Cook v. O’Neill

Cook committed a home robbery in 2005 and was arrested nine days later in the apartment of a girlfriend, later his fiancée, Thede. Convicted in a Wisconsin state court of armed robbery, armed burglary, battery, theft of moveable property, mistreatment of an animal resulting in the animal’s (a dog’s) death, and false imprisonment, he was sentenced to 40 years in prison. Cook filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that Marinette County (Wisconsin) Sheriff’s Department detectives arrested him in violation of the Fourth Amendment and seeking $25,000 in compensatory and $50,000 in punitive damages for the arrest and detention, seizure of personal property that he claims was worth $10,000, and infliction of emotional distress. Thede had testified in Cook’s criminal trial that she had admitted the officers to her apartment, but in the civil case she submitted an affidavit which states that when she had testified that she “let them in” she had meant that she “did not tell them to leave or did not object directly to them, but let them remain.” The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of the officers. At worst the entry was a harmless error because of the existence of a warrant. View "Cook v. O'Neill" on Justia Law