Mitchell v. City of Chicago, No. 14-2957 (7th Cir. 2017)
Annotate this CaseChicago Police Officers pulled over 18-year-old Jackson for a missing front license plate. The officers claim that Jackson fired a weapon toward the squad car and ran away. The officers shot him three times in the back; he died the next day. Two eyewitnesses testified that they thought Jackson did not have a weapon. The defense offered testimony that gunshot residue was found on Jackson’s hand and that casings were found at the site from which Jackson shot. The gun found near Jackson was swabbed for DNA, but the samples were never tested by the Illinois State Police. Jackson’s mother brought a civil suit for excessive force and wrongful death. A jury returned a verdict in favor of the defendants. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting arguments that the trial court erred in excluding evidence or argument relating to the failure to test the DNA swabs. The only issue was whether the officers were justified in shooting Jackson. A lack of DNA evidence, without more, would not tend to prove or disprove justification. There was nothing tying the shooting officers to any missing DNA evidence. It would be unfair to assume that testing of the DNA swabs would have helped, or harmed, Mitchell’s case
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