Staub v. Nietzel
| Decision Date | 24 April 2023 |
| Docket Number | 22-5384 |
| Parties | STEVEN STAUB, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. TRACY NIETZEL, et al., Defendants-Appellees |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION
ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF KENTUCKY
Before: LARSEN, DAVIS, and MATHIS, Circuit Judges.
Steven Staub, a state prisoner serving time in the Kentucky Department of Corrections ("KDOC"), brought this civil rights action in federal court pursuant to 42 U.S.C § 1983, alleging a violation of his constitutional right to due process. U.S. CONST. amend. XIV. He asserts claims against several employees of the KDOC who were involved in collecting evidence for and participating in disciplinary proceedings for Staub's alleged possession of contraband in his prison cell. Staub was found guilty of the violation and penalized with 90 days in administrative segregation and forfeiture of 180 days' good-time credit. Staub successfully appealed his misconduct conviction to the Kentucky Court of Appeals, which determined that the guilty finding was not supported by "some evidence" given the "suspect" chain-of-custody form prepared by defendant Tracy Nietzel.
After the disciplinary finding was expunged and his good-time credit restored, Staub brought this suit. Staub claims that Defendants violated his right to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment when they acted in concert to create and forge the chain-of-custody document used to find him guilty of possessing drugs in the prison disciplinary proceeding. Staub also asserts that Defendants Dawn Deckard, the adjustment officer who presided over his disciplinary hearing, and Clark Taylor, the warden who affirmed Deckard's guilty finding, violated his due process rights by convicting him based on insufficient evidence under the "some evidence" standard established by the Supreme Court in Superintendent, Massachusetts Correctional Institution, Walpole v. Hill, 472 U.S. 445, 454 (1985).
Staub sought summary judgment in district court, arguing that the Kentucky Court of Appeals' decision has preclusive effect, and thus, forecloses Defendants from relitigating the issue of whether they violated his due process rights. Defendants also pursued summary judgment, asserting that the state court decision was not entitled to preclusive effect on the federal proceedings and they were entitled to summary judgment on all claims.[1] The district court sided with Defendants, concluding, in pertinent part that: (1) the Kentucky Court of Appeals' decision did not preclude Defendants from defending this action; (2) Defendant Nietzel was entitled to summary judgment because even if the chain-of-custody was faulty, she did not cause any alleged deprivation of rights because she did not decide Staub's guilt and because false accusations of misconduct do not in and of themselves create a constitutional violation; (3) Defendant Taylor was entitled to qualified immunity because he reasonably could have concluded under applicable Sixth Circuit caselaw that despite a faulty chain-of-custody form, there was still "some evidence" sufficient to support a guilty finding; and (4) Defendant Deckard was entitled to dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(m) because Staub failed to effectuate service of the summons and complaint. We largely agree with the reasoning of the district court, and for the reasons that follow, we AFFIRM.
On December 19, 2012, prison officials at Kentucky's Northpoint Training Center ("NTC"), where Staub was serving a state prison sentence, searched Staub's living quarters and found what appeared to be 11 Suboxone strips wrapped in cellophane. Marcus Faulkner, a training instructor at NTC, personally searched Staub and his locker, which Staub identified and unlocked for the search. Faulkner discovered several CD cases containing cellophane-wrapped Suboxone strips. The next day, Faulkner completed a disciplinary report describing the search. In the report, Faulkner noted that he found 11 Suboxone strips in Staub's locker, completed a chain-of-custody form, took photos of the Suboxone strips, and turned the strips over to Captain Jonathan Beasley to be placed in the evidence locker. After receiving the strips from Faulkner, Beasley completed an Extraordinary Occurrence Report ("EOR"), which included a photocopy of the chain-of-custody form. That form showed three separate entries from December 19, 2012: one entry documenting Faulkner's seizure of the suspected Suboxone strips from Staub's locker; one entry marking the transfer of those strips from Faulkner to Beasley; and one entry confirming Beasley's placement of the strips in the evidence locker. Beasley's chain-of-custody form did not include an Evidence Log number (that portion of the form was blank) and it indicated that the Suboxone strips had been obtained from "Bed 48," which apparently was not Staub's bed number.
Staub was charged in a prison disciplinary proceeding with "possession or promoting of dangerous contraband," to which he pleaded not guilty. The correctional facility held a disciplinary hearing on January 10, 2013. The chain-of-custody form submitted during the hearing was the version that Beasley had attached to his December 19, 2012 EOR; it showed Beasley as the last person to handle the seized Suboxone strips. At the hearing, Staub argued that there was no evidence that the strips seized had been tested by a lab. He also pointed out that the strips did not have any evidence tag number assigned to them. The presiding adjustment officer nonetheless found Staub guilty "based on the fact that . . . Faulkner found a total of 11 [S]uboxone strips in [inmate] Staub's locker" and penalized Staub with 90 days in disciplinary segregation and forfeiture of 180 days of good-time credit.
Staub appealed the adjustment officer's decision to NTC's warden, who ultimately ordered that Staub's case be reheard.[2] Because Staub had since been transferred, officials scheduled the second disciplinary hearing to take place at the Kentucky State Reformatory ("KSR"). Faulkner prepared a new disciplinary report, and Lt. Michael D. Wilson at KSR investigated the new report. Lt. Dawn Deckard, also at KSR, was assigned to serve as the presiding adjustment officer at Staub's second disciplinary hearing.
On February 28, 2013, Deckard received an email from Lt. Tracy Nietzel at NTC with information she had requested for the rehearing of Staub's case. Nietzel attached to the email an "MMC Buprenorphine HCL Test" worksheet dated December 19, 2012, which indicated that 33 strips[3] tested positive for "Buprenorphine HCL" - one of Suboxone's main ingredients. The worksheet, which was signed by Nietzel and a witness, listed Staub as the "Subject," Nietzel as the "Examiner," and "550" as the "Evid #." Nietzel also included two photographs of a testing vial as attachments to her email. On March 1, 2013, Wilson emailed Nietzel to ask if there was an updated chain-of-custody form for the Suboxone strips. Nietzel emailed Wilson a copy of the requested form ten days later.
Deckard presided over the second hearing on March 19, 2013 and found Staub guilty of possession or promoting of dangerous contraband. According to her report, Deckard based her decision on (1) the search of Staub on December 19, 2012; (2) the 11 Suboxone strips Faulkner found while searching Staub's property; (3) Beasley's statement that he placed those strips in the evidence locker; (4) evidence from Nietzel that there were actually 33 strips, that she tested the strips, and that the tests were positive for Buprenorphine; and (5) the fact that Nietzel identified the Suboxone through the pill identifier just as she would with a tablet or capsule. Deckard imposed a punishment of 90 days in disciplinary segregation, which Staub had already served by that point, and forfeiture of 180 days of good-time credit.
Staub appealed Deckard's decision to KSR's warden, Clark Taylor, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence supporting Deckard's finding of guilt. First, Staub highlighted inconsistencies between Nietzel's chain-of-custody form and the one reviewed during Staub's initial disciplinary hearing. See Staub v. Taylor, No. 2014-CA-001452-MR, 2015 WL 2445103, at *3 . He also challenged the fact that Deckard heard and decided his case despite her involvement in gathering evidence against him. Id. Taylor denied Staub's appeal on April 18, 2013, explaining that the Suboxone strips were found in his assigned locker; that a total of 33 strips had been seized; that these strips tested positive and were properly identified; that Suboxone strips are very distinctive in shape and color; and that the foregoing was sufficient to affirm Deckard's finding of guilt.
After Taylor denied his appeal, Staub filed a petition for declaration of rights in Oldham Circuit Court. He named Taylor and Deckard as defendants in their respective capacities as warden and adjustment officer, asserting that the officials violated his due process rights during his second disciplinary hearing at KSR. The circuit court dismissed Staub's petition, and Staub appealed to the Kentucky Court of Appeals. The Kentucky Court of Appeals reversed the circuit court's dismissal, finding that Staub's due process rights were violated because the "disciplinary action decision" issued by Deckard and affirmed by Taylor "was not supported by at least 'some evidence' of record" as required under Supreme Court precedent. Staub, 2015 WL 2445103, at *1 (citing Hill, 472 U.S. at 454). More specifically, the Kentucky Court of Appeals found that Deckard and Taylor's decisions "were based almost entirely upon the results of Lt....
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