Aguirre v. City of Chicago

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State: Illinois

Court: 1st District Appellate

Docket No: 1-06-2837 Rel

Case Date: 04/04/2008

Preview:FIFTH DIVISION April 4, 2008

No. 1-06-2837

OMAR AGUIRRE, EDAR ZAVIER DUARTE SANTOS, and ROBERT GAYOL, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. THE CITY OF CHICAGO, a Municipal Corporation; and CITY OF CHICAGO POLICE OFFICERS ROBERT RODRIGUEZ, CARLOS VELEZ, ALFONSO BAUTISTA, AL PEREZ, PAUL LOPEZ, and MICHAEL CHASEN, Defendants-Appellants.

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Appeal from the Circuit Court of Cook County

Honorable Daniel Locallo, Judge Presiding.

JUSTICE GALLAGHER delivered the opinion of the court: Plaintiffs filed a complaint against defendants alleging malicious prosecution. Following a trial, the jury returned a verdict for plaintiffs and, in answer to special interrogatories, found that defendants lacked probable cause and acted with malice when they prosecuted plaintiffs. Defendants appeal, raising two issues. First, defendants argue that the circuit court abused its discretion in admitting the testimony of the confessed murderer describing the crime. Second, defendants contend that the circuit court erroneously excluded evidence of the defendants' use of polygraph examinations to facilitate their investigation of the crime. For the following reasons, we affirm.

1

1-06-2837 BACKGROUND In 2003, plaintiffs filed a complaint alleging that the defendants maliciously prosecuted them for the kidnapping and murder of Sindulfo Miranda. After amending their complaint and dismissing several defendants, the case proceeded to a jury trial against the named defendants. Before trial, the circuit court made two decisions that are germane to this appeal. First, the circuit court ruled that when referring to polygraph examinations that were administered to some objects of the investigation, the witnesses and parties could not use the term "polygraph" to refer to the examinations or examiners. Further, the examination results could not be

discussed. Instead, the circuit court ruled that officers would have to testify that a person submitted to further questioning from an independent interviewer at 1121 South State Street when discussing a polygraph examination. If deception was indicated, the circuit court directed the witness to say, "After questioning him, I wasn't satisfied. I wanted to question him further." In addition, witnesses were to refer to the polygraph examiners as police officers, and to the examinations as interviews. Second, the circuit court allowed the confessed murderer, Daniel Perez, to testify as to how and why he murdered Miranda and how his confession came to fruition. The case then proceeded to trial and the following evidence was adduced at trial. In the early morning hours of July 18, 1997, police responded to a burning Mercedes near 33rd and Pulaski. After the fire was extinguished, police found the burned body of Miranda inside the burned Mercedes. Detectives Carlos Velez and Robert Rodriguez were assigned to the case. Early in the investigation, police determined that someone used Miranda's cell phone four times the night of the murder to call a pager. 2

1-06-2837 On July 20, 1997, police interviewed Hector Cruz, who told police that on the morning of July 18, 1997, he was driving down 33rd Street and saw a two-tone maroon van parked next to a Mercedes. The van blocked his path down 33rd Street. A short, bald Hispanic man, standing 5 feet 3 inches, thin, and shirtless, but wearing shorts and gym shoes told Cruz to proceed down an alley. Suspicious, Cruz drove around the block and returned to the scene, where the van was gone but the Mercedes was ensconced in flames. Later, police learned that Joey Baez owned a van similar to the one Cruz described, but after taking a polygraph examination, he was cleared of suspicion. Baez told police that Robert Toro had a van like the one described; however, Toro was cleared of suspicion after he passed a polygraph examination. On October 21, 1997, police contacted Ronnie Gamboa, proprietor of Ronnie's Bar, to see if he knew what happened to Miranda. Gamboa agreed to a polygraph examination, which concluded that he was deceiving police when he told them that he last saw Miranda three weeks before the murder. As a result, police continued to investigate Gamboa. Meanwhile, they contacted Leticia Martinez, a bartender at Caf

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