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- : a “sey, - 7h ee @ : . -“, * ts 8t sa 6 “st « * 32 veg Nos. 77-1698, 77-1210 & 77-1370 against the Survivors were dropped. The Government Pe keine | sought tlle seven survivors’ testimony before the grand oo jury on May 11; however, the plaintiffs refused to testify. No indictments were returned and the federal grand jury was discharged on May 15. In June 1970 a special prosecutor was appointed by the Chief Judge of the Criminal Division of the Circuit Court’ of .Cook County to inquire into the police and Blaék anther actions on December 4. A special state an = : :? . grand “jury was convened in December 1970 which returned’ indictments against Hanrahan, Jalovec, Mul- clirone; Meade, Sadunas, Koludrovic, Groth, Broderick, Carrnody;. Ciszewski, Corbett, Davis, Gorman, and Jones for conspiring to obstruct justice. On October 25, 1972 w¥ 4, =. these defendants were found not guilty after a bench . ’ trial in the Criminal Court of Cook County. ‘4 :- "Bhese.facts provide the basis for a determination of ‘,the*legal issues concerning the directed verdicts. The _. plaintiffs’ principal claim is that defendants conspired to de- prive them of their civil rights.’® The plaintiffs also assert claims against individual defendants for intentional and -- negligent violations of their rights. We now seek to out- -zline gerierally the governing legal principles regarding » ,eivil conspiracies. This discussion will be followed by an . analysis both of these standards and of the in- dividualized claims as applied to the facts presented in the three stages of plaintiffs’ case. IU. CONSPIRACY CLAIMS A civil conspiracy is “a combination of two or more persons acting in concert to commit an unlawful act, or to commit a lawful act by unlawful means, the principal element of which is an agreement between the parties ‘to inflict a wrong against or injury upon another,’ and ‘an overt act that results in damage.’” Rotermund v. United States Steel Corp., 474 F.2d 1189 (8th Cir. 1978) (citation omitted). In order to prove the existence of a civil conspiracy, a plaintiff is not required to provide direct evidence of the agreement between the con- 19 Plaintiffs’ conspiracy claims are based on 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985(3),