Allison v. Snyder

• Decision Date: 19 June 2003
• Docket Number: No. 03-1570.,03-1570.
• Parties: Charles Peter ALLISON, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees. v. Donald N. SNYDER, Jr., Mark S. Carich, and Michael L. Holmes, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

332 F.3d 1076

Charles Peter ALLISON, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees. v. Donald N. SNYDER, Jr., Mark S. Carich, and Michael L. Holmes, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 03-1570.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued May 28, 2003.

Decided June 19, 2003.

Richard J. Whitney (argued), Speir & Whitney, Carbondale, IL, William Arthur Schroeder, Carbondale, IL, for Plaintiffs-Appellees.

Nadine J. Wichern (argued), Office of U.S. Attorney General, Civil Appeals Div., Chicago, IL, for Defendants-Appellants.

Before EASTERBROOK, MANION, and KANNE, Circuit Judges.

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge.

Persons charged with sex offenses in Illinois may be diverted before trial to civil confinement, if a mental illness of at least one year's duration led to the criminal conduct. Those who complete treatment successfully are released and the criminal charges dismissed. The Illinois Sexually Dangerous Persons Act, 725 ILCS 205/1.01 to 12, is described, and sustained against one constitutional challenge, in Allen v. Illinois, 478 U.S. 364, 106 S.Ct. 2988, 92 L.Ed.2d 296 (1986). In this suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, twenty-seven persons committed under the Act contend that it is being implemented unconstitutionally in at least three ways: first, they are confined in one wing of an institution that also serves as a prison; second, their treatment includes self-accusatory features; third, it is conducted on a group rather than an individual basis. Plaintiffs seek both damages and injunctive relief. After discovery was completed, the district judge resolved some claims in favor of some defendants on summary judgment. But he rejected three defendants' argument that qualified immunity protects them from damages liability. These three have filed an interlocutory appeal. See Behrens v. Pelletier, 516 U.S. 299, 116 S.Ct. 834, 133 L.Ed.2d 773 (1996); Scott v. Lacy, 811 F.2d 1153 (7th Cir.1987). The initial step in evaluating any immunity defense is determining whether the complaint states a claim, see Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001), so we discuss the merits along with the question whether the legal principles on which plaintiffs rely were so clearly established that persons in defendants' position had to understand that what they were doing violated the Constitution.

All of the plaintiffs are confined at Big Muddy River Correctional Center. The three appellants are Donald Snyder, former Director of the Department of Corrections; Michael Holmes, the Warden of Big Muddy; and Mark Carich, its Public Service Administrator and the principal designer of the programs to which plaintiffs object. Snyder assigned plaintiffs to Big Muddy, where they mingle with convicts at meals and on some other occasions. Some detainees are housed two to a cell (though never with a convicted inmate). According to plaintiffs, these arrangements violate the Constitution because civil detainees are entitled to housing at facilities separate from convicts, and in the "least restrictive" environment. Plaintiffs' principal problem is the lack of any federal authority for these propositions. They contend, to quote their brief:

Plaintiffs have not claimed that it is unconstitutional, per se, for them to be confined to a facility that is labeled a "prison" and that also houses criminally convicted inmates. Their claim is a more general one that the Constitution requires them to be placed "in the least restrictive environment consistent with the purposes of the [Sexually Dangerous Persons Act]" and that they be provided "housing, recreation, education and treatment in facilities segregated from the general prison population as required by the SDPA."

The argument, in other words, is that the Constitution requires Illinois to fulfill promises that the plaintiffs locate in a state statute. Yet the Constitution does not compel states to follow their own laws. See DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189, 202, 109 S.Ct. 998, 103 L.Ed.2d 249 (1989); Snowden v. Hughes, 321 U.S. 1, 11, 64 S.Ct. 397, 88 L.Ed. 497 (1944); Archie v. Racine, 847 F.2d 1211, 1215-18 (7th Cir.1988) (en banc). Nor does it permit a federal court to enforce state laws directly. See Pennhurst State School & Hospital v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 106, 104 S.Ct. 900, 79 L.Ed.2d 67 (1984). Plaintiffs need a genuinely federal rule, such as the principle articulated in Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U.S. 307, 321-22, 102 S.Ct. 2452, 73 L.Ed.2d 28 (1982), that "[p]ersons who have been involuntarily committed are entitled to more considerate treatment and conditions of confinement than criminals whose conditions of confinement are designed to punish." Although the Court rejected in Youngberg an argument that the state must establish the "necessity" of keeping detainees in close custody, it held that they are entitled to "the exercise of professional judgment as to the needs of residents" (id. at 322, 102 S.Ct. 2452). Seling v. Young, 531 U.S. 250, 265, 121 S.Ct. 727, 148 L.Ed.2d 734 (2001), generalizes the proposition this way: "due process requires that the conditions and duration of confinement ... bear some reasonable relation to the purpose for which persons are committed."

Thus detainees may be subjected to conditions that advance goals such as preventing escape and assuring the safety of others, even though they may not be punished. See Allen, 478 U.S. at 373-74, 106 S.Ct. 2988. Does placement in a prison, subject to the institution's usual rules of conduct, signify punishment? The answer, given by Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979), is no. Wolfish held that pretrial detainees, who like civil committees may be held for security reasons but not punished, may be assigned to prisons and covered by the usual institutional rules, which are designed to assure safety and security. Our plaintiffs were not assigned to high-security institutions, solitary, lockdown, or otherwise onerous confinement. And one must keep in mind that they are pretrial detainees as well as civil committees: criminal charges against them are pending. If pretrial detainees may be subjected to the ordinary conditions of confinement, as Wolfish holds, then so may persons detained before trial as sexually dangerous persons.

Plaintiffs do not assert that their situation is worse in any material way than the situation in which ordinary pretrial detainees find themselves. They do not contend, for example, that accused sex offenders suffer injury at the hands of convicted prisoners at Big Muddy more often than at each others' hands, something that if true might be thought to imply that they have been mixed with convicts because of (rather than in spite of) the special risks of violence in prison. Details such as double celling add nothing to plaintiffs' contentions. Wolfish rejected an argument that this practice equates to punishment. 441 U.S. at 530-43, 99 S.Ct. 1861. College dorms, hospitals, and military barracks house people more than one to a room without amounting to punishment. Just so at Big Muddy. Plaintiffs' initial challenge to their confinement therefore fails on the merits, making it unnecessary to consider immunity.

Youngberg, Allen, and Seling all show that detainees are entitled to some kind of treatment—but plaintiffs don't like the kind on offer. Illinois has concluded that the best treatment for sex offenders is group therapy in which people admit their crimes (to others as well as to themselves), own up to and confront the urges that drive them to perpetrate heinous acts, and then assist each other in overcoming those urges. Illinois administers polygraph examinations to check whether participants in this program are being candid. Its approach is similar to the one described and sustained against constitutional challenge, in McKune v. Lile, 536 U.S. 24, 122 S.Ct. 2017, 153 L.Ed.2d 47 (2002). The principal ground of attack in McKune was that ...