Andre L. Echols, Jr. v. Tom Hansel

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted June 2, 2026*
Decided June 5, 2026
Before
CANDACE JACKSON-AKIWUMI, Circuit Judge
JOHN Z. LEE, Circuit Judge
REBECCA TAIBLESON, Circuit Judge
No. 25-1806
ANDRE L. ECHOLS, JR.,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
TOM HANSEL,
Defendant-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Northern District of
Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 23 CV 16000
John J. Tharp, Jr.,
Judge.
O R D E R
Andre Echols appeals the district court’s dismissal of his suit alleging malicious
prosecution. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Because Echols concedes that he cannot prevail unless
we overrule Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409 (1976), we affirm.
* We have granted the appellant’s motion to waive oral argument and have
agreed to decide the case on the briefs and the record. F ED. R. A PP . P. 34(f).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

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No. 25-1806 Page 2
After a February 2019 traffic stop, Chicago police impounded Echols’s car.
Assistant Corporation Counsel Tom Hansel prosecuted the impoundment in August
2019, and an administrative law judge upheld the impoundment and ordered Echols to
pay storage fees. The car was released from impoundment in November 2022 after a
second administrative law judge determined the city had not met its burden of proof.
In 2023, Echols sued Hansel for malicious prosecution and for soliciting a police
officer’s false testimony.† The district court dismissed Echols’s complaint, concluding
that Imbler foreclosed his claims. In Imbler, the Supreme Court held that prosecutors are
entitled to absolute immunity for actions taken while initiating and pursuing
prosecutions. See 424 U.S. at 427; see also Mendenhall v. Goldsmith, 59 F.3d 685, 691
(7th Cir. 1995) (absolute immunity bars suit when an attorney in civil proceedings
“function[s] in an enforcement role analogous to that of a prosecutor”).
On appeal, Echols concedes that Imbler controls and asks us to reconsider the
holding in that case. He contends that the holding of Imbler is overbroad because neither
the common law nor the federal statutory scheme conferred absolute immunity on
prosecutors at the time Imbler was decided. But we lack the power to overrule Supreme
Court precedent. See, e.g., Bosse v. Oklahoma, 580 U.S. 1, 3 (2016) (“[I]t is [the Supreme]
Court’s prerogative alone to overrule one of its precedents.” (quoting United States v.
Hatter, 532 U.S. 557, 567 (2001))). “If Imbler is to be overruled, only the Supreme Court
itself can overrule it.” Foreman v. Wadsworth, 844 F.3d 620, 624 (7th Cir. 2016).
AFFIRMED
† Echols also sued the two Chicago police officers who conducted the traffic stop
and impounded his car, alleging civil conspiracy and violations of his rights under the
Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. The district court dismissed those claims as moot
because Echols had raised substantively identical allegations against the officers in an
earlier case and lost at summary judgment. See Echols v. Niznik, No. 20-CV-2226 (N.D.
Ill. Apr. 29, 2025). Echols does not challenge the court’s mootness determination, and so
we do not review it here.

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