Illinois pushes for retrial after $19.3 million inmate rape verdict

CHICAGO (CN) — Supervisors at an Illinois prison told a skeptical Seventh Circuit panel on Thursday that they were not given a fair trial in an underlying custodial rape case.

A former inmate at Logan Correctional Center, a women’s prison based 30 miles north of Springfield, filed an Eighth Amendment claim accusing a former counselor in the prison, Richard Macleod, of repeatedly sexually assaulting her.

Jane Doe further claimed that Todd Sexton, a member of Logan’s internal affairs department, and Margaret Burke, the prison’s warden, also violated her Eighth Amendment rights by failing to protect her from Macleod. The Eighth Amendment protects people from cruel and unusual punishment, as well as excessive fines and excessive bail.

In 2021, federal jury returned a verdict in favor of Doe and against Macleod, Sexton, and Burke. The jury awarded Doe a total of $19.3 million in damages: $10 million in punitive damages against Macleod, $500,000 in punitive damages against Burke, $800,000 in punitive damages against Sexton and an additional $8 million in compensatory damages.

Burke and Sexton appealed the verdict, and maintained that they were not deliberately indifferent to a significant risk of harm to Doe.

Sexton testified during trial when he received a report of sexual abuse from Doe’s roommate, he immediately informed his supervisors and attempted to gather more information.

He was initially unable to gather any further information regarding the sexual abuse from Doe, so he conducted an after-hours stakeout in an effort to catch Macleod in the act. During an offer of proof made outside of the jury’s presence, Sexton noted the statement from Doe’s roommate was redacted, and the redacted portion indicated that Doe’s relationship with Macleod may have been consensual.

Britt Cramer, a Chicago-based attorney who represented Doe, insisted there was no evidence that Doe’s relationship with Macleod was consensual.

Kaitlyn Chenevert, an assistant attorney general for the state of Illinois, argued before the panel Thursday that since Sexton believed the relationship was consensual, he approached the investigation differently.

“[A] prison official incurs no Eighth Amendment liability if he or she ‘responded reasonably to the risk, even if the harm ultimately was not averted,’” Chenevert wrote in the appellant’s brief. “In other words, ’the mere failure of the prison official to choose the best course of action does not amount to a constitutional violation.’”

She argued that Sexton didn’t ignore the risk of harm to Doe, instead seeking to substantiate her roommate’s accusations.

Cramer had a different characterization, and argued that if anything, Sexton and Burke increased Doe’s risk for sexual assault.

“Failure to act is enough to prove deliberate indifference,” Cramer said. “The Supreme Court established that in the Farmer case of 1994, and there’s ample evidence of failure to act here.”

Chenevert argued that Sexton and Burke were entitled to qualified immunity “because it was not clearly established that prison officials must protect inmates from consensual relationships with other officials,” she wrote in the appellant’s brief.

The precedent Chenevert relied on for her argument came from 2024 case Walton v. Nehls , in which a Wisconsin prisoner filed an Eighth Amendment claim against a prison nurse with whom he had a sexual relationship. The Seventh Circuit reaffirmed that a consensual relationship doesn’t constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

But the panel of judges wasn’t so sure that precedent set in Walton applied to Doe’s case.

“You’d agree with me that the evidence of consent in Walton was lightyears ahead of the consent here?” U.S. Circuit Judge David Hamilton, a Barack Obama appointee, asked.

Chenevert said yes, but reiterated that even aside from the Eighth Amendment question, Sexton and Burke remain entitled to a judgment under qualified immunity.

Qualified immunity is the legal doctrine that protects government officials from civil lawsuits unless they violated someone’s constitutional rights.

Chief U.S. Circuit Court Judge Frank Easterbrook characterized Chenevert’s qualified immunity argument as a misunderstanding of the doctrine.

“The problem is, as Judge Hamilton just said, under the Supreme Court’s test, qualified immunity does not turn on the subject it believes of any party,” said Easterbrook, a Ronald Reagan appointee. “It turns on the state of the law. It used to be called back in the early 1980s, good faith immunity. That’s pretty much how you’re arguing. And then the Supreme Court said in 1987 that good faith has absolutely nothing to do with it. It’s only a matter about what does the law provide. So why would their subjective beliefs matter?”

“It would not matter in the sense that it would not be clearly established that Sexton couldn’t have considered consent at all in assessing the potential risk of harm to Doe,” Chenevert responded.

Joining Hamilton and Easterbrook on the panel was U.S. Circuit Judge Nancy Maldonado, a Joe Biden appointee. The panel did not indicate when it might rule on the matter.

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