In the

    United States Court of Appeals
                For the Seventh Circuit
                    ____________________
No. 24-1053
SHAWNQIZ LEE,
                                                 Plaintiff-Appellant,
                                v.

ERIC HARRIS, BRANDON POFELSKI and CITY OF ROCKFORD,
ILLINOIS,
                                  Defendants-Appellees.
                    ____________________

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the
          Northern District of Illinois, Western Division.
          No. 3:21-cv-50199 — Iain D. Johnston, Judge.
                    ____________________

  ARGUED NOVEMBER 12, 2024 — DECIDED JANUARY 27, 2025
               ____________________

    Before SYKES, Chief Judge, and BRENNAN and ST. EVE, Cir-
cuit Judges.
    BRENNAN, Circuit Judge. Shawnqiz Lee was detained and
charged as a murder suspect. Over a year later the charges
were dismissed, and he was released. Lee filed a variety of
§ 1983 claims, asserting the police arrested and imprisoned
him without probable cause. But the existence of probable
cause is presumed because Lee was arrested and detained
2                                                 No. 24-1053

based on an arrest warrant issued by a neutral magistrate and
a grand jury indictment. Because Lee has not rebutted those
presumptions, we affirm the district court’s grant of summary
judgment to the police officers.
                       I. Background
     In February 2018, two men invaded a home in Rockford,
Illinois in which Julian Young, Jr. and Jasmine Meneweather
were living. Meneweather escaped, but the assailants killed
Young. Rockford police officers interviewed Meneweather
immediately after the attack. She gave general descriptions of
the two perpetrators but could not provide their photos or
names.
    During their investigation, officers learned that Me-
neweather may have been romantically involved with the
purported driver of the assailants’ getaway car. Specifically,
officers listened to a recorded jail phone call in which Young’s
brother said Meneweather had sexual relations with the
driver. Based on this development, officers decided to re-in-
terview Meneweather. Shortly after the second interview, she
sent Detective Eric Harris a text message, providing a photo
of one of the perpetrators. Neither Harris nor other Rockford
police offers could identify the person in the photograph, so
no further action was taken.
   Over a year later, in April 2019, Harris met with Young’s
aunt, who gave him a photo identifying the two assailants.
She told Harris the two men in the photo were brothers. An-
other officer recognized one of the men as Cortez Lee, and
No. 24-1053                                                    3

Harris eventually identified the second man as Cortez’s
brother, Shawnqiz Lee. 1
    Illinois State Police were also involved in the murder in-
vestigation. In August 2019, they issued a lab report conclud-
ing that fingernail clippings taken from Young’s body during
the autopsy contained DNA from an unknown person. That
same month, Harris invited Meneweather to the police station
to view photo arrays. Brandon Pofelski, another Rockford de-
tective, met with Meneweather to present them. He had not
been involved in the investigation up to that point.
Meneweather was advised that the suspect may or may not
be in the arrays. Pofelski then showed her two six-person
photo arrays—one included Cortez and the other included
Lee.
    Meneweather recognized Lee thirteen seconds after view-
ing the first array. After identifying him, she “was visibly
shaking and emotional.” Police interviewed Lee five weeks
after the identification. He told the officers he was at work at
the time of the home invasion, but police did not attempt to
corroborate his alibi until after his arrest.
   In November 2019, Winnebago County State’s Attorney
Marilyn Hite Ross requested that the Rockford police put to-
gether a criminal complaint against Lee. Pofelski drafted the
complaint charging Lee with home invasion and Young’s
murder. After obtaining Hite Ross’s approval, the complaint
was presented to an Illinois judge. Pofelski testified about Me-
neweather’s identification and the unprocessed DNA sample
taken from Young’s fingernails. But Pofelski did not testify

    1 Although Shawnqiz and Cortez share a last name, we refer to

Shawnqiz as “Lee” for the remainder of this opinion.
4                                                    No. 24-1053

about Lee’s possible alibi or Meneweather’s reliability. The
judge issued an arrest warrant for Lee, and Rockford police
arrested him the same day.
    A week after his arrest, two of Lee’s family members met
with Rockford police and produced his timecard from his
workplace. It showed Lee had clocked in about 45 minutes
before the first 911 call on the day of the murder. Police went
to the workplace and spoke to Lee’s supervisor, who con-
firmed the timecard was authentic. The supervisor told police
that it was not possible for Lee to have been gone or unac-
counted for at the time of the crime. Police requested video
from his workplace’s surveillance system for that day, but
due to a failure no footage was available. The officers in-
formed Hite Ross of Lee’s potential alibi and their follow-up
investigation. They then prepared a written report of the in-
terview of Lee’s supervisor and placed the timecard in evi-
dence, providing copies of both to Hite Ross.
   In December 2019, Harris testified before a grand jury. It
returned an indictment charging Lee with first-degree mur-
der and armed robbery.
    Two weeks later, the Illinois State Police issued a lab report
that concluded Lee’s DNA did not match the DNA found un-
der Young’s fingernails. The prosecution disclosed this report
to Lee. He then sought release from pretrial custody, citing as
evidence the timecard and the DNA report. The judge denied
the motion.
   In December 2020, the newly elected State’s Attorney re-
viewed the case against Lee and decided to dismiss the
charges against him. Lee was released from custody after be-
ing held for just over thirteen months.
No. 24-1053                                                    5

    After his release Lee sued Harris and Pofelski, among oth-
ers, alleging they violated his Fourth Amendment rights
against unlawful arrest and detention. He also alleged the of-
ficers maliciously prosecuted him, violating both the Fourth
Amendment and Illinois law. The district court granted sum-
mary judgment to the officers. It reasoned that probable
cause, which the officers had after Meneweather’s identifica-
tion, is an absolute defense to all of Lee’s claims. This appeal
followed.
                        II. Discussion
     We review a court’s grant of summary judgment de novo,
“construing the evidence in the light most favorable to the
non-moving parties and drawing all reasonable inferences in
their favor.” Navratil v. City of Racine, 

 (7th
Cir. 2024). Summary judgment is warranted when “there is no
genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is en-
titled to judgment as a matter of law.” FED. R. CIV. P. 56(a).
    Probable cause “is an absolute defense” to Lee’s § 1983
claims. Madero v. McGuinness, 

 (7th Cir. 2024)
(quoting Lawson v. Veruchi, 

 (7th Cir. 2011))
(analyzing a false arrest claim). So, he carries the burden of
demonstrating that police lacked probable cause to arrest and
detain him. 

    When a neutral magistrate issues an arrest warrant, “we
presume the validity of the warrant and the information of-
fered to support it.” Johnson v. Myers, 

 (7th
Cir. 2022) (quoting Dollard v. Whisenand, 

 (7th
Cir. 2019)). A plaintiff can rebut this presumption in a couple
of ways. The plaintiff may show that “the warrant application
was ‘so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render
6                                                   No. 24-1053

official belief in its existence unreasonable.’” Id. at 1069 (quot-
ing Whisenand, 

). The presumption can also
give way if the plaintiff shows “that the officer who sought
the warrant knowingly or intentionally or with a reckless
disregard for the truth, made false statements to the judicial
officer, and that the false statements were necessary to the ju-
dicial officer’s determination that probable cause existed.” 

(quoting Whitlock v. Brown, 

 (7th Cir. 2010))
(internal quotations omitted). Omissions are included in this
category, such as when the “officer intentionally or recklessly
withheld material facts from the warrant-issuing judge.” 

These “exceptions are narrowly drawn by design.” 

    Similarly, a grand jury “indictment is prima facie evidence
of probable cause.” Coleman v. City of Peoria, 

(7th Cir. 2019). To overcome this presumption, a plaintiff
must advance “evidence that law enforcement obtained the
indictment through improper or fraudulent means.” 

 In
other words, he must show “defendants knew they lacked
probable cause to arrest him.” 

    A. False Arrest Claims
    Lee initially takes aim at the presumption of the arrest
warrant’s validity. He contends that Meneweather’s identifi-
cation of him was insufficient to establish probable cause, and
thus that any conclusion of probable cause was unreasonable.
But our court has held repeatedly that a single eyewitness
identification is enough to provide a defense against Fourth
Amendment claims. Gramenos v. Jewel Cos., 

,
No. 24-1053                                                     7

439-40 (7th Cir. 1986); see also McBride v. Grice, 

 (7th Cir. 2009).
    Gramenos is instructive. There, a supermarket security
guard held a customer he mistakenly thought was shoplifting
until police arrived. 797 F.2d at 433–34. The guard was the sole
eyewitness to the crime and the state’s only witness at trial.
Id. at 434. The customer brought a § 1983 claim against the po-
lice for his arrest. Id. In affirming summary judgment for the
officers, this court concluded that “one reliable eyewitness is
enough” to give the police probable cause to arrest. Id. at 440.
Indeed, “a single eyewitness’s statement—without further in-
vestigation or a narration of contrary evidence—can support
a warrant.” Id.; see also Moorer v. City of Chicago, 

 (7th Cir. 2024) (“[I]dentification by even one eyewitness
who lacks an apparent grudge against the accused person is
sufficient to demonstrate probable cause.”).
    Gramenos is distinguishable, Lee argues, because Me-
neweather’s photo-array identification occurred over a year
after Young’s murder. True, the court in Gramenos cautioned
that probable cause may not exist “if the person claiming to
be an eyewitness strolls into the police station and describes a
crime from long ago, or if the person leveling the accusation
is babbling or inconsistent.” Id. at 439. But Meneweather pro-
vided a photo of Lee to Harris in March 2018, just weeks after
the murder. After Meneweather’s later identification in Sep-
tember 2019, officers ensured the person she identified in the
photo array matched the photo she initially produced. So, this
is not an instance where a random eyewitness “stroll[ed] into
the police station and describe[d] a crime from long ago,” but
rather a putative victim identifying a perpetrator in a timely
manner. Id.
8                                                   No. 24-1053

    Because there was no reason for the judge to question Me-
neweather’s identification, the application was not “so lacking
in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its
existence unreasonable.” Id. (quoting Whisenand, 

). Lee’s challenge on this front fails.
    This presumption can also be overcome by showing that
the officers recklessly withheld material facts which, if
included in the warrant application, “would have negated
probable cause.” Whitlock, 

. When considering
materiality, this court has emphasized “that probable cause is
a common-sense inquiry requiring only a probability of crim-
inal activity.” 

 A § 1983 plaintiff must show that the “mis-
leading omissions were collectively a but-for cause of the
judicial determinations of probable cause to detain” him.
Washington v. City of Chicago, 

 (7th Cir. 2024).
   Lee identifies five categories of evidence he argues were
recklessly withheld from the judge. First, he contends his al-
ibi—that he was at work during the time of the murder—
should have been disclosed at the warrant hearing. But at the
time of the warrant application, Rockford police had only
Lee’s oral assertion that he was at work. Not until the follow-
ing week did his relatives provide his timecard.
    Unsurprisingly, “criminal suspects frequently protest
their innocence.” Beauchamp v. City of Noblesville, 

 (7th Cir. 2003). A bare “denial of guilt generally is not
enough to trigger a duty to investigate in the face of a reason-
ably believable witness and readily observable events.” 

Further, police are not required to thoroughly investigate a
suspect’s alibi before an arrest. Jackson v. City of Peoria, 

 (7th Cir. 2016). Thus, Pofelski was under no ob-
ligation to investigate or disclose Lee’s alibi to the judge.
No. 24-1053                                                     9

   Second, Lee asserts that authorities should have disclosed
his lack of prior connections with either victim before the
home invasion. He cites no authority for how this information
would be relevant, much less material, to the probable cause
analysis. And we have found no cases providing that lack of
prior knowledge defeats probable cause.
    Third, Lee submits that police did not tell the judge that
the photo array identification occurred over a year after the
murder. But as discussed above, Meneweather provided
Lee’s photo to Detective Harris just weeks after the home in-
vasion. Lee is therefore not correct that the delay reduced the
reliability of Meneweather’s identification.
    Fourth, Lee notes that Meneweather first estimated the
suspect to weigh forty pounds more than Lee. But inconsist-
encies “between a witness’s description and an officer’s ob-
servation of the suspect are not unusual and do not automat-
ically negate probable cause.” Muhammad v. Pearson, 

 (7th Cir. 2018) (holding that a difference of a few
years in age and three inches in height did not negate proba-
ble cause). Indeed, probable cause is based only on “reasona-
bleness, not perfection.” 

 (quoting Pasiewicz v. Lake Cnty.
Forest Pres. Dist., 

, 524 (7th Cir. 2001)). And a war-
rant application need not “include all information, or even all
inconsistencies, discovered in a preliminary investigation.”
Garcia v. Posewitz, 

 (7th Cir. 2023).
   Fifth, Lee argues the police should have disclosed
Meneweather’s possible credibility issues. Her identification
was not reliable, he posits, due to a possible sexual relation-
ship with the purported getaway driver. Of course, if “officers
entertained serious doubts as to the truth of their statements,
[or] had obvious reasons to doubt the accuracy of the
10                                                  No. 24-1053

information reported,” that is enough to negate probable
cause. Edwards v. Jolliff-Blake, 

 (7th Cir.
2018) (quoting Beauchamp, 

). Yet it is not enough
for a § 1983 plaintiff to show merely that “a judge or jury
could choose to disbelieve the witness[]”—that is a question
for trial. Moorer, 

.
    There is no evidence that the Rockford police entertained
“serious doubts” about Meneweather’s reliability at the time
of the arrest warrant. So, instead, Lee falls back on speculation
as to the officers’ states of mind. Specifically, he argues that
police had serious doubts about Meneweather’s truthfulness
because they re-interviewed her after finding multiple inti-
mate text conversations on her phone with an unidentified
person. But although police may have harbored suspicion of
bias before re-interviewing Meneweather, further investiga-
tion did not confirm doubts about her reliability. Lee’s asser-
tion that the officers “clearly” possessed doubts about
Meneweather’s veracity is therefore unsubstantiated “conjec-
ture,” which “will not overcome the presumption that the ar-
rest warrant was valid.” Johnson, 

.
    Moreover, the officer whose testimony Lee relies on to
demonstrate “serious doubt” became aware of the case only
in August 2020, nearly a year after the arrest warrant issued.
But this is irrelevant for a probable cause determination. We
consider only “what the officer knew at the time he sought the
warrant, not at how things turned out in hindsight.” Washing-
ton, 

 (quoting Beauchamp, 

).
   Lee makes a last-ditch effort to speculate about the
officers’ frame of mind, claiming we can infer doubt from a
two-month gap between the photo array identification and
the issuance of the arrest warrant. He did not, nor could he,
No. 24-1053                                                    11

cite any authority for the proposition that police must pursue
an arrest warrant as soon as they obtain probable cause. Exec-
utive officials enjoy substantial discretion in how they con-
duct investigations. See, e.g., In re United States, 

,
641 (7th Cir. 2007). It would thus be improper for us to impose
an artificial requirement that they must seek an arrest warrant
as soon as the bare minimum for probable cause is met.
   There are no facts, individually or in the aggregate, to
overcome the “‘great deference’ [owed] to the issuing judge’s
‘determination of probable cause.’” Johnson, 

(quoting Illinois v. Gates, 

 (1983)). Lee’s false
arrest claim accordingly fails.
   B. Manuel Claim
   Even if police had probable cause to arrest him, Lee con-
tends additional facts arose later in the investigation to make
his continued detention unlawful. A plaintiff can pursue a
Fourth Amendment claim “even beyond the start of legal pro-
cess.” Manuel v. City of Joliet, 

 (2017). If an
individual’s initial detention is proper but probable cause dis-
sipates before his release, a constitutional claim exists for any
detention until he “is either convicted or acquitted.” Kuri v.
City of Chicago, 

, 575 (7th Cir. 2021).
   But the grand jury’s indictment, obtained while Lee was
detained, is prima facie evidence of probable cause. Coleman,

. Plaintiffs can overcome this presumption only
by showing “that law enforcement obtained the indictment
through improper or fraudulent means,” and they “knew
they lacked probable cause to arrest.” 

   As discussed above, Lee cannot show the defendants
knew they lacked probable cause when the warrant issued.
12                                                           No. 24-1053

And the grand jury issued its indictment not even one month
after Lee’s arrest. The only additional evidence police
obtained between those two events was Lee’s timecard. The
officers immediately followed up with Lee’s manager, who
confirmed the timecard’s authenticity and that Lee could not
have been gone from work or unaccounted for at that time.
    But, despite their requests, the officers were unable to ob-
tain video of Lee at work during that time. And after reading
the officers’ report on the interview, Hite Ross said she was
familiar with suspects creating fraudulent records. So, the rec-
ord undercuts the claim that Rockford police ignored “con-
clusively established exculpatory evidence.” Madero, 

. Rather, the investigation shows the officers did what
our precedent requires—“to act in a reasonable fashion and
not to take an ostrich-like approach to exculpatory evidence
that is obvious in nature.” 

 The timecard, while it would
have supported Lee’s defense at a trial, did not undermine
probable cause. Indeed, “there is a meaningful distinction be-
tween disregarding potentially exculpatory information and
disbelieving it.” Whisenand, 

 (quoting Mahnke v.
Garrigan, 

 (7th Cir. 2011)). Lee makes no
persuasive argument that the police decided to disregard the
timecard, as opposed to question its veracity. Accordingly,
Lee has not overcome the presumption that the arrest warrant
was valid. Nor has he shown that law enforcement obtained
the indictment through improper or fraudulent means. So, he
has not defeated the presumption of probable cause. 2


     2 It is also relevant that the officers “consulted with” Hite Ross when

deciding whether to pursue the arrest warrant. See Johnson, 

n.2. The State’s Attorney requested and approved the warrant application.
Hite Ross did not conduct her “own independent fact-gathering” before
No. 24-1053                                                           13

    After the indictment, the sole additional fact that could
have eliminated authority to detain him was the Illinois State
Police report, which found the DNA under Young’s nails did
not match Lee’s DNA. Although this report failed to confirm
that Lee was at the crime scene, it did not conclusively exclude
him from it. There was no evidence that Young touched the
perpetrator, so there was no reason to believe the DNA under
his fingernails was from one of the perpetrators. The report
therefore does not render probable cause unreasonable, as the
standard requires “only a probability of criminal activity.”
Whitlock, 

. At the pretrial detention stage, the
officers need not “have evidence beyond a reasonable doubt
that [Lee] committed the crime.” Moorer, 

. Alt-
hough the lack of a DNA match would have been a good “ar-
gument[] at trial,” it does not negate probable cause. 

    C. Malicious Prosecution Claims
     In addition to his Fourth Amendment unlawful detention
claims, Lee brought federal and state malicious prosecution
claims against the officers. A malicious prosecution claim un-
der the Fourth Amendment requires a plaintiff to demon-
strate that (1) the judicial proceeding was instituted without
probable cause; (2) the motive for the proceeding was mali-
cious; and (3) the prosecution ended in the plaintiff’s favor.
Thompson v. Clark, 

 (2022). The elements for an
Illinois state-law malicious prosecution claim mirror those
federal requirements. See Martinez v. City of Chicago, 

 (7th Cir. 2018) (citing Howard v. Firmand, 880 N.E.2d

the application, so her approval does not serve as an independent dispos-
itive basis to support probable cause. Washington, 

.
Nonetheless, her approval bolsters the defendants’ assertion that they
acted reasonably.
14                                                         No. 24-1053

1139, 1142 (Ill. App. Ct. 2007)); Miller v. Rosenberg, 

 (Ill. 2001).
    The existence of probable cause therefore also serves as a
defense against both federal and state-law malicious prosecu-
tion claims. Martinez, 

; see also Washington, 

. Lee identifies no facts beyond those discussed
above that would eliminate probable cause at any stage of the
proceedings. Although the prosecution “ended without a
conviction,” the government here never lacked the minimum
evidence needed to pursue the indictment. Thompson, 

. The district court was thus correct to grant summary
judgment on the malicious prosecution claim. 3
                         *          *          *
   Probable cause is an absolute defense against Lee’s Fourth
Amendment and state-law claims. Because it existed here, the
judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.




     3 Because we hold that the defendants here committed no legal viola-

tions, we need not reach the issue of qualified immunity. See Madero, 

.