Seventh Circuit Grants Qualified Immunity to Detectives Who Revealed Prisoner Was Informant, Denies Him Anonymity
by Matt Clarke
On May 29, 2026, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed a district court’s denial of qualified immunity to two police detectives who, by asking questions of a state prisoner in front of his cell, may have revealed to other prisoners at the Wisconsin Secure Program Facility that he had been cooperating with investigators.
David W. Watts sent letters suggesting that he had valuable information about a murder and an attempted murder. Detectives Kevin Jones and Mark Smit went to the prison and sought to have Watts brought to an interview room. Fearing this would let other prisoners infer he was an informant, he refused. Then one of the detectives went to his cell to ask about a letter without referring to the letter’s contents. Watts refused to talk to the detective.
Watts filed a federal civil rights action, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §1983, alleging that, just by coming to his cell and asking about a letter, the detectives endangered him such that he feared the subject of the investigation would find out about his cooperation. Watts alleged he was subsequently threatened and harassed but no physical harm came to him.
“Watts asked the district court to conduct the litigation under seal, and it largely obliged. Many papers were withheld from the public record and others were heavily redacted.” After the court denied the Detectives’ motion for summary judgment, they filed an interlocutory appeal arguing they were entitled to qualified immunity. Attorneys Mark A. Cameli, Jori P. LaRosa, and Monica A. Mark of Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren s.c. represented Watts on appeal.
Watts asked to conduct the appeal under seal. A motions judge denied the motion but “authorized redactions so severe that the case was docketed—and the briefs were captioned—as ‘’Appellee v. K.J. and M.S.’” Later, the court denied a request by Watts for anonymity and gave him the choice of withdrawing the suit or placing his name in the public record. He chose to proceed without anonymity.
The Seventh Circuit presumed that the duty to protect prisoners from harm at the hands of other prisoners, set out in Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825 (1994), applies to detectives visiting a prison. However, “neither the district court nor counsel for Watts has pointed to a decision clearly establishing that exposing a prisoner to a risk of physical harm that never comes to pass violates the Constitution.”
Further, a prisoner cannot recover damages for risk of harm, per Babcock v. White, 102 F.3d 267 (7th Cir. 1996).
The Court held that the privilege to conceal an informant’s identity belongs to the prosecutor, not the informant, writing “Just as a witness lacks a constitutional right to anonymity, so an informant lacks a constitutional right to be in a witness protection program.”
The Court also held Watts would have another problem even if the detectives were not entitled to qualified immunity: Because he was not harmed physically, his recovery would be limited to $1 in nominal damages. However, he could not even collect that single dollar because it would presumably be for emotional injuries and 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(e) prohibits prisoners from bringing an action for emotional injuries absent physical injuries or a sexual act.
The Court argued that the detectives were entitled to summary judgment based on qualified immunity. It reversed the district court. See: Watts v. Jones, 177 F.4th 820 (7th Cir. 2026).
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Related legal case
Watts v. Jones
| Year | 2026 |
|---|---|
| Cite | 177 F.4th 820 (7th Cir. 2026) |
| Level | Court of Appeals |