbee. It was, essentially, three
against one. Confronted with the decision of whose story to
credit, Officer McGuinness believed the three witnesses. He
arrested Mr. Madero for aggravated battery for his fight with
Philbee and issued him traffic citations for his role in the hit-
and-run accident.
    An investigation later in the day concluded that
Mr. Madero’s vehicle was likely not involved in the hit-and-
run accident. An assistant state’s attorney declined to press
charges against Mr. Madero, and he was released from jail
that evening. He then filed a complaint in federal district
court against Officer McGuinness. His complaint set forth
claims of false arrest in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth
Amendments. The district court granted summary judgment
to Officer McGuinness because it determined that he had
probable cause to arrest Mr. Madero. We hold that the district
court correctly concluded that Officer McGuinness had prob-
able cause to arrest Mr. Madero based on the information
available to him at the time of the arrest. Accordingly, we af-
firm the judgment of the district court.
                                I
                       BACKGROUND
A. Facts
   The events in question occurred in the early morning
hours of February 9, 2018, in Rockford, Illinois. There were
four main witnesses and/or participants to the hit-and-run
No. 23-2574                                                              3

accident and ensuing fight: Mr. Madero, Philbee, Daehler,
and Keck.
    The story unfolds as follows. As Philbee was driving
through an intersection on a green light, his beige Pontiac
SUV was struck on the front passenger side by the front
bumper of a dark-colored sedan driving through a red light.
Philbee saw the incoming car and shifted his car into neutral
before impact. The contact forced him into oncoming traffic,
where he collided with a GMC pickup truck, driven by Keck.
The nearby driver of a white Ford pickup, Daehler, observed
the accident. The dark-colored sedan fled the scene. All three
of the other drivers—Philbee in his Pontiac and Daehler and
Keck in their respective trucks—followed the dark-colored se-
dan as it drove away, leading them on a chase around several
blocks. 1 The chase culminated back at the original intersec-
tion. Philbee, Daehler, and Keck surrounded a green Audi se-
dan waiting at the intersection with their vehicles, and
Philbee got out of his car and walked up to the driver’s side
window of the Audi.
    It is not disputed that the driver waiting at the intersection
in his green Audi was Mr. Madero. Mr. Madero does dispute,
however, that he was the driver of the dark-colored sedan in-
volved in the hit-and-run accident. According to Mr. Madero,
he was an innocent driver waiting at the intersection for the
light to change when the three vehicles surrounded him and
Philbee confronted him. But as the events of the morning

1 The three disagreed slightly about the path they traveled. Although all

agreed that they made three left turns and ended back at the original in-
tersection, they disagreed about whether they first turned left onto Alpine
Road (Philbee’s testimony) or Point Avenue (Daehler’s and Keck’s testi-
mony). These two roads are “a block apart.” R.66-5 at 45.
4                                                 No. 23-2574

continued, Philbee, Daehler, and Keck were operating under
the belief that Mr. Madero and the driver of the dark-colored
sedan were one and the same. They insisted, to each other and
to police, that they had never lost sight of the dark-colored
sedan as they chased it through the streets of Rockford.
    Back to the scene. Philbee and Mr. Madero began arguing.
Philbee accused Mr. Madero of the hit-and-run accident, and
Mr. Madero denied involvement. At some point, Philbee
reached inside the vehicle, and when the light turned green,
Mr. Madero attempted to drive through the intersection. He
was prevented from doing so by Daehler’s truck and Keck’s
truck, each of which hit his Audi and sent it careening into a
snowbank. Philbee, who had grabbed ahold of the steering
wheel, ended up inside the vehicle, and began choking
Mr. Madero. The fight between the two ended only when Of-
ficer McGuinness arrived at the scene.
   Officer McGuinness observed the very end of the fight be-
tween Philbee and Mr. Madero. He saw that Philbee had
blood dripping below his eye. Philbee and Daehler informed
Officer McGuinness that Mr. Madero had stabbed Philbee
with a key. Mr. Madero denied the accusation.
    Soon two other officers arrived: Officer Swanson and Of-
ficer Nachampasack. The officers began their initial investiga-
tion. They divided the task of interviewing the witnesses
amongst themselves as was their custom. Officer McGuinness
interviewed Philbee, Officer Swanson interviewed Daehler
and Keck, and Officer Nachampasack attempted to interview
Mr. Madero. Mr. Madero, however, was too “out of sorts” to
provide a statement at that time. 2 For their part, Daehler,

2 R.66-3 at 27–28.
No. 23-2574                                                   5

Keck, and Philbee insisted that they had never lost sight of the
dark-colored sedan during the entire chase and that the dark-
colored sedan was certainly Mr. Madero’s green Audi. The
officers communicated with each other at the scene after con-
ducting their respective interviews.
     Eventually, an ambulance arrived and transported
Mr. Madero to the hospital for treatment of his injuries sus-
tained during the fight with Philbee. Officer Nachampasack
followed the ambulance and remained with Mr. Madero at
the hospital. He obtained a statement from him there.
Mr. Madero told Officer Nachampasack that he had been
waiting innocently at the intersection when he was sur-
rounded by the three vehicles and attacked by Philbee. Officer
Nachampasack called Officer McGuinness and relayed this
information. Officer McGuinness then spoke on the phone
with an assistant state’s attorney, who approved an aggra-
vated battery charge against Mr. Madero. In doing so, the
state’s attorney relied on a probable cause statement prepared
by Officer McGuinness, which summarized the police inter-
views with the witnesses and other evidence. Mr. Madero
was then informed of the aggravated battery charge against
him. He was also informed that he had been issued four traffic
citations relating to the hit-and-run accident. He was taken to
jail around 5 o’clock that morning.
    A few hours later, at around 7:30 a.m., Daehler and Keck
modified their original witness statements. According to Of-
ficer Swanson’s police report, after the accident, Daehler and
Keck began discussing the events of the morning with each
other. They ultimately came to the joint conclusion that they
were no longer certain that Mr. Madero’s green Audi was the
dark-colored sedan involved in the original hit-and-run
6                                                           No. 23-2574

accident. They based this conclusion on the lack of damage to
the front of the Audi; in their view, had the Audi hit Philbee’s
Pontiac with enough force to push it into Keck’s truck, the
front of the Audi should have reflected that sort of damage. It
did not, and so the two informed law enforcement that they
were no longer sure that the green Audi was the hit-and-run
vehicle. They also admitted, contrary to their on-scene testi-
mony, that they had not had their eyes upon the dark-colored
sedan the entire time; at some point during the chase, Daehler
was relying on his view of Philbee’s Pontiac, and Keck was
relying on his view of Daehler’s truck.
    Around that time, Assistant Deputy or Deputy Chief Pann
contacted Detective DeVlieger, an accident investigator, and
requested that he look into the morning’s events. 3 Detective
DeVlieger read the police reports and spoke with Daehler and
Keck (who at this point had called police to modify their ear-
lier statements). He also viewed Philbee’s Pontiac and
Mr. Madero’s Audi. The Pontiac “had a lot of front-end pas-
senger side damage,” while “there was no evidence in [Detec-
tive DeVlieger’s] opinion that [Mr. Madero’s] vehicle was in-
volved in a front-end collision.” 4 Further, Philbee’s vehicle
showed evidence of paint transfer from a gray or white vehi-
cle, rather than a green vehicle. Based on this evidence, Detec-
tive DeVlieger concluded that Mr. Madero’s vehicle had not
been involved in the initial hit-and-run accident. 5

3 It is not clear whether Chief Pann was the deputy chief or assistant dep-

uty chief.
4 R.73-3 at 6.

5 It is not clear whether Officer McGuinness closely examined the sup-

posed damage to the front end of the Audi from the hit-and-run accident
No. 23-2574                                                              7

   Mr. Madero was released from jail around 5 p.m. that
evening after the State declined to charge him with aggra-
vated battery. His traffic tickets were later dismissed.
B. Prior Proceedings
     Mr. Madero filed an action against Officer McGuinness in
the United States District Court for the Northern District of
Illinois in February 2020. His complaint set forth allegations
that Officer McGuinness had violated his Fourth and Four-
teenth Amendment rights by falsely arresting him the morn-
ing of February 9, 2018. After the parties conducted discovery,
Officer McGuinness filed a motion for summary judgment.
   The district court granted the motion. The court focused
on the information available to Officer McGuinness and the
other officers at the time of the arrest. Of particular im-
portance to the court was that Officer McGuinness heard tes-
timony from three “very adamant” witnesses who each “said
the same thing.” Madero v. McGuinness, No. 20-cv-50062, at *5
(N.D. Ill. June 27, 2023). “In short, it was three witnesses
against one.” Id. The court explained that the officers had
enough information available to them at the scene of the acci-
dent to establish probable cause to arrest Mr. Madero for ag-
gravated battery. Id. at *6.
    The district court found Mr. Madero’s arguments to the
contrary to be unpersuasive. First, although Mr. Madero high-
lighted conflicting testimony on whether Philbee “jumped” or

prior to Mr. Madero’s arrest. His report stated that he “observed the green
Audi had front end damage,” but that he “was unable to see any visible
paint transfer from the vehicles due to the heavy snow storm.” R.73-1
at 8. At his deposition, however, Officer McGuinness was unable to recall
the damage he saw that led to this statement in his report.
8                                                   No. 23-2574

“fell” into the Audi, the court “[did] not believe this discrep-
ancy [wa]s material” and found that it was “not especially
surprising that witnesses might have described this move-
ment in slightly different ways given that it occurred at the
end of a fairly complicated sequence of events.” Id. at *6–7.
Second, the court rejected Mr. Madero’s argument concerning
Philbee’s disagreement with Daehler and Keck on the exact
path taken during the chase. In the court’s view, because the
witnesses were “adamant … that they never lost sight of the
vehicle,” Officer McGuinness could have reasonably con-
cluded “this discrepancy about the exact road taken to be an
inconsequential mistake made by one of these witnesses.” Id.
at *7. Third and finally, the district court considered
Mr. Madero’s argument regarding the lack of damage to the
front of his vehicle. This argument failed, too. In the district
court’s view, Detective DeVlieger’s conclusion that
Mr. Madero’s vehicle was not the hit-and-run vehicle because
it did not have the expected damage assumed that the hit-
and-run vehicle had been traveling the posted speed limit.
But the court pointed to Philbee’s testimony that the hit-and-
run vehicle had slowed its speed down significantly and
“barely bumped” Philbee’s car. Id. at *8 (quoting R.66-4 at 19).
Although the court recognized that Philbee may not have
been a credible witness, it ultimately determined that
Philbee’s theory was not “completely implausible.” Id.
   In closing, the court concluded that “there was enough ev-
idence at the time of the initial investigation to meet the lower
probable cause standard for both the aggravated battery
charge and for the four traffic violations,” and granted sum-
mary judgment to Officer McGuinness. Id. at *9.
No. 23-2574                                                                9

                                     II
                             DISCUSSION
    We review the district court’s grant of summary judgment
de novo, viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the
non-moving party, here Mr. Madero. Lawson v. Veruchi, 637
F.3d 699, 703 (7th Cir. 2011). “Summary judgment is proper ‘if
the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any
material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a mat-
ter of law.’” Abbott v. Sangamon Cnty., Illinois, 705 F.3d 706, 713
(7th Cir. 2013). 6
    A plaintiff seeking to prevail on a claim of false arrest must
show that he was arrested without probable cause because
“probable cause is an absolute defense to such a claim.” Law-
son, 637 F.3d at 703 (quoting Gonzalez v. City of Elgin, 578 F.3d
526, 537 (7th Cir. 2009)). The burden of demonstrating a lack
of probable cause belongs to the plaintiff. McBride v. Grice, 576
F.3d 703, 706 (7th Cir. 2009). Although the jury typically de-
termines whether an arrest was supported by probable cause
in a Section 1983 false-arrest case, the court may make that
decision on summary judgment if the underlying facts are un-
disputed. Abbott, 705 F.3d at 714.

6  We note that the district court conducted no separate analysis of
Mr. Madero’s claim that his false arrest was a violation of his due process
rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. Rightfully so. Claims for false
arrest prior to trial are appropriately considered under the Fourth Amend-
ment, not the Fourteenth Amendment. Manuel v. City of Joliet, Illinois, 580
U.S. 357, 367 (2017) (“If the complaint is that a form of legal process re-
sulted in pretrial detention unsupported by probable cause, then the right
allegedly lies in the Fourth Amendment.”); Lewis v. City of Chicago, 914
F.3d 472, 478 (7th Cir. 2019) (“It’s now clear that a § 1983 claim for unlaw-
ful pretrial detention rests exclusively on the Fourth Amendment.”).
10                                                  No. 23-2574

    An officer has probable cause when, “at the time of the ar-
rest, the facts and circumstances within the defendant’s
knowledge ‘are sufficient to warrant a prudent person, or one
of reasonable caution, in believing, in the circumstances
shown, that the suspect has committed … an offense.’” Law-
son, 637 F.3d at 703 (quoting Chelios v. Heavener, 520 F.3d 678,
686 (7th Cir. 2008)). “The existence of probable cause … de-
pends, in the first instance, on the elements of the predicate
criminal offense(s) as defined by state law.” Doe v. Gray, 75
F.4th 710, 719 (7th Cir. 2023) (quoting Abbott, 705 F.3d at 715);
see also Michigan v. DeFillippo, 443 U.S. 31, 36 (1979).
Mr. Madero was charged with aggravated battery under Sec-
tion 12.305(c) of the Illinois Criminal Code. Illinois law pro-
vides that “[a] person commits battery if he or she knowingly
without legal justification by any means (1) causes bodily
harm to an individual or (2) makes physical contact of an in-
sulting or provoking nature with an individual.” 720 ILCS
5/12-3. A battery charge may be elevated to an aggravated
battery charge when the person committing battery, or the
person battered, is on or about a public way. 720 ILCS 5/12-
3.05(c).
    Our inquiry into probable cause “is limited to what the of-
ficer knew at the time of the arrest.” Harney v. City of Chicago,
702 F.3d 916, 922 (7th Cir. 2012). We therefore consider only
the information available to Officer McGuinness prior to his
5 a.m. arrest of Mr. Madero. We hold that Officer McGuinness
had probable cause to arrest Mr. Madero.
    When he arrived at the scene, Officer McGuinness was in-
formed by three witnesses that Mr. Madero was the driver of
a hit-and-run vehicle. Two of those witnesses insisted that he
had struck Philbee in the face with a key. Mr. Madero
No. 23-2574                                                               11

disputed both assertions. It was the word of three witnesses
against one. 7 At the scene, the only evidence supporting
Mr. Madero’s claim that he was uninvolved in the hit-and-run
accident, other than his own testimony, was the lack of front-
end damage to his car. But none of the officers nor any of the
witnesses brought up the lack of damage to the front of
Mr. Madero’s car. Furthermore, it was snowing heavily that
night, so much so that “[i]t would have been almost impossi-
ble” for the tow truck drivers to clean up accident parts from
the intersection.8 In such a situation, we cannot say that Of-
ficer McGuinness’s failure to investigate the damage to
Mr. Madero’s car dispelled probable cause. See Seiser v. City of
Chicago, 762 F.3d 647, 654 (7th Cir. 2014) (“The general rule is
that when the police have information from a reasonably
credible witness that a person has committed a criminal act,
they may rely on that witness’s account, even when the sus-
pect himself denies wrongdoing. The police need not exhaust
all available avenues of investigation, including those that
might potentially exculpate the suspect.”) (internal citation
omitted); Matthews v. City of East St. Louis, 675 F.3d 703, 707
(7th Cir. 2012) (“[O]nce probable cause has been established,
officials have ‘no constitutional obligation to conduct further
investigation in the hopes of uncovering potentially

7 The existence of probable cause does not depend on whether Officer

McGuinness correctly credited Philbee’s, Daehler’s, and Keck’s testimony
over Mr. Madero’s. Braun v. Village of Palatine, 56 F.4th 542, 549 (7th Cir.
2022) (“There is no requirement that ‘the officer’s belief be correct or even
more likely true than false, so long as it is reasonable.’”) (quoting Qian v.
Kautz, 168 F.3d 949, 953 (7th Cir. 1999)).
8 R.66-5 at 57.
12                                                            No. 23-2574

exculpatory evidence.’”) (quoting Spiegel v. Cortese, 196 F.3d
717, 723 (7th Cir. 1999)).
    Of course, although an officer is not required to search vig-
orously for exculpatory evidence, at the same time, an officer
may not ignore conclusively established exculpatory evi-
dence. Dollard v. Whisenand, 946 F.3d 342, 355 (7th Cir. 2019);
McBride, 576 F.3d at 707 (“An officer … may not close his eyes
to facts that would clarify the situation.”); Hodgkins ex rel.
Hodgkins v. Peterson, 355 F.3d 1048, 1061 (7th Cir. 2004). 9 Our
precedent simply imposes upon the arresting officer the duty
to act in a reasonable fashion and not to take an ostrich-like
approach to exculpatory evidence that is obvious in nature
and weakens substantially the relevance and probative value
of the evidence suggesting guilt. We need not examine the

9 Our colleagues in some of the other circuits have had occasion to

acknowledge that an arresting officer, in assessing the existence of proba-
ble cause, cannot fail to acknowledge and to take into consideration obvi-
ous exculpatory evidence that casts a dark cloud on the reliability of other
evidence suggesting guilt. See Harvard v. Cesnalis, 973 F.3d 190, 200 (3d Cir.
2020) (“In determining probable cause, arresting officers must consider
plainly exculpatory evidence in addition to inculpatory evidence. This is
true ‘even if substantial inculpatory evidence (standing by itself) suggests
that probable cause exists.’”) (emphasis added) (quoting Wilson v. Russo,
212 F.3d 781, 789 (3d Cir. 2000)); Amrine v. Brooks, 522 F.3d 823, 832 (8th
Cir. 2008) (“Exculpatory evidence is … relevant to whether an officer has
probable cause. Officers are not required to conduct a ‘mini-trial’ before
arrest, but probable cause ‘does not exist when a “minimal further inves-
tigation” would have exonerated the suspect.’”) (quoting Kuehl v. Burtis,
173 F.3d 646, 650 (8th Cir. 1999)); Gardenhire v. Schubert, 205 F.3d 303, 318
(6th Cir. 2000) (“[A]n officer cannot look only at evidence of guilt while
ignoring all exculpatory evidence. Rather, the officer must consider the
totality of the circumstances, recognizing both the inculpatory and excul-
patory evidence, before determining if he has probable cause to make an
arrest.”).
No. 23-2574                                                  13

contours of this exception. Here, we think that it is clear that
Officer McGuinness was not obliged, in the face of the eyewit-
ness testimony before him and the evidence of a bleeding vic-
tim, to conduct a crash investigation in the middle of a snow-
storm in the early hours of the morning. In short, exculpatory
evidence available through a detailed examination of the ex-
terior of the vehicles was not obviously available to the of-
ficer.
    Mr. Madero raises a number of other arguments support-
ing his view that Officer McGuinness lacked probable cause.
He submits that genuine disputes of material fact exist that
prevent us from deciding the case on summary judgment. We
disagree. No underlying facts supporting the probable cause
determination are in dispute. Even viewing the facts in the
light most favorable to Mr. Madero, and therefore assuming
that he was not the driver of the hit-and-run vehicle and that
he did not strike Philbee in the face with a key, Officer
McGuinness still had probable cause to arrest Mr. Madero. As
we have explained, Officer McGuinness was informed by
three seemingly credible witnesses that Mr. Madero did in
fact flee the scene of the accident. He also observed blood
dripping from a large cut on Philbee’s face and heard from
both Philbee and Daehler that Mr. Madero had struck Philbee
in the face with his key. That Officer McGuinness heard such
testimony and saw Philbee’s face is not in dispute, and he rea-
sonably relied on such information to arrest Mr. Madero.
    Two of Mr. Madero’s remaining arguments generally
stem from law enforcement’s decision to split the task of in-
terviewing the four witnesses between the three officers at the
scene of the accident. Mr. Madero highlights conflicting testi-
mony and suggests that had Officer McGuinness interviewed
14                                                     No. 23-2574

each witness himself, he would have realized the conflicts.
First, Mr. Madero points to the discrepancy between Philbee’s
statement that he “fell” into Mr. Madero’s vehicle, and Daeh-
ler’s and Keck’s statements that Philbee “jumped” into
Mr. Madero’s vehicle. This is an important distinction,
Mr. Madero contends, because it goes directly to his assertion
of self-defense. He also points out that Philbee, Daehler, and
Keck disagreed about the path they took while chasing the
hit-and-run vehicle.
    These arguments fail. These slight disagreements in testi-
mony did not dispel probable cause. First, Officer McGuin-
ness had no duty to investigate the validity of Mr. Madero’s
claim of self-defense, which was far from conclusively estab-
lished. Moreover, as the district court recognized, the disa-
greement between Philbee, Daehler, and Keck about the path
traveled during the chase did not dispel Officer McGuinness’s
probable cause. At the scene, all three were “adamant” that
they did not lose sight of the dark-colored sedan, and all three
arrived back at the intersection, surrounding Mr. Madero’s
car, at the same time. The slight disagreement about the path
taken is insubstantial in light of the trio’s insistence in the im-
mediate aftermath that they had maintained sight of the dark-
colored sedan the entire chase.
    Nor was probable cause for the arrest eliminated because
Daehler and Keck later recanted their statements that they
had never lost sight of the hit-and-run car. As we have ex-
plained, we look only to information available to the officer at
the time of the arrest when determining whether probable
cause existed. Additional evidence discovered later “is irrele-
vant to whether probable cause existed at the crucial time” of
the arrest. Braun v. Village of Palatine, 56 F.4th 542, 549 (7th Cir.
No. 23-2574                                                  15

2022) (quoting Bailey v. City of Chicago, 779 F.3d 689, 695 (7th
Cir. 2015)). The accident occurred around 4 a.m., Mr. Madero
was arrested around 5 a.m., and Daehler and Keck did not
recant their statements until 7:30 a.m. that morning. Their re-
cantations, therefore, do not affect the existence of probable
cause.
   Because we hold that Officer McGuinness had probable
cause to arrest Mr. Madero, we need not reach the question of
whether Officer McGuinness was entitled to qualified im-
munity.
                         Conclusion
    Ultimately, Officer McGuinness credited the testimony of
three consistent—and “very adamant”—witnesses over the
testimony of one witness telling a different story. His decision
to arrest Mr. Madero on the basis of the testimony of those
three eyewitnesses was supported by probable cause, and we
therefore affirm the district court’s grant of summary judg-
ment to Officer McGuinness.
                                                   AFFIRMED