Miller v. Campbell, 00-2539-D/V.

• Decision Date: 27 June 2000
• Docket Number: No. 00-2539-D/V.,00-2539-D/V.
• Citation: 108 F.Supp.2d 960
• Parties: Carol L. MILLER, Plaintiff, v. Donal CAMPBELL, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Tennessee

108 F.Supp.2d 960

Carol L. MILLER, Plaintiff, v. Donal CAMPBELL, et al., Defendants.

No. 00-2539-D/V.

United States District Court, W.D. Tennessee, Western Division.

June 27, 2000.

Carol L. Miller, Memphis, TN, pro se.

ORDER TO COMPLY WITH PLRA ORDER ASSESSING FILING FEE ORDER OF DISMISSAL ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR APPOINTMENT OF COUNSEL AND ORDER CERTIFYING APPEAL NOT TAKEN IN GOOD FAITH

DONALD, District Judge.

Plaintiff, Carol L. Miller, prison registration number 157591, an inmate at the Mark Luttrell Correctional Center (MLCC),¹ has filed a complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The Clerk of Court shall file the case and record the defendants as Donal Campbell, Jim Rose, Earline Guida, Maurice Payne, Dietra Gooch, Jackie Baugh, Joyce Ladd, Alice Caruthers, Wayne Douglas, William Ivory, Anthony Freeman, and Thomas Lamon.²

I. ASSESSMENT OF FILING FEE

Under the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PLRA), 28 U.S.C. § 1915(b), all prisoners bringing a civil action must pay the full filing fee of $150 required by 28 U.S.C. § 1914(a). The in forma pauperis statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a) merely provides the prisoner the opportunity to make a "downpayment" of a partial filing fee and pay the remainder in installments.

In this case, plaintiff has not properly completed and submitted both an in forma pauperis affidavit and a prison trust fund account statement showing:

1) the average monthly deposits, and

2) the average monthly balance

for the six months prior to submission of the complaint, and

3) the account balance when the complaint was submitted.

Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(b)(1), it is ORDERED that the plaintiff cooperate fully with prison officials in carrying out this order. It is ORDERED that within thirty (30) days of the entry of this order the plaintiff properly complete and file both an in forma pauperis affidavit and a trust fund account statement showing the above amounts. It is further ORDERED that the trust fund officer at plaintiffs prison shall calculate a partial initial filing fee equal to twenty percent (20%) of the greater of the average balance in or deposits to the plaintiff's trust fund account for the six months immediately preceding the completion of the affidavit. When the account contains any funds, the trust fund officer shall collect them and pay them directly to the Clerk of Court. If the funds in plaintiff's account are insufficient to pay the full amount of the initial partial filing fee, the prison official is instructed to withdraw all of the funds in the plaintiffs account and forward them to the Clerk of Court. On each occasion that funds are subsequently credited to plaintiffs account the prison official shall immediately withdraw those funds and forward them to the Clerk of Court, until the initial partial filing fee is paid in full.

It is further ORDERED that after the initial partial filing fee is fully paid, the trust fund officer shall withdraw from the plaintiff's account and pay to the Clerk of this Court monthly payments equal to twenty percent (20%) of all deposits credited to plaintiff's account during the preceding month, but only when the amount in the account exceeds $10.00, until the entire $150.00 filing fee is paid.

Each time that the trust fund officer makes a payment to the Court as required by this order, he shall print a copy of the prisoner's account statement showing all activity in the account since the last payment under this order and file it with the Clerk along with the payment.

All payments and account statements shall be sent to:

Clerk, United States District Court, Western District of Tennessee, 167 N. Main, Room 242, Memphis, TN 38103

and shall clearly identify plaintiffs name and the case number on the first page of this order.

If plaintiff is transferred to a different prison or released, she is ORDERED to notify the Court immediately of her change of address. If still confined she shall provide the officials at the new prison with a copy of this order.

If the plaintiff fails to abide by these or any other requirement of this order, the Court may impose appropriate sanctions, including a monetary fine, without any additional notice or hearing by the Court.

The Clerk shall mail a copy of this order to the prison official in charge of prison trust fund accounts at plaintiff's prison.

The obligation to pay this filing fee shall continue despite the immediate dismissal of this case. 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2). The Clerk shall not issue process or serve any papers in this case.

II. ANALYSIS OF PLAINTIFF'S CLAIMS

Plaintiff sues Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) Commissioner Donal Campbell, Assistant Commissioner Jim Rose, Tennessee State Penitentiary for Women (TPW) Warden Earline Guida, TPW Lieutenant Maurice Payne, TPW Sergeants and Disciplinary Board Members Dietra Gooch and Jackie Baugh, TPW Disciplinary Board Members Alice Caruthers and Joyce Ladd, MLCC Warden Wayne Douglas, MLCC Disciplinary Chairperson William Ivory, MLCC Grievance Chairperson Anthony Freeman, and MLCC Administrative Segregation Board Member Thomas Lamon.

Plaintiff alleges that she was formerly housed at TPW in Nashville, Tennessee. Plaintiff alleges that while investigating disciplinary write-ups in her job as an inmate advisor at TPW, she obtained entry to the prison hospital to talk with a prison official, Mr. Crawford. During the course of the conversation Crawford discovered that his keys were missing. Plaintiff alleges that she was searched and no keys were found, however, she was advised that she was being placed on segregation pending the placement of disciplinary charges.

Plaintiff alleges that she was transferred to MLCC before the disciplinary charges were brought. Plaintiff alleges that she was placed in segregation at MLCC. Plaintiff alleges that the TPW Administrative Segregation Board came to MLCC to hold her hearing. Plaintiff alleges that she was then charged with three disciplinary infractions. Plaintiff alleges the TPW Disciplinary Board also traveled to MLCC to conduct her hearing, at which time she was found guilty of two of the three charges. Plaintiff alleges various violations of her right to due process in the manner in which the hearings and appeals were conducted and in which her grievances were handled.

Plaintiff further alleges that she was released from segregation for less than a month when she was again placed on administrative segregation. Plaintiff again alleges violations of TDOC policy and her right to due process in the manner in which the segregation hearing was conducted. Plaintiff again filed a grievance which was deemed "non-grievable." Plaintiff seeks an order from this Court which directs her release from administrative segregation and the expungement of her disciplinary convictions as well as the restoration of her sentence credits and pay from a prison job.

Plaintiff has no claim for the deprivation of due process during a prison disciplinary proceeding. In general, an inmate does not have a liberty interest in a particular security classification or in freedom from segregation. Olim v. Wakinekona, 461 U.S. 238, 245, 103 S.Ct. 1741, 75 L.Ed.2d 813 (1983); Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 224-25, 96 S.Ct. 2532, 49 L.Ed.2d 451 (1976); Montanye v. Haymes, 427 U.S. 236, 243, 96 S.Ct. 2543, 49 L.Ed.2d 466 (1976); Moody v. Daggett, 429 U.S. 78, 88 n. 9, 97 S.Ct. 274, 50 L.Ed.2d 236 (1976); Newell v. Brown, 981 F.2d 880, 883 (6th Cir.1992); Beard v. Livesay, 798 F.2d 874, 876 (6th Cir.1986).

This case is another implicating a thorny question along the continuum on which many state prisoner issues eventually intersect: the line at which claims affecting merely a prisoner's liberty within confinement meet claims affecting the duration of that confinement. The scope of this intersection was first clearly delineated in Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 93 S.Ct. 1827, 36 L.Ed.2d 439 (1973), which involved attempts by various New York state prisoners to challenge prison disciplinary board decisions to deprive them of sentence credits. The Supreme Court reasoned that:

even if restoration of respondents' good-time credits had merely shortened the length of their confinement, rather than required immediate discharge from that confinement, their suits would still have been within the core of habeas corpus in attacking the very duration of their physical confinement itself. It is beyond doubt, then, that the respondents could have sought and obtained fully effective relief through federal habeas corpus proceedings.

411 U.S. at 487-88, 93 S.Ct. 1827. The federal courts wrestled in the succeeding twenty-four years over this distinction between claims seeking to vindicate civil rights through an award of damages and those seeking to affect the duration of confinement. As the implications of Preiser percolated through the appellate courts, the Supreme Court gradually shed light on additional sections of the habeas/ § 1983 boundary.

On the habeas side of this continuum, in Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994), the Court identified as part of this border territory any civil rights claim requiring proof of facts or law that would necessarily call into question a pending state criminal prosecution or state court conviction. According to Heck, until the state court prosecution is terminated in the defendant's favor, either by a favorable jury verdict or by a post-verdict ruling on direct or collateral review setting aside a conviction, no claim under § 1983 even accrues.

The next term, the Court broadened the boundary on the damages section of the border in Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 484-87, 115 S.Ct. 2293, 132 L.Ed.2d 418 (1995). In Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 564-71, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974), the Court had identified the procedural requirements prison officials must adopt to satisfy due process when depriving a prisoner of various liberty interests, including...