Drummer v. Luttrell, 99-2887-D/V.

Citation75 F.Supp.2d 796
Decision Date22 November 1999
Docket NumberNo. 99-2887-D/V.,99-2887-D/V.
PartiesTameca DRUMMER, Plaintiff, v. Mark LUTTRELL, Jr., et al., Defendants.
CourtU.S. District Court — Western District of Tennessee

Tameca Drummer, Memphis, TN, for plaintiff pro se.

Trust Fund Officer, Memphis, TN, miscellaneous pro se.

ORDER ASSESSING FILING FEE ORDER OF DISMISSAL ORDER CERTIFYING APPEAL NOT TAKEN IN GOOD FAITH NOTICE OF APPELLATE FILING FEE AND ORDER IMPOSING SANCTIONS UNDER 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g)

DONALD, District Judge.

Plaintiff, Tameca Drummer, an inmate at the Shelby County Correctional Center (SCCC),1 has filed a complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The Clerk of Court shall file the case and record the defendants as Mark Luttrell, Jr., Robert Moore, C. Robertson, J. Dunlap, Leach (first name unknown), and Chester Jones, Jr.

I. Assessment of Filing Fee

Under the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PLRA), 28 U.S.C. § 1915(b), all prisoners bringing a civil action must pay the full filing fee of $150 required by 28 U.S.C. § 1914(a). The in forma pauperis statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a) merely provides the prisoner the opportunity to make a "downpayment" of a partial filing fee and pay the remainder in installments.

In this case, plaintiff has properly completed and submitted both an in forma pauperis affidavit and a prison trust fund account statement. Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(b)(1), it is ORDERED that the plaintiff cooperate fully with prison officials in carrying out this order. It is further ORDERED that the trust fund officer at plaintiff's prison shall calculate a partial initial filing fee equal to twenty percent of the greater of the average balance in or deposits to the plaintiff's trust fund account for the six months immediately preceding the completion of the affidavit. When the account contains any funds, the trust fund officer shall collect them and pay them directly to the Clerk of Court. If the funds in plaintiff's account are insufficient to pay the full amount of the initial partial filing fee, the prison official is instructed to withdraw all of the funds in the plaintiff's account and forward them to the Clerk of Court. On each occasion that funds are subsequently credited to plaintiff's account the prison official shall immediately withdraw those funds and forward them to the Clerk of Court, until the initial partial filing fee is paid in full.

It is further ORDERED that after the initial partial filing fee is fully paid, the trust fund officer shall withdraw from the plaintiff's account and pay to the Clerk of this Court monthly payments equal to twenty percent (20%) of all deposits credited to plaintiff's account during the preceding month, but only when the amount in the account exceeds $10.00, until the entire $150.00 filing fee is paid.

Each time that the trust fund officer makes a payment to the Court as required by this order, he shall print a copy of the prisoner's account statement showing all activity in the account since the last payment under this order, and file it with the Clerk along with the payment.

All payments and account statements shall be sent to:

Clerk, United States District Court, Western District of Tennessee, 167 N. Main, Room 242, Memphis, TN 38103

and shall clearly identify plaintiff's name and the case number on the first page of this order.

If plaintiff is transferred to a different prison or released, she is ORDERED to notify the Court immediately of her change of address. If still confined she shall provide the officials at the new prison with a copy of this order.

If the plaintiff fails to abide by these or any other requirement of this order, the Court may impose appropriate sanctions, including a monetary fine, without any additional notice or hearing by the Court.

The Clerk shall mail a copy of this order to the prison official in charge of prison trust fund accounts at plaintiff's prison.

The obligation to pay this filing fee shall continue despite the immediate dismissal of this case. 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2). The Clerk shall not issue process or serve any papers in this case.

II. Analysis of Plaintiff's Claims

Plaintiff sues SCCC Director Mark Luttrell, Jr., Chief of Security Robert Moore, Sergeant C. Robertson, Officer J. Dunlap, Disciplinary Board Member Leach, and Appeal Administrator Chester Jones, Jr. Plaintiff alleges that during a shakedown of her dormitory, she was strip-searched by Officer Dunlap. After squatting and coughing twice, plaintiff admits that she refused a direct order to squat and cough again. Dunlap called Robertson for assistance. Plaintiff also refused a direct order from Robertson to squat and cough. Robertson then instructed plaintiff to turn around so that she could be handcuffed. Plaintiff admits she also refused this order, pulled away to prevent Robertson from handcuffing her, and exited the shower area dressed in nothing but her panties. Two male officers were called for assistance. The officers forced plaintiff to the floor and placed her in handcuffs. Although one of the male officers touched one of plaintiff's breasts, she admits that this was done as the officer attempted to "untuck" her arm and wrist to place the handcuffs upon her. Plaintiff complains that all the men in the dormitory stared at her during the ten minutes before she was allowed to get dressed. Plaintiff was placed on lockdown.

Plaintiff seeks compensatory and punitive damages, restoration of her sentence credits and previous security level, and expunction of the disciplinary conviction.

Plaintiff has no claim for the deprivation of due process during a prison disciplinary proceeding. In general, an inmate does not have a liberty interest in a particular security classification or in freedom from segregation. Olim v. Wakinekona, 461 U.S. 238, 245, 103 S.Ct. 1741, 75 L.Ed.2d 813 (1983); Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 224-25, 96 S.Ct. 2532, 49 L.Ed.2d 451 (1976); Montanye v. Haymes, 427 U.S. 236, 243, 96 S.Ct. 2543, 49 L.Ed.2d 466 (1976); Moody v. Daggett, 429 U.S. 78, 88 n. 9, 97 S.Ct. 274, 50 L.Ed.2d 236 (1976); Newell v. Brown, 981 F.2d 880, 883 (6th Cir.1992); Beard v. Livesay, 798 F.2d 874, 876 (6th Cir.1986).

This case is another implicating a thorny question along the continuum on which many state prisoner issues eventually intersect: the line at which claims affecting merely a prisoner's liberty within confinement meet claims affecting the duration of that confinement. The scope of this intersection was first clearly delineated in Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 93 S.Ct. 1827, 36 L.Ed.2d 439 (1973), which involved attempts by various New York state prisoners to challenge prison disciplinary board decisions to deprive them of sentence credits. The Supreme Court reasoned that:

even if restoration of respondents' goodtime credits had merely shortened the length of their confinement, rather than required immediate discharge from that confinement, their suits would still have been within the core of habeas corpus in attacking the very duration of their physical confinement itself. It is beyond doubt, then, that the respondents could have sought and obtained fully effective relief through federal habeas corpus proceedings.

411 U.S. at 487-88, 93 S.Ct. 1827. The federal courts wrestled in the succeeding twenty-four years over this distinction between claims seeking to vindicate civil rights through an award of damages and those seeking to affect the duration of confinement. As the implications of Preiser percolated through the appellate courts, the Supreme Court gradually shed light on additional sections of the habeas/ § 1983 boundary.

On the habeas side of this continuum, in Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994), the Court identified as part of this border territory any civil rights claim requiring proof of facts or law that would necessarily call into question a pending state criminal prosecution or state court conviction. According to Heck, until the state court prosecution is terminated in the defendant's favor, either by a favorable jury verdict or by a post-verdict ruling on direct or collateral review setting aside a conviction, no claim under § 1983 even accrues.

The next term, the Court broadened the boundary on the damages section of the border in Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 484-87, 115 S.Ct. 2293, 132 L.Ed.2d 418 (1995). In Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 564-71, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974), the Court had identified the procedural requirements prison officials must adopt to satisfy due process when depriving a prisoner of various liberty interests, including deprivation of sentence credits and confinement to segregation. In Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U.S. 460, 472, 103 S.Ct. 864, 74 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983), the Court limited the Wolff requirements applicable to purely administrative, rather than punitive segregation, but broadened the scope of federal court authority over prison administration by recognizing that the mandatory language of state regulations could create liberty interests protected by due process requirements. Courts were required to consider whether "the repeated use of explicitly mandatory language in connection with requiring specific substantive predicates demands a conclusion that the State [or federal government] has created a protected liberty interest." Hewitt, 459 U.S. at 472, 103 S.Ct. 864. Sandin, however, rejected Hewitt, and much of the lower-court jurisprudence that relied on Wolff. Without explicitly overruling Hewitt itself, Sandin returned to the question left open in Wolff, 418 U.S. at 564-71, 94 S.Ct. 2963: whether inmates even have a liberty interest in freedom from segregation, punitive or administrative. The Court rejected Hewitt's methodology and concluded that hey do not.

The time has come to return to the due process principles we believe were correctly established and applied in Wolff and Meachum. Following Wolff, we recognize...

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  • U.S. District Court: SEARCHES PRIVACY.
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    ...v. Luttrell, 75 F.Supp.2d 796 (W.D.Tenn. 1999). An inmate brought a [sections] 1983 action against corrections officials alleging that a disciplinary action violated her due process and Eighth Amendment rights. The district court held that the strip-searching and handcuffing of the inmate d......
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