text:
    UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Samuel L. BRADBURY, Defendant-Appellant.
    No. 16-1532
    United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.
    Argued January 18, 2017
    Decided February 16, 2017

      David E. Hollar, Attorney, Office of the United States Attorney, Hammond, IN, for Plaintiff-Appellee.
    Thomas L. Shriner, Jr., Attorney, Aaron Russell Wegrzyn, Attorney, Foley & Lardner LLP, Milwaukee, WI, for Defendant Appellant.
    Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and POSNER and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.
   POSNER, Circuit Judge.

On June 8, 2014, Jerad and Amanda Miller, originally of Lafayette, Indiana, shot and killed two police officers and one civilian in Las Vegas. The couple died in an ensuing shootout with police, Amanda committing suicide after Jerad was shot. At approximately 11:15 p.m. on June 19, 2014, Samuel L. Bradbury, a Lafayette resident, placed the following message on his Facebook “wall,” where it was readable by his Facebook “friends,” who could moreover take screenshots of the message to convey to others:

I can’t keep silent on this conspiracy anymore. I have to reveal some truth. My buddy and comrade Ant has been catching some flack for some of his posts about killing cops. I have to let out the truth. Jerad and Amanda Miller were losers. They were part of out [sm] group, the 765 Anarchists, the town’s cop killing group run by none other than myself, Sam Bradbury. When we discovered that Jerad and Amanda were CIs and in with the boys in blue, we sent them out to the Bundy Ranch to cause controversy elsewhere because we didn’t need them snitching on our business. I hadn’t heard from him since that event, but some of our comrades gave the command and that’s why Jerad and Amanda [MJiller killed those cops in Las Vegas. I thought Jerad was cool, but fuck him, he was a CI. Great job I must say, but not what we wanted. We, the 765 Anarchists, including myself and Ant are part of a much larger plot that we’ve been forming for years to kill cops in the local area, and specifically to take out WLPD Officer Troy Green and Tippecanoe County Sheriff, Tracy Brown. Jerad and Amanda were just following 765 Anarchist group orders, but they had fallen out of favor with the group after we discovered they were working with police as confidential informants. While we are glad that they killed some police, the 765 Anarchists are looking to make waves in the 765 area, specifically Lafayette. The top two on our hit list are Troy Green of the WLPD and Tracy Brown, Tippecanoe County Sheriff. We have field agents out currently gathering information and planning the attack. We have gathered enough thermite and explosives that we intend to not only kill those two pigs and any others that get in our way, but also to cause extreme damage to the county’s various offices’ equipment, including police cars and police buildings. Before the month is over, we intend to incinerate and destroy no less than 6 police cars, as well as the Tippecanoe County Courthouse, with hits specifically targeted on Judge Les Meade and Judge Loretta Rush also. The courthouse will be blown to pieces within the month, we have agents operating all over the city, and some all over the country. Ant is nothing more than a fall boy, although we do have plans to use him in a suicide strike on the police or a suicide bombing on a local police building before we are through. Our arsenal is massive, and our group has well over 50 supremely dedicated members who are willing to die. I can’t let this story go on falsely anymore, Jerad and Amanda Miller didn’t do shit, they were outcasts of the group, but they brought us the attention we needed. I, Sam Bradbury, am responsible for the organization of the group and the acquisition of the chemical weapons, incendiaries, explosives, munitions, and general arms. We will not stop this plan, we will cause chaos ■ and terror. We will destroy the Tippecanoe County Courthouse in a blaze of glory and we will take out Tippecanoe County Sheriff Tracy Brown, no matter what the cost, even if we lose all of our members in the process, we will not go down without a fight and causing serious damage. So watch out, the cop killers are out. The 765 Anarchists are going to purge the vile pig scum from this land and restore constitutional rights to the people. Call us crazy, call us killers, call us heroes and patriots. We’re okay with all of it. Remember— KILL COPS, STICK PIGS, AND WATCH OUT FOR THE 765 ANARCHISTS, INCLUDING SAM BRADBURY AND ANT! (FREE SPEECH EXERCISE FOOLS)[J

In response to a comment from a friend asking whether his post was serious, Bradbury described it as “complete satire.... This is simply a big mind game and satirical joke.... [I]t’s made to get you to think.” (To think about committing mayhem!) About a half hour after posting the message he deleted it, but one of his friends had obtained screenshots of the post and discussed them with a coworker, who sent them to the police, which kicked off an investigation that resulted in Bradbury’s arrest and (pursuant to search warrants) searches of his bedroom in his parents’ home. The search turned up approximately four pounds of chemicals: 0.38 pounds of thermite (a compound of metal oxide and aluminum) plus 3.5 pounds of unmixed ingredients for making more thermite, and also turned up magnesium, which can be used to ignite thermite — and once it is ignited, thermite burns at an-extremely high temperature and so can cause a great deal of damage.

On the basis of these discoveries, and the threats in the Facebook post, Bradbury was indicted on federal charges of threatening to use explosive materials to kill law enforcement officers and state court judges and destroy a courthouse and police vehicles, all by means of the ther-mite found in his bedroom — thermite ignitable by the magnesium also found there. But a superseding indictment changed the charges to “willfully mak[ing] any threat” and “maliciously conveying] false information.” The jury trial that ensued resulted in Bradbury’s acquittal of the first charge -and conviction of the second. The judge sentenced him to 41 months of imprisonment to be followed by two years of supervised release.

The count of which he was convicted was based on 18 U.S.C. § 844(e), which provides, so far as relates to this case, that “whoever, through the use of the mail, telephone, telegraph, or other instrument of interstate or foreign commerce, or in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, ... maliciously conveys false information knowing the same to be false, concerning an attempt or alleged attempt being made or to be made to kill, injure, or intimidate any individual or unlawfully to damage or destroy any building, vehicle, or other real or personal property, by means of fire or an explosive, shall be imprisoned for not more than 10 years or fined under this title, or both.” The judge instructed the jury that to act “maliciously” means “to act intentionally or with deliberate disregard of the likelihood that damage or injury will result.” He added that the jury should find the defendant guilty if it concluded that he’d intentionally “conveyed false information, knowing the same to be false,” that “the false information was conveyed maliciously and via an instrument of interstate commerce,” and that it “concerned an alleged attempt to kill or injure law enforcement officers or to damage or destroy the Tippecanoe County Courthouse or other public property .by use of fire or explosives.” And so the jury found.

Bradbury argues that the judge’s definition of “maliciously” allowed the jury to convict him merely for posting the message (an intentional act) even if he didn’t intend the post to cause harm — in other words if his Facebook post was a joke and so there was nothing malicious about it, just as in United States v. Hassouneh, 199 F.3d 175, 182 (4th Cir. 2000), which vacated a conviction under the Bomb Hoax Act, 18 U.S.C. § 35(b), in which a similar instruction had been given to the jury and the defendant had argued that the false statements about a bomb in his airline luggage were jokes.

The jurors in the present case, however, could not have believed that the instructions they were given equated “maliciously” to “intentionally,” because that would make trimming one’s fingernails a- malicious act.- To make a threat, however, is both intentional and malicious — intentional because deliberate and malicious because calculated to inspire fear and provoke a possibly costly response — even if the threatener doesn’t intend to carry out the threat. And that is how the government argued the case to the jury — that Bradbury should be convicted because he had conducted an elaborate, detailed, and malicious hoax, intending the disruptive effects that resulted from his threat, even though it wasn’t carried out, to blow up a courthouse and kill several named judges and law enforcement officers.

We find variant instructions in other, similar cases, such as United States v. Grady, 746 F.3d 846, 849 (7th Cir. 2014), which defined “maliciously” in 18 U.S.C. § 844(i) as acting “intentionally or with deliberate disregard of the likelihood that damage or injury would result”, and United States v. Williams, 690 F.3d 1056, 1064-65 (8th Cir. 2012), where an instruction under section 844(e) read that “To act maliciously as the term is used in these instructions means to act intentionally or with willful disregard of the likelihood that damage or injury will result.” An alternative wording of the instruction given in a case such as the present one might be that a defendant acts “maliciously” within the meaning of section 844(e) “if he'acts either with the intention to cause damage or injury or with deliberate disregard for the likelihood that damage or injury would result.”

But the instructions in the present case were adequate, and, as the judge explained, “when someone goes on social media and says he is going to blow up a courthouse, or any building for that matter, that is almost assuredly going to cause substantial harm by diverting law enforcement resources.” Sure enough, Bradbury’s Facebook post precipitated an extensive police investigation that discovered Bradbury’s thermite and magnesium hoard— hardly the material of harmless jokes. Furthermore, the pei*sons named in the post as intended murder victims of Bradbury and his pals can’t have enjoyed seeing the screenshots of the post.

It’s true that the word “maliciously” is not precise; if you google “maliciously synonyms,” Thesaurus.com gives you 16 words, ranging in gravity from “crookedly” to “roguishly.” See www.thesaurus.com/ browse/maliciously (visited Feb. 16, 2017). But at least “malice” and “malicious” are reasonably clear and they in turn guide interpretation of “maliciously.” “Malice” is the noun, “malicious” the adjective, and “maliciously” the adverb — and so to act maliciously is to act with malice, or equivalently to be malicious. All three cognates well describe Bradbury’s post, which he knew might be read by people not all of them his pals and communicated by them to the police and to the persons named in the post as intended victims of him and his cronies. Most hoaxes are harmless, but a hoax based on a threat of harm is criminalized by 18 U.S.C. § 844(e), as explained by the district judge, even if the harm that ensues is fright rather than physical injury.

Affirmed


source: Caselaw Access Project

author: ROVNER, Circuit Judge.

license: Public Domain

text:
    UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellant, Cross-Appellee, v. Cornelius PAXTON, et al., Defendants-Appellees, and Matthew Webster, Defendant-Appellee, Cross-Appellant.
    Nos. 14-2913 & 15-1294
    United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.
    Argued December 1, 2016
    Decided February 17, 2017

      Debra Riggs Bonamici, Jennie Levin, Attorneys, Office of the United States Attorney, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellant, Cross-Appellee.
    Standish E. Willis, Attorney, Law Office of Standish E. Willis, Chicago, IL, for Cornelius Paxton.

      J. Clifford Greene, Jr., Attorney, Law Offices of J. Clifford Greene, Jr., Chicago, IL, for Randy Walker.
    Thomas C. Brandstrader, Attorney, Law Office of Thomas C. Brandstrader, Chicago, IL, for Randy Paxton.
    Bart E. Beals, Attorney, Beals Law Firm, Chicago, IL, for Adonis Berry.
    Carol A. Brook, Candace R. Jackson, Attorneys, Office of the Federal Defender Program, Chicago, IL, for Matthew Webster.
    Before POSNER, RIPPLE, and ROVNER, Circuit Judges.
   ROVNER, Circuit Judge.

The district court suppressed the covertly-recorded statements that the defendants made to one another while being transported in a police van immediately after their arrests, finding that the characteristics of the van supported a reasonable expectation of privacy in the defendants’ conversations. The government has appealed that ruling, and defendant Matthew Webster has cross-appealed the district court’s determination that his subjective expectation of privacy ended when a co-defendant warned others within the van that they were likely being recorded. Building upon our decision in United States v. Webster, 775 F.3d 897 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 135 S.Ct. 2368, 192 L.Ed.2d 158 (2015), we conclude that the defendants lacked an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in the van, and we therefore reverse the district court’s decision to suppress their statements. We dismiss Webster’s cross-appeal as moot.

I.

The five defendants in this case were arrested on the evening of January 30, 2013, as they were preparing to execute a planned robbery of what turned out to be a wholly fictitious narcotics “stash house.” See, e.g., United States v. Lewis, 641 F.3d 773, 777-78 (7th Cir. 2011). They had been recruited into the scheme by an undercover agent who posed as a drug courier seeking to rob the Mexican drug cartel for which he was purportedly working. The sting was organized by a task force comprised of Chicago police officers and agents of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (“ATF”).

Two of the defendants, Randy Walker and Randy Paxton, were arrested outside of a Chicago restaurant. They were placed into a police transport van that was clearly marked as a Chicago Police Department vehicle. The vehicle was a Ford E350 cargo van that had been modified for police use. The van’s interior was divided into three compartments by two solid steel walls with small double plexiglass viewing windows. The driver and a passenger would occupy the front compartment, while the rear two compartments were reserved for detainees. After Walker and Paxton were loaded into the van, task force officers drove the van a short distance to a warehouse, where the other three defendants — Cornelius Paxton, Adonis Berry, and Matthew Webster — had convened with the undercover agent for a final pre-robbery meeting. Those three defendants, having also been arrested, were placed into the rear-most compartment of the van along with Walker and Randy Paxton.

Within the van, the defendants were seated on two benches facing one another from opposite sides of the van — “shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee,” as the district court later put it. United States v. Paxton, No. 1:13-cr-00103, 2015 WL 493958, at *2 (N.D. Ill. Feb. 3, 2015) (“Paxton II”). All five of the defendants had their wrists handcuffed behind their backs. The district court would later determine that the defendants could expect to be overheard conversing from outside of the compartment only if they spoke in an above-normal tone of voice.

None of the defendants was given Miranda warnings before being placed into the van. Each defendant was, however, asked by officers to state his name and certain other identifying information before entering the van. Once all five defendants had been loaded, the van was driven to the Chicago field office of the ATF.

During the drive, the defendants conversed quietly. Unbeknownst to them, two recording devices (one audio, and the other audiovisual) had been hidden in the rear compartment of the van so as to capture their conversation. Randy Paxton made a number of inculpatory statements to Walker while en route to the warehouse. When their three co-defendants joined Paxton and Walker in the van, conversation among all five commenced. Several minutes into their discussion, Berry remarked that the van was “probably bugged,” Gov. Ex. Draft Tr. 8, and he then pointed out areas where he thought there might be surveillance cameras. Nonetheless, the defendants continued to converse and make incriminating statements. The recording equipment captured these statements as well as the identifying information each of the defendants was asked to provide prior to being seated in the van. The defendants’ answers to the biographical questions were used by the ATF to identify each speaker in the ensuing conversations.

Upon arrival at the ATF field office, the defendants were interviewed individually after being apprised of their rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). The recording equipment was removed from the van and the contents were downloaded and subsequently transcribed; the equipment was then re-installed in the van for purposes of the subsequent trip to the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where the defendants would be jailed. Although the recording equipment could be configured in such a way as to broadcast the detainees’ conversations in real time to the van driver and his passenger, the equipment was not set up in that manner and was instead used • only to record the detainees’ conversations for use at a later date.

A grand jury' charged the five defendants with (among other offenses) conspiring to possess, with the intent to distribute, 500 grams or more of cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846; conspiring to commit a robbery, in violation of the Hobbs Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1951(a); and possession of a firearm in furtherance of those crimes, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A). The section 846 charges were later dismissed without prejudice on the government’s motion.

The defendants moved to suppress any recorded statements they made within the van while en route to the ware-house and ATF field office, and the district court granted that motion in part following an evidentiary hearing. Following his colleague’s decision in United States v. Williams, 15 F.Supp.3d 821 (N.D. Ill. 2014) (Castillo, C.J.), Judge Gettleman found that the defendants initially had both a subjective as well as an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in their conversations within the rear compartment of the police van. United States v. Paxton, No. 1:13-cr-00103, 2014 WL 3807965, at *1 (N.D. Ill. July 31, 2014) (“Paxton 7”). That expectation of privacy was reinforced by testimony from a task force officer seated in the front compartment that he could hear conversation occurring in the rear compartment at a normal volume but that he did not overhear any such conversation on the night that the defendants were arrested and transported. Id. “It is obvious that defendants took steps to conceal their conversation from the officers driving the vehicle by lowering their voices, and were under the impression, at least initially, that their discussion was private.” Id. Any subjective expectation of privacy on the part of the defendants ended, however, once defendant Berry placed his co-defendants on notice of the probability that they were being monitored. Id., at *2. The court therefore suppressed any statements that the defendants may have uttered prior to Berry’s warning — as those statements were uttered with an expectation of privacy and intercepted without judicial authorization — but not after. Id. The court rejected the defendants’ request to suppress, as fruit of the poisonous tree, any statements they subsequently made when interviewed (following Miranda warnings) at the ATF field office. The court reasoned that neither the interviewing agents nor anyone else had listened to the recording of the van conversations at that point, so in that respect the interviews were not the tainted product of the recording. Id.

The court denied the defendants’ subsequent motion to reconsider its finding that their subjective expectation of privacy ended with Berry’s warning. Paxton II, 2015 WL 493958. After inspecting a van identical to the one used to transport the defendants, the court had no doubt that each of the defendants in the rear compartment would have heard Berry’s warning. Id., at *2. The inspection also confirmed the court’s understanding that agents in the front compartment of the van would have been unable to overhear a conversation occurring in the rear compartment of the van so long as the detainees were speaking quietly. Id.

II.

The government appeals the district court’s decision to suppress any statements made by the defendants within the police van before Berry warned his comrades that the van was likely bugged. In the government’s view, detainees can have no reasonable expectation of conversational privacy within a clearly-marked police vehicle, regardless of the particular type (and configuration) of vehicle in which they are being transported. Webster, by contrast, challenges the district court’s decision that his subjective expectation of privacy ended with Berry’s warning about the probability of electronic surveillance.

The Fourth Amendment safeguards “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures[.]” U.S. Const, amend. IV. Subject to limited exceptions, “warrants are the general rule” in judging the reasonableness of a search or seizure. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 362, 88 S.Ct. 507, 517, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967) (Harlan, J., concurring). A search within the protection of the Fourth Amendment occurs when the government intrudes upon an individual’s legitimate expectation of privacy in the object of the search. Id. at 352-53, 88 S.Ct. at 512 (majority); id. at 360-61, 88 S.Ct. at 516 (Harlan, J., concurring); see Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 33, 121 S.Ct. 2038, 2042-43, 150 L.Ed.2d 94 (2001); Minnesota v. Olson, 495 U.S. 91, 95-96, 110 S.Ct. 1684, 1687, 109 L.Ed.2d 85 (1990); Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735, 740-41, 99 S.Ct. 2577, 2580, 61 L.Ed.2d 220 (1979). The amendment’s protections extend to government eavesdropping upon one’s conversations with others, in circumstances where he has a reasonable expectation that the conversation is not subject to interception. See Katz, 389 .U.S. at 353, 88 S.Ct. at 512 (treating interception and recording of telephone conversation in public telephone booth as a search and seizure within the meaning of Fourth Amendment); id. at 361, 88 S.Ct. at 516-17 (Harlan, J., concurring). In order to establish that he has a protected privacy interest in an intercepted conversation, the individual must show first that he manifested a subjective expectation of privacy in that conversation, and second, that his subjective expectation is one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable. E.g., Smith, 442 U.S. at 740-41, 99 S.Ct. at 2580. If he makes these showings, then the warrantless interception and recording of his. conversation will normally be considered to be an unauthorized search and as such unlawful, absent the applicability of an exception that justifies the government’s failure to obtain a warrant. See Katz, 389 U.S. at 354-59, 88 S.Ct. at 513-15.

Paralleling the coverage of the Fourth Amendment in the realm of electronic surveillance is Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 (“Title III”), 18 U.S.C. § 2510, et seq., which generally prohibits (again, with certain exceptions) the interception, disclosure, and use of wire, oral, and electronic communications absent judicial authorization or the consent of one of the parties to such communication. The statute’s definition of protected oral communications, see § 2510(2), is “intended to parallel the ‘reasonable expectation of privacy’ test created by the Supreme Court in Katz v. United States,” In re John Doe Trader No. One, 894 F.2d 240, 242 (7th Cir. 1990), and courts therefore apply the same legal framework to suppression motions under either source of authority. See United States v. Larios, 593 F.3d 82, 92 (1st Cir. 2010); United States v. Clark, 22 F.3d 799, 801 (8th Cir. 1994); United States v. McKinnon, 985 F.2d 525, 527 (11th Cir. 1993).

Our decision in this case turns on whether any expectation of privacy that the defendants may have harbored in their conversations within the police van was an objectively reasonable expectation. As we discuss below, we held in Webster that detainees lack an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in conversations taking place in the back seat of a squad car, 775 F.3d at 903-04, but our decision held open the question of whether detainees might have a reasonable expectation of privacy in a different type of police vehicle,. id. at 904. We address that question now, and answer it in the negative.

In the three-plus decades preceding the district court’s suppression decision in this case, federal and state courts had concluded with apparent unanimity that a person has no objectively reasonable expectation of privacy while seated in a marked patrol car. See United States v. Dunbar, 553 F.3d 48, 57 (1st Cir. 2009); United States v. Turner, 209 F.3d 1198, 1200-01 (10th Cir. 2000); Clark, 22 F.3d at 801-02; McKinnon, 985 F.2d at 527-28; United States v. Fridie, 442 Fed.Appx. 839, 841 (4th Cir. 2011) (per curiam) (non-precedential decision); United States v. Carter, 117 F.3d 1418 (table); 1997 WL 336290 (5th Cir. June 5, 1997) (per curiam) (unpublished); United States v. Sallee, No. 91 CR 20006-19, 1991 WL 352613, at *2 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 24, 1991) (collecting state cases); State v. Torgrimson, 637 N.W.2d 345, 350 (Minn. Ct. App. 2002); State v. Ramirez, 585 N.W.2d 847, 850 (S.D. 1995) (collecting cases); State v. Smith, 641 So.2d 849, 852 (Fla. 1994); People v. Crowson, 33 Cal.3d 623, 190 Cal.Rptr. 165, 660 P.2d 389, 392-93 (Cal. 1983) (plurality), overruled in part on other grounds by People v. Myers, 5 Cal.4th 1193, 22 Cal.Rptr.2d 911, 858 P.2d 301 (1993). Those holdings have deemed it immaterial whether the individual has been arrested, temporarily detained, or simply invited to sit in the car while the police conduct an investigation. See, e.g., Turner, 209 F.3d at 1201 (“whether an individual is in custody does not materially affect an expectation of privacy in a police car”) (following McKinnon, 985 F.2d at 528 (“[w]e find no persuasive distinction between pre-arrest and post-arrest situations in this case”) (collecting cases)).

A number of these decisions are, as Chief Judge Castillo pointed out in Williams, fairly cursory in their treatment of the issues. 15 F.Supp.3d at 828. From the cases that address the subject in any detail, two basic points emerge. First, the patrol car is an official, crime-fighting vehicle that serves both as a police officer’s workplace and also as a mobile jail. Clark, 22 F.3d at 801-02. Consequently, an individual seated in that ear would have no reason to expect privacy within the car. Id. Second, the dashboard area of a patrol car, which is visible to anyone sitting, in the car, “bristl[es]” with electronic equipment (including two-way radios, for example) that places one on notice of the possibility that his oral statements may be intercepted. Turner, 209 F.3d at 1201.

Prior to Williams, only a few cases had expressly dealt with police vehicles other than squad cars; and although they too had found no reasonable expectation of privacy for conversations occurring within such vehicles, they did not expressly address how the unique compartmentalization of the vehicle’s interior might affect privacy expectations. See United States v. Mahon, No. CR 09-712-PHX-DGC, 2010 WL 3954506, at *4 (D. Az. Sep. 29, 2010) (“Defendants clearly had no legal expectation of privacy while handcuffed in the police van.”) (citation omitted), j. aff'd, 620 Fed.Appx. 571 (per curiam) (non-precedential decision) & 804 F.3d 946 (9th Cir. 2015), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 136 S.Ct. 2510, 195 L.Ed.2d 846 (2016); United States v. Reese, No. 1:09 CR 00145, 2010 WL 2606280, at *5 (N.D. Ohio June 25, 2010) (relying on squad car cases to hold that “none of the defendants could reasonably expect that their conversations were private merely because they were alone in the van, handcuffed and awaiting transport to the Cleveland Police Department for questioning”); United States v. Ingram, No. IP 04-201-CR-1 H/F, et seq., 2005 WL 775930, at *1 n.1 (S.D. Ind. Mar. 25, 2005) (Hamilton, J.) (noting court’s prior oral ruling that defendants lacked reasonable expectation of privacy within a police van used to transport them to jail), appeal dismissed sub. nom. United States v. Douglas, 182 Fed.Appx. 558 (7th Cir. 2006) (per curiam) (unpublished).

In his Williams decision, Chief Judge Castillo acknowledged the general line of authority as to squad cars, but found the layout of a police squadrol to be materially distinct from that of a patrol car vis-a-vis the expectation of privacy. In contrast to a typical patrol car, a squadrol (which is used both as an ambulance and as a vehicle to transport detainees) has a separate cab for the driver and his passenger, resulting in a physical division of the driver’s compartment from the fully enclosed rear section of the vehicle. 15 F.Supp.3d at 829. Within their own compartment, the detainees are not within earshot of officers sitting in the cab. Id. Moreover, the rear compartment does not “bristle” with electronics that are visible to detainees. Id. Detainees in the rear compartment of a squadrol thus have practical reasons to expect privacy that detainees in the back seat of a patrol car lack. Id. And that is true even if the squadrol is regarded as a mobile jail. The judge could not imagine that the types of safety concerns that outweigh individual privacy interests in the jail setting (controlling narcotics and other contraband, and preventing escape) are present to the same degree in a squadrol. Id. at 829-30. Indeed, if safety concerns were the motivation for the government’s decision to intercept detainee conversations, then its agents would have activated the live-monitoring feature of their equipment. But they had not taken advantage of that feature, which led Judge Castillo to conclude that the government’s real purpose in intercepting the detainee’s conversations was to capture their incriminating statements. Id. at 830. Weighing the totality of the circumstances, he concluded that the detainees had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the rear compartment of the squadrol and that the government’s wish to capture any incriminating remarks was not justified. Id.

The modified cargo van at issue in this case has a layout that is distinct from both the typical patrol car and the squadrol: it has three compartments separated by metal dividing walls with small (and thick) plexiglass viewing windows. But there is no dispute that in material respects, the van is more like the squadrol than the patrol car. Detainees are seated within a separate, fully enclosed compartment — in this case, with another empty compartment between them and the driver’s compartment. The detainees’ compartment did not “bristle” with visible electronic equipment. And, per Judge Gettleman’s findings, the prisoners would have subjectively expected that if they were speaking quietly, they would not be overheard by the driver and his passenger. Judge Gettleman thus relied on Williams to conclude that the defendants had an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in the conversations they conducted within the rear compartment of the van. Paxton I, 2014 WL 3807965, at *1.

It was not long after Chief Judge Castillo’s decision in Williams and Judge Gettle-man’s first decision in Paxton that we held in Webster that an individual lacks an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in conversations occurring within a squad car. 775 F.3d at 903-04. We found the decisions of our six sister circuits instructive on this point, noting, as they had, that squad cars function both as a mobile office for a patrol officer and as a temporary jail for detainees in transport. Id. at 904 (citing Clark, 22 F.3d at 801-02, and McKinnon, 985 F.2d at 527). At the same time, such vehicles visibly bristle with electronics that place a detainee on notice of the possibility that his statements might be recorded. Id. (citing Turner, 209 F.3d at 1201).

Given the nature of the vehicle and the visible presence of electronics capable of transmitting any internal conversations, the expectation that a conversation within the vehicle is private is not an expectation that society would recognize to be reasonable. We agree with those circuits, and hold that conversations in a squad car such as the one in this case are not entitled to a reasonable expectation of privacy, and therefore the recording of the conversation [in this case] is not a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

Id. We added, however, “that this holding reflects the layout and equipment of the squad car, and express no opinion as to conversations that occur in other vehicles.” Id. We cited and distinguished Williams, noting the distinctive layout of a police squadrol that Chief Judge Castillo had relied upon to conclude that detainees did have a reasonable expectation of privacy in conversations occurring in that type of vehicle. Id. at 904.

This case requires us to confront the issue we left open in Webster and to decide whether the unique features of police vans and squadrols support an expectation of privacy that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable. Although we agree with Judges Castillo and Gettleman that distinctions can be drawn between a squad car on the one hand and a police squadrol or van on the other, we believe those distinctions matter more as to a detainee’s subjective expectation of privacy than they do to the objective reasonableness of that expectation of privacy. The enclosed nature of the detainee compartment in a van like the one used to transport the defendants in this case may causey detainee to think that he cannot be overheard. See R. 156-1 (declaration of Matthew Webster) ¶ 3 (“I believed that the conversation was private because it was in a separate, enclosed area of the paddy wagon and not in a squad car, and because we had the conversation when no agents or officers were present and the van door was shut.... ”). But given the inescapable fact that a detainee has been taken into custody and placed into a marked police vehicle for transport to a law enforcement facility, we are not convinced that any expectation of privacy on the part of the detainee in the van is one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable.

At the outset, we emphasize that the police van was functioning (and was designed to function) as a mobile jail cell. See Clark, 22 F.3d at 801-02; McKinnon, 985 F.2d at 527. The defendants had been arrested and placed in handcuffs, and they were being transported in the van to the ATF field office for processing and questioning, and hence to incarceration. The arrest itself resulted in a diminished expectation of privacy on the part of the defendants, see McKinnon, 985 F.2d at 527, and as detainees they could not reasonably have perceived the (marked) police van as a sanctuary for private conversation, Clark, 22 F.3d at 802; United States v. Colon, 59 F.Supp.3d 462, 466 (D. Conn. 2014). See Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 525-28, 104 S.Ct. 3194, 3200-01, 82 L.Ed.2d 393 (1984) (prisoner has no reasonable expectation of privacy in prison cell), overruled in part on other grounds by Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 106 S.Ct. 662, 88 L.Ed.2d 662 (1986); Lanza v. New York, 370 U.S. 139, 143, 82 S.Ct. 1218, 1221, 8 L.Ed.2d 384 (1962) (in jail setting, “official surveillance has traditionally been the order of the day”); United States v. Madoch, 149 F.3d 596, 602 (7th Cir. 1998) (marital communications privilege does not apply vis-a-vis recorded telephone conversations between defendant and her incarcerated spouse, as privilege applies only to communications made in confidence, and there is no expectation of privacy in jail telephone calls).

The fact that the interior of the van was divided by walls into separate, fully enclosed compartments in no way altered the essential nature of the vehicle. The metal dividing walls, with their thick plexiglass windows, were present to serve a security function rather than to foster an atmosphere of solitude and privacy. The defendants’ surroundings may have lulled them into assuming, mistakenly, that their discussions could not be overheard; but in that respect this case is no different from those in which individuals have been left alone in the back seat of a patrol car, thinking no one can overhear what they say. See Clark, 22 F.3d at 800-01; McKinnon, 985 F.2d at 526. Regardless of the particular layout, a police vehicle that is readily identifiable by its markings as such, and which is being used to transport detainees in restraints, does not support an objectively reasonable expectation of conversational privacy.

The rear compartment of the van was not “bristling” with electronics, it is true. Cf. Turner, 209 F.3d at 1201. But even when police radios, scanners, computer terminals and other equipment are visible to a detainee, it is unlikely that any of those items are actually the source of electronic surveillance; the recording devices themselves, if present, are likely to be nearly if not wholly invisible to the untrained eye. See Colon, 59 F.Supp.3d at 466-67. Such electronic equipment that is visible to a detainee may cause him to think about the prospect of covert surveillance. But given the increasing presence of unobtrusive, if not invisible, audio and video surveillance in all manner of places, public and private, one wonders how much of a reminder a detainee needs that he might be under surveillance — particularly in a marked police vehicle — or that this might be so regardless of whether he can see any obvious signs of surveillance devices.

More to the point is the likelihood that we are fast approaching a day when police interactions with civilians, including detainees, will be recorded from beginning to end, and' for a variety of important ends. Police surveillance equipment (including both dashboard cameras and body cameras) has become both cheaper and more effective at a time when the public interest in police conduct, by virtue of certain abuses exposed by citizen cellphone cameras in addition to police surveillance equipment, has skyrocketed. See, e.g., Iesha S. Nunes, Note, “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot”: Police Misconduct and the Need for Body Cameras, 67 Fla. L. Rev. 1811 (2015). Government, members of the public, and detainees share an interest in monitoring the handling of detainees in order to ensure that they are being treated appropriately. Cf. Am. Civil Liberties Union of Ill. v. Alvarez, 679 F.3d 583, 605-07 (7th Cir. 2012) (finding no privacy interest supporting use of state eavesdropping statute to criminalize third-party audiovisual recording of police officers performing their duties — including engaging citizens in non-confidential conversations — in public places). Police officers and other law enforcement agents have a parallel interest in both the appropriate treatment of detainees (to foster public confidence in law enforcement and to rebut false allegations of misconduct) and identifying problem officers and practices where they exist. Officers also have a significant interest in security that warrants the monitoring of detainees in their custody, to ensure that detainees are not harming one another or attempting escape, or that a detainee has not fallen ill, for example. See, e.g., Virginia v. Moore, 553 U.S. 164, 177, 128 S.Ct. 1598, 1607-08, 170 L.Ed.2d 559 (2008) (describing safety rationale for permitting police-searches incident to arrest); Florence v. Bd. of Chosen Freeholders of Cnty. of Burlington, 566 U.S. 318, 330-34, 132 S.Ct. 1510, 1518-20, 182 L.Ed.2d 566 (2012) (noting safety and health interests that justify intrusive searches of detainees upon admission to jail). The government stresses this latter interest in its briefs. We agree with the defendants that it is somewhat ironic for the government to invoke this interest, given that it did not use its surveillance equipment to monitor them in real time during their transport to the ATF office (which would have enabled agents to detect and address any safety problems as they arose) and instead only recorded their conversations for later use. But the material point, in terms of the defendants’ expectation of privacy, is that the government has legitimate reasons, wholly consistent with the public interest, for monitoring individuals it has taken into its custody and placed into a transport vehicle. Regardless of the agents’ actual motivations for monitoring the defendants during transport, these legitimate interests reinforce our conclusion that society is not prepared to recognize as reasonable whatever subjective expectations of privacy the defendants may have harbored in their conversations within the van. See Illinois v. Lafayette, 462 U.S. 640, 646-47, 103 S.Ct. 2605, 2609-10, 77 L.Ed.2d 65 (1988) (conducting inventory search of arrested person’s belongings is reasonable regardless of particular officer’s subjective motivations for search).

In sum, because the defendants lacked an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy when placed into the marked police van, the interception and recording of their conversations did not constitute a search for purposes of their Fourth Amendment rights or an unauthorized interception for purposes of Title III. Our conclusion on this score makes it unnecessary for us to reach the question of whether and when the defendants’ subjective expectation of privacy within the van terminated, and renders Webster’s cross-appeal moot.

One point remains for us to address for the sake of completeness, and that is whether there was any problem posed by the identification questions that agents asked of the defendants as they entered the van, the answers to which were later used to identify the speakers in the recorded conversations that took place within. Because these questions were posed by agents before the defendants were left alone in the rear compartment of the van, the defendants cannot have had any reasonable privacy expectation in their answers. See Katz, 389 U.S. at 361, 88 S.Ct. at 516 (Harlan, J., concurring) (statements that individual “exposes to the ‘plain view1 of outsiders are not ‘protected’ because no intention to keep them to himself has been exhibited”). Nor did they have any cognizable privacy interest in their voices. United States v. Dionisio, 410 U.S. 1, 14-15, 93 S.Ct. 764, 771-72, 35 L.Ed.2d 67 (1973); United States v. Ceballos, 385 F.3d 1120, 1123 (7th Cir. 2004). Although the defendants had not yet been given their Miranda warnings when they were asked these biographical questions, we do not think there was any Fifth Amendment violation, given that the sorts of questions posed (soliciting, e.g., their names, birth dates and/or ages, and places of residence) — the same sorts of questions that would be posed in booking any arrested individual — are not the sort of questions that one would expect to yield incriminating information. See United States v. Edwards, 885 F.2d 377, 385-86 (7th Cir. 1989); see also United States v. Westbrook, 125 F.3d 996, 1003 (7th Cir. 1997); United States v. Kane, 726 F.2d 344, 349 (7th Cir. 1984).

III.

Having concluded that the defendants lacked an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy within the police van, we REVERSE the district court’s decision to partially suppress the covertly recorded statements that the defendants made while conversing in the van. We DISMISS defendant Webster’s cross-appeal as moot.

      . See, e.g., David Alan Sklansky, Too Much Information: How Not to Think About Privacy and the Fourth Amendment, 102 Cal. L. Rev. 1069, 1085-87 (2014) (discussing extent of electronic surveillance that individuals face in various settings); Kevin Werbach, Sensors and Sensibilities, 28 Cardozo L. Rev. 2321, 2323-38 (2007) (same).

      . Events of the last several years in particular may have focused the public’s attention on police practices resulting in injuries to detainees and other civilians, but the public interest in such police actions substantially predated the events at issue in this case. See Nunes, “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot,” 67 Fla. L. Rev. at 1815-19 (summarizing incidents over past 25 years).

      .The Williams decision posits that the safety concerns of officers transporting detainees are not comparable to those warranting intrusion upon an inmate’s privacy in the prison setting. 15 F.Supp.3d at 829-30. Certainly there are differences between the two settings, but we think that the interests warranting close monitoring of detainees are no less compelling in the transportation context than they are in the jail or prison setting. Two officers transporting multiple detainees on public roads must deal with multiple risks and multiple demands on their attention, rendering both themselves and detainees more vulnerable to harm than they would be in a secure location with multiple staff members to assist them.


text:
    Marquise WRIGHT, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CALUMET CITY, ILLINOIS, Defendant-Appellee.
    No. 16-2219
    United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.
    Argued January 6, 2017
    Decided February 17, 2017

      Kenneth N. Flaxman, Joel A. Flaxman, Attorneys, Law Office of Kenneth N. Flax-man P.C., Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
    Michael J. Hayes, Jr., Michael J. McGrath, Attorneys, Odelson & Sterk, Ltd., Evergreen Park, IL, for Defendant Appellee.
    Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and BAUER, and ROVNER, Circuit Judges.
   ROVNER, Circuit Judge.

On or around December 22, 2014, Marquise Wright was arrested by police officers employed by Calumet City, Illinois (the “City”). The officers did not have an arrest warrant for Wright at the time of the arrest. As characterized by the officers, the incident underlying the arrest involved a murder of one individual and the shooting of multiple other people, and Wright admitted to having a gun at the scene. At a minimum, he was to be charged with unlawful use of a weapon by a felon, a felony offense, but the assistant state’s attorney instructed the City’s officers to wait to criminally charge Wright until lab results came back establishing whether the gun carried • by Wright matched the casings and bullets recovered from the scene.

On December 24, 2014, while still in custody on that arrest, Wright filed an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the City alleging that it violated his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights-by failing to provide him with a judicial determination of probable cause within 48 hours of his arrest. At that time, Wright had been in custody for nearly 55 hours. On December 25, 2014, Wright was presented for a bond hearing and a judge made a finding of probable cause to detain Wright. In the § 1983 action, Wright asserted that the City had a policy or practice authorizing its officers to detain persons arrested without a warrant for up to 72 hours before permitting the arrestee to appear before a judge, and sought to pursue both an individual claim and class claims.

Wright sought certification of two classes in the district court under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 23(b)(2) and 23(b)(3): one, involving “[a]ll persons who will in the future be detained by Calumet City police officers so that they do not receive a judicial determination of probable cause within 48 hours of arrest;” and one consisting of “[a]ll persons who, following an arrest without a warrant on and after December 24, 2012 until the date notice is disseminated, were detained by Calumet City police officers so that they did not receive a judicial determination of probable cause within 48 hours of arrest.” With respect to the latter class, the district court determined that the class consisted of, at most, 31 individuals, that the members were unlikely to be geographically dispersed given the nature of the allegations, and that joinder was not impracticable. The court denied certification because Wright failed to demonstrate that the classes were sufficiently numerous to satisfy Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a)(1), which requires that a putative class plaintiff establish that: (1) the class is so numerous that joinder of all members is impracticable; (2) there are questions of law or fact common to the class; (3) the claims of the putative class representative are typical of the claims or defenses of the class; and (4) the putative class representative will fairly and adequately protect the interests of the class.

After Wright’s petition for permission to appeal the certification issue immediately was denied, the City made an offer of judgment pursuant to Rule 68 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Wright accepted that offer without qualification, which provided that: ,

the Defendant Calumet City, Illinois, agrees to allow Plaintiff Marquise Wright to take a judgment against it, comprised of $5,000.00 to Plaintiff for all claims brought under this lawsuit, inclusive of his attorneys’ fees and costs to date accrued in pursuing this action on Plaintiffs behalf, but excluding all attorneys’ fees and costs accrued in pursuing this lawsuit as a class action.

Despite accepting the Rule 68 offer that granted him relief as to “all claims brought under this lawsuit,” Wright now appeals to this court the district court’s denial of the class certification. Because he is not an aggrieved person with a personal stake in the case or controversy as is required under Article III of the Constitution, we dismiss this appeal for lack of jurisdiction.

On appeal, the only claim asserted by Wright is that the district court erred in denying certification of the class consisting of himself and “[a]ll persons who will in the future be detained by Calumet City police officers so that they do not receive a judicial determination of probable cause within 48 hours of arrest.” He does not appeal the denial of certification of the other class, involving the approximately 31 persons who had been detained.

Under Article III of the Constitution, federal court jurisdiction is limited to “cases” or “controversies,” and therefore federal courts are restricted to resolv-' ing only “ ‘the legal rights of litigants in actual controversies.’ ” Genesis Healthcare Corp. v. Symczyk, — U.S. -, 133 S.Ct. 1523, 1528, 185 L.Ed.2d 636 (2013), quoting Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 471, 102 S.Ct. 752, 70 L.Ed.2d 700 (1982). Accordingly, a plaintiff seeking to invoke federal-court jurisdiction “must demonstrate that he possesses a legally cognizable interest, or ‘personal stake,’ in the outcome of the action.” Genesis Healthcare, 133 S.Ct. at 1528. Moreover, that personal stake evincing an actual controversy must be present at all stages of review, not merely at the inception of the lawsuit. Id. “ ‘If an intervening circumstance deprives the plaintiff of a “personal stake in the outcome of the lawsuit,” at any point during the litigation, the action can no longer proceed and must be dismissed as moot.’ ” Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez, — U.S. -, 136 S.Ct. 663, 669, 193 L.Ed.2d 571 (2016), quoting Genesis Healthcare, 133 S.Ct. at 1528. A case becomes moot “ ‘only when it is impossible for a court to grant any effectual relief whatever to the prevailing party.’ ” Id., quoting Knox v. Service Employees, 567 U.S. 298, 132 S.Ct. 2277, 2287, 183 L.Ed.2d 281 (2012).

We turn, then, to the initial issue in this case, which is whether Wright’s acceptance of the offer of judgment eliminated any personal stake in the claim such that this appeal lacks the case or controversy required by Article III. The Supreme Court as well as appellate courts have applied the Article III case or controversy analysis to widely varying factual scenarios resolving individual and class claims, including but not limited to: voluntary settlement of claims; involuntary judgments in the plaintiffs favor; voluntary settlement of individual claims with the reservation of the class certification issue; and settlement of claims but with the retention of various interests that could be impacted by the class certification issue. As the Supreme Court recently held, an unaccepted settlement offer — even if it offers all relief sought in the case — does not render a case moot when the party seeks relief on behalf of himself and a class of persons, at least where the settlement amount is not deposited with the court. Campbell-Ewald Co., 136 S.Ct. at 672. Where the Rule 68 offer is accepted but by its terms exempts the class certification issue, courts are divided as to whether the plaintiff retains a concrete interest sufficient to meet the case or controversy requirement of Article III. See, e.g. United States Parole Comm’n v. Geraghty, 445 U.S. 388, 404 n.10, 100 S.Ct. 1202, 63 L.Ed.2d 479 (1980)(reserving the issue “as to whether a named plaintiff who settles the individual claim after denial of class certification may, consistent with Article III, appeal from the adverse ruling on class certification”); Rhodes v. E.I. Du Pont De Nemours & Co., 636 F.3d 88, 100 (4th Cir. 2011) (“when a putative class plaintiff voluntarily dismisses the individual claims underlying a request for class certification, ... there is no longer a ‘self-interested party advocating’ for class treatment in the manner necessary to satisfy Article III standing requirements.”); Muro v. Target Corp., 580 F.3d 485, 491 (7th Cir. 2009) (the reservation in the settlement of the right to appeal the certification issue is insufficient to establish the concrete interest necessary under Article III); Richards v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 453 F.3d 525, 529 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (plaintiff who settled individual claims but reserved the right to appeal the class claims retained a personal stake in the class claim, including in shifting attorneys’ fees and other litigation costs).

The case before us presents a different situation in that Wright accepted a settlement offer without reservation and did not exempt the class certification issue, but our decision in Muro is nevertheless instructive. Muro brought an action under the Truth in Lending Act (TILA), 15 U.S.C. § 1601 et seq., alleging both an individual and class-based claim. After class certification was denied, Muro settled her individual claim, but reserved the right in that settlement to appeal the denial of class certification. Muro, 580 F.3d at 491-92. We considered whether, having accepted an offer of judgment and therefore lacking any cognizable interest in our evaluation of the district court’s decision on that issue, Muro could nevertheless appeal the court’s decision denying certification of the class. We noted in Muro that “[m]ost of the circuits that have considered the issue have held that ‘a named plaintiffs unqualified release of claims relinquishes not only his interest in his individual claims but also his interest in class certification.’ ” Id. at 490, quoting Toms v. Allied Bond Collection Agency, Inc., 179 F.3d 103, 105 (4th Cir. 1999). Where an express reservation of the right to appeal the class certification was part of that settlement, those courts differed as to whether that alone was sufficient to permit a prospective class representative who settled his individual claims to appeal the denial of class certification. Muro, 580 F.3d at 490. We agreed with the circuits, that held that the mere reservation of the right to appeal was insufficient alone to satisfy the case or controversy requirement; plaintiffs must demonstrate a personal stake to demonstrate the concrete personal interest in the appeal. Id. at 491. We reasoned that the case or controversy requirement extends to all stages of the litigation, and must be demonstrated on appeal. Id. The mere expression of a desire to appeal, or a reservation of that option in a settlement, does not in itself establish that concrete interest. We set forth the appropriate analysis as follows:

A voluntary settlement by the prospective class representative often means .that, as a practical matter, the settling individual has elected to divorce himself from the litigation and no longer retains a community of interests with the prospective class. Only if issues personal to the prospective class representative remain alive in the litigation can a court be assured that there remains sufficient concrete adverseness to ensure that the class certification issue is presented in a truly adversarial manner and, consequently, will be litigated comprehensively and clearly. An abstract interest in a matter never has been considered a sufficient basis for the maintenance of — or the continuation of — litigation in the federal courts.

Id.; see also Premium Plus Partners v. Goldman, Sachs & Co., 648 F.3d 533, 538 (7th Cir. 2011) (where a litigator has litigated and won, that acceptance of the Rule 68 offer extinguishes any live claim similar to the one held by the remaining members of the class).

Thus, a mere desire to appeal the denial of certification is insufficient. A “personal stake” is required to assure that the case is in a form capable of judicial resolution — that is, involving “sharply presented issues in a concrete factual setting and self-interested parties vigorously advocating opposing positions,” the resolution of which have direct consequences on the parties involved. Geraghty, 445 U.S. at 403, 100 S.Ct. 1202; Genesis Healthcare, 133 S.Ct. at 1528. Accordingly, plaintiffs who seek to appeal despite a settlement of their individual issues must demonstrate that they retain a concrete interest in the issue.

As we noted in Muro, the Supreme Court in Deposit Guaranty National Bank v. Roper, 445 U.S. 326, 100 S.Ct. 1166, 63 L.Ed.2d 427 (1980), provided an example of the type of personal interest that could persist on appeal despite a settlement of the individual claims. In Roper, the plaintiffs filed a suit alleging that the defendant violated the National Bank Act, 12 U.S.C. §§ 85 & 86, by charging the plaintiffs and the class they sought to represent usurious finance charges. Id. at 328, 100 S.Ct. 1166. After the district court denied class certification, the bank offered to. each plaintiff the maximum amount they could recover on their individual claims, but they refused that offer. Id. at 329, 100 S.Ct. 1166. The plaintiffs extended a counter-offer which would reserve the right to appeal the adverse class certification ruling, but that counter-offer was declined by the bank. Id. The district court nevertheless entered judgment for the tendered amount, which was deposited in the court’s registry, and dismissed the case. Id. at 330, 100 S.Ct. 1166. Although their individual claims had thereby been satisfied, the plaintiffs sought to appeal the denial of class certification. Id. The Court held that the plaintiffs retained a sufficient personal interest in the case and could appeal the denial, because throughout the litigation the plaintiffs had asserted a continuing individual interest in shifting part of the cost of litigation including attorneys’ fees to the class members. Id. at 336, 100 S.Ct. 1166.

Applying that rationale in Muro, we noted that Muro had received in the settlement compensation for both her costs of the action and her reasonable attorneys’ fees. Therefore, because Muro had not retained an interest in that or any other remaining benefit, even though she had reserved in the settlement the right to appeal the denial of class certification, she lacked the type of live, concrete controversy that would allow her to appeal.

We discussed another type of ongoing interest in Espenscheid v. DirectSat USA, LLC, 688 F.3d 872 (7th Cir. 2012). In Espenscheid, the plaintiffs accepted a settlement of their claims but in that settlement they reserved the right to appeal the district court’s decision decertifying the class. We recognized that where plaintiffs settle a case, the only possible injury from denial of certification is to the members of the proposed classes, and if the plaintiffs have no stake in the continuation of the suit they lack standing to appeal from the denial of certification. Id. at 874. The plaintiffs in Espenscheid, however, avoided that fate because a provision of the settlement agreement stated that they were seeking an incentive reward for their services as the class representatives. Id. That incentive reward was contingent on the certification of the class, and therefore the prospect of that award gave the plaintiffs a tangible financial stake in getting the denial of class certification revoked. Id. at 875; McMahon v. LVNV Funding, LLC, 744 F.3d 1010, 1018 (7th Cir. 2014).

Similar to the plaintiffs in Muro and Espenscheid, Wright accepted a settlement offer as to his claims. Wright has 'an even weaker argument than that presented in Muro, however, because Wright accepted a Rule 68 offer of judgment that did not purport to preserve his right to appeal the denial of class certification. To the contrary, the settlement in Wright by its terms resolved all of his claims, retaining neither an interest in his individual claim nor an interest in pursuing a claim as a representative of a putative class. Wright does not argue that he sought or preserved any interest in an incentive reward, and he has failed to demonstrate that he retained an interest in attorneys’ fees or that such an interest alone would be sufficient to confer standing.

The language of the Rule 68 offer accepted by Wright in this case was clear. It provided $5,000 to Wright to resolve “all claims brought under this lawsuit.” A plain reading of that language instructs that the settlement involves the individual claim as well as the class claim. Wright did not bring multiple individual claims against the City in this case; he included in the complaint only the individual claim that the City violated his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights by failing to provide him with a judicial determination of probable cause within 48 hours of his arrest. The only remaining claims in the complaint were the class-based challenges based on the two purported classes of persons. Accordingly, the language of the Rule 68 offer declaring that it included “all claims brought under this lawsuit” necessarily referred to his claim seeking to represent a class as well as to the individual claim, both by the common meaning of the phrase and because in this case the plural reference to “all claims” would be a misnomer if applying only to the singular individual claim in the case. Moreover, the Rule 68 offer distinguished between the individual and class claims in the ensuing sentence, determining that attorney’s fees would be included only for the individual claim and not for the class claim upon which Wright had received no measure of success. The distinction for purposes of ascertaining attorneys’ fees, but not for identifying the claims that are included in the judgment, further affirms that the offer of judgment resolved both the individual and the class claims.

Wright has accepted the offer as full redress for all of his claims, and therefore cannot demonstrate any ongoing personal stake in the matter. See Campbell-Ewald, 136 S.Ct. at 671 n.5 (recognizing that where a plaintiff has received full redress for the injuries asserted in his complaint, no case or controversy remains); Rhodes, 636 F.3d at 99 (recognizing, that where parties settle their claims entirely in the district court, the plaintiff lacks the personal standing required under Article III on appeal).

Wright argues that he has an ongoing interest similar to that in Roper because he did not obtain attorneys’ fees for the class claim, but that reliance on Roper is misplaced. First, the Supreme Court in Lewis v. Continental Bank Corp., 494 U.S. 472, 480, 110 S.Ct. 1249, 108 L.Ed.2d 400 (1990), held that an “interest in attorneys’ fees is, of course, insufficient to create an Article III case or controversy where none exists on the merits of the underlying, claim.” The Supreme Court in Genesis Healthcare, 133 S.Ct. at 1532 n.5 (2013), recognized the tension between Lewis and Roper, but determined that “[bjecause Roper is distinguishable on the facts, we need not consider its continuing validity in light of our subsequent decision in Lewis .... ” In Premium Plus, we recognized that the position that a person whose claim is moot can still file a suit seeking attorneys’ fees “was advanced, and flopped, in Diamond v. Charles, 476 U.S. 54, 70-71, 106 S.Ct. 1697, 90 L.Ed.2d 48 (1986) and again in Lewis v. Continental Bank Corp., 494 U.S. 472, 480, 110 S.Ct. 1249, 108 L.Ed.2d 400 (1990).” Premium Plus, 648 F.3d at 538. We noted that Lewis flatly held that an interest in attorney’s fees, costs or expenses is insufficient to create an Article III case or controversy where none otherwise exists on the merits of the underlying claim. Id. Those cases caution that Wright cannot rely on the mere possibility of attorneys’ fees as his basis to meet the case or controversy requirement.

But like the Supreme Court in Genesis Healthcare, we need not determine whether the rationale of Roper is impacted by Lewis, because even under the reasoning of Roper, Wright’s argument would be insufficient. In contrast to the plaintiffs in Roper, Wright has failed to assert that it identified in the district court any continuing individual interest in shifting costs of the litigation to class members. More fundamentally, in Roper, the plaintiffs did not agree to the termination of the suit; the district court entered the judgment based on the defendant’s tender even though the plaintiffs rejected the offer, and the judgment offered them less than the full relief sought. Specifically, the plaintiffs had asserted a continuing individual interest in shifting part of the cost of litigation to the class members, and the involuntary termination of its case in the district court did not provide them with that relief. Roper, 445 U.S. at 336, 100 S.Ct. 1166. In contrast, Wright voluntarily agreed to accept a judgment which terminated all of his claims, and agreed to the calculation of attorneys’ fees set forth in that judgment. The voluntariness of the settlement is not a dispositive factor in determining the standing issue. See Wrightsell v. Cook County, Ill., 599 F.3d 781, 783 (7th Cir. 2010). But it is relevant, in considering whether the district court judgment granted the plaintiffs all of the relief sought or the plaintiffs retained a concrete interest in the case unsatisfied by that judgment. Where the plaintiffs voluntarily agree to a settlement, that acquiescence can manifest their agreement that the judgment provides all of the relief the plaintiffs seek. In accepting without qualification the Rule 68 offer, Wright accepted the offer as satisfaction of all of the relief that he sought in the district court. Although the allocation of attorneys’ fees accepted by Wright in the settlement provided for fees and costs for the individual claim and not for the class claim, a plaintiff may agree in a settlement to forego fees for claims upon which he obtained no success, just as a court may determine that fees will be awarded only for claims upon which the plaintiff obtained some degree of success. See Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 440, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983); M.B. ex rel. Berns v. Hamilton Southeastern Sch., 668 F.3d 851, 864 (7th Cir. 2011). Nothing in the settlement preserves the right to seek fees as to the certification issue at a later time, and Wright can point to nothing in the district court that indicates that he retained a concrete interest in fees. He therefore lacks a personal stake in the claim as is required under Article III. See Rhodes, 636 F.3d at 100 (“a putative class member who voluntarily settles his case and releases all his individual claims, under language providing for the release of ‘any and all’ monetary claims ... may not thereafter appeal from an adverse class certification ruling”); Richards, 453 F.3d at 529 (“a plaintiff who, in the settlement agreement, relinquishes ‘any and all’ of his claims, including class claims, or agrees to dismiss the entire ‘action,’ has ceded'any interest he once had- and can no longer appeal a denial of class certification”). There is no other named plaintiff in this proposed class action, nor even the possibility of one given the class that he sought to certify. See Premium Plus, 648 F.3d at 538 (discussing whether a plaintiff could “keep the case warm so that someone with a live claim could intervene.”) Wright abandoned his claim of a class consisting of those persons who were detained for more than 48 hours between December 24, 2012, and the date the notice was disseminated, and he appeals only as to the class consisting of himself and persons who will in the future be detained and held for more than 48 hours. With the settlement of Wright’s claim, only future detainees remain in the proposed class and there is no one with a live interest to intervene.

Wright’s arguments are therefore without merit, and he asserts no other arguments for standing to this court. Wright has failed to identify any concrete personal interest in the case that remains in this appeal and thus lacks the “personal stake” required under Article III. Accordingly, we dismiss this appeal for lack of jurisdiction.

      . Wright also relies on Pastor v. State Farm Mut. Auto Ins. Co., 487 F.3d 1042 (7th Cir. 2007), but that case is unhelpful for the same reason Roper is unavailing. Citing Roper, in Pastor we held without discussion that a plaintiff who accepted a modest offer of judgment terminating the case could appeal the denial of class certification because the "offer did not resolve the dispute between the unnamed class members and the defendant and so did not render the case moot.” Id. at 1043-44. Although Pastor did not otherwise explain its holding, the City included the offer of judgment from Pastor in its briefing to this court; as the Roper cite implies, the offer in Pastor explicitly resolved the damages and fees for the individual claim only, and in both the offer and the acceptance the ability to pursue such relief in appealing the class claim was reserved.