Ballinger v. Cedar Cnty.

• Decision Date: 14 January 2016
• Docket Number: No. 14–3576.,14–3576.
• Citation: 810 F.3d 557
• Parties: Brent BALLINGER, Plaintiff–Appellant v. CEDAR COUNTY, MISSOURI ; David Starbuck ; John and Jane Does, Defendants–Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

810 F.3d 557

Brent BALLINGER, Plaintiff–Appellant

v.CEDAR COUNTY, MISSOURI ; David Starbuck ; John and Jane Does, Defendants–Appellees.

No. 14–3576.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: Sept. 21, 2015.

Filed: Jan. 14, 2016.

Brandon C. Potter, Whiteaker & Wilson, P.C., Springfield, MO, argued, for appellant.

Christopher P. (Chris) Rackers, Schreimann, Rackers, Francka & Blunt, LLC, Jefferson City, MO, argued (Ryan E. Bertels, on the brief), for appellees Cedar County, Missouri, and David Starbuck.

Before RILEY, Chief Judge, BYE and GRUENDER, Circuit Judges.

RILEY, Chief Judge.

Brent Ballinger was serving an eight-year sentence in a Missouri Department of Corrections (DOC) prison when a Missouri state court judge granted Ballinger's motion to vacate and set aside his conviction and sentence. The state court judge ordered that Ballinger be remanded to the custody of the Cedar County Sheriff's Department. While awaiting transfer, Ballinger was placed in administrative segregation, where, he contends, he spent approximately one year. Ballinger sued Cedar County, the county sheriff, and several unnamed DOC employees, alleging a deprivation of his constitutional rights. The district court granted the sheriff's and the county's motion and dismissed Ballinger's lawsuit for failure to state a claim.¹ Having jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we now affirm in part and reverse in part.

I. BACKGROUND²

On January 23, 2009, a jury convicted Ballinger of three felonies in Missouri state court. See State v. Ballinger, 298 S.W.3d 572, 573 (Mo.Ct.App.2009). He was sentenced to eight years. On September 15, 2010, Ballinger filed in the Circuit Court of Cedar County, Missouri, a motion to vacate, set aside, or correct his conviction and sentence under Missouri Supreme Court Rule 29.15, alleging he received ineffective assistance of counsel at trial. On December 8, 2010, a state court judge granted Ballinger's motion, ordering Ballinger's judgment and sentence "vacated and set aside." The state court judge ordered that Ballinger "be remanded to the custody of the Cedar County Sheriff's Department for further proceedings in [his] underlying case." The state appealed. On November 15, 2011, the Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed the order, and later the state's motion for rehearing and transfer to the Missouri Supreme Court was denied.

Shortly after the state court judge first set aside Ballinger's conviction, the DOC, "per [the] court ruling overturning his sentence," assigned Ballinger to administrative segregation, which Ballinger refers to as "solitary confinement" and "the hole." Ballinger requested a classification hearing to find out how long he would be kept in solitary confinement. At a hearing on January 27, 2011, a DOC classification committee recommended Ballinger remain in administrative segregation until March 24, 2011, "[p]ending ... transfer by County." Ballinger alleges in his complaint he was kept in solitary confinement for at least one year.³

Ballinger filed this claim pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1988 against Cedar County Sheriff David Starbuck and DOC employees, who have been designated as John and Jane Does (collectively, defendants),⁴ alleging constitutional violations.⁵ Asserting he became a pretrial detainee when his conviction was overturned, Ballinger alleges that the defendants violated his Fourteenth Amendment due process rights by leaving him in administrative segregation. Ballinger maintains Sheriff Starbuck, who knew or should have known Ballinger would remain in solitary confinement unless transferred, "purposely and maliciously refused to allow" Cedar County employees to pick him up and take him to the Cedar County jail. Ballinger asserts Cedar County, through its policy maker Sheriff Starbuck, maintained policies that were deliberately indifferent to his Fourteenth Amendment rights.

Sheriff Starbuck and Cedar County moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. Sheriff Starbuck and Cedar County argued Ballinger was still a prisoner and did not suffer a significant or atypical hardship, as required when an inmate makes a due process challenge. The district court granted the motion to dismiss. Ballinger appeals.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Standard of Review

" ‘Whether a complaint states a cause of action is a question of law which we review on appeal de novo.’ " Packard v. Darveau, 759 F.3d 897, 900 (8th Cir.2014) (quoting Miller v. Redwood Toxicology Lab., Inc., 688 F.3d 928, 936 (8th Cir.2012) ). "To survive a motion to dismiss, the factual allegations in a complaint, assumed true, must suffice ‘to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’ " Northstar Indus., Inc. v. Merrill Lynch & Co., 576 F.3d 827, 832 (8th Cir.2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) ).

B. Ballinger's Legal Status: Prisoner or Pretrial Detainee

Prisoners' and pretrial detainees' constitutional claims are analyzed under different standards. See Morris v. Zefferi, 601 F.3d 805, 809 (8th Cir.2010). Generally, while a pretrial detainee is presumed innocent and may not be punished, see Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 535, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979) ; Smith v. Copeland, 87 F.3d 265, 268 (8th Cir.1996), a prisoner must demonstrate he has suffered "atypical and significant hardship ... in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life" to establish a claim under the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process clause, Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 484, 115 S.Ct. 2293, 132 L.Ed.2d 418 (1995). Because the applicable constitutional standard depends on whether Ballinger was a prisoner or a pretrial detainee during the time relevant to his claims, we first must determine his legal status.

Ballinger argues he became a pretrial detainee when his conviction was overturned and the defendants punished him by keeping him in solitary confinement. The district court decided Ballinger was still a prisoner. The district court relied on Missouri Supreme Court Rule 30.17, a rule of appellate criminal procedure that establishes what happens to a defendant when the state appeals a postconviction order. The rule states:

If an appeal is taken by the state, such appeal shall not stay the operation of an order or judgment in favor of the defendant.... This Rule 30.17shall not apply to an appeal taken by the state from an order entered in a proceeding under ... Rule 29.15, but in such case, if the defendant is in custody, he shall remain in custody during the pendency of the appeal.

Mo. Sup.Ct. R. 30.17 (emphasis added). The district court determined, because Ballinger's conviction was overturned pursuant to Rule 29.15 and the state appealed while Ballinger was in custody, "under Rule 30.17, [Ballinger] was to remain in custody while the state's appeal was pending."

Ballinger argues Rule 30.17 is not dispositive because it is silent as to the legal status of the defendant—"only requir[ing] that he remain in custody." Analogizing to a successful habeas petition, Ballinger asserts there is no reason he should be "entitled to any less status than a person that has had [his] murder conviction overturned as the result of a habeas proceeding." Ballinger offers two Missouri habeas cases in support of his position. In both Ferguson v. Dormire, 413 S.W.3d 40, 73 n. 51 (Mo.Ct.App.2013), and State ex rel. Koster v. Green, 388 S.W.3d 603, 605 n. 2 (Mo.Ct.App.2012), the Missouri Court of Appeals ruled when a prisoner's conviction is vacated through habeas relief, the prisoner's legal status returns to the status of a pretrial detainee.

Though these habeas cases do suggest a prisoner may in some circumstances regain pretrial detainee status, neither of the convictions in Green or Ferguson were vacated pursuant to Rule 29.15. See Ferguson, 413 S.W.3d at 73 ; Green, 388 S.W.3d at 605. As the district court noted, this is a critical distinction because Rule 30.17 expressly does not apply when the state appeals an order entered under Rule 29.15. Further, the state cannot appeal from a grant of a writ of habeas corpus, see Ferguson, 413 S.W.3d at 50 (noting that when a Missouri circuit court grants a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, the state's "only recourse is to seek review by filing a petition for writ of certiorari"), so it appears Rule 30.17 would not apply to Green or Ferguson at all.

Unlike habeas, Rule 29.15(k) authorizes the state to appeal an order sustaining or overruling a motion filed under the rule. Rule 30.17 states, "If an appeal is taken by the state, such appeal shall not stay the operation of an order or judgment in favor of the defendant.... This Rule 30.17 shall not apply to an appeal taken by the state from an order entered in a proceeding under ... Rule 29.15." We read the rule's exception plainly to provide that an appeal by the state from an order under Rule 29.15does stay the operation of the order. Here, the state court judge vacated Ballinger's judgment and sentence in an order entered in a proceeding under Rule 29.15, and the state appealed. Because the order was stayed by the appeal and Ballinger's conviction and sentence were not in fact vacated, he remained a prisoner while the appeal was pending and did not regain the status of a pretrial detainee. See Crane v. Logli, 992 F.2d 136, 139 (7th Cir.1993) ( "Bell does not require us to hold that [the plaintiff] became a pretrial detainee, in a constitutional sense, once his conviction was reversed."); cf. Tourscher v. McCullough, 184 F.3d 236, 241–42 (3d Cir.1999) (concluding the intermediate reversal of a conviction did not take immediate effect and was not final under applicable state law until a petition for further review was acted upon and the automatic stay on that reversal expired).

C. Ballinger's Due Process Claims

Ballinger alleges the defendants were deliberately indifferent to his due process rights under the Fourteenth...