Stone v. Morris
| Decision Date | 11 January 1977 |
| Docket Number | No. 75-1669,75-1669 |
| Citation | 546 F.2d 730 |
| Parties | 2 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 246 Jeff T. STONE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Ernest E. MORRIS, Assistant Warden, Illinois State Penitentiary, Joliet Branch Segregation Unit, et al., Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Arlene C. Erlebacher, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff-appellant.
William J. Scott, Atty. Gen., Anne Taylor, James B. Zagel, Jayne A. Carr, Asst. Attys. Gen., Chicago, Ill., for defendants-appellees.
Before FAIRCHILD, Chief Judge, SWYGERT, Circuit Judge, and STECKLER, District Judge. *
This is an appeal from a jury verdict and judgment adverse to plaintiff-appellant's civil rights claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
The issues presented are whether the district court erred in refusing to permit the plaintiff-appellant, Jeff T. Stone, to attend the trial of his civil rights claim, and whether the court committed reversible error in refusing to admit into evidence a memorandum authored by a prison correctional counselor.
The action was brought in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. At that time plaintiff Stone was an inmate in the Joliet Branch of the Illinois State Penitentiary serving a one-hundred to two-hundred year sentence for murder. Prior to the trial he was transferred from Joliet in the Northern District of Illinois to the Menard Correctional Center in the Eastern District of Illinois.
Plaintiff's principal contention is that the district court deprived him of a fair trial and of his constitutional right of access to the courts and counsel by excluding him from the jury trial of his prison-connected civil rights claim.
The defendants-appellees argue that the plaintiff waived any objection to his exclusion from the trial because no objection was made until the motion for a new trial was filed ten days after the jury returned its verdict. Defendants contend that the plaintiff was not prejudiced by his exclusion because his case was fully presented through his deposition and the introduction of exhibits. It is also the defendants' position that a prisoner-plaintiff has no constitutional right to be present at his civil rights trial, and that the trial judge properly excluded the prison memorandum from evidence as hearsay.
The issues before the trial court involved principally questions of fact. We therefore have carefully examined the record, and particularly the trial proceedings, to determine whether the plaintiff's claim was fairly submitted to the jury.
Stone commenced his action by filing a lengthy and detailed pro se complaint naming as defendants Ernest E. Morris, the Assistant Superintendent and later Warden at Joliet, 1 and three other members of the staff at Joliet: John Gentry, a Lieutenant, Virdeen Willis, a Captain, and H. B. McElroy, an Officer.
The complaint alleged that on October 16, 1972, defendants Gentry, Willis, and McElroy, and two other prison guards, Officers Moland and Hinch, 2 subjected the plaintiff to a brutal beating with various weapons for which he was hospitalized and from which he continued to suffer. According to Stone's version the assault began shortly after the noon meal when Officer Moland accused him of throwing garbage onto the gallery in front of his cell. Moland's accusation and Stone's denial, it was alleged, turned into a name-calling exchange with racial overtones during which Moland threatened to beat Stone to death. Stone alleged that Moland then left cell 109 where Stone was confined but returned shortly with Officer Hinch; that Moland and Hinch threw a container of hot coffee and a mop bucket of dirty water at him; and that Moland and Hinch were then joined by Gentry, Willis, and McElroy, all of whom proceeded to brutally attack him with fists, weapons, and mace. Stone alleged that he lost consciousness twice during the course of the beating and that the defendants stripped him of his clothes and maced his naked body.
Stone alleged that he was then dragged by the defendants to cell 702 where the beating continued. There, he alleged, the defendants attempted to strike him with a weapon described as a "baseball bat" and that the unsuccessful blow struck and broke a porcelain toilet bowl in cell 702. He alleged that the toilet bowl shattered and cut his arm, and that thereafter the defendants removed him from the cell to the prison hospital for treatment of his injuries. 3
Stone also claimed that during the attack many of his personal belongings were destroyed and others were confiscated and distributed to other inmates. In detail he described his attempts to bring his grievances to the attention of prison officials and the Disciplinary Committee of the Illinois Department of Correction but that he received no adequate response from prison and state officials.
The defendants filed a motion to dismiss or for summary judgment accompanied by a memorandum of law and separate affidavits of Willis, Gentry, McElroy, and Morris. In their affidavits the defendants denied that any such incident as alleged by Stone occurred on October 16, 1972, and stated that on October 18, 1972, Stone had been transferred from cell 109 to cell 702 without any particular incident. 4
The district court denied the motion to dismiss, ruled that the pro se complaint stated a good cause of action, and ordered the defendants to answer. The court then appointed counsel to represent the plaintiff. By leave of court plaintiff's court-appointed counsel filed an amended complaint, abbreviating the lengthy allegations of the pro se complaint, limiting the relief sought, and adding Officers Moland and Hinch as parties defendant. On March 28, 1974, the defendants filed their answer to the amended complaint in which they renewed their denials of the allegations of the complaint.
Pursuant to an order of the court issued on March 27, 1974, plaintiff's counsel on May 1, 1974, more than a year prior to the trial, filed a designation of the witnesses he intended to call at trial. Plaintiff's counsel stated in the designation that he intended to base his case entirely on the plaintiff's own testimony and that he would call no other witnesses at trial. On February 14, 1975, defendants' counsel took plaintiff's discovery deposition with plaintiff's counsel present. For the purpose of the deposition plaintiff was transported to the Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet from the Menard Correctional Center, to which he had been transferred from Joliet in late 1973.
On March 24, 1975, at a conference to fix a trial date the district court ruled sua sponte that the court would not secure plaintiff's attendance at the trial. The court stated that as far as the plaintiff was concerned the court would try the case by deposition. At the time the court made this announcement the following colloquy took place:
The Court: Well it is not essential that he (the plaintiff) be present for the trial. I will not require him to be brought here for this trial. That is unnecessary. We have his deposition, and we will proceed to choose the jury and try the case. Since you already have his deposition, we can try it any time.
Mr. McLain (Plaintiff's counsel): Yes, your Honor.
The Court: How long will it (the trial) take?
Mr. McLain: About two days, your Honor.
The Court: Well, he must be sentenced for a very serious crime.
Mr. McLain: Yes, he is, your Honor.
The Court: Murder?
Mr. McLain: Yes.
Mrs. Taylor (Defendants' counsel): That is correct.
The Court: I am not going to require him to be brought up here. He would like that, of course, but I am not going to do it. I will try this by deposition, as far as he is concerned. His deposition has now been taken, and I am ready to try it at any time. 5 When will you be ready?
The case was tried to a jury from May 27 through May 30, 1975. At the trial plaintiff's testimonial evidence consisted solely of the reading of plaintiff's discovery deposition. There was introduced, however, as part of the plaintiff's case-in-chief, or for rebuttal or impeachment purposes, documentary evidence consisting of stipulations of counsel, photographs, forms, reports, and records of the Illinois State Penitentiary, and portions of defendant McElroy's affidavit, together with his answers to interrogatories. The defendants' evidence consisted of the in-court testimony of three of the defendants as well as the testimony of Warden Morris, Philip Costello, Supervisor of Patient Services at Joliet, and Marshall Sauder, an inmate at Joliet at the time the events in question allegedly took place. Sauder, also a convicted murderer, was on a work release program from Joliet at the time of the trial. During the trial witnesses for the defendants made repeated references to the plaintiff's lack of personal hygiene and propensity for violence. Because of the absence of Stone, the members of the jury had no opportunity to make their own observations of Stone as a person and to consider them along with the other evidence.
There was a sharp conflict between the plaintiff's allegations and the defendants' denials and their testimony as to the nature and extent of plaintiff's injuries leading to his hospitalization, the manner in which the toilet bowl was broken, the plaintiff's conduct immediately prior to the cell transfer, and the use of weapons and mace.
On May 30, 1975, the jury returned its verdict, finding in favor of each of the defendants and against the plaintiff.
The defendants claim that Stone's version of the events in question was fully submitted to the jury through the use of his deposition and the cross-examination of the defendants at trial. Our conclusion, however, is that since no pretrial discovery depositions were taken of the defendants by the plaintiff's counsel, and since the plaintiff was not permitted to attend the trial, plaintiff was denied the...
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