7th Circuit: Federal judge wrongly relied on news stories in tossing suit against cops as frivolous
A federal judge in Chicago improperly relied on newspaper accounts when he dismissed as frivolous an excessive-force case against police, a federal appeals court has ruled.
The June 28 decision by the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals doesn’t identify the judge, but this story by Law.com (sub. req.) says he is U.S. District Judge Milton Shadur.
According to the appellate opinion by Circuit Judge Ann Williams, Shadur dismissed the suit without requiring an answer from the defendants. The city of Chicago declined to defend the judgment with an appellate brief. In a letter to the court, the city agreed with the plaintiff that the judge had dismissed the suit based on his own independent research into newspaper accounts.
Joseph Felton had alleged in a pro se complaint that he feared for his life when he was approached by an unmarked police car with tinted windows, so he turned his car onto the expressway and fled. According to Felton, officers fired their guns at his car and rammed his vehicle with their police cars, causing him to crash. At some point, he says, police shot him with six different stun guns.
Shooting a suspect with stun guns could violate clearly established law if Felton was subdued or only passively resisting arrest, the appeals court said. And Felton’s claim over the ramming of his car would not be frivolous if the car chase posed no danger.
The newspaper accounts—which Shadur attached to his order (PDF) as exhibits—said police fired at Felton after he rear-ended a car and then sped off, reaching speeds of 100 miles per hour. Later, Felton “intentionally” collided with a Chicago police car, authorities said. Police ended a standoff in which Felton refused to surrender by using a flash-bang grenade, according to the news accounts. When police arrested Felton, they found that he had apparently slashed his wrists, the articles said.
Shadur’s order dismissing Felton’s case said it was “painfully obvious” that Felton had omitted critical facts that would “cast more light on whether [Felton’s] injuries resulted from his own flight in what appeared from his narrative to be a high\0x2010speed chase, rather than from the action of the police in pursuing him. In the vernacular, even a threshold of the complaint reading cast serious doubt on whether his version could pass the smell test. Those suspicions led this court to have one of its law clerks obtain and print out the news accounts…”
Shadur said he had attached the news accounts as exhibits “instead of expending further resources in recapping what those newspaper accounts reflected.”
On remand, Felton should be given a chance to amend his complaint to state whether the car chase was dangerous and to name the correct defendants, the appeals court said.
A Pacer search reveals numerous legal cases filed by a plaintiff named Joseph Felton. He also continued filing documents with the district court while the excessive force case was on appeal. In an April 29 order, Shadur wrote that the court had received “a spate of filings” by Felton, and “this court has no idea as to the reason for the current filing or the purpose that Felton is seeking to accomplish.”
See also:
ABAJournal.com: “7th Cir. Skewers Judge Shadur Over Ex-Lawyer’s Sentence, Remands Case to Another Judge”
ABAJournal.com: “Posner opinion tosses judge from case partly for his ‘tone of derision’ “
