Wells v. Coker, No. 11-3428 (7th Cir. 2013)
Annotate this CaseWells shot his gun into the air several times to celebrate the New Year, 2008. Arriving to investigate, Officer Coker shot Wells three times, seriously injuring Wells. Coker claims that Wells turned toward him and pointed a gun in his direction; Wells denies doing so. Through an agreement with the state to dismiss a felony count, Wells pleaded guilty to reckless conduct that he “discharged a firearm multiple times . . . and then pointed the firearm at [Coker].” Before entering the plea, Wells sued Coker and the City of Springfield, alleging that Coker used excessive force in shooting Wells. The district court granted summary judgment to the defendants, holding that Wells was judicially estopped from denying that he had pointed the gun at Coker because Wells pleaded guilty to a charge that included the statement that he had pointed the gun at Coker. The Seventh Circuit reversed, holding that neither judicial estoppel nor other doctrines of preclusion apply to the particular facts of Wells’s plea agreement. The discussion of the facts supporting the charge was brief and that Wells’s guilty plea was not specific with respect to what he admitted.
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