Anderson v. City of Rockford, No. 18-2211 (7th Cir. 2019)
Annotate this CaseHanson, age eight. was killed by shots fired into his grandmother’s Rockford home in 2002. Anderson, Johnson, and Ross were convicted of the murder and each received a 50-year sentence. The men spent more than a decade in prison before an Illinois court ordered a new trial based on the delayed disclosure of Brady material—specifically, the recorded jail calls of the prosecution’s key witness in which he contradicted his trial testimony. Anderson, Johnson, and Ross were retried and acquitted. They sued the city and officers under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that the officers not only withheld the recorded jail calls and other exculpatory information but also fabricated evidence. The Seventh Circuit reversed summary judgment in favor of the defendants. Anderson, Johnson, and Ross have brought forth sufficient evidence to move forward against particular defendants on particular aspects of their alleged due process violations. No physical or forensic evidence linked the plaintiffs to the Hanson murder, so the withheld evidence was material. The court rejected some of the claims of fabricated evidence.
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