The opinion
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION
JOHNNY TAYLOR, )
)
Plaintiff, ) Case No. 24-cv-05851
)
v. )
) Judge John Robert Blakey
CONNOR MARCHETTI, et al., )
)
Defendants. )
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Plaintiff Johnny Taylor sues Aurora Police Officer Connor Marchetti and his
employer, the City of Auora, as well as three employees in the Parole Division of the
Illinois Department of Corrections (“IDOC”): Matthew Blair, James Herbert, and
Michael Morris. Blair, Herbert, and Morris, referred herein as the “State
Defendants,” now move to dismiss all claims against them, [88]. For the reasons
explained below, the Court grants the motion in part.
I. Factual Background1
On July 10, 2023, Aurora Police Officer Connor Marchetti arrested Plaintiff
Johnny Taylor, a parolee, for felony failure to register as a sex offender. [71] ¶¶ 9,
13, 27. According to Marchetti’s incident report, Taylor failed to register as a sex
offender with the Chicago Police Department (CPD), as he was required to do on a
90-day basis; as it turned out, however, Taylor had not failed to register. Id. ¶¶ 12,
1 The Court takes these facts from Plaintiff’s amended complaint, [71], and accepts them as true for
purposes of resolving the motion to dismiss. See Killingsworth v. HSBC Bank Nevada, 507 F.3d 614,
618 (7th Cir. 2007).
21. First, Taylor was only required to register with CPD annually. Id. ¶ 22. Second,
Taylor had registered with CPD on April 14, 2023 (that is, 87 days prior to his arrest).
Id. ¶ 22; [112-9] at 3. Thus, even if Taylor was a 90-day registrant, he would still
have been compliant with his registration obligations.
Because Taylor was arrested on parole, Officer Marchetti reported the arrest
to Matthew Blair, an IDOC parole agent, and to James Herbert, an IDOC parole
supervisor. [71] ¶ 33. Afterwards, without consulting Taylor’s assigned parole agent
or IDOC’s Automated Management Service (AMS) records, Herbert and Blair
charged Taylor with a parole violation. Id. ¶¶ 33, 35. In doing so, they relied solely
upon Marchetti’s incident report. Id. ¶¶ 33, 37. This report listed both the date Taylor
had last registered (4/14/23) and the date of his arrest (7/10/23), a span of 87 days.
Id. ¶ 37; [112-9] at 3. The parole violation signed by Herbert and Blair also listed the
same dates of last registration and the date of arrest, demonstrating on its face that
90 days had not in fact passed since Taylor’s last registration. [88-3] at 2. Yet,
because of this parole violation charge, Taylor was sent to the Stateville Northern
Reception and Classification Center (NRC) in IDOC custody. [71] ¶ 38. He remained
there in “squalid conditions” while awaiting a parole hearing. Id. ¶ 40.
At his parole hearing on August 7, 2024, the Prisoner Review Board (PRB)
found there was no probable cause for Taylor’s initial arrest or for the first parole
violation. Id. ¶ 42. In particular, the PRB noted that the dates in the incident report
alone showed that Taylor had complied with his registration requirements. Id. ¶ 42.
Thus, the PRB dismissed the charge and ordered Taylor’s release. Id. ¶ 43.
Rather than releasing Taylor on the scheduled date, however, Michael Morris,
another IDOC Parole Division supervisor, charged Taylor with another parole
violation: failure to obtain a valid host site for release on parole (commonly called a
“gate violation”). Id. ¶¶ 45, 46. Morris did not contact Taylor’s assigned parole agent,
consult AMS records, or otherwise verify Taylor’s housing status prior to charging
Taylor with the violation. Id. ¶¶ 47, 48. In filing the gate violation, Morris affirmed
that no suitable host site existed for Taylor, despite attempts to place him with
family, friends, or any other places for which IDOC would pay. Id. ¶ 52; [112-16] at
1. Morris’s affirmation was false, as Morris in fact had not attempted to place Taylor
in the community prior to filing the gate violation. [71] ¶ 52.
Taylor alleges that Morris filed the gate violation in retaliation for a separate
pro se lawsuit Taylor filed against defendants including Morris based upon incidents
in 2022. Id. ¶ 49. Taylor further claims that a grievance counselor informed him that
Morris “hated sexual offenders” and had a reputation for doing anything he could to
make sure they remained confined. Id. ¶ 50.
The second parole violation charge prevented Taylor from leaving Stateville
NRC, even after the PRB ordered his release. Id. ¶ 51. Following a second hearing,
the PRB again ordered Taylor released after finding that Taylor had a valid host site
for release and did not violate his parole. Id. ¶ 54. IDOC released Taylor five weeks
after his arrest for failing to register. Id. ¶ 55; [112-1] ¶ 23. Taylor alleges that, in
total, the arrest and parole violation charges kept him on parole an extra 16 months.
[71] ¶ 58.
Plaintiff filed this suit on July 10, 2024, [1], then filed an amended complaint
[71] on July 29, 2025, alleging several violations of federal constitutional rights by
the State Defendants under § 1983, [71] ¶ 1, in addition to state law malicious
prosecution and indemnification claims, id. ¶¶ 108, 124, 128. In particular, he sues
Defendants Blair and Herbert for false arrest (Count IV) and illegal seizure, illegal
detention, and malicious prosecution in violation of the United States Constitution
(Count V) and Illinois law (Count VI), all premised upon the first unfounded parole
violation (for failing to register); and he sues Defendant Morris for false arrest (Count
VII) and illegal seizure, illegal detention, and malicious prosecution in violation of
the United States Constitution (Count VIII) and Illinois law (Count IX), all premised
upon the second unfounded parole violation (the gate violation). The State
Defendants now move to dismiss all claims against them for failure to state a claim
under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). See [88].
II. Applicable Legal Standards
To survive a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), a complaint must provide
a “short and plain statement of the claim” showing that the pleader merits relief, Fed.
R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2), so the defendant has “fair notice” of the claim “and the grounds
upon which it rests,” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007) (quoting
Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47 (1957)). A complaint must also contain “sufficient
factual matter” to state a facially plausible claim to relief—one that “allows the court
to draw the reasonable inference” that the defendant committed the alleged
misconduct. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S.
at 570). This plausibility standard “asks for more than a sheer possibility” that a
defendant acted unlawfully. Id. In evaluating a complaint under Rule 12(b)(6), this
Court accepts all well-pled allegations as true and draws all reasonable inferences in
the plaintiff's favor. Id. This Court does not, however, accept a complaint’s legal
conclusions as true. Brooks v. Ross, 578 F.3d 574, 581 (7th Cir. 2009).
To state a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a plaintiff must “allege that a
government official, acting under color of state law, deprived them of a right secured
by the Constitution or the laws of the United States.” Estate of Sims ex rel Sims v.
County of Bureau, 506 F.3d 509, 514 (7th Cir. 2007). To determine liability under
§ 1983, it is “necessary to isolate the precise constitutional violation” with which the
defendant is charged; as a result, the “first inquiry in any § 1983 suit . . . is whether
the plaintiff has been deprived of a right secured by the Constitution and laws.”
Welton v. Anderson, 770 F.3d 670, 673 (7th Cir. 2014) (internal quotations omitted).
III. Analysis
Before turning to the individual claims, the Court observes that Plaintiff’s
operative complaint includes an opening paragraph alleging that “defendants
deprived plaintiff of his rights under the Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth
Amendments to the United States Constitution,” [71] ¶ 1, but he does not tie any
specific claim to any specific Amendment. The Court, therefore, has had to infer his
intent from the language of the allegations, as noted below.
A. Plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment Claims
In Counts IV and VII, and Counts V and VII, Taylor appears to allege that
Defendants violated his Fourth Amendment rights when they arrested and seized
him without probable cause in connection with the first and second parole violations.
1. First Parole Violation (Herbert & Blair)
As to the first parole violation, Taylor alleges that Herbert and Blair violated
his Fourth Amendment rights when they violated him for failing to register as a sex
offender, as detailed in Marchetti’s arrest report. The Fourth Amendment
guarantees the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and
effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” unless there is a showing of
probable cause. U.S. CONST. amend. IV. Because parolees have a much more limited
liberty interest than ordinary citizens, however, “seizure of a parolee requires
something less than probable cause to be reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.”
Knox v. Smith, 342 F.3d 651, 657 (7th Cir. 2003). Instead, searches and seizures of
parolees remain constitutional if based upon reasonable suspicion. Id. Reasonable
suspicion is “something less than probable cause but more than a hunch, which exists
when there is some objective manifestation that a person is, or is about to be, engaged
in prohibited activity.” Id. at 659 (citing United States v. Lenoir, 318 F.3d 725, 729
(7th Cir. 2003)) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Here, Taylor has pled sufficient facts to state a plausible claim that Defendants
Herbert and Blair lacked such reasonable suspicion, and thus violated his Fourth
Amendment rights, when they issued the first parole violation. Defendants argue
that the “actual basis” for the violation “was that Plaintiff allegedly violated a
criminal statute, as evidenced by his arrest.” [88] at 7. While an arrest can be “a
viable, independent basis for filing a parole violation,” Colbert v. Willingham, No. 13-
cv-2397, 2015 WL 3397035, at *10 (N.D. Ill. May 26, 2015), aff’d sub nom. Colbert v.
City of Chicago, 851 F.3d 649 (7th Cir. 2017), law enforcement officers may not turn
a blind eye to the facts in this record. Herbert and Blair could not have an “objective
manifestation” that Taylor had violated or was about to violate his parole, as would
be required to constitutionally seize him, see Knox, 342 F.3d at 657, because
Marchetti’s incident report demonstrated, on its face, that Taylor last registered with
CPD just 87 days prior, and thus, in fact did not commit the crime for which he was
arrested.
The parole violation document itself, which shows an arrest date of July 10,
2023, and a registration date of April 14, 2023, further undermines any claimed
reasonable suspicion. [88-3] at 2. Based upon the allegations of the complaint,
Herbert and Blair signed and filed a parole violation charge based upon Taylor’s
arrest for an offense they knew he did not commit. The Court thus denies the State
Defendants’ motion to dismiss Plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment claims against Herbert
and Blair.
2. Second Parole Violation (Morris)
As to the second parole violation, Taylor alleges that Morris violated his Fourth
Amendment rights when he violated him for failing to obtain a valid host site. As
above, the central question is whether Morris had reasonable suspicion that Taylor
had violated the terms of his parole. And, as above, the Court finds that Taylor has
stated a plausible Fourth Amendment claim as to Morris as well.
As an initial matter, “a warrant request violates the Fourth Amendment if the
requesting officer knowingly, intentionally, or with reckless disregard for the truth,
makes false statements in requesting the warrant and the false statements were
necessary to the determination that a warrant should issue.” Knox, 342 F.3d at 658
(citing Beauchamp v. City of Noblesville, Ind., 320 F.3d 733, 742–43 (7th Cir. 2003)).
Taylor alleges that Morris falsely affirmed that he could find no suitable host sites
despite attempts to place Taylor with family, friends, or anywhere that IDOC would
pay for; in fact, he alleges that Morris did not even contact his parole agent to verify
his housing status or check Taylor’s readily available parole file, which showed that
Taylor was living on his own, in an approved rental unit at the time of his arrest. [71]
¶¶ 46–47. Given the allegations of deliberately false statements by Morris, and the
fact that Morris issued the second violation despite having access to Marchetti’s
report and Taylor’s AMS file (which demonstrated Taylor’s approved host site),
Taylor has plausibly alleged that Morris lacked reasonable suspicion to issue the
second parole violation and thus violated his Fourth Amendment rights. The Court
denies the State Defendants’ motion to dismiss the Fourth Amendment claim(s)
against Morris.
B. Claims Invoking the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments
In addition to the Fourth Amendment, Plaintiff invokes the Fifth, Eighth, and
Fourteenth Amendments. But, as discussed below, his allegations do not plausibly
allege a violation of any of these Amendments.
The Fifth Amendment provides that “no person shall . . . be deprived of life,
liberty, or property, without due process of law.” U.S. CONST. amend. V. Here, the
“Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause is a misfit for a § 1983 action because it has
not been incorporated against the States.” Economan v. Luttrull, No. 24-3165, 2026
WL 82958, at *6 (7th Cir. Jan. 12, 2026); see also Dusenbery v. United States, 534 U.S.
161, 167 (2002) (distinguishing between the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and
Fourteenth Amendments) (internal quotation marks omitted). Because Herbert,
Blair, and Morris were IDOC employees at all times relevant to this litigation, [71] ¶
6, they are not subject to Fifth Amendment claims under § 1983, and the Court
dismisses any Fifth Amendment claims against the State Defendants.
Taylor’s allegation of an Eighth Amendment violation also falls short. The
Eighth Amendment provides that “excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive
fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” U.S. CONST. amend.
VIII. Like the Fifth Amendment, however, the Eighth Amendment is inapplicable to
Taylor’s injury. Taylor does not allege that he was held in custody because he was
convicted of felony failure to register as a sex offender, but rather that he was
wrongfully held as a pretrial detainee in “squalid conditions . . . for a protracted
period.” [71] ¶ 40. This defeats an Eighth Amendment claim because “the State does
not acquire the power to punish with which the Eighth Amendment is concerned until
after it has secured a formal adjudication of guilt . . . without such an adjudication,
the pertinent constitutional guarantee is the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment.” Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651, 671 n.40 (1977). Thus, even if
Taylor had plausibly alleged his pretrial detention constituted “cruel and unusual
punishment” (and he has not), the proper recourse for a § 1983 action would be
through the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. See id. Therefore, the
Court dismisses any Eighth Amendment claims against Herbert, Blair, and Morris.
Although Plaintiff’s allegations remain unclear as to any alleged Fourteenth
Amendment violation, it appears he is seeking to assert a claim based upon his
conditions of confinement. See [113] ¶ 22. The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees
that state governments may not “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property,
without due process of law.” U.S. CONST. amend. XIV, § 1. When pursuing a
conditions-of-confinement claim as a pretrial detainee, a plaintiff may “prevail by
showing that the actions are not rationally related to a legitimate nonpunitive
governmental purpose or that the actions appear excessive in relation to that
purpose.” Kinglsey v. Hendrickson, 576 U.S. 389, 398 (2015) (citing Bell v. Wolfish,
441 U.S. 520, 561 (1979)) (internal quotation marks omitted). Here, Plaintiff alleges
only that he was subject to “squalid conditions” at Stateville NRC, [71] ¶ 40, and this
allegation remains insufficient to state a plausible claim that Taylor’s rights as a
pretrial detainee were violated. Although unfortunate, that Taylor was subject to a
dirty living space, by itself, will not clear the threshold of plausibility. See McCoy v.
Atherton, 818 F. App’x 538, 541–42 (7th Cir. 2020) (affirming 12(b)(6) dismissal of
pretrial detainee’s Fourteenth Amendment conditions-of-confinement claim where he
alleged “he lived in a dirty cell”). The Court grants Defendants’ motion to dismiss as
to any Fourteenth Amendment claims.2
C. Qualified Immunity
Defendants also argue that they remain entitled to qualified immunity, and
that Plaintiff’s complaint fails on this basis as well. Having determined that Plaintiff
may proceed only on his Fourth Amendment claims, the Court considers only whether
Defendants Herbert, Blair, and Morris are entitled to immunity on Plaintiff’s Fourth
Amendment claims.
The defense of “qualified immunity protects government officials ‘from liability
for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established
statutory or constitutional rights.’” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009)
(quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982)). To assess whether qualified
immunity applies, “courts employ a two-prong test: (1) whether the facts, viewed in a
light most favorable to the injured party, demonstrate that the conduct of the officers
violated a constitutional right, and (2) whether that right was clearly established at
the time the conduct occurred.” Jackson v. Anastasio, 150 F.4th 851, 856 (7th Cir.
2025) (quoting Hardaway v. Meyerhoff, 734 F.3d 740, 743 (7th Cir. 2013)) (internal
quotation marks omitted). Courts may “exercise their sound discretion in deciding
2 To the extent this ruling creates tension with the Court’s order on the Aurora Defendants’ motion to
dismiss, [130], that tension is a function of the way Plaintiff pled his claims in the Amended Complaint.
which of the two prongs of the qualified immunity analysis should be addressed first.”
Pearson, 555 U.S. at 236.
Because Taylor has plausibly alleged that Defendants violated his Fourth
Amendment rights, the only remaining question is whether those rights were clearly
established at the time the conduct occurred. Rights are “clearly established when
existing precedent has ‘placed the statutory or constitutional question beyond
debate.’” Howell v. Smith, 853 F.3d 892, 897 (7th Cir. 2017) (quoting Reichle v.
Howards, 566 U.S. 658, 664 (2012)). This requires the plaintiff to “show either a
reasonably analogous case that has both articulated the right at issue and applied it
to a factual circumstance similar to the one at hand or that the violation was so
obvious that a reasonable person necessarily would have recognized it as a violation
of the law.” Chan v. Wodnicki, 123 F.3d, 1005, 1008 (7th Cir. 1997). At a minimum,
“there must be settled authority that would cause [the defendant] to understand the
illegality of the action.” Howell, 853 F.3d at 897.
Here, the Fourth Amendment rights allegedly violated by Herbert and Blair
were clearly established at the time of their conduct. Taylor alleges that Herbert and
Blair issued the first parole violation based solely on Marchetti’s report, which
demonstrated on its face that Taylor complied with his registration requirements.
On this point, the Supreme Court has held that “where the warrant application is so
lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its existence
unreasonable . . . the shield of immunity will be lost.” Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335,
344–45 (1986) (internal citations omitted). Because the report demonstrates that
Herbert and Blair not only lacked reason to suspect Taylor had violated the statute
at issue, but that they had reason to know that he had not done so, their signing of
the parole violation documents violated clearly established law.
So too the Fourth Amendment rights allegedly violated by Morris. Long-
standing precedent in the Seventh Circuit holds that “a warrant request violates the
Fourth Amendment if the requesting officer knowingly, intentionally, or with
reckless regard for the truth, makes false statements in requesting the warrant and
the false statements were necessary to the determination that a warrant should
issue.” Knox, 342 F.3d at 658. Taylor alleges that Morris knowingly made false
statements necessary to support the gate violation; as such, he has plausibly alleged
that Morris’s conduct violated clearly established law, and the Court declines to
dismiss based upon qualified immunity.
D. Plaintiff’s State Law Malicious Prosecution Claims
In Counts VI and IX, Taylor alleges malicious prosecution claims under state
law against the State Defendants. Defendants seek to dismiss these claims, arguing
only that, if the Court dismisses Plaintiff’s federal claims, it should decline to exercise
supplemental jurisdiction over these claims. See [88] at 11. Because Plaintiff’s
Fourth Amendment Claims proceed, the Court declines to dismiss on the basis urged.
Defendants also argue that Taylor failed to address these claims in response
to their motion to dismiss, signaling that he has abandoned them, see [120] at 10. But
Defendants’ motion did not advance a substantive argument for dismissing the state
law claims. Because they merely asserted that the dismissal of the federal claims
counseled the dismissal of the state law claims, Taylor’s arguments in support of the
federal claims necessarily defended the state law claims. He thus “proffered some
legal basis to support his cause of action,” Bonte v. U.S. Bank, N.A., 624 F.3d 461, 466
(7th Cir. 2010), and the Court denies Defendants’ motion as to the state law claims.
IV. Conclusion
For the reasons explained above, the Court grants in part and denies in part
Defendants’ motion to dismiss [88]. Because Plaintiff's amended complaint fails to
state viable claims for violation of the Fifth, Eighth, or Fourteenth Amendments, the
Court grants the State Defendant’s motion to dismiss any such claims. Plaintiffs
Fourth Amendment claims may proceed, however, and the Court denies the motion
as to these claims, as well as Plaintiff's state law malicious prosecution claims.
Dated: September 15, 2026 Entered:
John Robert Blakey
United States District Judge
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