Donelson v. Pfister

• Decision Date: 28 January 2016
• Docket Number: No. 14–3395.,14–3395.
• Parties: Charles DONELSON, Petitioner–Appellant, v. Randy PFISTER, Respondent–Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

811 F.3d 911

Charles DONELSON, Petitioner–Appellant,

v.Randy PFISTER, Respondent–Appellee.

No. 14–3395.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Submitted May 26, 2015.^*

Decided Jan. 28, 2016.

Charles Donelson, Joliet, IL, pro se.

Leah Myers Bendik, Attorney, Office of the Attorney General, Chicago, IL, for Respondent–Appellee.

Before POSNER, ROVNER, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

HAMILTON, Circuit Judge.

In this appeal we address an unusual state court ruling denying a prisoner's challenge to discipline that deprived him of liberty, he says, without having an opportunity to call supporting witnesses and to offer supporting evidence. The state appellate court denied relief without reaching the merits. The court's reason, not mentioned at any earlier stage of the case, was that the prisoner had not followed the instruction on the paper form for requesting witnesses or evidence to tear off the top portion of the form. As we explain below, this novel ruling carried bureaucratic concerns about paperwork to an unreasonable extreme and does not bar federal consideration of the prisoner's constitutional claim on the merits.

Appellant Charles Donelson, an Illinois prisoner, lost a year of accumulated good time as punishment for two incidents involving the same guard. After unsuccessfully challenging that punishment in state court, Donelson filed in the federal district court a petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Donelson claims that the prison adjustment committee violated his right to due process by disciplining him without adequate evidence and by not allowing him to call witnesses or to have access to exculpatory video and audio recordings. The district court ruled against Donelson, partly on the merits and partly on a procedural ground. We agree with the partial merits ruling but disagree with the procedural ruling. We therefore vacate the judgment and remand for further proceedings.

The two incidents both involved guard Jimmie Watson and occurred on the same day in July 2011. Watson, who wrote one of two reports accusing Donelson of misconduct, said that he caught Donelson trying to leave his prison wing and ordered him back to his cell because he was "not properly dressed to leave the wing and did not have permission to leave." But at first, Watson said, Donelson ignored instructions to show his inmate identification card and to move away from the door to the wing. And when he did finally comply, Watson added, Donelson muttered, "I'll fix you, I'll have your job, bitch."

An hour later Donelson and Watson had their second confrontation. Matthew Lindsey, the guard who wrote the other incident report, alleged that he saw Donelson step around a closing door, evade two nearby guards, and run straight at Watson. According to Lindsey, Donelson punched Watson in the face several times with a closed fist before the other guards could intervene. Even then, Lindsey said, Donelson kicked and jerked his arms to avoid being restrained.

Donelson has consistently disputed both of the guards' reports. In a written statement submitted to the prison adjustment committee and attached to his § 2254 petition, Donelson asserted that he was leaving his wing with permission, that he presented his identification card to Watson when asked, that he never refused a command to move away from the door to the wing, and that he never said anything offensive to Watson. Video from a surveillance camera would confirm his account, said Donelson in his written statement. As for the alleged assault an hour later, Donelson asserted that Watson attacked him. Watson, he said, had been threatening him for months and during their earlier encounter had warned, "I should kick your ass." When he was later called to a meeting with Watson, Donelson continued, he expected a lieutenant to be present as well. Instead, Watson started throwing punches. In his statement Donelson said that he ran for the door because another guard who was present would not intervene. At some point he tried using an emergency telephone to request help. Again Donelson added that video surveillance and the recording of his telephone call would back his version of events.

After these incidents Donelson was charged with unauthorized movement within the prison, disobeying orders, insolence, and assaulting Watson. He was given copies of the incident reports that Watson and Lindsey had written using a standard form.

The form explains that inmates may call witnesses and present physical evidence at disciplinary hearings. At the bottom of the form, below a dotted line, is space for the names of two witnesses and a single line to describe their anticipated testimony. Above the dotted line, inmates are told that if they want to call witnesses, they must name those witnesses "in advance of the hearing" and "specify what they could testify to by filling out the appropriate space on this form, tearing it off, and returning it to the Adjustment Committee." The form says nothing about physical evidence, above or below the line.

On Watson's incident report, Donelson asked for the video from the "R1 B Wing Camera" and named as witnesses "C/O Cox" and "I/M Leamon," a guard and inmate who, Donelson says, witnessed the first incident with Watson. On Lindsey's incident report, Donelson again asked for the video from the "R1 B Wing Camera" along with the recording of his phone call (which he identified with a number).

But Donelson then took action that the state appellate court deemed fatal to his claim. Rather than detaching and submitting just the bottom portion of the incident reports, Donelson made copies for himself and then submitted the entire pages to the adjustment committee. There is no indication that his submissions were refused, returned, or discarded because they included the portions above the dotted line. According to Donelson, when he asked at the disciplinary hearing about his witnesses and physical evidence, the committee chair told him, "We'll get to that," but the requested physical evidence and witnesses were never produced. No one gave as a reason that his written requests were not cut on the dotted line.

The adjustment committee found Donelson guilty and, in addition to other punishments, revoked a year of his good time. The deprivation of a statutory right to credit toward a prisoner's sentence is a deprivation of liberty that requires due process of law. E.g., Meeks v. McBride, 81 F.3d 717, 719 (7th Cir.1996), citing Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 557, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974) ; Jackson v. Carlson, 707 F.2d 943, 946 (7th Cir.1983). The committee's "Summary Report" drew heavily from Watson's and Lindsey's incident reports in the section titled "Basis for Decision." The committee wrote, "No Witness Requested" in the section reserved for identifying the hearing witnesses. No mention was made of physical evidence.

After exhausting his administrative remedies, Donelson filed a petition for a writ of mandamus in an Illinois trial court. See 735 ILCS 5/14–101 to 5/14–109. That's the established means for an Illinois inmate to challenge in court a disciplinary decision and is also a prerequisite for Illinois prisoners challenging disciplinary actions in federal court by bringing a § 2254 petition in federal court. See McAtee v. Cowan, 250 F.3d 506, 508 (7th Cir.2001) (noting that prisoners ordinarily must exhaust available state remedies, and comparing Indiana, which has no state judicial review for prison discipline, to Illinois and Wisconsin, which do). As in his later federal petition, Donelson contended that the prison adjustment committee had violated his right to due process by relying on inadequate evidence and refusing his requests to call witnesses and to submit the video and audio recordings.

The state trial court rejected Donelson's petition "for the reasons stated" in the respondent's motion to dismiss. None of those arguments had anything to do with Donelson asking for witnesses and physical evidence on forms that were not cut on the dotted line. Nor did the respondent make that argument when Donelson appealed the state trial court's decision.

Instead, the state appellate court on its own initiative first faulted Donelson for not following the instruction to detach and submit only the bottom portion of the form. Donelson v. Godinez, No. 4–12–0795, 2013 WL 3325003, at *4 (Ill.App.2013). On that basis the state appellate court, which did not distinguish between witnesses and physical evidence, reasoned that Donelson was not entitled to relief "on this issue" because he "failed to follow Department rules in requesting witnesses." Id. As for the evidence supporting the adjustment committee's decision, the appellate court concluded that the guards' reports underlying that decision were "sufficiently detailed" to satisfy due process. Id. The Supreme Court of Illinois denied review. Donelson v. Godinez, 374 Ill.Dec. 564, 996 N.E.2d 11 (Ill.2013).

In denying Donelson's federal petition, the district court first found that relief under § 2254 is not available regarding the alleged denial of Donelson's right to present evidence. The respondent insisted, and the district court agreed, that the Illinois appellate court had rejected this part of the case based on an "adequate and independent state law ground." The district court then concluded that Donelson had not similarly defaulted his challenge to the strength of the evidence, but that the state court's application of the "some evidence" standard was reasonable. See Superintendent v. Hill, 472 U.S. 445, 454, 105 S.Ct. 2768, 86 L.Ed.2d 356 (1985) ; Scruggs v. Jordan, 485 F.3d 934, 941 (7th Cir.2007). On appeal Donelson challenges all of the district court's reasoning.

We first consider Donelson's argument that the adjustment committee's decision was not supported by "some evidence." The state appellate court reached the merits of this due-process theory, and we must uphold that court's decision unless it...