Sanchez v. City of Chicago

In section 1983 action alleging that certain defendants-police officers violated plaintiff’s 4th Amendment rights by falsely arresting him and subjecting him to excessive force during said arrest and by failing to intervene for misconduct committed during arrest by other unnamed officers, Dist Ct. did not deprive plaintiff of fair trial by failing to give plaintiff’s proposed jury instruction that attempted to harmonize language contained in previously tendered personal involvement instruction with failure-to-intervene instruction. While plaintiff’s proposed instruction was consistent with applicable I.P.I. Committee comments, any error was harmless where proposed jury instruction would not have cured underlying error caused by erroneous failure-to-intervene instruction that had been drafted by plaintiff’s counsel which improperly advised jury that plaintiffs must first prove that one or both defendants-arresting officers had participated in false arrest and/or excessive use of force in order to find that said defendants were also liable for any failure to intervene for misconduct committed by other unnamed officers.