Mario DeGenova, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Sheriff of DuPage County, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 98-2455
United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit
Argued December 3, 1999—Decided April 13, 2000
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 97 C 7208—James B. Moran, Judge.
Manion, Circuit Judge. Mario DeGenova sued the Sheriff of DuPage County in his official capacity, claiming a violatiоn of his constitutional rights pursuant to
I.
Because this appeal comes to us from a motion to dismiss, we take the following facts from the complaint and assume them to be true. On October 16, 1996, deputy sheriffs of DuPage County arrested Mario DeGenova pursuant to an arrest warrant. DeGenova told the arresting officers that he suffered from a serious cardiac condition that required medication. The officers, however, did not provide DeGenova with medical treatment, even though they saw him holding his chest and breathing irregularly. It was not until his release the following evening that DeGenova was able to receive medical treatment, and he claims that, as a result of this delay, he suffered serious medical harm.
DeGenova sued the Sheriff of DuPage County in
II.
The Eleventh Amendment bars suits for damages against states.
In McMillian v. Monroe County, Alabama, 520 U.S. 781 (1997), the Supreme Court considered whether the Sheriff of Monroe County represented the State or the county when he acted in a law enforcement capacity, аnd thus whether the Sheriff was entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity. The Court began by holding that this is a question of state law, and that it would defer considerably to the state court‘s view on this issue. McMillian, 520 U.S. at 786. The Court then cоnsidered whether Alabama law provides that the Sheriff represents the State when he acts in a law enforcement capacity. The Court reviewed the Alabama Constitution and Code, and how the Eleventh Circuit and the Alabama Supreme Court construed those sources, and held that when an Alabama Sheriff acts in a law enforcement capаcity, he acts as a State official. Id. at 793. The Court also recognized that since “both the role of sheriffs and the importance of counties vary from State to State, there is no inconsistency created by court decisions that declare sheriffs to be county officers in one State, and not in another.” Id. at 795.
We applied McMillian in Franklin, where an arrestee sued the DuPage Cоunty Sheriff in his official capacity, alleging that the sheriff‘s deputies injured him while he was in their
Like Franklin, this case involves the Sheriff of DuPage County, but our analysis does not end there. As the Supreme Court emphasized in McMillian, whether a sheriff acts for the State or a local entity is not an “all or nothing” determination. 520 U.S. at 785. Rather, the question is whether, when the Sheriff acts in a pаrticular area or on a particular issue, he acts for the State or a local entity. Id. In Franklin, we concluded that the Sheriff is not a State agent when he performs general law enforcement duties. But we have also recognized that sometimes the Sheriff may act on behalf of the State, as when he executes a judicial Writ of Assistance. Scott, 975 F.2d at 371. Herе, we must decide whether the Sheriff is an officer for the State or a local entity when he manages the jail.
First of all, we must determine whether Illinois law provides that the Sheriff has “final policymaking authority” over the jail. See McMillian, 520 U.S. at 785. The Illinois Supreme Court has determined that according to State law, the Sheriff’s policies for jail operations “are indepеndent of and unalterable by any governing body.” Moy v. County of Cook, 640 N.E.2d 926, 929 (Ill. 1994). Moy noted that the Sheriff of each county is the warden of the county jail, and has custody over all of its prisoners. Id.;
We must also determine whether Illinois law provides that sheriffs are policymakers for the State or a local еntity when they manage the jail. See McMillian, 520 U.S. at 785.
The Sheriff cites provisions that require sheriffs to participate in annual training programs that a State board has approved, that authorize the State Department of Corrections to inspect the jails at least once a year, and that permit the governor to remove sheriffs who fail to protect рrisoners from a lynch mob. But these provisions merely authorize the State to regulate sheriffs in a very tenuous and indirect manner, and certainly do not outweigh the Illinois Constitution, the Illinois Suрreme Court, and Illinois statutory provisions that overwhelmingly designate the Sheriff’s office as a local entity apart from the State.
The Sheriff also argues that because we have held that Illinois sheriffs are not county employees, by default they must be agents of the State. We rejected this argument in Franklin, and do so again today. See Franklin, 150 F.3d at 685 (“This argument overlooks a crucial third possibility that we havе found to be dispositive in other cases—namely, that the sheriff is an agent of the county sheriff’s department, an independently-elected office that is not subject to the cоntrol of the county in most respects.“).2 Suffice it to say that for purposes of this appeal, he is not a state employee or officer, and is thus not protected by the Eleventh Amendment.
In conclusion, since Illinois sheriffs are county officers when they manage the jail, the Eleventh Amendment does not bar this official capacity suit. We AFFIRM.