Crane v. Logli

• Decision Date: 30 April 1993
• Docket Number: No. 92-2374,92-2374
• Citation: 992 F.2d 136
• Parties: David CRANE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Paul LOGLI, Winnebago County, Illinois, Howard A. Peters, III, Kenneth McGinnis, Keith Cooper, James W. Fairman, Jr., and Michael P. Lane, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 136

992 F.2d 136

David CRANE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Paul LOGLI, Winnebago County, Illinois, Howard A. Peters,

III, Kenneth McGinnis, Keith Cooper, James W.

Fairman, Jr., and Michael P. Lane,

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 92-2374.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued Jan. 19, 1993.

Decided April 30, 1993.

Richard A. Palmer, Sterling, IL (argued), for plaintiff-appellant.

Gary L. Kovanda (argued), Charles J. Prorok, Office of State's Atty. of Winnebago County, Rockford, IL, Deborah L. Ahlstrand, Asst. Atty. Gen., Chicago, IL, Joseph P. Bruscato, Rockford, IL, for defendants-appellees.

Before BAUER, Chief Judge, COFFEY, and EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judges.

BAUER, Chief Judge.

David Crane filed this lawsuit, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, against Paul Logli, Howard A. Peters, III, Kenneth McGinnis, Keith Cooper, James W. Fairman, Jr., Michael P. Lane, and Winnebago County, Illinois for alleged violations of his federal constitutional rights. Defendant Logli is the State's Attorney of Winnebago County, Illinois and the other individual defendants are former and present Illinois Department of Corrections ("IDOC") officials and former and present wardens of the Joliet Correction Center ("JCC"). Crane claims that the defendants violated his Fourteenth Amendment rights by punishing him without due process of law. The district court dismissed his amended complaint. Because the complaint does not allege any violations of Crane's constitutional rights, we affirm.

I.

The complaint, which Crane filed on January 6, 1992, alleges the following facts. On October 7, 1987, after his conviction for murder in the Circuit Court of Winnebago County, Illinois, Crane received a 40-year prison sentence to be served in the IDOC. The Appellate Court of Illinois reversed Crane's conviction and remanded the case for a new trial. People v. Crane, 196 Ill.App.3d 264, 144 Ill.Dec. 78, 554 N.E.2d 1117 (1990). The Supreme Court of Illinois affirmed the appellate court's decision. People v. Crane, 145 Ill.2d 520, 165 Ill.Dec. 703, 585 N.E.2d 99 (1991), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 1977, 118 L.Ed.2d 576 (1992).

Under Illinois law, once a person's conviction is reversed and remanded for a new trial, the reviewing court is required to issue a mandate. Until the reviewing court issues its mandate, it retains jurisdiction over the matter. People v. Baker, 85 Ill.App.3d 661, 40 Ill.Dec. 785, 786, 406 N.E.2d 1152, 1153 (1980). Once the court issues its mandate, the clerk of the court must send a copy of the mandate by certified mail to the imprisoning officer. Ill.Rev.Stat. ch. 110A, para 613(c). ¹ Upon receipt of the mandate, the imprisoning officer is required to return the prisoner to the trial court. Crane filed his complaint before the Illinois Supreme Court issued its mandate.

Crane remained incarcerated in the JCC after the reversal of his conviction. Crane's complaint alleges that the JCC is a maximum security prison which is designed and operated to punish convicted felons who are serving either long-term or life sentences. ²

Crane complains that after his conviction was reversed, the defendants should have moved him to a minimum or medium security prison, such as the Winnebago County jail. The Winnebago County jail is designed primarily to incarcerate pretrial detainees. Crane argues that his continued incarceration at the JCC violated his constitutional rights. Crane seeks compensatory damages, punitive damages, injunctive relief, costs, and attorney's fees. The district court dismissed the complaint and Crane appeals.

II.

We review the district court's dismissal of the complaint de novo. Dimmig v. Wahl, 983 F.2d 86, 87 (7th Cir.1993). We accept all well-pleaded facts alleged in the complaint as true and draw all reasonable inferences in Crane's favor. Id. We do not, however, ignore facts alleged in the complaint that undermine Crane's claim nor do we assign any weight to unsupported conclusions of law. Id.

To state a valid Section 1983 claim, the complaint must allege that the defendants acted under color of state law to deprive Crane of rights, privileges, or immunities secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States. For purposes of this opinion, we assume without deciding that the defendants acted under color of state law and focus on the second prong of this two-part inquiry. Specifically, we ask if the complaint alleges any set of facts that, if true, would give rise to a deprivation of Crane's constitutional rights. ³ We review Crane's appeal with these standards in mind.

Crane contends that the defendants violated the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause when they continued to incarcerate him in the JCC after the reversal of his murder conviction. ⁴ Specifically, he claims that he became a pretrial detainee when his conviction was reversed. As a pretrial detainee, he alleges that he was constitutionally protected from punishment by the state. Crane contends that defendants violated this constitutional right by continuing to incarcerate him in the JCC--a facility that, as defined in the complaint, is designed to punish prisoners.

We engage in a two-step inquiry to evaluate Crane's due process claim. First, we must determine whether there was a deprivation of a protected due process interest--here, in Crane's liberty. Vukadinovich v. Board of Sch. Trustees, 978 F.2d 403, 410 (7th Cir.1992). If so, we then ascertain whether the procedures attendant upon the deprivation were constitutionally sufficient. Id.

As an initial matter, we note that the Due Process Clause does not protect a duly convicted prisoner from being transferred from one prison to another. Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 225, 96 S.Ct. 2532, 2538, 49 L.Ed.2d 451 (1976). Crane's complaint may only have merit, then, if Crane ceased to be a convicted prisoner once the Supreme Court of Illinois reversed his conviction, but before it issued its mandate. He claims that he became a pretrial detainee when his conviction was reversed and, as such, had a protected liberty interest in the type of prison in which he was incarcerated.

In Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979), the Supreme Court held that the Due Process Clause allows the government to incarcerate pretrial detainees prior to trial. The Court also held, however, that due process does not permit pretrial detainees to be incarcerated in punitive conditions. Id. at 535, 539, 99 S.Ct. at 1871, 1874. See also Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 395 n. 10, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 1871 n. 10, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989) ("[T]he Due Process Clause protects a pretrial detainee from the use of excessive force that amounts to punishment.").

The Court in Bell defined pretrial detainees as "those persons who have been charged with a crime but who have not yet been tried on the charge." Bell, 441 U.S. at 523, 99 S.Ct. at 1865. We do not believe this definition includes prisoners like Crane, whose convictions have been reversed but the reversing court's mandate has not yet issued. The State of Illinois had charged Crane with the crime of murder and, importantly, had tried and convicted him on that charge. Bell does not require us to hold that Crane became a pretrial detainee, in a constitutional sense, once his conviction was reversed. The reversal of his conviction did not change his status under the Due Process Clause.

Crane contends that Getch v. Rosenbach, 700 F.Supp. 1365 (D.N.J.1988), establishes that he became a pretrial detainee when his conviction was reversed. In Getch, also a Section 1983 suit, the plaintiff, like Crane, was an inmate at a state prison. Id. at 1367. The plaintiff claimed that the defendants, a state prosecutor and prison superintendent, violated his constitutional rights by confining him for almost ten months after his conviction had been reversed. Id. The court stated that "[a]fter [the plaintiff's] original conviction was overturned, [he] acquired the status of a pretrial detainee." Id. at 1370. Crane claims that this language establishes that he became a pretrial detainee for purposes of the Due Process...