Luis Roldan v. Jason Stroud ( 2022 )

In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
____________________
No. 21-2722
LUIS ROLDAN,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
JASON STROUD, et al.,
Defendants-Appellants.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 1:17-cv-03707 — John F. Kness, Judge.
____________________
ARGUED OCTOBER 4, 2022 — DECIDED OCTOBER 25, 2022
____________________
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.