947 F.2d 948 (7th Cir. 1991), 88-2589, Turner v. Lane

• Citation: 947 F.2d 948
• Party Name: Lorenzo TURNER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Michael P. LANE; Marjorie Donahue; Robert Motley; J. Kirk and R.D. Johnson, Defendants-Appellees.
• Case Date: October 02, 1991
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals, U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 948

947 F.2d 948 (7th Cir. 1991)

Lorenzo TURNER, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

Michael P. LANE; Marjorie Donahue; Robert Motley; J. Kirk and R.D. Johnson, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 88-2589.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit

October 2, 1991

Editorial Note:

This opinion appears in the Federal reporter in a table titled "Table of Decisions Without Reported Opinions". (See FI CTA7 Rule 53 regarding use of unpublished opinions)

Decided Oct. 22, 1991.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois, Rock Island Division, No. 87 C 4057; Michael M. Mihm, Judge.

C.D.Ill.

AFFIRMED.

Before POSNER, COFFEY and RIPPLE, Circuit Judges.

ORDER

Lorenzo Turner is an inmate at the Dixon Correctional Center. He was formerly confined in the East Moline Correctional Center, and he has filed this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that officials there violated his due process rights at a prison disciplinary hearing. He asserts that he received constitutionally deficient notice of the charges against him, and that the Adjustment Committee improperly withheld the identities of both his purported victim and a confidential witness. The district court granted the defendant's motion for judgment on the pleadings, and dismissed Mr. Turner's complaint with prejudice. We affirm.

I. FACTS

On May 2, 1986, Mr. Turner received an Inmate Disciplinary Report (I.D.R.) charging him, among other things, ¹ with "sexual misconduct with another person in such a manner as to show disrespect for the other person." The name of the alleged victim was not indicated anywhere on the I.D.R. At a later hearing before the prison's Adjustment Committee, Mr. Turner denied all charges but was found guilty of sexual misconduct and three other charges. The Adjustment Committee based its decision in part on the statement of a confidential inmate witness. To protest this decision, Mr. Turner filed a grievance with the Administrative Review Board. After interviewing Mr. Turner and conducting further investigation, the Review Board found that only the sexual misconduct charge was substantiated. Mr. Turner's petition for reconsideration by the Review Board was denied. Michael P. Lane, then the Director of the Illinois Department of Corrections, adopted the Review Board's recommendation. Mr. Turner brought this civil rights complaint to attack the procedures followed by prison officials at the disciplinary hearing.

II. ANALYSIS

A motion for judgment on the pleadings is governed by the same standard as a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Thomason v. Nachtrieb, 888 F.2d 1202, 1204 (7th Cir.1989). The moving party must demonstrate that there is no disputed material issue of fact and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. National Fidelity Life Ins. Co. v. Karaganis, 811 F.2d 357, 358 (7th Cir.1987). The motion should not be granted unless it is clear that the plaintiff can prove no facts in support of his claim for relief. Thomason, 888 F.2d at 1204; Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 101-02 (1957). A court must view the facts alleged in the complaint in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, National Fidelity, 811 F.2d at 358, but is not bound by any legal conclusions the nonmoving party has drawn from the facts. Republic Steel Corporation v. Pennsylvania Engineering Corp., 785 F.2d 174, 177 n. 2 (7th Cir.1986). In applying these standards on appeal, we accept the facts alleged in the plaintiff's complaint as true, but we conclude that there is no set of facts that support Mr. Turner's claim for relief.

In Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963 (1974), the Supreme Court set forth the minimum requirements of procedural due process in prison disciplinary hearings. The prisoner must be provided with advance written notice of the charges against him, a limited opportunity to present and confront witnesses, and a written statement from the decisionmaker setting forth the evidence relied upon and the reasons for any disciplinary action. Id. at 564, 94 S.Ct. at 2978.

The notice to the prisoner must be adequate "to inform him of the charges and to enable him to marshal the facts and prepare a defense." Id. In the present case, it is unclear from the record why the name of the victim was not included in the Inmate Disciplinary Report, ² but the record shows that notice of the sexual misconduct...