Luis Roldan v. Jason Stroud

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

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No. 21-2722

LUIS ROLDAN,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

JASON STROUD, et al.,

Defendants-Appellants.

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Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 1:17-cv-03707 — John F. Kness, Judge.

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ARGUED OCTOBER 4, 2022 — DECIDED OCTOBER 25, 2022

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Before SCUDDER, ST. EVE, and JACKSON-AKIWUMI, Circuit

Judges.

SCUDDER, Circuit Judge. Rarely do we see qualified immun-

ity awarded at the pleading stage. The reason is because de-

terminations of qualified immunity most often depend on

facts a plaintiff is not required to plead at the outset of litiga-

tion to avoid dismissal. This case illustrates the point.

2 No. 21-2722

Luis Roldan sued several police officers who investigated

him for sexual assault. He alleged that the officers failed to

disclose an agreement to help the victim apply for an immi-

gration benefit—a U visa—in exchange for her testimony at

his criminal trial. The officers moved to dismiss the complaint

based on qualified immunity. The district court denied the

motion on grounds that the Supreme Court’s 1972 decision in

Giglio v. United States and related cases clearly established the

officers’ duty to disclose the agreement.

We agree that immunity is inappropriate at this early stage

but for a different reason. Qualified immunity hinges on a fact

that Roldan did not flesh out in his complaint: whether the

police officers informed the prosecution about the U-visa

agreement with the victim. If the police did, they cannot be

liable, for the ultimate disclosure obligation would have

rested with the prosecutors. We therefore affirm and remand

for discovery on whether any prosecutor knew about the

agreement.

I

A

In 2011 state prosecutors charged Luis Roldan with three

counts of criminal sexual assault. See 720 ILCS 5/11–1.20

(2011). The indictment alleged that Roldan, then 21, had sex

with an intoxicated 16-year-old noncitizen. In 2013, after a

bench trial at which the victim testified, a judge convicted Rol-

dan of two of the counts. The Illinois Appellate Court later

reversed the conviction, concluding that the state did not

prove that Roldan knew the victim was too intoxicated to con-

sent. See People v. Roldan, 42 N.E.3d 836, 843 (Ill. App. Ct.

2015).

No. 21-2722 3

Drawing upon information he learned after trial, Roldan

later invoked 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and sued several police officers

in the Cicero Police Department. He alleged that the officers,

“in concert with the prosecution,” promised to help the victim

obtain a U visa in exchange for her trial testimony but never

disclosed that fact to him during the criminal prosecution.

Roldan saw this agreement as impeachment evidence that

should have been turned over to him under Giglio v. United

States, 405 U.S. 150 (1972).

A U visa is a form of temporary status available to noncit-

izens who have been victims of certain crimes in the United

States. See 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(U) (enumerating U-visa eli-

gibility requirements). Law enforcement must certify that the

applicant has been (or is likely to become) helpful in investi-

gating or prosecuting the crime. See id. § 1184(p)(1). Roldan

alleged that the police agreed to do just that—certify the vic-

tim’s U-visa application on the condition that she testify

against him.

B

The police officers moved to dismiss the complaint under

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), arguing that they

were entitled to qualified immunity. Qualified immunity is a

defense protecting government officials from both liability

and suit. See Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 526 (1985). To

receive qualified immunity, officials must show either that

they did not violate a constitutional right or that the right was

not clearly established at the time of the alleged violation. See

District of Columbia v. Wesby, 138 S. Ct. 577, 589 (2018).

The district court denied the officers’ motion to dismiss. In

the court’s view, Giglio and related cases clearly established

4 No. 21-2722

the duty to disclose a promise of assistance with a testifying

witness’s U-visa application.

The defendants sought immediate review, invoking our

jurisdiction under the collateral-order doctrine. See Behrens v.

Pelletier, 516 U.S. 299, 306–07 (1996) (explaining that the denial

of qualified-immunity defense at pleading stage is immedi-

ately appealable).

II

In reviewing a district court’s denial of qualified immun-

ity on the pleadings, we take our own fresh look at the facts,

drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of Roldan as the

non-moving party. See Reed v. Palmer, 906 F.3d 540, 546 (7th

Cir. 2018).

A

Under Brady v. Maryland, the government violates a crim-

inal defendant’s due process rights when it fails to disclose

evidence favorable to the defendant and material to guilt or

punishment. 373 U.S. 83, 87 (1963). Giglio extended that rule

to impeachment evidence—to information calling into ques-

tion the credibility of a witness. See 405 U.S. at 153. The gov-

ernment runs afoul of Giglio when it suppresses evidence of a

material agreement that might have undermined the credibil-

ity of a witness. See id. at 153–54; United States v. Jumah, 599

F.3d 799, 808 (7th Cir. 2010). An agreement is material if its

disclosure was reasonably likely to change the outcome of the

proceedings. See Jumah, 599 F.3d at 808.

The question then becomes who on the law enforcement

side—police officers or prosecutors—bears the obligation to

disclose. Brady and Giglio are usually understood to impose a

duty on prosecutors to make any required disclosure to the

No. 21-2722 5

defense. See Carvajal v. Dominguez, 542 F.3d 561, 566 (7th Cir.

2008). But the disclosure obligation sometimes falls to police

officers if they are the only ones who know about the excul-

patory or impeachment evidence in question. See id. (citing

Youngblood v. West Virginia, 547 U.S. 867, 870 (2006)). Officers

typically satisfy this obligation when they disclose evidence

to the prosecutor. See Beaman v. Freesmeyer, 776 F.3d 500, 512

(7th Cir. 2015); but see Whitlock v. Brueggemann, 682 F.3d 567,

576 (7th Cir. 2012) (recognizing an exception when police and

prosecutors conspire to fabricate evidence).

B

We agree with the district court that an award of qualified

immunity is inappropriate on the pleadings here, though we

take a different path to reach that conclusion.

Our cases make clear that the motion-to-dismiss stage is

rarely “the most suitable procedural setting to determine

whether an official is qualifiedly immune.” Hanson v. LeVan,

967 F.3d 584, 589 (7th Cir. 2020). The reason is simple: at the

outset of litigation, we often cannot tell from a complaint

whether qualified immunity applies. See Reed, 906 F.3d at

548–49.

To survive a motion to dismiss, plaintiffs need only in-

clude “a short and plain statement” of a claim that is plausible

on its face and entitles them to relief. Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2);

see also Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007). Put

another way, plaintiffs do not have to recite every detail re-

lated to their allegations. They just have to include enough

facts to present “a story that holds together.” Reed, 906 F.3d at

548 (quoting Catinella v. County of Cook, 881 F.3d 514, 516 (7th

Cir. 2018)).

6 No. 21-2722

Qualified immunity, by contrast, is a defense that “often

depend[s] on the particular facts of a given case.” Jacobs v. City

of Chicago, 215 F.3d 758, 765 n.3 (7th Cir. 2000). When a de-

fendant invokes qualified immunity, we do not raise the

pleading standard and require plaintiffs to “anticipate and

overcome” that defense. Id. The facts essential to this defense

typically emerge during discovery, and so we most com-

monly see qualified immunity invoked in a motion for sum-

mary judgment.

The case before us illustrates the difficulty of trying to see

the details relevant to qualified immunity through the lens of

a motion to dismiss. Taking Roldan’s allegations as true and

drawing reasonable inferences in his favor, we (like the dis-

trict court) have little difficulty concluding that the state sup-

pressed a material agreement that might have undermined

the victim’s credibility. See Jumah, 599 F.3d at 808.

But remember who Roldan sued—the police officers.

Those officers ordinarily have a duty to disclose the agree-

ment only to the prosecutors. See Beaman, 776 F.3d at 512. This

matters because Roldan alleged that the officers and the pros-

ecution acted “in concert” with each other to suppress the

agreement and that the prosecution “knew or should have

known” that the agreement was Giglio material. To our eye,

both statements appear to suggest that the prosecution knew

about the police’s promise to certify the victim’s U-visa appli-

cation as long as she testified against Roldan.

But those allegations are also amenable to a different in-

terpretation. Perhaps Roldan mentioned the prosecution

simply because of the route disclosure more commonly

would have taken: police would have informed the prosecu-

tion, who, in turn, would have then disclosed the agreement

No. 21-2722 7

to Roldan. See Carvajal, 542 F.3d at 566. At the dismissal stage,

however, we cannot draw an inference against Roldan or

somehow hold him to a pleading standard beyond Rule 8 just

because the defendants invoked qualified immunity as a de-

fense.

C

Discovery is needed to shed light on who knew about the

alleged U-visa agreement with the victim. If discovery reveals

that the prosecution knew of the arrangement, then none of

the police officer defendants could be liable under § 1983 un-

less the police and the prosecution conspired to fabricate evi-

dence. See Beaman, 776 F.3d at 512 (explaining that police of-

ficers satisfy their duty under Giglio when they inform prose-

cutors of the impeachment evidence). The disclosure obliga-

tion would have instead rested with the prosecutor, who has

already been dismissed from this case on grounds of absolute

immunity.

We leave it to the discretion of the district court how to

structure the discovery. See Jacobs, 215 F.3d at 774–76 (Easter-

brook, J., concurring) (identifying means by which immunity

may be decided without protracted discovery). Early sum-

mary judgment proceedings might preserve the resources of

both the court and the parties, and nothing would prevent

further summary judgment proceedings on other issues later

in the case if that proves necessary.

For these reasons, we AFFIRM the district court’s denial of

the defendants’ Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss based on

qualified immunity and REMAND for further proceedings.