Ruiz-Cortez v. Lewellen, No. 18-1078 (7th Cir. 2019)
Annotate this CaseLewellen, a Chicago Police Department “dirty cop,” arrested Ruiz-Cortez for possessing cocaine and served as the key witness at his trial Ruiz-Cortez was convicted. Ruiz-Cortez spent a decade in prison before the federal government discovered Lewellen’s crimes, which included drug conspiracy, racketeering, and, according to the government, perjury at Ruiz-Cortez’s trial. The government prosecuted Lewellen and moved to vacate Ruiz-Cortez’s conviction. Ruiz-Cortez sued the city and Lewellen under 42 U.S.C. 1983 for withholding material impeachment evidence of Lewellen’s crimes. The district court dismissed the claim against the city, finding no evidence of municipal liability. A jury later found for Lewellen, despite his refusal to testify based on the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the city but vacated as to Lewellen. Ruiz-Cortez failed to marshal the evidence needed to meet Monell’s high standard. The district court allowed Lewellen to offer innocent explanations for his Fifth Amendment invocation, that “fly in the face of Fifth Amendment law,” and failed to instruct the jury about when a Fifth Amendment invocation is proper. If the jury believed that Lewellen could invoke the Fifth Amendment simply because there was other ongoing litigation, and not because truthful answers may have incriminated him, the jury was almost certainly less likely to penalize Lewellen for his invocation.
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