Carter v. McGrady

• Decision Date: 29 May 2002
• Docket Number: No. 01-1738.,01-1738.
• Citation: 292 F.3d 152
• Parties: Richard CARTER, SCI-Mahanoy Para-Legal Assistant/ on Behalf of Himself and Prison Population v. James McGRADY, Captain, and; Mary Canino, Hearing Examiner, in Their Individual and Official Capacity (Eastern District of PA Civil # 94-cv-7163) Richard Carter, on behalf of himself and all those similarly situated v. Martin L. Dragovich, Superintendent; Edward J. Klem, Superintendent of Centralized Services; Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; Pennsylvania Department of Corrections; SCI at Mahanoy; James McGrady, Captain (Eastern District of PA Civil # 96-cv-6496) Richard Carter, Appellant
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

292 F.3d 152

Richard CARTER, SCI-Mahanoy Para-Legal Assistant/ on Behalf of Himself and Prison Population v. James McGRADY, Captain, and; Mary Canino, Hearing Examiner, in Their Individual and Official Capacity (Eastern District of PA Civil # 94-cv-7163)

Richard Carter, on behalf of himself and all those similarly situated v. Martin L. Dragovich, Superintendent; Edward J. Klem, Superintendent of Centralized Services; Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; Pennsylvania Department of Corrections; SCI at Mahanoy; James McGrady, Captain (Eastern District of PA Civil # 96-cv-6496)

Richard Carter, Appellant

No. 01-1738.

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Argued: February 4, 2002.

Filed: May 29, 2002.

Joseph A. Sullivan, Edward W. Ferruggia, Kimberly M. Kaplan (Argued), Lisa M. Scidurlo, Adam C. Bonin, Schnader, Harrison, Segal & Lewis, LLP, Philadelphia, PA, Counsel for Appellant.

D. Michael Fisher, Attorney General, Beth Anne Smith (Argued), Senior Deputy Attorney General, John G. Knorr, III, Chief Deputy Attorney General, Chief, Appellate Section, Office of Attorney General, Philadelphia, PA, Counsel for Appellees James McGrady, Martin L. Dragovich Edward J. Klem and Mary Canino.

Before: BECKER, Chief Judge, McKEE and BARRY, Circuit Judges.

OPINION OF THE COURT

BECKER, Chief Judge.

This is a prisoner's civil rights case, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, brought by Richard Carter, an inmate in the custody of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections ("DOC"). Carter, an experienced and assiduous jailhouse lawyer, claims that he was unlawfully subjected to cell searches and disciplinary proceedings in retaliation for his jailhouse lawyering, which he contends was disfavored at the State Correctional Institute at Mahanoy ("SCI-Mahanoy") where he was incarcerated at all times relevant to this lawsuit. This appeal is from the order of the District Court granting summary judgment for the defendants, James McGrady, Martin Dragovich, and Edward Klem, all officials at SCI-Mahanoy, based on the conclusion that Carter did not have a constitutionally protected right to act as a jailhouse lawyer and, thus, the defendants were entitled to qualified immunity.

When this case was before the District Court, the Supreme Court had yet to decide Shaw v. Murphy, 532 U.S. 223, 121 S.Ct. 1475, 149 L.Ed.2d 420 (2001), which held that prisoners do not have a free-standing constitutional right to assist other inmates in filing legal claims. Shaw had asserted such a right, and the Supreme Court has therefore foreclosed one facet of Carter's claim. This development has required Carter, who describes himself in the case caption as "SCI-Mahanoy Para-Legal Assistant/On Behalf of himself and prison population," to shift gears and to stress two other arguments. First, Carter claims that he was retaliated against for exercising his First Amendment rights. Second, invoking Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 107 S.Ct. 2254, 96 L.Ed.2d 64 (1987), he claims that there are no reasons related to penological interests that would otherwise justify the conduct of the prison officials.

Carter's claim of retaliation for exercising a constitutional right is governed by Rauser v. Horn, 241 F.3d 330 (3d Cir.2001). Under Rauser, prison officials may prevail when the plaintiff has made out a prima facie case of retaliation if they prove that "they would have made the same decision absent the protected conduct for reasons reasonably related to legitimate penological interests." Id. at 334. The record reveals that Carter was clearly guilty of egregious violations of prison policy — stealing a typewriter and unauthorized use of the mails (and other violations as well). We conclude, assuming arguendo that Carter has correctly described the attitude at SCI-Mahanoy about jailhouse lawyering and that he has made out a prima facie case of retaliation, that there is no genuine issue of material fact that the prison officials would have disciplined Carter for these violations notwithstanding his jailhouse lawyering. Accordingly, we will affirm, albeit on different grounds than those relied on by the District Court. See Narin v. Lower Merion Sch. Dist., 206 F.3d 323, 333 n. 8 (3d Cir.2000). We therefore need not reach the interesting issues raised by Carter's theory that he has a protected First Amendment right to provide legal advice, and that any action taken against him for exercising such a right must be evaluated under Turner.

I. Facts and Procedural History

On February 25, 1994, Carter executed and transmitted an "outside purchase approval form" for an electric typewriter from a "family member or friend." In due course, a Smith-Corona typewriter arrived at SCI-Mahanoy from Suburban Office Equipment, a vendor located in Ardmore, Pennsylvania. On March 24, 1994, Carter signed an inmate personal property receipt and accepted delivery of the typewriter. A mailroom inspector, Liz Ryan, later informed James McGrady, SCI-Mahanoy's Security Captain, that the vendor had sent a demand letter stating that: (1) no payment had been made for the typewriter; and (2) Carter had obtained the typewriter through the unauthorized use of a credit card.

McGrady investigated the matter by contacting Wallace McLean, who worked for the vendor. McLean informed McGrady that the typewriter had been ordered over the phone using a credit card and that the customer identified the name on the card as Richard Carter. The actual owner of the card, who lived in California, subsequently verified that Carter was not authorized to use that card. McLean faxed certain documents to McGrady, including the sales receipt that indicated that the typewriter was sold to Carter and paid for with a Visa card; the "Retrieval Request Fulfillment Transmittal" containing a copy of a credit card sales slip reflecting that the sale of the typewriter was made by a credit card bearing the name "Richard Carter"; and an inquiry from McLean representing that a typewriter was shipped from the vendor to Richard Carter and signed for by an SCI-Mahanoy mailroom employee.

On October 19, 1994, thirteen days after the vendor had contacted SCI-Mahanoy about the typewriter, McGrady twice ordered Carter's cell to be searched. In the course of the first search, a corrections officer, M.E. Steinhauer, seized the typewriter. Immediately after the search, Carter was taken to the security office. McGrady testified that Carter told him that an inmate at SCI-Graterford, where Carter was formerly an inmate, had purchased the typewriter for him in return for legal services rendered, but that he had no idea how that inmate purchased the typewriter. Carter denies telling McGrady this, but does admit that he gave McGrady an unsigned affidavit that he prepared, purportedly on behalf of the other inmate, making a statement to this effect.

Carter submits that McGrady then threatened him with discipline should he assist other inmates with legal matters, stating that, "You don't work in the law library here ... SCI-Mahanoy does not allow inmates to help other inmates with their legal matters." When Carter told McGrady about how he had been helping other inmates for many years, Carter alleges that McGrady responded by saying "I don't care where you were before. We don't allow prisoners to help other inmates." Carter also represents that McGrady said, "if I even hear about you helping other inmates, I will write you up and put you in RHU[Restrictive Housing Unit]."

McGrady subsequently ordered a second search for documentation of the purchase of the typewriter or any other evidence of the unauthorized use of the credit card. In the course of this search, Steinhauer confiscated Carter's personal papers, including all of Carter's legal materials. In the papers seized from Carter's cell, Steinhauer found an envelope from the vendor containing two receipts for the typewriter that were identical to the sales receipt and credit card sales slip that the vendor had faxed to McGrady. Carter testified that, on October 23, 1994, he filed a written request to have his documents returned. The request was denied.

On October 27, 1994, McGrady called Carter to his office to witness the return of legal documents belonging to ten different inmates. Carter testified that, in his presence, each of the inmates that he was assisting was ordered not to allow Carter to review their legal materials and told that anyone who did would be sent to the RHU. This was despite protests that they had no other means of legal assistance. During this meeting, McGrady asked Carter what he was doing with these papers. Carter responded that he was not assigned to the law library as a legal aide but that he was being paid for helping people. McGrady then told Carter that he could not conduct a business while in prison. Carter responded that he was a court-appointed paralegal and was being paid by the Federal Courts to assist other inmates. Carter produced two documents as evidence of his status as a court-appointed paralegal, but McGrady could not determine from the documents whether Carter was telling the truth.

McGrady thereafter wrote a misconduct report charging Carter with receiving stolen property. At the disciplinary hearing on the charge, Carter was found guilty and sentenced to sixty days disciplinary custody in the RHU. After serving this sanction, he was returned to the general population at SCI-Mahanoy. Carter was also charged by the Schuylkill County District Attorney's Office with unauthorized use of a credit card, theft by deception, receiving stolen property, and conspiracy. He was convicted of the charge of receiving stolen property and given a sentence of two and one-half to five years consecutive to the sentence he is currently serving.

Carter testified that over the course of the next two years he was routinely harassed and searched when entering and leaving the prison library, far more frequently than other inmates. He alleges that these were efforts to search his...