Ivan Hernandez v. Michael F. Sheahan

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

No. 12-1941

IVAN H ERNANDEZ, et al.,

Plaintiffs-Appellees,

v.

M ICHAEL F. S HEAHAN, et al.,

Defendants-Appellants.

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 07 C 00855—Ronald A. Guzmán, Judge.

S UBMITTED O CTOBER 16, 2012—D ECIDED A PRIL 1, 2013

Before C UDAHY, F LAUM, and W OOD , Circuit Judges.

C UDAHY, Circuit Judge. We are once again asked

to consider a case in which prison guards were investi-

gated and reassigned after a major jailbreak occurred

on their watch. We previously outlined the peculiar

facts of this case in detail, Hernandez v. Cook County

Sheriff’s Office, 634 F.3d 906, 909-11 (7th Cir. 2011), so

a brief recitation is all that is required here.

2 No. 12-1941

Plaintiffs, Ivan Hernandez, Roberto Rodriguez, Bill

Jones, Gene Michno, Marvin Bailey and Richard Davis, are

correctional officers with the Cook County Sheriff’s

Office (the Officers). They were part of a specialized

unit, the Special Operations Response Team (SORT).

This team guarded inmates in the Cook County Jail’s

Abnormal Behavioral Observation Unit (ABO). In

2006, a major escape occurred from the ABO, with six

violent felons breaking loose. A break of this size raised

suspicion of inside assistance. An intense investiga-

tion, headed by the director of internal affairs Timothy

Kaufmann, naturally followed. A correctional officer,

Darin Gater, confessed to allowing the six inmates to

escape. His confession named Jones, Rodriguez and

Michno as assisting him or having advance knowledge

of the escape. He also identified Bailey and Davis

as having reputations as officers that inmates could

“work with.” Gater later unsuccessfully attempted to

suppress this confession as having been coerced. He

was ultimately tried, convicted and sentenced for his

role in the jailbreak. The Officers were investigated

in relation to the jailbreak and reassigned after the dis-

bandment of SORT.

The Officers filed suit against the Sheriff’s Office and

the investigators, claiming psychological and emotional

injuries from the investigation. The Officers contend

that they were investigated by Kaufmann due to their

political support for Richard Remus, a former director

of SORT and a candidate for Sheriff of Cook County

at the time of the jailbreak. They alleged retaliation in

violation of their First Amendment right to political

No. 12-1941 3

association (Count I); retaliation of their First Amend-

ment right to free speech (Count II); conspiracy to

retaliate (Count III); intentional infliction of emotional

distress (Count IV); and false imprisonment (Count V).

The district court granted summary judgment for

the Sheriff’s Office on Count II, but denied qualified

immunity on the remaining counts because it deemed

that defense had been waived. We disagreed and re-

manded the case for further consideration of qualified

immunity, cautioning that “the simple facts of a serious

jailbreak and the suspicion of internal cooperation, . . .

make the undertaking of a vigorous investigation unsur-

prising.” Hernandez, 634 F.3d at 916.

On remand, the district court again denied sum-

mary judgment, finding genuine issues of material fact

relating to the political retaliation claims, the veracity

of Gater’s confession and the fact that no other officers

were investigated for the jailbreak. We disagree and

so we reverse.

I.

Qualified immunity “protects government officials

from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct

does not violate clearly established statutory or consti-

tutional rights of which a reasonable person would

have known.” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231

(2009) (internal quotation marks omitted). In determining

qualified immunity, the court asks two questions:

(1) whether the facts, taken in the light most favorable

to the plaintiff, make out a violation of a constitutional

4 No. 12-1941

right and (2) whether that constitutional right was

clearly established at the time of the alleged violation.

Id. at 232. Courts may exercise discretion in deciding

which question to address first. Id. at 236. As we

explained in our prior opinion, the focus of this case is

the second inquiry.

We begin our analysis by examining whether the Sher-

iff’s Office had probable cause to investigate the Offi-

cers. It is apparent in the record before us that the

Sheriff’s Office did have legitimate reasons to inves-

tigate the Officers.

As noted earlier, a jailbreak of multiple dangerous

prisoners from a special unit would raise suspicion

of inside assistance and trigger an internal investiga-

tion. Hernandez, 634 F.3d at 916. The investigation of

the Officers was further justified by available evidence.

Gater implicated Jones, Rodriguez, Michno, Davis and

Bailey in a signed statement. The district court denied

that this would establish probable cause because “it is

disputed whether the statement was false and coerced

and whether . . . investigators were aware of the fact

that the statement was false and coerced.” Hernandez

v. Cook Cnty. Sheriff’s Office, 07 C 855, 2012 WL 1079904

(N.D. Ill. Mar. 30, 2012). However, Gater failed to

suppress the statement in state court proceedings on

those very grounds. As the state court ruled that

Gater’s statement was voluntary, the district court

cannot credit the Officers’ claims that the statement

was coerced. The state court also commented on the

veracity of the statement, noting that it provided

“[t]he factual basis for the jury’s verdicts.”

No. 12-1941 5

The district court also seems to have relied on the

notion that the Officers were the only individuals

singled out for investigation. We note that even if this

were true, the fact that the Officers were implicated

in the escape by another guard might account for

this disparity. However, other individuals were repri-

manded. Thomas Snooks, who is a defendant in this

case, was suspended for five days because he called

Remus on his cellular phone following the escape, and

Captain Earnest Wright was disciplined for failing

to prepare proper written entries into the watch com-

mander log.

Due to the fact that the authorities had probable cause

to investigate the Officers, we are less concerned about

other possible motivations for their treatment. While

Kaufmann and others may have expressed negative

opinions regarding the Officers’ support of Remus,

we find it objectively reasonable to investigate officers

implicated in a multi-felon jailbreak.

We R EVERSE the judgment of the district court.

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