Casteel v. Kolb

• Decision Date: 22 April 1993
• Docket Number: No. 92-0519,92-0519
• Citation: Casteel v. Kolb, 500 N.W.2d 400, 176 Wis.2d 440 (Wis. App. 1993)
• Parties: John A. CASTEEL, a/k/a Tayr Kilaab al Ghashiyah (Khan), Plaintiff-Appellant, d v. Darrel KOLB, Thomas Borgen, Thomas Bornick, Lynn Oestreich, Ronald Giannoni and Jane Doe 1 & 2, Defendants-Respondents.
• Court: Wisconsin Court of Appeals

Page 400

500 N.W.2d 400

176 Wis.2d 440

John A. CASTEEL, a/k/a Tayr Kilaab al Ghashiyah (Khan) Plaintiff-Appellant, ^d v. Darrel KOLB, Thomas Borgen, Thomas Bornick, Lynn Oestreich Ronald Giannoni and Jane Doe 1 & 2, Defendants-Respondents.

No. 92-0519.

Court of Appeals of Wisconsin.

Submitted on Briefs June 24, 1992.

Opinion Released April 22, 1993.

Opinion Filed April 22, 1993.

Before EICH, C.J., and DYKMAN and SUNDBY, JJ.

EICH, Chief Judge.

John Casteel, a/k/a Tayr Kilaab al Ghashiyah (Kahn), an inmate at the Waupun Correctional Institution and a frequent litigator in this court, appeals from an order dismissing his action against several prison officers and employees. He sued under a variety of federal and state statutes, seeking declaratory, injunctive and monetary relief for alleged violations of his due process rights and of state law.

The issues are: (1) whether Casteel's claims under 42 U.S.C., sec. 1983, were properly dismissed because he had meaningful state remedies available to review the alleged violations; (2) whether his several state law claims were properly dismissed for his failure to allege exhaustion of applicable administrative remedies; and (3) whether the trial court properly dismissed Casteel's constitutional challenge to Wis.Adm.Code sec. DOC 303, the chapter governing the conduct of prison disciplinary hearings. We affirm the trial court in all respects.

Casteel was the subject of many prison disciplinary proceedings throughout the years of his incarceration, and his claims against the defendants are based upon their participation in nineteen such proceedings. The trial court dismissed all of Casteel's claims it considered to have been raised under 42 U.S.C., sec. 1983, ¹ on grounds that he had failed to exhaust his state administrative remedies before bringing the action. The court then permitted Casteel to recast his complaint as a petition for certiorari review of the nineteen disciplinary proceedings. The petition was eventually dismissed because all of the hearings and decisions occurred more than six months prior to the date of Casteel's original complaint. Casteel, appearing pro se on this appeal, challenges each of the court's rulings.

I. The Federal Claims Under 42 U.S.C., Sec. 1983

The allegations in Casteel's complaint(s) which the attorney general interprets as purporting to raise claims under the federal civil rights act are that: (1) insufficient evidence was presented at the various hearings; (2) the various decisionmakers failed to adequately state the evidence relied on and the reasons for their decisions; (3) he was denied a "judicial hearing" and thus had no opportunity to refute the allegations in the conduct reports giving rise to the proceedings; (4) the evidence against him was unreasonably withheld; (5) he was unable to present witnesses in his defense; and (6) he was not provided with a Spanish translation of the prison rules.

There is no question that prisoners subjected to disciplinary proceedings have a liberty interest at stake that is entitled to the minimum due process protections discussed in Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 563-67, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 2978-80, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974), including notice of the charges, a limited right to present evidence and a written statement of the evidence on which the hearing committee relied and the reasons for the decision. Cain v. Lane, 857 F.2d 1139, 1145 (7th Cir.1988).

The State of Wisconsin has codified those protections, and added others, in the administrative code. It follows that if prison officials ignore or violate the rules incorporating the Wolff mandates, their conduct would violate the prisoner's constitutional rights. ² If, however, the officers' actions were "random" and "unauthorized," the violation will not give rise to a claim under 42 U.S.C., sec. 1983, unless the state has failed to provide the prisoner with an adequate postdeprivation remedy for the breach. Zinermon v. Burch, 494 U.S. 113, 132, 110 S.Ct. 975, 986, 108 L.Ed.2d 100 (1990). This is so because:

Section 1983 must be preserved to remedy only those deprivations which ... result from a state's conscious decision to ignore the protections guaranteed by the Constitution. It should not be employed to remedy deprivations which occur at the hands of a state employee who is acting in direct contravention of the state's established ... procedures which have been designed to guarantee the very protections which the employee now has chosen to ignore. Easter House v. Felder, 910 F.2d 1387, 1404 (7th Cir.1990), cert. denied, [498 U.S. 1067, 111 S.Ct. 783], 112 L.Ed.2d 846 (1991) (emphasis in original).

As we have noted, the factual allegations of Casteel's original complaint charge the defendants with violation of the Wolff procedural due process safeguards, among others. He alleges that the defendants "in bad faith and with reckless disregard and in derogation of their duties" "acted under the color of law." His amended complaint for certiorari repeats the allegations.

In Duenas v. Nagle, 765 F.Supp. 1393 (W.D.Wis.1991), the inmate brought a sec. 1983 action against several prison officials, alleging various violations of his due process rights in connection with prison disciplinary proceedings. Specifically, he alleged that the defendants who served on the committees failed to provide him written statements of the evidence relied on and statements of the reasons underlying their decisions, that he did not receive notice of the charges, and that he was not allowed to call witnesses in his behalf. Id. at 1396.

Relying on Easter House, the Duenas court characterized the plaintiff's case as one "in which state officials fail[ed] to comply with state regulations they are charged with implementing" and concluded:

As in Easter House, the state could not have anticipated that prison officials whose duties were narrowly defined would act in "direct contravention" of those established duties that the state set up to guarantee constitutional protection to plaintiff. The state had no realistic opportunity to learn of the repeated deprivations of plaintiff's liberty until plaintiff utilized the inmate complaint review system.... I conclude that defendants' noncompliance with established state procedures can only be characterized as random and unauthorized conduct. 765 F.Supp. at 1398.

We apply that reasoning here and reach a similar conclusion. If Casteel had a "meaningful" postdeprivation process available to him, he lacks a remedy under the fourteenth amendment. Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 533, 104 S.Ct. 3194, 3203, 82 L.Ed.2d 393 (1984). And the postdeprivation remedies provided by the state will not be considered inadequate even if they fail to provide all the relief which may have been available had the plaintiff proceeded under sec. 1983. Enright v. Board of School Directors, 118 Wis.2d 236, 256, 346 N.W.2d 771, 781 (1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 966, 105 S.Ct. 365, 83 L.Ed.2d 301 (1984), citing Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 544, 101 S.Ct. 1908, 1917, 68 L.Ed.2d 420 (1981), overruled by Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 106 S.Ct. 662, 88 L.Ed.2d 662 (1986).

We are satisfied that the state certiorari proceedings available to inmates for review of prison disciplinary proceedings are both suitable and meaningful under the cases just discussed. In those proceedings, judicial review includes determination of whether the committee followed its own rules governing the conduct of its hearings. State ex rel. Meeks v. Gagnon, 95 Wis.2d 115, 119, 289 N.W.2d 357, 361 (Ct.App.1980). We conclude, therefore, that the trial court did not err when it dismissed Casteel's claims under 42 U.S.C., sec. 1983.

II. Casteel's State-Law Claims

As just noted, whether the disciplinary proceedings were convened and conducted in accord with state law is reviewable by certiorari. See State ex rel. Irby v. Israel, 95 Wis.2d 697, 702-03, 291 N.W.2d 643, 646 (Ct.App.1980). And when the trial court gave Casteel leave to amend his complaint to recast his factual allegations into a petition for certiorari review of the nineteen disciplinary decisions, it warned him that it could not consider any such claims based on hearings and decisions that were conducted more than six months prior to the filing of his original complaint. Because none of his claims met the six-month rule, the trial court properly dismissed them. State ex rel. Czapiewski v. Milwaukee Civil Serv. Comm'n, 54 Wis.2d 535, 538, 196 N.W.2d 742, 743 (1972).

Casteel also contends that Wis.Adm.Code ch. DOC 303, governing the prison disciplinary process, is unconstitutional. But under sec. 227.40(1), Stats., "the exclusive ³ means of judicial review of the validity of a rule shall be an action for declaratory judgment," naming the party responsible for the rule as the defendant. Casteel did not avail himself of this procedure; indeed, he has not even alleged that any single rule in the lengthy chapter is invalid.

Casteel maintains that sec. 302.02(1), Stats., entitles inmates to a "judicial trial" before any discipline may be imposed on them. The statute ⁴ does not provide such a right; "[i]t merely affects whatever geographical factors are pertinent to discipline and judicial proceedings." Irby v. Young, 139 Wis.2d 279, 282, 407 N.W.2d 314, 316 (Ct.App.1987). ⁵

Finally, we agree with the state that Casteel's argument that the disciplinary process violates the constitutional provisions prohibiting bills of attainder is without merit. A bill of attainder is, in simplest terms, a legislative act that determines guilt and inflicts punishment without a judicial trial. State ex rel. Groppi v. Leslie, 44 Wis.2d 282, 299, 171 N.W.2d 192, 198 (1969). Casteel has already been sentenced; and the provisions of Wis.Adm.Code ch. DOC 303, which impose disciplinary sanctions for prison rule violations, simply are not within the constitutional prohibitions against bills of attainder. Even at its most...