Probable Cause – Sufficiency of Evidence

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Katrina Walker v. Carl Weatherspoon, et al. 

Case No.: 17-2665

Officials: BAUER, EASTERBROOK, and KANNE, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Probable Cause – Sufficiency of Evidence

On March 31, 2016, when this suit was three and a half years old, the district court entered an order granting summary judgment to defendants “[f]or the reasons stated in the Memorandum Opinion and Order to follow”. More than 16 months passed before the judge released her opinion, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 129182 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 15, 2017), and plaintiff appealed that day. A judgment under Fed. R. Civ. P. 58 was entered on August 16.

This appeal came many months too late under Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(7)(A)(ii), which says that a judgment is deemed to be entered on the earlier of the Rule 58 judgment or 150 days after a dispositive order is entered on the civil docket. Until Rule 4(a)(7)(A)(ii) was adopted in 2002 the losing side always could wait for the entry of the formal judgment. See United States v. Indrelunas, 411 U.S. 216 (1973); Carter v. Hodge, 726 F.3d 917, 919–20 (7th Cir. 2013). The new rule supersedes Indrelunas by deeming the judgment to have been entered 150 days after a dispositive order that does not amount to a proper judgment.

Walker’s goal in this litigation is to have a jury make a de novo decision about whether the state judge should have issued the warrant—that is to say, an independent decision about probable cause, putting to one side the state judge’s decision. But that’s not what federal law provides. Instead the decision of the judge who issued the warrant receives “great deference”. Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 236 (1983); United States v. McIntire, 516 F.3d 576, 577–79 (7th Cir. 2008). With the benefit of “great deference” the state judge’s probable-cause evaluation must prevail.

According to Walker the state judge was not entitled to rely on Doe, a first-time informant whose information had not been corroborated by the police. Walker proceeds as if Doe were an anonymous tipster, and, if she had been, then corroboration would have been essential. Florida v. J.L., 529 U.S. 266 (2000). But Doe was not anonymous; we use a pseudonym to protect her from retaliation, not because her identity was unknown to the police. They knew her name and background (she had an arrest record but not a conviction); they met with Doe and her father, and Doe said that she wanted to break her drug habit, a good reason for turning in her supplier. Doe testified in person before the judge who issued the warrant and by doing this exposed herself to as much as three years in prison if she was lying. 720 ILCS 5/26-1; 730 ILCS 5/5-4.5-45.

Walker faults the warrant-application process for withholding from the state judge the lack of corroboration. Yet neither Doe nor the officer who signed the application for the warrant stated that Doe’s information had been corroborated; a reasonable judicial officer thus would have inferred that it had not been. Nothing was concealed from the judge—nor does it matter exactly when Doe pointed to the house in which, she said, she had bought heroin (another topic on which Walker faults the affidavit seeking the warrant).

As for Walker’s contention that the police should have left the house as soon as they discovered T’s absence: What sense would that make? Drug dealers do not stay in their distribution points 24 hours a day. The police arrived at a disordered house that looked like a drug-distribution point. Walker admitted having a gun. It took a while for the officers to sort through the debris, locate the gun, search for drugs, and determine whether T lived in or used the house. It cannot be called unreasonable to take two hours to accomplish these things.

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.