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2024 Supreme(US)(ca7) 7

COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT
Rovnerconcurs and dissents
Nathaniel Pryor – Appellant
Versus
Michael Corrigan – Respondent



United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 23-1463 NATHANIEL PRYOR, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MICHAEL CORRIGAN, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 1:17-cv-01968 — Steven C. Seeger, Judge. ____________________

ARGUED FEBRUARY 5, 2024 — DECIDED DECEMBER 23, 2024 ____________________

Before ROVNER, BRENNAN, and KIRSCH, Circuit Judges. BRENNAN, Circuit Judge. After receiving a tip about drug activity linked to a van in a specific area of Aurora, Illinois, officers pulled over a vehicle that fit the description. Once the van stopped, Nathaniel Pryor and another man exited quickly. An officer yelled to Pryor to get on the ground, ran to him, took him down, struck him twice, and later searched him. Although officers determined that Pryor was not 2 No. 23-1463 involved with drug activity, the state charged him with ob- structing/resisting a police officer. The state later dropped the charge. Pryor sued several officers and the City of Aurora. He brought multiple federal and state law claims, including un- der 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The district court granted in part defend- ants’ motion for summary judgment. The remaining claims went to trial, at which the jury found for the defendants. Pryor appeals, claiming the district court erred in its summary judg- ment decision and in many evidentiary and procedural rul- ings at trial. The district court did not err in granting defendants sum- mary judgment on Pryor’s false arrest claim and qualified im- munity on part of his excessive force claim. And Corrigan’s two searches were proper incident to Pryor’s arrest. The dis- trict court also did not abuse its discretion in its trial decisions. So, we affirm the district court in full. I. Background A. Factual On March 23, 2015, Aurora police received a tip from a confidential informant that someone would be “cooking crack cocaine at a home on Kane Street,” and “would be in a con- version van.” Five police officers joined a stakeout of that lo- cation. Officer Damien Cantona and another officer surveilled the home from a distance in their vehicle. Officer Michael Cor- rigan and another officer cruised the neighborhood. Officer Nathaniel Isaak parked further down Kane Street with direc- tions, if probable cause existed, to stop the van. Later that evening, a conversion van drove into the neigh- borhood. Pryor sat in the front passenger seat and the man No. 23-1463 3 named in the tip sat in the back seat. They were headed to Pryor’s house to grab his gym bag and then to “go to the gym for a workout.” Isaak was the first officer to see the van. He watched it ap- proach the intersection of Kane and Ohio Streets, stop at a stop sign, signal, and then turn right. But the van failed to sig- nal 100 feet before turning, a violation of Illinois law. Isaak decided to stop the van, so he began to follow it. Corrigan fol- lowed Isaak’s squad car in their cruiser, trailing by a few blocks. Corrigan’s and Isaak’s police car dash cameras captured this sequence, the ensuing traffic stop, and the events that fol- lowed. The two dashcams recorded video and audio, some of which overlapped. Corrigan’s camera showed Pryor’s initial actions after the traffic stop. Isaak’s camera captured the be- ginning of the interaction between Pryor and Corrigan, and Corrigan’s camera showed the end. The parties characterize what took place differently, but the videos tell their own story. On appeal, we “view the facts

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