Standing

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Marquise Wright v. Calumet City, Illinois

Case No.: 16-2219

Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, and BAUER, and ROVNER, Cir‐ cuit Judges.

On or around December 22, 2014, Marquise Wright was arrested by police officers employed by Calumet City, Illinois (the “City”). The officers did not have an arrest warrant for Wright at the time of the arrest. As characterized by the officers, the incident underlying the arrest involved a murder of one individual and the shooting of multiple other people, and Wright admitted to having a gun at the scene. At a minimum, he was to be charged with unlawful use of a weapon by a felon, a felony offense, but the assistant state’s attorney instructed the City’s officers to wait to criminally charge Wright until lab results came back establishing whether the gun carried by Wright matched the casings and bullets recovered from the scene. On December 24, 2014, while still in custody on that ar‐rest, Wright filed an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the City alleging that it violated his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights by failing to provide him with a judicial determination of probable cause within 48 hours of his ar‐ rest. At that time, Wright had been in custody for nearly 55 hours. On December 25, 2014, Wright was presented for a bond hearing and a judge made a finding of probable cause to detain Wright. In the § 1983 action, Wright asserted that the City had a policy or practice authorizing its officers to detain persons arrested without a warrant for up to 72 hours before permitting the arrestee to appear before a judge, and sought to pursue both an individual claim and class claims.

Dismissed for lack of jurisdiction

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.