# Sanders v. Splittorf

> District Court, S.D. Illinois · July 19, 2024

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10646082

## Case

- **Court:** District Court, S.D. Illinois
- **Decided:** July 19, 2024
- **Opinion:** 100trialcourt
- **Cited by:** 0 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10646082

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding four incidents over about eleven months involving only plaintiff were insufficient to show a widespread practice or custom

## Opinion text

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS

ARYION SANDERS,

Plaintiff,

v. Case No. 17-cv-864-JPG

JOE SPLITTORFF, MICHAEL O’NEILL, and
CITY OF ALTON,

Defendants.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
This matter comes before the Court on the defendants’ motion for summary judgment on
the three remaining claims in this case (Doc. 80). Plaintiff Aryion Sanders has responded to the
motion (Docs. 86-88).
This case arose after Sanders, a pretrial detainee at the Madison County Jail, was
interrogated in August 2015 by two detectives of the Alton Police Department, defendants Joe
Splittorff and Michael O’Neill. Sanders ended up giving incriminating statements. Sanders
complains of the manner in which Splittorff and O’Neill interrogated him, which he believes is
attributable to the defendant City of Alton (“City”) because the interrogation techniques were
part of an express municipal training policy or practice. Sanders began this lawsuit pro se in
August 2017, but the case was stayed for a substantial period of time to allow the state criminal
case against him to reach a conclusion. The stay was lifted in May 2022 after Sanders pled
guilty in his criminal case. He is now represented by counsel in this case where three claims in
the Third Amended Complaint (Doc. 65) remain:
Count 1: a Fourteenth Amendment claim against Splittorff and O’Neill for
conscience-shocking interrogation;

Count 2: a Monell claim against the City for policies directing the conscience-
shocking interrogation; and

Count 3: an intentional infliction of emotional distress claim against Splittorff and
O’Neill for the interrogation.

I. Summary Judgment Standard
Summary judgment must be granted “if the movant shows that there is no genuine
dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.
R. Civ. P. 56(a); see Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322 (1986); Spath v. Hayes Wheels
Int’l-Ind., Inc., 211 F.3d 392, 396 (7th Cir. 2000). The Court must construe the evidence in the
light most favorable to the nonmoving party and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of that
party. See Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255 (1986); Chelios v. Heavener, 520
F.3d 678, 685 (7th Cir. 2008); Spath, 211 F.3d at 396. Nevertheless, the “favor toward the
nonmoving party does not extend to drawing inferences that are supported by only speculation or
conjecture.” Monroe v. Ind. Dep’t of Transp., 871 F.3d 495, 503 (7th Cir. 2017) (internal
quotations and citations omitted); accord Weaver v. Speedway, LLC, 28 F.4th 816, 820 (7th Cir.
2022).
The initial summary judgment burden of production is on the moving party to show the
Court that there is no reason to have a trial. Celotex, 477 U.S. at 323; Modrowski v. Pigatto, 712
F.3d 1166, 1168 (7th Cir. 2013). Where the nonmoving party carries the burden of proof at trial,
the moving party may satisfy its burden of production in one of two ways. It may present
evidence that affirmatively negates an essential element of the nonmoving party’s case, see Fed.
R. Civ. P. 56(c)(1)(A), or it may point to an absence of evidence to support an essential element
of the nonmoving party’s case without actually submitting any evidence, see Fed. R. Civ. P.
56(c)(1)(B). Celotex, 477 U.S. at 322-25; Modrowski, 712 F.3d at 1169. Where the moving
party fails to meet its strict burden, a court cannot enter summary judgment for the moving party
even if the opposing party fails to present relevant evidence in response to the motion. Cooper v.
Lane, 969 F.2d 368, 371 (7th Cir. 1992).
In responding to a summary judgment motion, the nonmoving party may not simply rest
upon the allegations contained in the pleadings but must present specific facts to show that a
genuine issue of material fact exists. Celotex, 477 U.S. at 322-26; Anderson, 477 U.S. at 256-57;

Modrowski, 712 F.3d at 1168. A genuine issue of material fact is not demonstrated by the mere
existence of “some alleged factual dispute between the parties,” Anderson, 477 U.S. at 247, or by
“some metaphysical doubt as to the material facts,” Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio
Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 586 (1986). Rather, a genuine issue of material fact exists only if “a fair-
minded jury could return a verdict for the [nonmoving party] on the evidence presented.”
Anderson, 477 U.S. at 252.
II. Facts
Viewing all evidence and drawing all reasonable inferences in Sanders’s favor, the
admissible evidence establishes the following relevant facts.

Sanders’s guilty plea establishes that on August 5, 2015, he shot James Hubbard and
killed him. Sanders was 17-years-old at the time and was inexperienced in police interrogations.
It was not clear at the time of the shooting who the perpetrator was, but Sanders was immediately
suspected of being, at a minimum, a witness. Law enforcement officers questioned Sanders
twice when they thought he was a potential witness, and then twice again after he became a
suspect.
In custody on other charges in the Madison County Jail, Sanders was brought to the Alton
Police Department on August 13, 2015. He was Mirandized, which he acknowledged in writing,
and then interviewed by Splittorff and O’Neill from shortly after 10 p.m. until about 2:45 a.m.
This was his third interview with law enforcement officers. Sanders was isolated from his
support system—his friends and family—during the interrogation.
Neither detective struck or physically threatened Sanders; both acted in conformity with
their training. One of the interrogation techniques taught and used was proximity to the suspect
by getting into his personal space. This technique was sometimes used by law enforcement

officers to comfort and establish rapport with the subject and sometimes to make him uneasy and
convey that the suspect could not escape what he had done, and sometimes alternated between
the two purposes. With Sanders, Splittorff positioned his chair close to Sanders and leaned
forward toward him. Splittorff moved progressively closer to Sanders during the interview until
he was within a foot of him. At points, Sanders was cowering in the corner between a table and
a wall with his face buried in his hands.
Consistent with their training, the detectives also used the theme of Sanders’s closeness
with his younger brother Ahmad to extract a confession from Sanders. They told Sanders the
police were going to bring Ahmad in for questioning again. They did this because they believed

that either Sanders or Ahmad was the shooter and wanted to review discrepancies in their
statements. More importantly, they wanted to exploit Sanders’s closeness with his brother to
emotionally pressure Sanders to confess to protect his brother from prosecution and jail. It was
this theme of protecting his brother than had Sanders cowering in the corner. At one point,
O’Neill said he hoped Ahmad did not have a gun, raising the specter of Ahmad being shot if he
showed a gun while being apprehended. In this interview, Sanders asked for the interview to
stop, but the detectives kept asking him questions. Then Sanders confessed, after which he was
taken to a holding cell at the Alton City Jail.
The next day, August 14, 2015, at a little after 3 p.m., Splittorff and O’Neill conducted a
fourth interview. Sanders was again read his Miranda rights and acknowledged his
understanding in writing. Sanders confessed again to killing Hubbard and discussed various
details of the shooting with the detectives. Again, neither detective struck or physically
threatened Sanders, and both performed in a manner consistent with their training.
The criminal prosecution of Sanders included two trials. The first resulted in a hung jury.

His conviction in the second was reversal by the Illinois Appellate Court. See 7/24/23 Mem. &
Order 1-2 (Doc. 64), citing People v. Sanders, 184 N.E.3d 281 (Ill. App. Ct. 2021); Mad. County
Circuit Clerk, Court Records Search, http://www.co.madison.il.us/departments/circuit_clerk/
court_records-search.php (search for Case No. 2015CF1880). The Appellate Court ruled that
Sanders’s confession could not be used for any purpose at trial because a coercive environment
in the interrogation that overcame Sanders’s will rendered the confession involuntary. Sanders,
184 N.E.3d at 294-97. Neither Splittorff nor O’Neill were reprimanded for conducting a
coercive interview or provided more training as a result of the suppression of the evidence.
In April 2022, when it was clear the prosecution could not use the confession for any

purpose, Sanders pled guilty to the second-degree murder of Hubbard. He was sentenced to
serve 15 years in prison.1
III. Analysis
A. Count 1: Due Process Claim Against Splittorff and O’Neill
Splittorff and O’Neill ask the Court for summary judgment for a variety of reasons,
including that nothing they did during their interrogations of Sanders shocked the conscience

1 To the extent Sanders suggests his confession was false and he was not guilty of the crime to
which he pled, the claim would be barred by Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994). Heck held
that a convicted criminal cannot not bring a § 1983 civil suit questioning the validity of his
conviction until the conviction is overturned. Id. at 486-87; DeWalt v. Carter, 224 F.3d 607,
614-15 (7th Cir. 2000). Sanders’s conviction has not been overturned.
such that his substantive due process rights were implicated and that, even if it had, the law was
not clearly established at the time that their conduct was unconstitutional.
1. Due Process Rights
Sanders claims his Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process rights were violated
by Splittorff’s and O’Neill’s interrogation of him when he was only 17-years-old. It is true that

“[a] plaintiff may sue under § 1983 for police behavior that ‘shocks the conscience,’ including
‘conscience-shocking interrogation tactics.’” Cairel v. Alderden, 821 F.3d 823, 833 (7th Cir.
2016) (quoting Fox v. Hayes, 600 F.3d 819, 841 (7th Cir. 2010)); see Chavez v. Martinez, 538
U.S. 760, 774 (2003) (Thomas, J.) (“Convictions based on evidence obtained by methods that are
so brutal and so offensive to human dignity that they shock the conscience violate the Due
Process Clause,” and may also give rise to § 1983 liability. (cleaned up)); Rochin v. California,
342 U.S. 165, 172, 174 (1952).
What is shocking to the conscience can be difficult to determine. “[T]he ultimate
question is ‘whether the conduct is ‘too close to the rack and the screw.’” Cairel, 821 F.3d at

833 (quoting Rochin, 342 U.S. at 172). However, mere persistent questioning is not, by itself
egregious or conscience-shocking so as to trigger substantive due process concerns. Chavez, 538
U.S. at 774-75 (Thomas, J.). Nor is the use of ordinary interrogation tactics such as lying to,
threatening in a non-violent way, insulting or making false promises to a suspect. Fox, 600 F.3d
at 841 (citing Tinker v. Beasley, 429 F.3d 1324, 1329 (11th Cir. 2005)). Conduct most likely to
be conscience shocking is “conduct intended to injure in some way unjustifiable by any
government interest.” Cairel, 821 F.3d at 833 (internal citations omitted).
Not surprisingly, where standards are not clearly defined, qualified immunity will often
dispose of a claim of a constitutional violation. It does so here.
2. Qualified Immunity
Qualified immunity is an affirmative defense that shields government officials from
liability for civil damages where their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or
constitutional rights of which a reasonable officer would have known. Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457
U.S. 800, 818 (1982); Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009); Denius v. Dunlap, 209

F.3d 944, 950 (7th Cir. 2000). The qualified immunity test has two prongs: (1) whether the
officer violated a constitutional right, and (2) whether the right at issue was clearly established at
the time of the alleged misconduct. District of Columbia v. Wesby, 583 U.S. 48, 62-63 (2018);
Pearson, 555 U.S. at 232; Wilson v. Layne, 526 U.S. 603, 609 (1999). The Supreme Court
encourages, but does not require, examining the second prong before diving into the merits of the
plaintiff’s claim where it is not necessary. Wesby, 583 U.S. at 62 n.7 (quoting Camreta v.
Greene, 563 U.S. 692, 707 (2011)); accord McGee, 55 F.4th at 572. The Court does so here.
Under the second prong of the qualified immunity inquiry, the law at the time of the
conduct “must have placed the constitutionality of the officer’s conduct beyond debate” such that

“every reasonable official would understand that what he is doing is unlawful.” Wesby, 583 U.S.
at 63 (internal quotations omitted). It must have been “settled law,” that is, it must have been
“dictated by controlling authority or a robust consensus of cases of persuasive authority.” Id.
(internal quotations omitted). Generally, this requires a high degree of specificity in the
precedent so that every reasonable officer would have been alerted to the law in the particular
circumstances. Id. And it is incumbent on the plaintiff to demonstrate the clear establishment of
the law in the particular circumstances. Denius, 209 F.3d at 950.
a. Violation of a Constitutional Right
The first prong of the qualified immunity analysis is whether the evidence establishes a
violation of a constitutional right—here, Sanders’s Fourteenth Amendment substantive due
process right to be free from interrogation that shocks the conscience.2
The only evidence in this case describing the conduct of Splittorff and O’Neill is their
own testimony and the hours of video that the parties have submitted on DVD. The detectives’
testimony reveals nothing that “shocks the conscience.” They describe invading Sanders’s

personal space to make him uncomfortable while questioning him, intimidating him in a non-
violent way by making him feel he could not escape what he had done, and exploiting his close
relationship with his brother Ahmad to provide incentive for Sanders to confess regardless of
whether he was actually guilty. They threatened to bring Ahmad in for questioning again, but
nothing suggests this was conscience-shocking where they had a legitimate reason and the
authority to do so because Ahmad was a witness, if not also a suspect. Even if their intentions
were not justified by the facts and the law, lying to suspects about questioning a family member
is not so shocking that it implicates due process rights. And while it was underhanded to suggest
Ahmad might be shot, underhandedness by law enforcement officers generally does not “shock

the conscience.”
As for the DVDs of interrogations themselves, the parties have not pointed to any
specific time in the recordings or transcripts where the conduct they describe occurred. It is not
the Court’s function to “scour the record” in search of evidence to support or defeat a motion for
summary judgment. See Bombard v. Fort Wayne Newspapers, Inc., 92 F.3d 560, 562 (7th Cir.
1996). The parties have not directed the Court to specific events in the recordings, instead

2 Sanders references violations of his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights. Such claims are no
longer in this case, although his incriminating statements were excluded in his criminal case
because of violations of those rights. This case now concerns only Sanders’s substantive due
process right to be free from conscious-shocking interrogation.
inviting the Court to spend hours upon hours watching and listening to the entirety of the
interviews to try to piece together the parties’ arguments for them. This is beyond the Court’s
role on summary judgment. Therefore, the Court would be justified in excluding the recordings
from consideration.
Instead, the Court takes a middle road between watching all the recordings and not

watching any. It has reviewed the plaintiff’s recording in its entirety and most of the defendants’
recordings at an accelerated speed, only slowing down when the parties displayed apparent signs
of stress or coercion. The Court has found that the defendants used a great deal of deception to
create the false impression that they were allies of Sanders and that they had concrete, irrefutable
evidence of his guilt. They played on his desire to be responsible in the eyes of a fictional
forgiving public who would admire him if he admitted to the crime. They leveraged Sanders’s
love for his brother in an underhanded, unseemly way to emotionally pressure him to confess,
even if only to protect his brother. And they were overly suggestive of details of the shooting
and its aftermath. These were tactics a 17-year-old boy was unlikely to be able to resist as

demonstrated by his teary physical breakdown in the early hours of August 15 after more than
four and a half hours of interrogation. And indeed, Sanders confessed, an admission which the
Court must accept as true in light of his guilty plea. Nevertheless, the interviews concluded with
the parties’ being friendly with each other and Sanders’s displaying no outward signs of distress.
Even though the interrogation techniques used by the defendants seem harsh for such a
young suspect, the Court need not decide whether they amount to a due process violation. It
seems likely that those techniques are not qualitatively different from the persistent questioning,
lies, non-violent threats, insults or false promises that have been found not to violate due process.
And the techniques were likely justified by the governmental interest in identifying and detaining
the perpetrator of a violent crime; the defendants’ treatment of Sanders was not separable from a
legitimate interrogation to capture a dangerous criminal. Sanders’s youth may have rendered
these ordinary interrogation techniques particularly harsh, but he did not complain of his
treatment at the time, and left the detectives on friendly terms. These facts suggest the
interrogation fell short of conscience-shocking.

However, the Court need not decide whether there was a constitutional violation because
the law regarding such a potential violation was not clear at the time.
b. Clearly Established Law
As noted above, it is difficult to determine what law enforcement officers’ interrogation
conduct shocks the conscience sufficiently to impinge on substantive due process rights.
“Determining what constitutes such behavior can be difficult; the ultimate question is ‘whether
the conduct is ‘too close to the rack and the screw.’” Cairel v. Alderden, 821 F.3d 823, 833 (7th
Cir. 2016). Sanders cites no controlling authority or consensus of cases clearly dictating that the
specific conduct of Splittorff or O’Neill was unconstitutional.

Sanders has pointed to no caselaw existing at the time—August 2015—that such
interrogation was so shocking to the conscience that it amounted to a due process violation. The
only case he cites for this purpose is Gill v. City of Milwaukee, 850 F.3d 335, 338 (7th Cir.
2017). Gill could not have clearly established any legal proposition by August 2015 because it
was decided more than a year after the interrogation in question. And even if Gill had been
decided by August 2015, it did not hold that an interrogation factually similar to the one in this
case violated a suspect’s substantive due process rights—even a suspect that was particularly
vulnerable because of, for example, age or intellectual disability. Id. at 341 (“There is no
precedent that places the constitutionality of the detectives’ actions beyond debate.” (internal
quotations omitted)).
Instead of pointing to a specific case or body of caselaw to defeat qualified immunity,
Sanders only points to general legal concepts that officers must respect defendants’ rights during
interrogation. That is not enough to defeat a qualified immunity defense on summary judgment.
“Whether interrogation tactics are unconstitutionally coercive is an inquiry that depends on the

specific facts and circumstances present in a particular case.” Id. Precedent or a trend in the
caselaw must “put[] the unconstitutionality of the officers’ conduct here ‘beyond debate.’” Id.
Highly generalized assertions of the right to be free from coercive or conscience-shocking
interrogation will not defeat a qualified immunity defense in the absence of a close factual
analog to the facts of the case at bar. Id.
Because the law was not clearly established at the time of Sanders’s interrogation in
August 2015 that Splittorff’s and O’Neill’s conduct in the interrogation was unconstitutional,
they are entitled to summary judgment on Count 1 on the basis of qualified immunity.
B. Count 2: City of Alton

The City argues that it cannot be liable because (1) Splittorff and O’Neill are not liable
and (2) there is insufficient evidence for a jury to find an unconstitutional municipal policy or
practice. Sanders argues in response that the City ratified the detectives’ “flagrant[] breach[ of]
their own training with regard to interrogations,” Pl.’s Resp. 2 (Doc. 86), by failing to sanction or
further train them after the state court suppressed Sanders’s confession,
The Court takes the City’s second argument first because it is dispositive of Sanders’s
claim against the City. The Court has already set forth the municipal liability standards under
Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 694 (1978), several times in this
litigation, but it will briefly restate them here. Monell set forth the circumstances where a
municipality can be liable in its own right under § 1983 for a constitutional violation: (a) an
express municipal policy calling for a constitutional violation; (b) a widespread practice of
constitutional violations that was so permanent and well settled as to constitute custom or usage
with the force of law; or (c) a constitutional violation caused by a person acting with final
policymaking authority for the body. Monell, 436 U.S. at 694; McCormick v. City of Chi., 230

F.3d 319, 324 (7th Cir. 2000).
It is unclear whether Sanders relies on the first or second Monell theory. At times he
claims the City expressly taught and condoned interrogation techniques used by Splittorff and
O’Neill in interrogating Sanders. However, it is clear that the techniques—persistent
questioning, lying to, threatening in a non-violent way, insulting, or making false promises to a
suspect, Fox v. Hayes, 600 F.3d 819, 841 (7th Cir. 2010)—in and of themselves do not make an
interrogation shocking to the conscience. Nor do the techniques of using proximity to befriend,
intimidate, or both, or of taking advantage of a suspect’s desire to protect his family, by
themselves, shock the conscience. These are the techniques the detectives were expressly taught

by the City, but no reasonable jury could find that simply teaching those techniques to detectives
is a policy that calls for a constitutional violation.
Sanders may also be relying on the second Monell theory—that there was a widespread
practice of abusing the expressly-taught interrogation techniques to violate suspects’
constitutional rights. Indeed, he asserts in his response that the detectives flagrantly violated
their own training. As a preliminary matter, as discussed in connection with Count 1 against
Splittorff and O’Neill, it is far from clear that the detectives’ use of the interrogation techniques
they were taught was shocking to the conscience such that it violated the Constitution .
More importantly, even if it were shocking to the conscience, Sanders cites to only his
experience with the use (or misuse) of those techniques. To show a widespread practice of
unconstitutional abuse of interrogation techniques there must be “evidence of a prior pattern of
similar constitutional violations.” Dean v. Wexford Health Sources, Inc., 18 F.4th 214, 234 (7th
Cir. 2021); Stockton v. Milwaukee Cnty., 44 F.4th 605, 617 (7th Cir. 2022) (plaintiff claiming
widespread practice must point to others injured by the practice). Pointing to isolated violations

is generally not enough to establish a widespread practice that is “so pervasive that acquiescence
on the part of policymakers was apparent and amounted to a policy decision.” Phelan v. Cook
Cty., 463 F.3d 773, 789, 790 (7th Cir. 2006); see Hildreth v. Butler, 960 F.3d 420, 426 (7th Cir.
2020). A widespread practice is the pivotal requirement of such a § 1983 claim. Id. (citing
Grieveson v. Anderson, 538 F.3d 763, 774 (7th Cir. 2008) (holding four incidents over about
eleven months involving only plaintiff were insufficient to show a widespread practice or
custom)). And without a widespread practice, even a failure to correct or discipline the violator
is not enough to show municipal ratification of the policy.
Sanders cites Grandstaff v. City of Borger, Tex., 767 F.2d 161 (5th Cir. 1985), in support

of his argument that a single but egregious incident may be enough to show municipal
ratification of misconduct. In Grandstaff, numerous police officers in pursuit of a suspect shot
recklessly throughout the course of the hunt and “poured their gunfire” into the truck and person
of an innocent neighbor, killing him. Id. at 165. The victim’s family sued the municipality
alleging its policies of insufficient training of officers and tolerating officers’ incompetence and
misbehavior caused the victim’s death. Id. at 166. A jury found the municipality liable. Id. The
Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit acknowledged that to hold a municipality liable, there must
be more than isolated instances to prove knowledge and acquiescence by the municipality. Id. at
171. The plaintiffs in that case had not done so. Id.
However, the Court of Appeals also acknowledged that a municipality’s knowledge of
and acquiescence to an unconstitutional practice can be inferred circumstantially from the
conduct of the wrongdoers and the reaction of the municipal policymaker. Id. The Court found
that repeated recklessness by numerous police officers in several episodes on the night in
question—rather than a single instance of abuse—tended to prove that disregard to human life

and safety was so prevalent as to be a municipal policy or custom. Id. Further, the
municipality’s failure to reprimand or discharge the reckless officers after their “incompetent and
catastrophic performance” and their “gross abuse of the use of deadly weapons” gave the jury a
basis to conclude that such conduct was municipal policy. Id. The municipality’s abject failure
to admit any error or change its policies further indicated ratification of this prevalent conduct.
Id. at 166, 171.
Grandstaff and the case at bar are very different. Here, two detectives interviewed
Sanders, albeit multiple times. But unlike in Grandstaff, not every officer on the shift
participated multiple times in egregious abuse in the same incident. Prevalence of misconduct

simply cannot be inferred from multiple violations occurring en masse as was the case in
Grandstaff.
And as noted above and unlike the conduct in Grandstaff, it is uncertain whether
Splittorff’s and O’Neill’s conduct violated Sanders’s substantive due process rights because
those rights in the context of conscience-shocking interrogation are not well-defined. The City’s
position that Splittorff and O’Neill did not violate Sanders’s due process rights here does not
suggest it knows of and tolerates prevalent conscious-shocking interrogation as municipal policy
or custom. And the detectives and the City admit that they were wrong when they failed to
scrupulously observe Sanders’s Fifth Amendment rights when Sanders asked to stop the
questioning. Unlike in Grandstaff, the municipality did not stubbornly remain unrepentant in the
face of clearly unconstitutional conduct. Grandstaff presents a vastly different set of facts and
circumstances, so its rule does not suggest a reasonable jury could find the City liable for a
policy or custom of promoting or tolerating conscience-shocking interrogations.
Because there is no evidence from which a reasonable jury could infer a widespread

unconstitutional practice, no reasonable jury could find the City liable in this case. Accordingly,
the Court must grant summary judgment for the City on Count 2.
C. Count 3: Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress
In light of these holdings, the only remaining claim is Count 3, a state law intentional
infliction of emotional distress claim against Splittorff and O’Neill. The Court continues to have
jurisdiction over this state claim under 28 U.S.C. § 1367(a), which extends supplemental federal
jurisdiction to all claims that are sufficiently related to the claims on which original jurisdiction
is based so as to be part of the same case or controversy. However, § 1367(c)(3) provides that a
district court “may decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction . . . if . . . the district court has

dismissed all claims over which it has original jurisdiction.”
A district court has broad discretion in deciding whether to decline jurisdiction over state
law claims when no original jurisdiction claims remain pending. RWJ Mgmt. Co. v. BP Prods.
N. Am., Inc., 672 F.3d 476, 478 (7th Cir. 2012). The district court should consider judicial
economy, convenience, fairness and comity. Wright v. Associated Ins. Cos., 29 F.3d 1244, 1251
(7th Cir. 1994) (citing Carnegie-Mellon Univ. v. Cohill, 484 U.S. 343, 350 (1988)). “[W]hen the
district court dismisses all federal claims before trial, the usual and preferred course is to remand
the state claims to the state court unless there are countervailing considerations.” Payne for
Hicks v. Churchich, 161 F.3d 1030, 1043 (7th Cir. 1998) (citing Wright, 29 F.3d at 1251). This
is true even when the decision is on the eve of trial so long as the district court has not made a
“substantial investment” of time in the litigating untried claims. RWJ Mgmt., 672 F.3d at 478.
The Court has considered the relevant factors and finds that it is appropriate not to
exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Count 3 of this case and to allow Sanders to refile that
claim in state court if he chooses. He will have one year in which to do so regardless of the

original statute of limitations. See 735 ILCS 5/13-217 (if “the action is dismissed by a United
States District Court for lack of jurisdiction, . . . then, whether or not the time limitation for
bringing such action expires during the pendency of such action, the plaintiff . . . may commence
a new action within one year or within the remaining period of limitation, whichever is
greater. . . .).
The presumption is to remand supplemental jurisdiction claims when all federal claims
have been dismissed, and there are no persuasive countervailing reasons not to do so. The Court
firmly believes that Illinois state courts are far better equipped to hear cases that turn on the
interpretation and application of state law between citizens of Illinois. Further, Illinois state

courts are in a better position to explore how the Illinois tort of intentional infliction of emotional
distress relates to intentional instigation of emotional reactions during custodial interrogation.
As a matter of comity and efficiency, the privilege of hearing such cases should rest with the
state court system.
Additionally, it would be no less convenient for the plaintiff to proceed in state court than
in federal court, and the Court sees no unfairness that would result from litigation in a state
forum. Finally, the Court notes that it has not made a substantial investment of time in resolving
the Count 3; the vast majority of its efforts have focused on the federal question claims. And
although this case is old, it is not because the Court has invested substantial work on Count 3. It
is because of the tortured procedural history of Sanders’s criminal case and the consequent need
to stay this case for a substantial period. Thus, the presumption to relinquish jurisdiction has not
been overcome.
For these reasons, the Court declines to exercise jurisdiction over Count 3 and will
dismiss it without prejudice for lack of subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C.

§ 1367(c)(3).
IV. Conclusion
For these reasons, the Court:
• GRANTS in part and DENIES in part the defendants’ motion to for summary
judgment (Doc. 80). The motion is GRANTED as to Counts 1 and 2 and DENIED as
moot as to Count 3 of the Third Amended Complaint;

• DISMISSES Count 3 without prejudice pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3); and

• DIRECTS the Clerk of Court to enter judgment accordingly.

IT IS SO ORDERED.
DATED: July 19, 2024

s/ J. Phil Gilbert
J. PHIL GILBERT
DISTRICT JUDGE

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10646082. Public record. Not legal advice.