Aleman v. Village of Hanover Park

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

No. 10-3523

R ICK A LEMAN,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

V ILLAGE OF H ANOVER P ARK , et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 07 C 5049—Elaine E. Bucklo, Judge.

A RGUED S EPTEMBER 26, 2011—D ECIDED N OVEMBER 21, 2011

Before C UDAHY, P OSNER, and W OOD , Circuit Judges.

P OSNER, Circuit Judge. The plaintiff in this suit under

42 U.S.C. § 1983 appeals from the grant of summary

judgment in favor of the defendants—two Illinois state

police officers (Gerard Fallon and Joseph Micci), three

police officers of the Village of Hanover Park, Illinois

(Todd Carlson, Carol Lussky, and Eric Villanueva), and the

Village itself. The suit, which seeks damages, charges

the individual defendants with having twice falsely

2 No. 10-3523

arrested the plaintiff, Rick Aleman, in violation of the

Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable

seizures, and having questioned him in violation of the

Miranda rule, eliciting spurious evidence that led to his

second arrest and an indictment for murder. There are

also supplemental claims under Illinois law, but only

one—malicious prosecution—remains in the case; the

district judge dismissed the others as barred by the ap-

plicable statute of limitations, and Aleman doesn’t chal-

lenge those dismissals.

We also won’t have to discuss the Village’s liability. The

Village was not implicated in the alleged misbehavior of

its officers and cannot in a section 1983 suit be held

liable just by virtue of having been the officers’ employer.

Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 691

(1978). So without further ado we affirm the district

court’s grant of summary judgment in its favor.

We shall state the facts as favorably to the plaintiff as

the record permits, as we are required to do when

deciding an appeal from a grant of summary judgment

in favor of the defendants. We don’t vouch for the truth

of the facts that the plaintiff alleges, though there

doesn’t seem to be much doubt that his main factual

allegations are true.

Aleman provided day care in his home. His day-care

service was only five months old when the events out of

which this case arises took place. But there is no conten-

tion that he lacked the requisite competence. He had

five children of his own, ranging in age from 3 to 15; and

several of the younger ones were in his day care along

No. 10-3523 3

with three other children, one of whom was an 11-month-

old named Joshua Schrik. We’ll see that Aleman knew

how to perform CPR on infants.

On the morning of September 9, 2005, Joshua’s mother,

Danielle Schrik, dropped off Joshua at Aleman’s home

for his third day of day care. During the first two days

Joshua had been lethargic and feverish. On September 9

he was much worse. Shortly after arriving he began

gasping for air, then collapsed; the alarmed Aleman

picked him up and, because the infant was showing no

signs of life, shook him gently in an effort to elicit a

response. There was none. After performing CPR with no

effect except to bring fluids out of Joshua’s nose and

mouth, Aleman called 911. An ambulance arrived and

took the child to a hospital.

Police officers arrived at Aleman’s home about when

the ambulance did and questioned him. One of them,

Officer Lussky (a defendant), asked him and his wife

to come down to the police station. They did so.

Aleman was placed in an interrogation room. Forty-five

minutes later, no interrogation having taken place, he

asked Lussky whether he could leave and come back in

an hour. She said no; he was under arrest—and the

arrest activated his Miranda rights. Oregon v. Mathiason,

429 U.S. 492, 494-95 (1977) (per curiam).

More than five hours later, Officers Micci and Villanueva

(two other defendants) entered the interrogation room

in which Aleman was being detained and Micci

told him he’d talked to several people about what had

happened to Joshua and that Aleman had “the most

4 No. 10-3523

information.” Aleman said he wanted to call his lawyer.

Micci responded by beginning to fill out a waiver of

Miranda rights for Aleman to sign, and minutes later

said to him “before I talk to you I would like this [the

waiver] signed” but that Aleman could call his lawyer

first. Aleman called and during the phone conversation

Villanueva picked up the phone and spoke to the

lawyer, who told him that Aleman was invoking his right

to remain silent. That did not count as an invocation

of Aleman’s Miranda rights, however; the Supreme

Court has held that they can be invoked only by the

person being questioned. Moran v. Burbine, 475 U.S. 412,

433 n. 4 (1986).

After the phone call ended, Micci asked Aleman, “How

we doing?” and Aleman replied, “Not good. I called him

and he told me not to do this right now.” Aleman added

that he was tired and wanted to go home, but Micci

responded: “If I don’t get to talk to you, you’re not going

home.” He also told him that if he talked to the two

officers he could “help [him]self out” and “clear this up.”

Aleman asked whether he could speak to his lawyer

again and the officers said he could. In this call Aleman

told the lawyer “I wish you were here” and “I need your

help . . . . I can’t help myself in here.” Aleman was permit-

ted to make additional calls, and reached his mother and

a friend after failing to reach his wife, but eventually

the officers said: “Hang up the phone, Rick, and have a

seat. And I ask that you don’t use the phone until we

decide what we’re gonna do.” Aleman responded:

“I talked to my lawyer, you know, and I tried to talk him

No. 10-3523 5

into doing it, and he told me to go ahead . . . . I really

don’t have a problem doing it.” (If that’s indeed what

the lawyer said—his end of the conversation was not

recorded—he violated Justice Jackson’s dictum that “any

lawyer worth his salt will tell the suspect in no

uncertain terms to make no statement to police under

any circumstances.” Watts v. Indiana, 338 U.S. 49, 59 (1949)

(separate opinion).) Micci followed up by again asking

Aleman to sign the waiver. He did so and the

officers then questioned him for four hours.

During the interrogation Micci repeatedly told Aleman

that he’d talked to three doctors and all had told him

that Joshua had been shaken in such a way that he

would have become unresponsive (unconscious) immedi-

ately, meaning that Aleman’s shaking must have caused

Joshua’s injury, since Joshua was sluggish but conscious

when he arrived at Aleman’s home that morning. This

account of what the doctors had said was a lie, but it

elicited from Aleman the statement that “I know in my

heart that if the only way to cause [the injuries] is to

shake that baby, then, when I shook that baby, I hurt

that baby . . . . I admit it. I did shake the baby too hard.”

Yet intermittently throughout the protracted interroga-

tion he continued to deny, and express disbelief, that

he could have caused the injury.

Partly on the basis of his supposed “confession,” Aleman

was charged with aggravated battery of a child. Officer

Carlson (another defendant, of whom more shortly)

prepared the charge, Villanueva signed the criminal

complaint, and at the subsequent bond hearing the prose-

6 No. 10-3523

cutors, repeating what the officers had told them, told

the judge that Aleman had confessed to violently

shaking Joshua and causing his injuries.

Joshua died on September 13. The charge against

Aleman was upped to first-degree murder and he was

rearrested on September 15 and later indicted. He made

bail, as he had done after his original arrest. Oddly, we’ve

been unable to determine with certainty how long he

spent in jail. At his deposition he said a month; at

oral argument his lawyer said eight or nine days. But

the length of time that Aleman was in jail, while

relevant to the amount of damages that he might be able

to obtain if he wins this case, is irrelevant to this appeal.

The case against him quickly disintegrated. A pros-

ecutor viewing the videotape of the interrogation by

Micci and Villanueva decided that it was “more exculpa-

tory than inculpatory,” and that it also raised issues

under Miranda. The doctors who had examined Joshua,

and diagnosed him with subdural hematoma (bleeding

in the brain, usually the result of a head injury), eventually

decided that the infant’s sluggish and feverish condi-

tion for several days before September 9 could have been

caused by a violent shaking or by a blow to the head,

and that Joshua’s collapse on September 9 could have

been the delayed effect of this earlier trauma rather than

of anything Aleman had done—in fact Aleman’s mild

shaking of Joshua was the proper initiation of CPR. U.S.

National Library of Medicine, Medline Plus, “CPR - infant,”

www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000011.htm

(visited November 16, 2011), summarizing M.F. Hazinski,

R. Samson & S. Schexnayder, “2010 Handbook of Emer-

No. 10-3523 7

gency Cardiovascular Care for Healthcare Providers”

(American Heart Association 2010).

This explanation was accepted by an experienced

investigator employed by the Illinois Department of

Children and Family Services, Michael Booker, who

had discovered that Joshua’s mother was a violent

person with a criminal record. She was known to have

beaten and violently shaken Joshua and had been heard

to make threats to kill him. Although the medical profes-

sion once thought that there is no interim between

trauma and collapse in shaken-baby syndrome, the med-

ical profession now believes (and apparently believed in

2005—Booker certainly believed this) that there can be

an interim in which the child would be conscious, but

probably lethargic or fussy or feverish or have difficulty

sleeping or eating. See Emily Bazelon, “Shaken-Baby

Syndrome Faces New Questions in Court,” New York

Times Magazine, Feb. 6, 2011, p. MM30; State v. Edmunds,

746 N.W.2d 590, 596 (Wis. App. 2008); Kristy B. Arbogast,

Susan S. Margulies & Cindy W. Christian, “Initial Neuro-

logic Presentation in Young Children Sustaining Inflicted

and Unintentional Fatal Head Injuries,” 116 Pediatrics

180 (2005). Thus one of the doctors who treated Joshua

after his collapse explained that when he told the police

that Joshua would not have been alert and functioning

after the injury, he meant that Joshua would not have

been behaving like a normal 11-month-old, not that

he would have been unconscious.

Aleman was never tried. On November 13, 2006—more

than a year after his arrests and Joshua’s death—the

8 No. 10-3523

charges against him were dismissed. Danielle Schrik,

the mother, was never charged.

Carlson, who played the central role in screwing up

the investigation (quite possibly deliberately, as we’re

about to see), had been dispatched to the hospital im-

mediately after Joshua was taken there on September 9,

to interview Joshua’s family and the doctors who

were caring for him. He asked Danielle whether she

had ever struck Joshua and she said no, although she

acknowledged that he’d had a fever in the days leading

up to his collapse. This should have been a warning that

his collapse on September 9 might have been caused

by a blow or a shaking several days earlier that had first

manifested itself in his fever and lethargy, as Booker

recognized when he learned of the fever. Nevertheless

Carlson decided he would investigate Danielle Schrik

no further. From his subsequent conduct in attempting

to protect her from questioning by Booker and

in holding her hand and sobbing with her at Joshua’s

funeral, a reasonable jury might infer that he was

sexually attracted to her and for that reason wanted to

keep the investigation focused on Aleman.

When Booker, the expert on child abuse, learned of

Carlson’s decision to terminate the investigation of

Danielle, he was disturbed and on September 13, the day

of Joshua’s death, interviewed Danielle in Carlson’s

presence. She acknowledged some of her criminal back-

ground, which included crimes of violence, but not all of

it. According to statements by her mother and her boy-

friend, Danielle had broken her mother’s jaw and threat-

ened to kill her and Joshua; she had had physical fights

No. 10-3523 9

with Joshua’s father and been arrested and charged

with battery during one of those fights; and her mother

had seen her shake Joshua frequently and the

mother’s boyfriend had had to protect the child from

Danielle.

Carlson told Danielle not to speak to Booker or any

other investigator, and when Booker repeatedly tried to

call her after the initial interview there was never a re-

sponse.

At Joshua’s autopsy on September 14, which both

Booker and Carlson attended, the pathologist opined,

according to Booker’s notes, that it was “highly unlikely”

that Joshua’s injuries had been caused by Aleman, since

the symptoms Joshua had displayed in the days before

his collapse were consistent with his already having a

subdural hematoma. But later that day Carlson returned

to the pathologist’s office alone and told her that Joshua

had been “behaving normally” when he arrived at

Aleman’s house on the ninth and indeed was “up and

running around.” These lies caused her to change her

opinion and she told the prosecutor that the injury to

Joshua’s head had occurred while he was in Aleman’s

care. On the basis of this misinformation the prosecutor

approved charging Aleman with murder, and Carlson

signed the criminal complaint and arrested him. After

eventually learning the truth, the pathologist reinstated

her original opinion of the cause of Joshua’s hematoma

and subsequent death.

The district judge was correct to rule that the arrest

of Aleman on the morning of September 9 when he

10 No. 10-3523

was told he couldn’t leave the police station was sup-

ported by probable cause. It was natural for the police

to suspect him, as he was the last person to have had

custody of Joshua and admitted having shaken him. By

the time he was arrested the hospital had informed

the police that they’d diagnosed Joshua’s hematoma

and believed him to be a victim of shaken-baby syn-

drome. Police interviewed the doctors, who told

them, misleadingly (as they all later admitted), that the

injury had been freshly caused—the doctor who used

the term “fresh” later explained that “fresh” meant

“within about a week,” but the police quite naturally

interpreted it to mean “today.” And immediately after

Joshua was taken away in the ambulance, Aleman had

been heard to say “at least twice that he did not want to

go to jail for the rest of his life and did not want to be

unable to see his children.” The fact that Carlson’s in-

terview of Joshua’s mother had been perfunctory and

that he may already have been trying to protect her for

reasons of “lust” (as Aleman’s brief puts it) is irrelevant;

the test for probable cause abstracts from the state of

mind of the arresting officer. Whren v. United States, 517

U.S. 806, 812-13 (1996).

The second arrest, the arrest for murder, is a different

matter. Had Carlson not lied to the pathologist and

obstructed Booker’s efforts to investigate Danielle, the

prosecutor would have had no basis for charging

Aleman with murder or any other crime, and so Aleman

would not have been rearrested. For without Carl-

son’s obstruction of justice the pathologist’s evaluation

would have tended to exonerate Aleman, and Booker’s

investigation of Danielle would have identified her as

No. 10-3523 11

far more likely to have been Joshua’s killer than Aleman.

And without improper tactics by the police at Aleman’s

interrogation (discussed next), there would have been

no “confession” to provide evidence of his guilt. In

sum, the police lacked probable cause to arrest Aleman

the second time, and so that arrest violated the Fourth

Amendment. Sroga v. Weiglen, 649 F.3d 604 (7th Cir. 2011).

So clear is the absence of probable cause that Carlson

cannot take shelter in the doctrine of qualified immunity,

which provides a defense if a reasonable officer could

have mistakenly believed that probable cause existed.

Wollin v. Gondert, 192 F.3d 616, 621 (7th Cir. 1999). A

reasonable officer knowing what Carlson knew would

not have thought that Aleman was probably Joshua’s

killer.

Whether the interrogation of Aleman violated Miranda

is a separate question. The district judge ruled that it

did not because the officers might reasonably have be-

lieved that Aleman had waived his Miranda rights.

If and when Aleman invoked his right to counsel, Micci

and Villanueva were required to stop questioning him.

“[W]hen an accused has invoked his right to have

counsel present during custodial interrogation, a valid

waiver of that right cannot be established by showing

only that he responded to further police-initiated custodial

interrogation even if he has been advised of his rights. We

further hold that an accused . . ., having expressed his

desire to deal with the police only through counsel, is not

subject to further interrogation by the authorities until

counsel has been made available to him, unless the

accused himself initiates further communication, ex-

12 No. 10-3523

changes, or conversations with the police.” Edwards v.

Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 484-85 (1981) (emphasis added;

footnote omitted); see also Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S.

436, 474 (1966); Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452, 458-

59 (1994).

Aleman indicated a desire for the assistance of counsel

twice, and only after responding to further police-

initiated custodial interrogation did he agree to be ques-

tioned. He said first “I gotta call my guy” (his lawyer)

and after speaking to him reported that the lawyer had

told him not to speak to the police—yet Micci continued

to urge him to sign a Miranda waiver. Aleman invoked

his right to counsel the second time when he asked to

call his lawyer again. He might have done so a third time,

but was prevented when Micci or Villanueva told him

to hang up and added, “I ask that you don’t use the

phone again until we decide what we’re gonna do.”

When a suspect invokes his right to counsel, the police

may not recommence questioning unless the suspect’s

lawyer is present or the suspect initiates the conversa-

tion himself. Minnick v. Mississippi, 498 U.S. 146, 151-52

(1990).

Instead of shutting up after Aleman sought his lawyer’s

aid, the officers, exploiting his distraught state, badgered

him to waive his Miranda rights, as in Minnick v. Missis-

sippi, supra, 498 U.S. at 148-52, Smith v. Illinois, 469 U.S. 91,

92-93, 98-99 (1984) (per curiam), and United States v. Lee,

413 F.3d 622, 624, 627 (7th Cir. 2005). In Minnick the

police left off questioning the suspect after he asked to

speak to his lawyer, and allowed him to consult with the

lawyer. But then a police officer came by and questioned

No. 10-3523 13

him outside the lawyer’s presence, and the Supreme

Court ruled that this was a violation of Miranda and

Edwards because it was not true that “the protection

[conferred by] Edwards terminates once counsel has

consulted with the suspect. In context, the requirement

that counsel be ‘made available’ to the accused refers to

more than an opportunity to consult with an attorney

outside the interrogation room.” 498 U.S. at 151-52.

The defendants argue that Aleman’s invocation of his

right to counsel was ambiguous and therefore ineffectual,

as in Davis v. United States, supra, 512 U.S. at 459. But

invocation just requires a “statement that can reasonably

be construed to be an expression of a desire for the assis-

tance of an attorney,” id., and we have held that there

was no ambiguity when a suspect said, “I think I should

call my lawyer.” United States v. Lee, supra, 413 F.3d at

626; see also Lord v. Duckworth, 29 F.3d 1216, 1219-21 (7th

Cir. 1994). It’s true that “am I going to be able to get an

attorney?” was held ambiguous and hence ineffectual

in United States v. Shabaz, 579 F.3d 815, 819 (7th Cir. 2009)

(emphasis in original), but this case is closer to Lee than

to Shabaz. Anyway the defendants’ argument comes too

late; they forfeited it by failing to make it in the

district court.

The Miranda rule is intended to backstop the right

conferred by the Fifth Amendment not to be compelled

to incriminate oneself, by excluding from the de-

fendant’s trial the confession that the violation enabled

the police to elicit when upon arresting they questioned

him. Aleman was never tried. But the statement he

made to the officers who questioned him was used against

14 No. 10-3523

him in a criminal proceeding—it was an indispensable

ground of his indictment for murder, and thus made

the violation of Miranda actionable in a suit under sec-

tion 1983. Sornberger v. City of Knoxville, 434 F.3d 1006, 1026-

27 (7th Cir. 2006); see also Stoot v. City of Everett, 582

F.3d 910, 925 (9th Cir. 2009); Higazy v. Templeton, 505 F.3d

161, 173 (2d Cir. 2007).

There is more that was wrong with the interroga-

tion than a violation of Miranda. Miranda has been said

to distract judges from the propriety of the interrogation

that follows a waiver of Miranda rights. See William J.

Stuntz, The Collapse of American Criminal Justice 235 (2011).

This case is an illustration. Micci induced Aleman’s

“confession” by lying to him about the medical reports.

The lies convinced Aleman that he must have been the

cause of Joshua’s shaken-baby syndrome because, ac-

cording to Micci, the doctors had excluded any other

possibility. (They had not.) The key statement in

Aleman’s “confession” was that “if the only way to cause

[the injuries] is to shake that baby, then, when I shook

that baby, I hurt that baby.” The crucial word is “if.” By

lying about the medical reports, Micci changed “if”

to “because” and thereby forced on Aleman a

premise that led inexorably to the conclusion that

he must have been responsible for Joshua’s death; the

lie if believed foreclosed any other conclusion.

Courts have been reluctant to deem trickery by the

police a basis for excluding a confession on the ground

that the tricks made the confession coerced and thus

involuntary. See Frazier v. Cupp, 394 U.S. 731, 739 (1969);

No. 10-3523 15

Holland v. McGinnis, 963 F.2d 1044, 1050-52 (7th Cir. 1992);

United States v. Velasquez, 885 F.2d 1076, 1088-89 (3d Cir.

1989); State v. Kelekolio, 849 P.2d 58, 71-74 (Haw. 1993). In

United States v. Rutledge, 900 F.2d 1127, 1130-31 (7th

Cir. 1990), a police officer’s statement to a suspect could

be interpreted as promising “a net benefit from spilling

the beans,” and we said that “if this was the promise, it

is unlikely that the officer intended to keep it; and if he

did not, then the statement was fraudulent. But it was

the sort of minor fraud that the cases allow. Far from

making the police a fiduciary of the suspect, the law

permits the police to pressure and cajole, conceal material

facts, and actively mislead—all up to limits not exceeded

here” (emphasis in original). The confession must be

excluded only “if the government feeds the defendant

false information that seriously distorts his choice, [for

example] by promising him that if he confesses he will

be set free”—in other words, only if “the false state-

ment destroyed the information that he required for

a rational choice.” Id. at 1129-30.

In this case a false statement did destroy the

information required for a rational choice. Not being a

medical expert, Aleman could not contradict what was

represented to him as settled medical opinion. He had

shaken Joshua, albeit gently; but if medical opinion

excluded any other possible cause of the child’s death,

then, gentle as the shaking was, and innocently in-

tended, it must have been the cause of death. Aleman

had no rational basis, given his ignorance of medical

science, to deny that he had to have been the cause.

16 No. 10-3523

The question of coercion is separate from that of relia-

bility. A coerced confession is inadmissible (and this

apart from Miranda) even if amply and convincingly

corroborated. Rogers v. Richmond, 365 U.S. 534, 540-41

(1961); Johnson v. Trigg, 28 F.3d 639, 641 (7th Cir. 1994);

Parker v. Allen, 565 F.3d 1258, 1280 (11th Cir. 2009). But

a trick that is as likely to induce a false as a true

confession renders a confession inadmissible because of

its unreliability even if its voluntariness is conceded. See,

e.g., Johnson v. Trigg, supra, 28 F.3d at 641. If a question

has only two answers—A and B—and you tell the re-

spondent that the answer is not A, and he has no basis

for doubting you, then he is compelled by logic to “con-

fess” that the answer is B. That was the vise the police

placed Aleman in. They told him the only possible

cause of Joshua’s injuries was that he’d been shaken

right before he collapsed; not being an expert in shaken-

baby syndrome, Aleman could not deny the officers’

false representation of medical opinion. And since he

was the only person to have shaken Joshua immediately

before Joshua’s collapse, it was a logical necessity that

he had been responsible for the child’s death. Q.E.D. A

confession so induced is worthless as evidence, and as

a premise for an arrest. Crowe v. County of San Diego, 608

F.3d 406, 433 (9th Cir. 2010); Wilkins v. DeReyes, 528 F.3d

790, 800-01 (10th Cir. 2008).

We turn finally to the charge of malicious prosecution,

governed by Illinois law as expounded in such cases as

Swick v. Liautaud, 662 N.E.2d 1238, 1242 (Ill. 1996); Porter v.

City of Chicago, 912 N.E.2d 1262, 1265 (Ill. App. 2009),

No. 10-3523 17

and Gonzalez v. City of Elgin, 578 F.3d 526, 541-42 (7th

Cir. 2009).

Villanueva cannot be said to have lacked probable

cause in preparing the charge of aggravated battery

merely because he based the charge in part on the worth-

less “confession” that he and Micci (the latter the lead

interrogator) had extracted from Aleman. There was

sufficient other evidence at this early point in the inves-

tigation to charge aggravated battery. And Illinois

law requires to show malicious prosecution proof not

only of lack of probable cause but also of “malice,” which

means in this context that the officer who initi-

ated the prosecution had “any motive other than that of

bringing a guilty party to justice.” Carbaugh v. Peat, 189

N.E.2d 14, 19 (Ill. App. 1963); see also Rodgers v. Peoples

Gas, Light & Coke Co., 733 N.E.2d 835, 842 (Ill. App.

2000); Mack v. First Security Bank, 511 N.E.2d 714, 717

(Ill. App. 1987); Robinson v. Econ-O-Corporation, Inc., 379

N.E.2d 923, 925 (Ill. App. 1978). Rodgers and Mack permit

an inference of malice to be drawn from an absence

of probable cause. But the events that demolished

probable cause to charge Aleman—Booker’s questioning

of Danielle Schrik and the pathologist’s statement that

it was highly unlikely that Joshua’s hematoma had

been caused by something that happened on September 9

rather than earlier—took place after Villanueva sub-

mitted the charge of battery.

Only Carlson is charged with malicious prosecution

of the murder charge, for which probable cause had

evaporated. A reasonable jury could find that Carlson

18 No. 10-3523

by this point thought Joshua’s mother probably the mur-

derer and was trying to protect her by throwing the

mantle of guilt on Aleman, or at least that he wanted to

spare her the anxiety of being a suspect and, not inciden-

tally, get in her good graces by doing so, by terminating

the investigation of her and pinning the murder on

Aleman. (If you want to exonerate one suspect, it helps

to have another.) Such motives could not be thought

proper.

We cannot find any evidence of misconduct on the

part of Officer Fallon (another defendant), who partici-

pated in the arrest of Aleman for murder pursuant to

the warrant based on Carlson’s representations; nothing

in the warrant would have alerted Fallon to its invalid-

ity. Nor can we find evidence of misconduct by Lussky;

the first arrest—the only act Aleman challenges in which

she participated—was supported by probable cause.

In summary, we affirm the dismissal of all claims

against Lussky, Fallon, and the Village; the first false-

arrest claim; and the malicious prosecution claim

against Villanueva. But we reverse the dismissal of the

claim of unlawful interrogation against Micci and

Villanueva, of the second false-arrest claim against

Carlson, and of the claim against Carlson of malicious

prosecution for murder, and we remand the case for

further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

A FFIRMED IN P ART, R EVERSED IN P ART,

and R EMANDED.

11-21-11