Mays v. Springborn
| Decision Date | 16 July 2009 |
| Docket Number | No. 05-3630.,05-3630. |
| Citation | 575 F.3d 643 |
| Parties | Tiberius MAYS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Jerome SPRINGBORN, et al., Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Tiberius Mays, Dixon, IL, pro se.
Rachel A. Murphy, Office of the Attorney General Civil Appeals Division, Chicago, IL, for Defendants-Appellees.
Before CUDAHY, POSNER, and EVANS, Circuit Judges.
Tiberius Mays, an Illinois inmate, appeals from the grant of summary judgment on his claims about prison food and clothing, and from the grant of judgment as a matter of law on his claims about retaliation, strip searches, and the censorship of pages from a magazine. We affirm the challenged rulings regarding food, clothing, and the magazine, but we vacate and remand the rulings on the strip search and retaliation claims.
In 1998 and 1999, Mays was housed at Stateville Correctional Center. He and other prisoner-employees were strip searched daily going to and from their prison jobs. Mays testified at trial that the searches were performed in view of other prisoners, that they were sometimes accompanied by demeaning comments from guards, that they were sometimes done in a cold room, and that the guards did not change their latex gloves as they searched one inmate after another. He filed a grievance about the searches and was told that public searches were not allowed except in emergency situations. A memo from the prison's chief of security was distributed to prison guards reminding them of this rule, but according to Mays, the searches continued to be performed publicly. At trial, Mays's description of the public searches was corroborated by two fellow inmates but substantially contradicted by the prison guards who performed them. According to the guards, the searches were always performed out of view of other inmates and were necessary to ensure safety because prisoners had access to tools at their jobs that could be dangerous if successfully smuggled out of the work area.
Before one of the routine searches at Stateville, Mays showed one guard the memo from the prison's chief of security reaffirming the prison's rule against public searches. After leaving the area briefly, Mays returned and retrieved the memo before being directed to a different guard to be searched. Mays testified that he saw the guard to whom he showed the memo nod at the guard who was to search him. The searching guard began the search and said that he saw something in Mays's anus. That guard called over the first guard and another guard to have them look as well, and those guards—one of them smirking, according to Mays—also said that they saw something. As a result, Mays was subjected to a five-and-one-half hour ordeal in a strip cell. He was handcuffed behind his back and made to wear a too-short hospital gown while the guards waited for him to defecate. Guards had never found anything hidden on Mays's person before and they ultimately found nothing hidden on him during this episode. At trial, the first guard said he did not recall Mays showing him the memo and the second guard said he did not recall a nod or anything else that preceded the search. Both guards testified that they did in fact see something in Mays's anus.
Mays was transferred to Hill Correctional Center in 2000 and strip searched upon his arrival. Mays says that this search was also done in front of other inmates, though the guards who performed the search disagreed.
While at Hill, Mays raised two concerns about the food he was given. As a follower of the African Hebrew Israelites, Mays received a vegan diet, but the prison refused to provide him with certain dietary supplements he says his religion considers to be religious necessities: blackstrap molasses, sesame seeds, kelp, brewer's yeast, parsley, fenugreek, wheat germ, and soybeans. In addition, Mays believed that the food he was given lacked adequate nutrition. He filed grievances about both issues and was told that the supplements could not be provided because each one either posed a security threat or was not part of the prison's procurement program. In response to his other grievance, an administrator agreed that the vegan menu at Hill was deficient and promised to change it.
Mays also complained about the clothing Hill gave him. He stated that he was not issued winter underwear, boots, galoshes, a sweater, gloves, scarves, or wool socks and, as a result, he suffered from hurt ears, numb hands, and felt frostbite in his fingers and toes.
Finally, Mays complained about an instance of censorship in which prison officials at Hill removed pages from an issue of Vibe Magazine mailed to him. Prison officials testified that the prison's publication review board was concerned about an article in the magazine that described a violent prison riot. The board sent the magazine to the review board in Springfield, which ordered the removal of the six-page article as well as three other pages containing pictures of people they believed were making gang signs.
The district court disposed of Mays's diet and clothing claims at summary judgment. First, the court ruled that Mays had failed to present evidence to rebut the valid penological purpose behind the denial of the dietary supplements. As for the claim of inadequate nutrition, the court found Mays's evidence insufficient to show that he had been harmed or that the defendants disregarded his complaints. The court granted summary judgment on the clothing claim too, reasoning that the undisputed evidence showed Mays had been provided with sufficient clothes (a winter coat, boots, and a winter hat), that Mays was not claiming exposure to cold weather for extended periods of time, and that Mays could not show that the defendants were deliberately indifferent to his need for winter clothing.
Mays was allowed to proceed to trial on the remaining claims, but they never reached a jury because the district court granted judgment as a matter of law for the defendants on each one. The first claim that the district court resolved concerned the removal of pages from Mays's magazine. The court interrupted Mays's presentation of his case and directed the defendants to present witnesses on this issue without the jury present. The court gave Mays the opportunity to present his own evidence on this claim, but Mays submitted only his written grievance about the censorship. The court then asked the defendants' lawyer, "Do you understand Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50?" Counsel took the court's cue and moved for judgment as a matter of law on Mays's censorship claim. The court granted the motion because it concluded that the defendants had presented a legitimate penological reason for censoring the pages, had removed no more pages than necessary, and that Mays had failed to present any evidence to show that the censorship was an exaggerated response.
The trial continued on the remaining claims, but after Mays rested, the defendants made another motion for judgment as a matter of law. The court granted the motion on the claim about the searches at Stateville, reasoning that Mays had failed to present "any credible evidence that the searches were unrelated to prison needs and meant only to inflict psychological pain." The court discounted the significance of the factual dispute over the public nature of the searches, apparently reasoning that group searches are constitutional as a matter of law. The court did not mention the search at Hill in either its oral or written ruling. Finally, the court granted judgment as a matter of law to the defendants on the retaliation claim, ruling that Mays's evidence consisted of only his own "unsupported conclusion that he felt he was being retaliated against."
First, Mays argues that the district court's summary judgment ruling on the dietary supplements must be reversed because he presented enough evidence from which a jury could find the prison's policy to be invalid. According to Mays, the prison failed to support its explanation that all of the supplements either posed security threats or were not part of the prison's procurement program. He points to his own evidence showing that the supplements were available at other prisons, and thus urges that this claim should have gone to trial. He also argues that the district court erred by failing to explicitly consider all four factors outlined in Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 107 S.Ct. 2254, 96 L.Ed.2d 64 (1987), for determining whether a prison regulation is backed by a valid penological purpose.
The district court properly granted summary judgment on Mays's claim regarding the supplements. When a prison impedes an inmate's religious exercise—the district court assumed that the denial of the supplements did—it must present a legitimate penological reason for doing so. See Conyers v. Abitz, 416 F.3d 580, 586 (7th Cir.2005). But Mays is wrong to assert that the prison bears the burden of proving that its penological reason is legitimate. Once the prison gave its explanation for denying the supplements, the burden shifted to Mays to present evidence to call that explanation into question. See Jackson v. Frank, 509 F.3d 389, 391 (7th Cir.2007) (citing Overton v. Bazzetta, 539 U.S. 126, 132, 123 S.Ct. 2162, 156 L.Ed.2d 162 (2003)). Mays might have tried to prove that the supplements posed no security risk or that they were easily obtainable, but the only evidence he produced was that the supplements were allowed at other prisons. Evidence of the rules in other prisons is not, by itself, sufficient to call into question the prison's explanation. See Fowler v. Crawford, 534 F.3d 931, 942 (8th Cir.2008); Spratt v. Rhode Island Dep't of Corr., 482 F.3d 33, 42 (1st Cir.2007).
Mays's argument that the district court did not properly apply Turner also fails. Turner describes four factors that are "relevant" to determining whether a prison...
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