Grooms v. Caldwell
| Decision Date | 16 December 1991 |
| Docket Number | Civ. No. S90-211,S90-235. |
| Citation | 806 F. Supp. 807 |
| Parties | Robert Morgan GROOMS, Plaintiff, v. J. CALDWELL, Asst. Investigator, ISP; Carl Swiehart, Investigator, ISP; Barry Nothstine, Admin. Asst., ISP; and Dick Clark, Superintendent, ISP, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Indiana |
Grooms, pro se.
Thomas D. Quigley, Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, Ind., for defendants.
These cases are brought by Robert Morgan Grooms, pro se, an inmate at the Indiana State Prison.1 This court takes note of the proceedings that were had telephonically but on the record on September 3, 1991.
The defendant filed a motion for summary judgment on November 22, 1991, and complied with Lewis v. Faulkner, 689 F.2d 100 (7th Cir.1982). The plaintiff's response to the aforesaid motion for summary judgment was filed on December 6, 1991 and has been carefully examined by this court. Summary judgment is proper if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories and admissions on file, together with any affidavits, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56; accord Arkwright-Boston Mfrs. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Wausau Paper Mills Co., 818 F.2d 591, 593 (7th Cir.1987). A material question of fact is a question which will be outcome-determinative of an issue in that case. Big O Tire Dealers, Inc. v. Big O Warehouse, 741 F.2d 160, 163 (7th Cir. 1984).
Recently, the Supreme Court of the United States took the opportunity to address Rule 56. In two cases decided on the same day, the Court expanded the scope of the application of Rule 56. See Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986); Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). Celotex addressed the initial burdens of the parties under Rule 56, and Anderson addressed the standards under which the record is to be analyzed within the structure of Rule 56.
After Celotex, it is clear that a non-moving party may not rest on its pleadings to avoid summary judgment. 477 U.S. at 325-26, 106 S.Ct. at 2553-54. See also Catrett v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp., 826 F.2d 33 (D.C.Cir.1987), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 1066, 108 S.Ct. 1028, 98 L.Ed.2d 992 (1988). The initial burden is on the moving party to demonstrate "`with or without supporting affidavits'" the absence of a genuine issue of material fact, and that judgment as a matter of law should be granted in the moving party's favor. Celotex, 477 U.S. at 324, 106 S.Ct. at 2553 (quoting Rule 56). Once the moving party has met the initial burden, the opposing party must "go beyond the pleadings" and "designate `specific facts showing that there is a genuine material issue for trial.'" Id. Furthermore, in Anderson, the Court held that what facts are material in a specific case shall be determined by the substantive law controlling that case or issue. Anderson, 477 U.S. at 248, 106 S.Ct. at 2510. In addition, the court went on to interpret Rule 56 as requiring that the courts analyze summary judgment motions utilizing the standard of proof relevant to that case or issue. Id. at 252-55, 106 S.Ct. at 2512-14. For recent academic insight into Celotex and Anderson, see Childress, A New Era for Summary Judgments: Recent Shifts at the Supreme Court, 116 F.R.D. 183, 194 (1987), where the author states:
In their official capacities, each of the state defendants are entitled to immunity for claims for money damages under the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The Eleventh Amendment states as follows:
The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.
See Kashani v. Purdue University, 813 F.2d 843 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 846, 108 S.Ct. 141, 98 L.Ed.2d 97 (1987); Owen v. Lash, 682 F.2d 648 (7th Cir.1982); Sheets v. Indiana Department of Corrections, 656 F.Supp. 733 (S.D.Ind.1986). For recent authority consistent with Kashani, 813 F.2d at 843, see Shelton v. Trustees of Indiana University, 891 F.2d 165 (7th Cir. 1989). See also Kroll v. Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, 934 F.2d 904 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 112 S.Ct. 377, 116 L.Ed.2d 329 (1991); Cosby v. Jackson, 741 F.Supp. 740 (N.D.Ill.1990), aff'd, 936 F.2d 940 (7th Cir.1991) and Rodenbeck v. Indiana, Leaking Underground Storage Tank Div., 742 F.Supp. 1442 (N.D.Ind.1990). Any and all damage claims against the defendants in their official capacities are now DISMISSED under the mandates of the Eleventh Amendment of the Constitution.
From its inception, this case has narrowed considerably. It is the court's intent to deal with the present narrowed version. This court has also made a very careful examination of the record and the in camera submissions that are at issue here. This court is also sensitive to the basic values that inhere in Chief Justice Hughes' great opinion in Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697, 51 S.Ct. 625, 75 L.Ed. 1357 (1931). In that seminal case, the great Chief Justice sowed the seeds with reference to prior restraints on free speech. It must be said that some of those values prevail in a more limited fashion in the context of a maximum security prison such as the Indiana State Prison.
Early on in these cases, it was at least inferred, if not categorically stated by the plaintiff, that one of the persons portrayed in the photographs of people in the garb of the Ku Klux Klan (hereafter "KKK") was a relative, possibly a granddaughter or grandson of this plaintiff. That contention seems to have vanished from this case. What remains is a color photograph of three men dressed in the full regalia of the KKK, standing before a burning cross; a written publication entitled "Miles of Michigan, or Seed of the Dragon," which contains photographs of various people in Klan robes and burning crosses; and a publication entitled "The Ultimate Final Solution of the Jewish Problem." These are all present in the materials provided to this court.
This court is all too familiar with the Holmesian doctrine of free speech that emanated out of the jurisprudence following the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918, both of which were far more egregious than anything that John Adams may have attempted in the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. In any event, the Holmesian doctrine emerged in a series of cases in that particular context. See Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 39 S.Ct. 247, 63 L.Ed. 470 (1919), and the dissent of Justice Holmes in Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652, 45 S.Ct. 625, 69 L.Ed. 1138 (1925). With all deference to that preeminent member of the Supreme Court, it is far easier to quote Justice Holmes than it is to apply what he says in concrete reality. The task here deals with both the larger values of the First Amendment and a particularization of them in the context of a maximum security prison. Much closer to reality for the purposes here are the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in O'Lone v. Estate of Shabazz, 482 U.S. 342, 107 S.Ct. 2400, 96 L.Ed.2d 282 (1987), and Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 101 S.Ct. 1908, 68 L.Ed.2d 420 (1981). Working out the various mandates of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States in the context of a maximum security prison is not an easy task. See, e.g., Reed v. Faulkner, 842 F.2d 960 (7th Cir.1988); Hunafa v. Murphy, 907 F.2d 46 (7th Cir.1990); Swank v. Smart, 898 F.2d 1247 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 853, 111 S.Ct. 147, 112 L.Ed.2d 113 (1990); Johnson-Bey v. Lane, 863 F.2d 1308 (7th Cir.1988); and Williams v. Lane, 851 F.2d 867 (7th Cir.1988), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 1047, 109 S.Ct. 879, 102 L.Ed.2d 1001 (1989). With regard to the free exercise of religion or non-religion, see also Childs v. Duckworth, 509 F.Supp. 1254 (N.D.Ind. 1981), aff'd, 705 F.2d 915 (7th Cir.1983), and Young v. Lane, 922 F.2d 370 (7th Cir.1991).
Certainly, the Supreme Court of the United States in O'Lone v. Estate of Shabazz, 482 U.S. at 342, 107 S.Ct. at 2400, and Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 107 S.Ct. 2254, 96 L.Ed.2d 64 (1987), imposed a significant bundle of discretion in the hands of prison administrators when dealing with the values imbedded in the First Amendment. Within the week, the Supreme Court has dealt with a particular slice of First Amendment rights in a prison context in Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Members of New York State Crime Victims Board, ___ U.S. ___, 112 S.Ct. 501, 116 L.Ed.2d 476 (1991). Contrary to the facts here, the focus there was on more purely defined First Amendment values and not on the Turner-O'Lone prison security concerns.
The term "final solution" emanates historically from Nazi Germany and specifically from a conference held in a suburb of Berlin in 1942. Such was the infamous Wannsee Conference held under the direct...
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