Lyle R. Harrison v. Moultrie County, Illinois

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted September 11, 2024*
Decided October 21, 2024
Before†
DIANE S. SYKES, Chief Judge
MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Circuit Judge
CANDACE JACKSON-AKIWUMI, Circuit Judge
No. 24-2074
LYLE R. HARRISON,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
MOULTRIE COUNTY, ILLINOIS, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
No. 18-CV-0957
Lynn Adelman,
Judge.
O R D E R
After a partial remand from this court, the district court stayed what remained of
Lyle Harrison’s federal case because the remaining claims arose out of an ongoing
* The defendants were not served with process and are not participating in this appeal. We have
agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the brief and record adequately present the facts
and legal arguments, and oral argument would not significantly aid the court. See FED . R. APP . P.
34(a)(2)(C).
† This appeal is successive to Appeal No. 18-3694 and is being decided under Operating
Procedure 6(b) by the member of the panel in No. 18-3694 who remains on the court. The second and
third judges in this appeal, No. 24-2074, were assigned at random.
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

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No. 24-2074 Page 2
criminal case in state court. See Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 41 (1971). Years later,
Harrison moved to lift the stay, invoking an exception to Younger abstention that
applies when the federal-court plaintiff has a credible claim that his constitutional right
to a speedy trial is being violated in his criminal prosecution. The district court declined
to lift the stay upon determining that the delay in Harrison’s trial resulted from his own
refusal to appear in state court and that, therefore, the speedy-trial claim was frivolous.
Because the court’s assessment was correct, we affirm.
In his 2018 lawsuit, Harrison alleged a wide-ranging conspiracy among various
family members, companies, and judges, to steal his farmland, pocket his trust income,
and threaten him into silence through a sham criminal prosecution. The district court
dismissed his complaint, see 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B), concluding that most claims were
barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine because they invited review of state-court
judgments. The court further ruled that the complaint otherwise failed to state a
plausible claim for relief. On appeal, we largely affirmed but concluded that the claims
relating to Harrison’s criminal prosecution—including malicious prosecution and
deprivations of due process—were not appropriate for adjudication in federal court
while the prosecution was ongoing. See Harrison v. Moultrie Cnty., et al., 770 F. App’x 295
(7th Cir. 2019); see also Younger, 401 U.S. at 41. Therefore, we partially vacated the
judgment and remanded with instructions to stay the surviving claims under Younger.
In doing so, we specifically stated we were not opining on whether the claims of
constitutional violations during the criminal case were viable.
Five years passed, and then Harrison filed a “petition for rehearing” in the
district court, which the court construed as a motion to lift the stay because Harrison
sought the dismissal of the prosecution in Illinois. Harrison argued that Younger
abstention was no longer appropriate because he had been waiting for the case to
proceed for more than eleven years, in violation of his constitutional right to a speedy
trial. We had noted this exception in our previous opinion while observing that
Harrison had not “meaningfully develop[ed]” an argument about a violation of his
speedy-trial right. Harrison, 770 F. App’x at 297 n.1 (citing Sweeney v. Bartow, 612 F.3d
571, 573 (7th Cir. 2010)). The district court took judicial notice of the state record and
discovered that Harrison, who resides in Wisconsin, has not been brought to trial in
Illinois because he has repeatedly failed to appear and is considered a fugitive from
justice. See People v. Harrison, No. 2013-CF-47 (Ill. Cir. Ct. Jan. 5, 2021). Because the
speedy-trial claim was not well-founded, the district court refused to lift the stay.

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No. 24-2074 Page 3
Harrison appeals, and under the collateral-order doctrine, we have jurisdiction to
review the denial of the motion to lift the stay. See Wisc. Right to Life State Pol. Action
Comm. v. Barland, 664 F.3d 139, 146 (7th Cir. 2011). But Harrison’s appeal is frivolous.
His arguments go far beyond the single issue on appeal—whether Younger abstention
remains appropriate—and instead rehash claims about his farmland and trust that we
have held were barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine or claim preclusion. No change of
law or special circumstance warrants revisiting the law of the case. See Carmody v. Bd. of
Trs. of Univ. of Ill., 893 F.3d 397, 408 (7th Cir. 2018). The only claims the district court had
the power to adjudicate were those pertaining to the state criminal prosecution; the rest
were resolved, finally, in the first appeal. See id. at 407 (explaining the mandate rule).
The district court properly stayed the remaining claims on remand, and the only issue
in this appeal is whether it abused its discretion by not lifting the stay.
Harrison has not developed any argument on appeal about why the stay should
be lifted, and he has not addressed his failure to appear in Illinois, other than to assert
he cannot get a fair trial. Thus, he waives any argument that the district court erred.
See Greenbank v. Great Am. Assurance Co., 47 F.4th 618, 629 (7th Cir. 2022). We therefore
affirm the district court’s decision.
We also note that if Harrison continues to obstruct his own criminal trial by not
participating in that case, the district court may consider dismissing Harrison’s
remaining federal claims. By placing himself outside Illinois’s reach in the state criminal
case, Harrison may be attempting to manipulate that proceeding through this federal
litigation. See Sarlund v. Anderson, 205 F.3d 973, 975 (7th Cir. 2000) (dismissing case
when plaintiff’s fugitive status allowed him to “harass the defendants with impunity”
while living “beyond judicial control”). Such actions would be a clear abuse of process.
See id.
Harrison’s actions also frustrate the purpose of Younger. Younger abstention is
premised on the concepts of comity and federalism: that federal courts should avoid
intruding on a state criminal prosecution when the defendant can assert his claims in
his defense and will not suffer irreparable injury if denied equitable relief. Younger,
401 U.S. 37 at 43–44, 46. For this reason, we caution federal courts to “stay on the
sidelines.” See J.B. v. Woodard, 997 F.3d 714, 722–23 (7th Cir. 2021). Our first decision
instructed the district court to stay certain of Harrison’s claims until the state criminal
prosecution was over. But Harrison is now forcing the federal courts to stay on the
sidelines indefinitely, see id., and abstaining does not honor the principles of federalism
or comity. Under these circumstances, the district court need not keep this case

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No. 24-2074 Page 4
lingering on its docket if the criminal case does not move forward. Id. at 725. Before the
district court takes any action, though, Harrison should be provided with notice and an
opportunity to respond.
AFFIRMED

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