Courtney v. Butler
| Decision Date | 16 August 2021 |
| Docket Number | 3:16-CV-1062-NJR |
| Parties | JAMES COURTNEY, Plaintiff, v. KIMBERLY BUTLER, JACQUELINE LASHBROOK, SALVADOR GODINEZ, and RICK HARRINGTON, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Illinois |
Pending before the Court is a Motion for Reconsideration of the Court's Order Denying Motion for Leave (Doc. 129) and a Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. 131) filed by Defendants Kimberly Butler, Jacqueline Lashbrook, Salvador Godinez, and Rick Harrington. Plaintiff James Courtney filed timely responses in opposition to both motions, and Defendants filed a reply in support of summary judgment. (Docs. 134, 138 143). For the reasons set forth below, the Court grants Defendants' Motion for Reconsideration and finds that the claims advanced by Courtney are barred by Heck v Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994). Accordingly, they are dismissed without prejudice.
The events at issue in this case began nearly a decade ago. In May 2012, Courtney was sentenced to three years in prison and one year of mandatory supervised release (MSR) by the Circuit Court of Marion County, Illinois, after violating his parole for failing to register as a sex offender. (Docs. 132-1 132-2). The Marion County sentence was to run concurrently with a sentence handed down the same month in Hamilton County, Illinois. (Id.; Doc. 132-4).
On May 18, 2012, Courtney entered the Illinois Department of Corrections at Menard Correctional Center. (Doc. 132-1). His projected “out date” was October 5, 2013. (Doc 132-5). But on October 4, 2013, the Prisoner Review Board determined Courtney had not provided a suitable host site where he could be monitored electronically per the terms of his MSR. (Doc. 132-6 at p. 2). A warrant was issued for his arrest for violating the terms of his MSR, and instead of being released to a host site for his term of MSR, Courtney signed an “Electronic Detention Program Agreement ” which stated he would be residing at “Menard C.C.” (Id. at pp. 5-6).
On November 7, 2013, Courtney signed a Parole Violation Report, waiving his preliminary hearing in favor of a full revocation hearing before the Prisoner Review Board. (Doc. 132-6). The hearing was scheduled for November 14, 2013. (Id.) On that day, the Prisoner Review Board entered an order revoking Courtney's MSR for violating his terms. (Doc. 132-12). The order further stated that his release would be “effective upon the approval of a viable host site as determined by IDOC.” (Id.).
Upon realizing he would not be leaving Menard, Courtney wrote myriad grievances and kites to Defendants claiming he was being held hostage and had a good parole site that was not investigated. The parties largely dispute the details of these documents, including whether Defendants received them, addressed them, or ignored them. Courtney was released from Menard on October 3, 2014. (Doc. 138-11).
On September 21, 2016, Courtney filed his initial Complaint pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging violations of his constitutional rights. (Doc. 1). After the Court[1] performed a threshold review pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915, the Complaint was dismissed without prejudice. (Doc. 5). Courtney filed a First Amended Complaint, then a Second Amended Complaint, both which also were dismissed for failure to state a claim. (Docs. 8, 10, 17, 21). Courtney appealed the dismissal of his Second Amended Complaint, and on February 13, 2019, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court's judgment and remanded the matter for further proceedings on Courtney's Eighth Amendment and substantive due process claims. (Doc. 33-1).
With the assistance of recruited counsel, on October 11, 2019, Courtney filed his Third Amended Complaint alleging violations of his right to procedural and substantive due process under the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments, as well as cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. (Doc. 69). Among other things, Courtney claimed he was “wrongfully detained beyond his scheduled MSR release date, ” that his incarceration was “wrongfully prolonged, ” and there was “no legal basis for his continued incarceration.” (Id.).
On December 9, 2019, Defendants answered the Complaint and asserted Qualified Immunity, Absolute Immunity, Sovereign Immunity, and the Statute of Limitations as affirmative defenses. (Doc. 80). On March 23, 2020, Defendants moved for leave to amend their answer to assert an affirmative defense that Courtney's claims were barred by the doctrine established in Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994). (Doc. 97). Under Heck, an individual seeking damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for an unconstitutional conviction or sentence must have that conviction or sentence reversed on appeal or otherwise declared invalid before his Section 1983 claim can proceed. Heck, 512 U.S. at 486-87. Defendants explained that on January 7, 2020, the Seventh Circuit issued its decision in Savory v. Cannon, 947 F.3d 409 (7th Cir. 2020), cert. denied, 141 S.Ct. 251 (2020), which abrogated and/or overruled a line of Seventh Circuit cases regarding the accrual of Section 1983 claims in light of Heck. In particular, Defendants stated that they had relied on the now-abrogated case of Whitfield v. Howard, 852 F.3d 656 (7th Cir. 2017), in not asserting the Heck bar as an affirmative defense. Courtney opposed the amendment, arguing that Heck did not apply because he was not challenging the constitutionality of his underlying criminal conviction. (Doc. 98). Thus, because the amendment would be futile, Defendants' motion for leave to amend should be denied. (Id.). The Magistrate Judge assigned to the case at the time agreed with Courtney and denied the motion for leave to amend. (Doc. 111).
On January 19, 2021, Defendants asked the Court to reconsider its refusal to allow them to amend their answer and affirmative defenses. (Doc. 129). That same day, they moved for summary judgment on the merits of Courtney's claims. (Doc. 131). After the motions were fully briefed, the case was transferred to the undersigned. (Doc. 144).
In Heck v. Humphrey, the Supreme Court held that “in order to recover damages for allegedly unconstitutional conviction or imprisonment, or for other harm caused by actions whose unlawfulness would render a conviction or sentence invalid, a § 1983 plaintiff must prove that the conviction or sentence has been reversed on direct appeal, expunged by executive order, declared invalid by a state tribunal authorized to make such determination, or called into question by a federal court's issuance of a writ of habeas corpus, 28 U.S.C. § 2254.” Heck, 512 U.S. at 486-87. “A claim for damages bearing that relationship to a conviction or sentence that has not been so invalidated is not cognizable under § 1983.” Id. Therefore, “when a state prisoner seeks damages in a § 1983 suit, the district court must consider whether a judgment in [his] favor would necessarily imply the invalidity of his conviction or sentence; if it would, the complaint must be dismissed unless the plaintiff can demonstrate that the conviction or sentence has already been invalidated.” Id. at 487. “The Heck bar accounts for the preclusive effect of state court criminal judgments on civil litigation by lifting the bar only when the plaintiff has achieved a favorable termination of the criminal proceeding.” Savory, 947 F.3d at 419.
Prior to the Seventh Circuit's opinion in Savory, the Court of Appeals had held that in all cases where habeas relief is unavailable, Section 1983 must provide an avenue of relief. See DeWalt v. Carter, 224 F.3d 607, 617 (7th Cir. 2000) (). Thus, at the time Defendants filed their answer to the Third Amended Complaint in December 2019, Courtney, who had been released from prison and thus was foreclosed from habeas relief, could bring his claims in a Section 1983 action.
Savory abrogated DeWalt and several other cases, and it overruled Whitfield v. Howard, 852 F.3d 656 (7th Cir. 2017), where the court found a former prisoner could pursue a Section 1983 claim challenging prison disciplinary proceedings that led to loss of good time credits without first obtaining a favorable termination of those proceedings. Id. at 425. Savory recognized that the “good faith but unsuccessful pursuit of collateral relief does not relieve [a prisoner] of Heck's favorable termination requirement.” Id. at 426.
On remand, the district court in Whitfield noted that the Seventh Circuit in Savory “established a bright line rule: A 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim which implies the invalidity of a conviction or sentence cannot proceed until Heck's favorable termination requirement is satisfied, regardless of the availability of collateral relief or the diligence in pursuing that relief.” Whitfield v. Althoff, No. 13-CV-3192, 2020 WL 4275256, at *2 (C.D. Ill. July 24, 2020).
In this case, Defendants filed their answer to the Third Amended Complaint on December 9, 2019, less than one...
To continue reading
Request your trial