Jesus Zambrano V City Of Joliet
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
____________________
No. 24-1277
JESUS ZAMBRANO,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
CITY OF JOLIET and PATRICK SCHUMACHER,
Defendants-Appellees.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 1:21-cv-04496 — Steven C. Seeger, Judge.
____________________
ARGUED DECEMBER 5, 2024 — DECIDED JUNE 23, 2025
____________________
Before SYKES, Chief Judge, and ROVNER and ST. EVE, Circuit
Judges.
ROVNER, Circuit Judge. Jesus Zambrano was convicted of
first-degree murder in an Illinois state court in August 2013,
but on appeal the Illinois Appellate Court agreed that the trial
court erred in failing to give a jury instruction on accomplice
liability. A second trial ensued in which Zambrano was ac-
quitted of the charge, and he subsequently filed a federal suit
2 No. 24-1277
against one of the arresting officers, Detective Patrick Schu-
macher, and sought indemnification from the City of Joliet.
The lawsuit alleged that Schumacher fabricated evidence that
denied him due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The criminal trials involved the murder of Robert Gooch,
who was shot and killed at the apartment of his girlfriend,
Elissa Hinton, in the Larkin Apartments complex in the early
hours of May 22, 2009. Hinton was in the apartment where
the murder occurred, and when Gooch answered the door of
the apartment, Hinton heard Pedro Sanchez’s voice say, “it
was my girl,” and then heard a shot which killed Gooch. At
Zambrano’s trial, evidence was introduced as to Zambrano’s
whereabouts and actions on the day and night of the crime.
Detective Schumacher testified that he spoke with Zambrano
at Zambrano’s home on the afternoon of May 22, and Zam-
brano informed him that on the afternoon of May 21 he was
with two friends, Pedro Sanchez and Michael Ortiz, at the
apartment of Zambrano’s girlfriend, Claudia Sanchez, located
near the area of Ruby Street and the westside of the Des
Plaines River. In addition, another individual, Christian
Lopez, testified that he was with Zambrano and those same
two friends at Claudia Sanchez’s apartment, and that they
were drinking and smoking marijuana. He testified that Zam-
brano later drove the group to McDonald’s and then to the
Larkin Apartments. Lopez further testified that when they got
to the apartment complex, he saw Zambrano get a gun from
the car’s hood, and then Lopez, Pedro Sanchez and Zambrano
went into the apartment building. Lopez testified that he
waited at the bottom of the stairwell, and that Sanchez and
Zambrano climbed up three floors. He heard a gunshot, and
Zambrano and Sanchez ran down the stairs to the car, where
Zambrano put the gun back under the car hood and drove
No. 24-1277 3
everyone back to his house. The jury was also shown surveil-
lance video from the McDonald’s, which showed a sedan
driven by Zambrano pull through the drive-through at the
McDonald’s between 12:36 a.m. and 12:40 a.m. on May 22.
They also saw surveillance video from the Larkin Apart-
ments, which was a 5-10- minute drive from the McDonald’s,
showing Zambrano’s sedan pulling up at 12:47 a.m., and
which showed the driver retrieve something from under the
car’s hood and walk toward the building with two individu-
als. It also showed them return to the car at 12:51 a.m., reveal-
ing that the driver ran across the grass, put something under
the car’s hood, and drove away. The jury found Zambrano
guilty, but on appeal the appellate court agreed with Zam-
brano that the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury
about accomplice liability. The same evidence was presented
in a retrial, and the jury in that trial acquitted Zambrano.
In his due process challenge in this case, Zambrano alleges
that Detective Schumacher fabricated evidence in his police
report which related the initial interview with Zambrano. On
the afternoon of the day of the murder, Detective Schumacher
and five other officers investigating the crime went to Zam-
brano’s home and spoke with him. Zambrano was home at
that time with his mother and two friends, Pedro Sanchez and
Michael Ortiz. As Detective Schumacher later set forth in his
police report, Zambrano told him that “in the afternoon hours
of May 21, 2009, he was with his friends, Pedro Sanchez and
Michael Ortiz at Claudia Sanchez’s residence located near the
area of Ruby Street and the westside of the Des Plaines River.”
Zambrano admits that he was in fact at Claudia Sanchez’s res-
idence at that time and with Pedro Sanchez and Michael
Ortiz. He asserts, however, that he did not give those details
to Detective Schumacher, stating only that he hung out with
4 No. 24-1277
his girlfriend and a couple of friends, but that he did not pro-
vide the names of his friends, nor did he tell Schumacher how
to find Claudia Sanchez’s house on a map. He alleges, there-
fore, that those statements in the police report by Schumacher
were falsifications. The police report was not introduced into
evidence at trial, but Zambrano testified at trial consistent
with the statements as set forth in his police report.
A fabrication of evidence challenge can implicate different
constitutional protections. A claim for a false arrest or pretrial
detention based on fabricated evidence implicates the Fourth
Amendment protection against seizures without probable
cause, whereas a claim that fabricated evidence was later used
at trial to obtain a conviction violates a defendant’s rights un-
der the Due Process Clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth
Amendments. Patrick v. City of Chicago, 974 F.3d 824, 834–35
(7th Cir. 2020). Zambrano asserts only a due process claim
here.
As the district court recognized, in order to succeed on his
due process claim based on the fabrication of evidence, Zam-
brano must provide evidence which would allow a jury to
conclude that: (1) Schumacher deliberately falsified evidence
in bad faith; (2) the evidence was used at Zambrano’s criminal
trial; (3) the evidence was material; and (4) Zambrano was
damaged as a result. See Patrick, 974 F.3d at 835. Considering
only the first two factors, the district court held that neither
factor was met and granted summary judgment in favor of
the defendants. Zambrano now appeals that grant of sum-
mary judgment. We agree that Zambrano failed to produce
evidence sufficient to create a genuine issue of fact as to the
elements of his claim of fabrication of evidence, and we will
address the first and third factors to illustrate that deficiency.
No. 24-1277 5
The first factor requires a determination that evidence was
falsified, and that the falsification was done in bad faith, and
the third requires that such falsified evidence was material.
As to the first factor, we have repeatedly emphasized that fab-
ricated evidence is testimony that is invariably false, and that
is known to be untrue by the fabricator, as opposed, for in-
stance, to coerced testimony that is forced by improper means
but may be true or false. Petty v. City of Chicago, 754 F.3d 416,
422 (7th Cir. 2014); Fields v. Wharrie, 740 F.3d 1107, 1110 (7th
Cir. 2014). Here, the statement that Zambrano identifies as
false is the statement that Zambrano named the two friends
that he was with on that afternoon, and that he revealed the
location of his girlfriend’s apartment. He does not contest that
the names of the friends and the location of the apartment set
forth in the police report by Schumacher are accurate, but
maintains that Schumacher falsely stated that Zambrano pro-
vided those details. Even if Zambrano’s recollection is enough
to allow a jury to conclude that the statement in the police re-
port attributing those details to Zambrano was false, Zam-
brano has failed to provide sufficient evidence to support a
finding that Schumacher knew that to be untrue and acted in
bad faith in including those details, nor is there sufficient ev-
idence to conclude that the fabricated evidence was material.
Although state of mind is generally a factual issue not eas-
ily amenable to determination as a matter of law, here Zam-
brano failed to present any evidence of the requisite bad faith.
Zambrano merely presents his own statement that he did not
tell Schumacher that information. That allows a conclusion
that the statement was false but without more, under the spe-
cific circumstances under which the police report was pre-
pared here, does not allow a reasonable inference of bad faith.
6 No. 24-1277
The police report at issue here was filled out at 2:30 am fol-
lowing a day-long investigation. In Schumacher’s first inter-
view with Zambrano at Zambrano’s apartment that after-
noon, Zambrano told Schumacher he was with two friends,
and his friends Pedro Sanchez and Michael Ortiz were pre-
sent with Zambrano in the apartment at the time of that con-
versation. During subsequent interviews that day, three other
witnesses confirmed that Zambrano was with his friends
Pedro Sanchez and Michael Ortiz at Claudia Sanchez’s apart-
ment the afternoon before the murder. Those witnesses in-
cluded Zambrano’s girlfriend Claudia Sanchez, her room-
mate, and Christian Lopez. No person interviewed contra-
dicted that information or indicated that a different person
was one of the two friends present with Zambrano that after-
noon. And Zambrano admits that the two friends present that
afternoon preceding the murder were in fact Pedro Sanchez
and Michael Ortiz. The other fact that Schumacher attributes
to Zambrano, which Zambrano denies saying, was simply the
location of Claudia Sanchez’s apartment. Once again, the ac-
curacy of that fact is not disputed. The dispute is merely
whether Zambrano provided that information to Schu-
macher.
In the police report written at 2:30 in the morning after that
long day of investigative interviews, Schumacher stated that
the conversation with Zambrano was set forth “in essence and
not verbatim.” Even if the statement in the report summariz-
ing the “essence” of the conversation with Zambrano errone-
ously stated that Zambrano identified those friends by name,
there is no basis to infer bad faith in that statement. At that
time, every person who identified the friends that were with
Zambrano at Claudia Sanchez’s apartment agreed that those
two friends were Pedro Sanchez and Michael Ortiz, and those
No. 24-1277 7
were the two friends with Zambrano at his apartment when
Schumacher interviewed him and he first stated he was with
two friends. Given the uniform agreement as to their identity
and their presence during the interview, there is no basis to
conclude that Schumacher intentionally misattributed the
identification to Zambrano, as opposed to mistakenly doing
so or conflating their identification with Zambrano’s state-
ment. Certainly, Schumacher had no reason to believe that
Zambrano was referring to different friends, or that he was
disputing the location of Claudia Sanchez’s apartment. Zam-
brano has at best provided evidence that the statement in the
police report that he named the friends and provided the lo-
cation of the apartment was untrue, but he has presented no
evidence that would allow an inference that the statement
was knowingly falsified, as opposed to mistakenly or inadvert-
ently so. See Coleman v. City of Peoria, Illinois, 925 F.3d 336,
346–47 (7th Cir. 2019) (noting that fabricated evidence is evi-
dence that the officer knows to be false); Patrick, 974 F.3d at
835. Given the lack of any dispute as to the identity of those
friends or the location of the apartment, the circumstances do
not even allow an inference that Schumacher knowingly mis-
represented Zambrano’s statement.
And, even if such an inference was supported, the alleged
fabrication attributing the identification of the friends’ names
and the apartment’s location to Zambrano was not material,
and therefore could not support a fabrication of evidence
claim. Evidence is material if there is any “reasonable likeli-
hood the evidence affected the judgment of the jury.” Patrick,
974 F.3d at 835; United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 103 (1976).
“[I]f the fabricated evidence was immaterial, it cannot be said
to have caused an unconstitutional conviction and depriva-
tion of liberty.” Patrick, 974 F.3d at 835. The alleged fabrication
8 No. 24-1277
here—that Zambrano provided the names of the two friends
that he was with the afternoon of the day preceding the mur-
der and the location of the apartment—was not an issue at
trial and was not relevant to the determination of his guilt.
The identity of the friends that he was with, and the location
of the apartment, was not contested, and whether Zambrano
provided that information was not pertinent to any issue at
trial.
And those underlying facts were not themselves material
to the trial, because the evidence at trial placed Zambrano
with those persons at the place of the murder the evening of
the murder—and thus much closer to the time of the murder
than the time period at issue in the police report. That evi-
dence included the testimony of Lopez as to the persons gath-
ered at Claudia Sanchez’s house, including himself, Zam-
brano, Pedro Sanchez, and Michael Ortiz, and relating the ac-
tions up to and after the murder including the trip to the
McDonald’s and the actions at the Larkin Apartments. Sur-
veillance video evidence corroborated that Zambrano drove
to the McDonald’s accompanied by passengers, and that his
sedan then traveled the 5-10 minutes to the Larkin Apart-
ments, where the driver of the sedan engaged in the same ac-
tions described by Lopez. The alleged fabricated statement
identified by Zambrano does not involve any of that critical
time period in which the group would have left for the
McDonald’s and then traveled to the Larkin Apartment com-
plex. And Zambrano acknowledges that he was with those
individuals at Claudia Sanchez’s house that day, that he
drove Pedro Sanchez, Michael Ortiz, and Christian Lopez to
the McDonald’s, and that he is the driver in the surveillance
video from the McDonald’s.
No. 24-1277 9
Zambrano does not provide any argument in his brief to
this court as to the materiality of the fabricated evidence, and
the record makes clear that it was not material. In fact, the
same testimony by Schumacher was provided in both trials,
and the second trial resulted in an acquittal. There is no rea-
sonable likelihood that the fabricated statement affected the
judgment of the jury. We need not consider the other factors,
which are also problematic, because the failure to meet any
factor is sufficient to support the district court’s grant of sum-
mary judgment in favor of Schumacher on Zambrano’s due
process claim, and in favor of the City of Joliet on the claim
for indemnification which was premised on Zambrano’s due
process claim.
Accordingly, the decision of the district court is
AFFIRMED.