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Court Error – Exclusion of Evidence

By: Derek Hawkins//July 12, 2017//

Court Error – Exclusion of Evidence

By: Derek Hawkins//July 12, 2017//

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7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Octavia Mitchell v. City of Chicago, et al.

Case No.: 14-2957

Officials: ROVNER and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges, and CONLEY, District Judge.

Focus: Court Error – Exclusion of Evidence

On April 24, 2010, Chicago Police Officers pulled over eighteen year old Izael Jackson (“Jack- son”) for a missing front license plate. He was shot three times in the back by the officers and died the next day. Jackson’s mother, Octavia Mitchell (“Mitchell”), brought a civil suit for excessive force and wrongful death against the City of Chicago and the officers for the officers’ traffic stop turned homicide. After months of discovery the case went to trial. The jury returned a verdict in favor of the defendants and the district court entered its judgment.

On appeal, Mitchell argues that the trial court erred by excluding evidence or argument relating to a failure to test DNA swabs recovered from the scene of the shooting. But we find no error in the district court’s evidentiary rulings. The only issue before the jury was whether the officers were justified in shooting Jackson. A lack of DNA evidence, without more, would not tend to prove or disprove the officers’ justification. As the district court noted, there was nothing tying the shooting officers to any missing DNA evidence and it would be unfair to assume that testing of the DNA swabs would have helped, or harmed, Mitchell’s case. Therefore, we affirm the district court’s rulings which quashed Mitchell’s subpoena to the Illinois State Police and excluded evidence relating to potential DNA evidence

Affirmed

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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.

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