Morgan v. Schott

• Decision Date: 05 February 2019
• Docket Number: No. 16-2384,16-2384
• Parties: Jeryme MORGAN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Minh SCHOTT, Tim Veath, and Hudson Maynard, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

914 F.3d 1115

Jeryme MORGAN, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.Minh SCHOTT, Tim Veath, and Hudson Maynard, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 16-2384

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued September 5, 2018

Decided February 5, 2019

William J. Barrow, Attorney, MAYER BROWN LLP, Washington, DC, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Frank Henry Bieszczat, Attorney, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, Civil Appeals Division, Chicago, IL, for Defendant-Appellees.

Before Kanne, Sykes, and St. Eve, Circuit Judges.

Sykes, Circuit Judge.

Illinois prison officials issued a disciplinary report charging inmate Jeryme Morgan with offenses stemming from a violent assault on fellow prisoners. Morgan disputed the charges and asked the authorities to call a witness to testify at his Adjustment Committee hearing. But the Committee never called Morgan's witness. He was found guilty and the Committee imposed punishment of one year of segregation, various status and access restrictions, and revocation of three months of good-time credits. Morgan filed a grievance challenging his punishment on due-process grounds and appealed its subsequent denial to the Administrative Review Board ("the Board"). The Board adjusted the revocation of good-time credits to one month but affirmed the Committee's due-process ruling, concluding that Morgan's witness request did not comply with prison rules.

Alleging a raft of constitutional violations, Morgan sued three officers for damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claiming that the failure to call his witness violated his right to due process. The officers moved for summary judgment citing the favorable-termination rule announced in Heck v. Humphrey , 512 U.S. 477, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994). Heck holds that "when a state prisoner seeks damages in a § 1983 suit, the district court must consider whether a judgment in [his] favor ... would necessarily imply the invalidity of his conviction or sentence." Id. at 487, 114 S.Ct. 2364. Where a favorable judgment would have that effect, no § 1983 claim has accrued and "the complaint must be dismissed unless the plaintiff can demonstrate that the conviction or sentence has already been invalidated." Id. Morgan countered that Heck is inapplicable due to his waiver of all claims relating to the revocation of his good-time credits. A magistrate judge rejected Morgan's attempt to skirt Heck and ruled that his due-process claim was not cognizable under § 1983.

We affirm. Prisoners cannot make an end run around Heck by filing an affidavit waiving challenges to the portion of their punishment that revokes good-time credits. We recently addressed that very tactic and found it incompatible with the Heck line of cases. Haywood v. Hathaway , 842 F.3d 1026 (7th Cir. 2016). Morgan provides no reason to question Haywood , and we reaffirm its reasoning. Morgan's attempt to analogize his case to Wilkinson v. Dotson , 544 U.S. 74, 125 S.Ct. 1242, 161 L.Ed.2d 253 (2005), and Skinner v. Switzer , 562 U.S. 521, 131 S.Ct. 1289, 179 L.Ed.2d 233 (2011), misunderstands those decisions. Judgment in Morgan's favor would necessarily imply the invalidity of his prison discipline. Thus, no § 1983 claim has accrued. This suit is premature and must be dismissed without prejudice.

I. Background

Morgan is serving sentences for robbery, armed robbery, and sexual assault. For most of his incarceration—and at all times relevant to this case—he has been housed at Menard Correctional Center ("Menard"). In January 2012 Officer Hudson Maynard issued a disciplinary report accusing Morgan of taking part in an assault that occurred three months earlier in Menard's east yard. The report charged Morgan with conspiring to attack the victims, joining the attack, possessing dangerous contraband, causing a disturbance, interfering with prison investigations, and engaging in unauthorized organizational activities.

Menard gives prisoners an opportunity to formally request witnesses at a disciplinary hearing; the disciplinary report provides a space to do so. If called, those witnesses testify at the prisoner's Adjustment Committee hearing. Morgan's request was not a model of clarity. On the line requesting a description of the subject of the witness's testimony, Morgan wrote the name "James Lewis" followed by the words "where abouts." On the line reserved for the witness's name and other identifying information, Morgan again wrote "James Lewis" but nothing else.

At Morgan's Adjustment Committee hearing on January 31, prison officials did not call James Lewis. The Committee, which included Lieutenant Minh Schott and Officer Tim Veath, found Morgan guilty and recommended revoking three months of good-time credits and adding one year of segregation, one year of lowered status, and several access restrictions. Morgan filed a grievance arguing that the Committee's failure to call Lewis violated his right to due process. Morgan's grievance was denied, so he appealed to the Board. The Board ruled that Morgan's witness request did not meet the minimum requirements under prison rules. Illinois regulations require that such requests "shall be in writing on the space provided in the disciplinary report and shall include an explanation of what the witnesses would state." ILL. ADMIN. CODE tit. 20, § 504.80(f)(2). Because Morgan failed to adequately identify his witness or describe his testimony, and because officials failed to locate a James Lewis at Menard, the Board concluded that Morgan's hearing comported with due process.

Rather than challenge the Board's ruling in state court, Morgan filed a pro se complaint in the Southern District of Illinois seeking damages under § 1983. He alleged numerous constitutional violations ranging from excessive force to deliberate indifference. Those claims were severed and proceeded as a separate case. The district court did not initially identify a due-process claim in Morgan's complaint. However, a magistrate judge later found that Morgan had adequately alleged a violation of due process against Lieutenant Schott and Officer Veath based on the Committee's failure to call James Lewis. Schott and Veath moved for summary judgment, arguing that Morgan's claim was barred by Heck , no reasonable jury could find a constitutional violation, and qualified immunity applies.

As part of Morgan's strategy to avoid the Heck bar, he filed an affidavit purporting to "abandon any and all present and future challenges" and "waiv[e] for all times all claims" pertaining to the portion of his punishment that impacted the duration of his confinement. He preserved only "claims challenging the sanctions affecting the conditions of [his] confinement." Morgan argued that his affidavit rendered Heck inapplicable, citing the Second Circuit's decision in Peralta v. Vasquez , 467 F.3d 98 (2d Cir. 2006).

The magistrate judge concluded that Heck barred Morgan's suit and entered summary judgment for Schott and Veath, dismissing Morgan's due-process claim with prejudice. The judge rejected Morgan's attempt to use strategic waiver to "dodge" Heck . He said Morgan's due-process claim "call[s] into question the validity of the prison discipline[ ] because to accept that claim necessarily implie[s] that the discipline was somehow invalid."

II. Discussion

We review a summary judgment de novo, reading the record in the light most favorable to Morgan and drawing all reasonable inferences in his favor. Tolliver v. City of Chicago , 820 F.3d 237, 241 (7th Cir. 2016). Morgan renews his strategic-waiver argument in an effort to avoid the Heck bar. He also attempts to evade Heck by arguing that success on the merits would mean at most a new hearing, not a reduction of his term of imprisonment.

We begin with an overview of the favorable-termination rule established in Heck v. Humphrey . Federal law affords state prisoners two venerable gateways to relief: the Civil Rights Act of 1871, codified at 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and habeas corpus review of state adjudications under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. They are not interchangeable. The Supreme Court made this fact crystal clear in a line of cases barring § 1983 suits predicated on claims reserved for habeas challenges. In Preiser v. Rodriguez , 411 U.S. 475, 476, 93 S.Ct. 1827, 36 L.Ed.2d 439 (1973), the Court evaluated a § 1983 claim attacking prison discipline proceedings on constitutional grounds and seeking restoration of good-time credits. The Court explained that habeas corpus—not § 1983—is the "specific instrument to obtain release" from unlawful imprisonment. Id. at 486, 93 S.Ct. 1827. Thus, when a prisoner challenges "the fact or duration of his confinement," he fails to state a cognizable § 1983 claim. Id. at 489, 93 S.Ct. 1827.

The Court expanded on Preiser in Heck v. Humphrey , 512 U.S. at 486–87, 114 S.Ct. 2364, in which the prisoner–plaintiff sought damages for wrongful conviction. Heck claimed that Indiana prosecutors had destroyed exculpatory evidence and engaged in an "unlawful, unreasonable, and arbitrary investigation." Id. at 479, 114 S.Ct. 2364. The Court held that

in order to recover damages for [an] allegedly unconstitutional conviction or imprisonment, or for other harm caused by actions whose unlawfulness would render a conviction or sentence invalid, a § 1983 plaintiff must prove that the conviction or sentence has been reversed on direct appeal, expunged by executive order, declared invalid by a state tribunal authorized to make such determination, or called into question by a federal court's issuance of a writ of habeas corpus.

Id. at 486–87, 114 S.Ct. 2364. The Court distinguished Wolff v. McDonnell , 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974), in which there was no "reason to believe[ ] that using the wrong procedures necessarily vitiated the denial of good-time credits." Heck , 512 U.S. at 483, 114 S.Ct. 2364. Conversely, a judgment in Heck's favor would "necessarily imply the invalidity of [Heck's] conviction or sentence." Id. at 487, 114 S.Ct. 2364. When a judgment for the plaintiff...