Opinion
Case No. 3:17-CV-700-JPG-MAB
11-21-2019
KYLE J. CARCIONE, Plaintiff, v. CHET SHAFFER, Defendant.
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATIONS BEATTY, Magistrate Judge :
The matter has been referred to United States Magistrate Judge Mark A. Beatty by Senior United States District Judge J. Phil Gilbert pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B), Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 72(b), and SDIL-LR 72.1(a) for a Report and Recommendation on the Motion for Summary Judgment filed by Defendant Chet Shaffer (Doc. 27). It is recommended that the District Court adopt the following findings of fact and conclusions of law and grant the Motion for Summary Judgment.
BACKGROUND
Plaintiff Kyle Carcione brought this pro se civil rights action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that his constitutional right were violated while he was detained at the jail in Franklin County, Illinois. Following a preliminary review of the complaint pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915A, Plaintiff was permitted to proceed on a single claim that Chet Shaffer, the Franklin County Jail Administrator, violated his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process by placing him in segregation without any process whatsoever (Doc. 11). Defendant Shaffer filed a motion for summary judgment on the merits of Plaintiff's claim on December 21, 2018 (Doc. 27). Plaintiff filed a response in opposition to the motion on January 28, 2019 (Doc. 34). Defendant Shaffer did not file a reply.
FINDINGS OF FACT
In 2015, Plaintiff Kyle Carcione was charged with a burglary in Franklin County, Illinois as well as a burglary in Jackson County, Illinois (Doc. 27-1, pp. 7, 9-10). He was arrested for the Franklin County burglary first and detained at the Franklin County Jail as of October 14, 2015 (Id. at p. 11). Plaintiff remained at the Franklin County Jail until being transferred to the Jackson County Jail in May 2017 (Id. at pp. 11, 12).
At the Franklin County Jail, he was initially housed on C block in a two-man cell (Doc. 27-1, pp. 14-15). He was there for "[m]aybe a couple of months" and then he was put in segregation for a week (Id. at p. 15). Plaintiff admitted that by the time he was put in segregation, he had been involved in number of incidents. There was an incident where he "kept pressing" the call button because he wanted to look at a legal book that was not on the unit (Id. at pp. 16-22). He said the officers initially ignored his calls (Id.). When an officer finally responded over the intercom, Plaintiff claims the officer said "we are busy. We don't have time for that" (Id.). So Plaintiff continued to press the call button (Id.). Eventually he was told to go out into the hallway (Id.). He said there were four officers and they told him "[s]omething about attitude and they don't move as fast as I want them to move [and] I will get the book when they get a chance" (Id.). He went back to the unit and "left the button alone after a while" but then began pressing it again once the second shift officers came on (Id.). He claims the second shift officers ignored him at first but then told him they couldn't find the book (Id.). He eventually got the book that he was looking for (Id.).
There was also an incident where a wall-mounted desk in a cell was broken and another detainee blamed it on Plaintiff (Doc. 27-1, pp. 23-24). Plaintiff also admitted he did not get along with the other detainees on C block and he was involved in two verbal "altercations" with two different inmates (Id. at pp. 25-28, 43). He testified the only detainee he got along with on C block was his cellmate (Id.).
Plaintiff thinks the incident with the broken desk is what prompted Defendant to send him to segregation (Doc. 27-1, p. 23), but he does not know for certain (see id. at pp. 17, 25, 29, 44, 49). Plaintiff testified that he asked but was not given an answer or any type of incident report (Id. at pp. 25, 29). The move to segregation came a "couple days" after the desk was broken, about a week and a half after the second altercation, and shortly after" the call button incident" (Id. at pp. 23, 24-25, 27). Plaintiff's time in segregation was served on F Block, in an area known as "Holding 1 or 2" (Id. at p. 15). After a week, Plaintiff was moved from the holding cell to a dorm unit at the back of the building with three other detainees (Id. at pp. 29-31).
Plaintiff testified that he did not get along with the three detainees in the dorm unit because they were "pedophiles" (Doc. 27-1, p. 31). He got into verbal altercations with them about the television (Id.). He was only in the dorm unit for two weeks before he asked to leave so that he didn't get into any physical altercations (Id. at p. 32). After three and a half weeks in the dorm unit, Plaintiff was moved to "Holding 2," which is a segregation cell (Id.). After a week in the holding cell, Plaintiff was moved to E unit, which is another dorm unit (Id. at pp. 33, 44).
When asked "how did you get along in E?" he responded, "pretty good," but he also admitted "there was an incident with another pedophile" (Doc. 27-1, pp. 33, 34). When asked to elaborate, Plaintiff's answers were very vague. He stated "I wasn't nice to him. . . . I mean, I don't know what to tell you. He wasn't supposed to touch the TV. I don't know what to tell you." (Id. at p. 34). Plaintiff stated that he "didn't do nothing" when the pedophile touched the television and he never had any physical altercations with the pedophile; he "just expressed that I didn't like his case" (Id.). Plaintiff was on E unit for a month and a half, and then he was moved back to a holding cell (Id. at p. 35). According to Plaintiff, he was not told why he was taken to the holding cell (Id. at pp. 35-36). After four or five days in the holding cell, he was moved to D unit (Id. at p. 36).
Plaintiff testified he got along fine on D unit and was there for a long time, although there were two instances where he was removed from D unit and placed in segregation (Doc. 27-1 pp. 36-38). For the first instance, Defendant Shaffer told Plaintiff he was being moved to segregation because he used other inmates PIN cards to make telephone calls and used money in their accounts (Id.; Doc. 27-2). Plaintiff was in segregation for one week while Defendant Shaffer investigated the issue and then taken back to D unit after the investigation was completed (Doc. 27-1, p. 38; Doc. 27-2). The second instance occurred when, according to plaintiff, "six officers came to my cell door with a dog and stating that I was attempting to break out and do physical harm to the state's attorney" (Doc. 27-1, p. 39). The officers removed Plaintiff from D unit and took him to "the drunk tank" (Id.). Plaintiff testified that he started kicking on the door of the drunk tank (Id. at pp. 39-41). The officers ignored him for a while, but then eventually moved him from the drunk tank to a holding cell (Id.). In the holding cell, he was put on suicide watch (Id. at pp. 41-42). Sometime approximately 24 hours later, a mental health professional came to speak to Plaintiff, after which he was removed from suicide watch (Id. at pp. 41-42, 47). Plaintiff was kept in the holding cell for two weeks, at which point he was transferred back to Jackson County jail (Id.).
Each time Plaintiff was placed in segregation, he was in a single cell and he was not allowed out to "come out for rec, yard, anything" (Doc. 27-1, p. 14). He received three meals per day and was allowed to shower once a week (Id. at p. 44). Although Plaintiff testified he was not always told why he was put in segregation, he admitted that every stint in segregation was preceded by some type of incident with another detainee or some alleged misconduct (Doc. 27-1, p. 48).
For his part, Defendant Shaffer testified via a sworn affidavit that Plaintiff was disruptive of jail operations on several occasions in that he was involved in numerous altercations and arguments with other inmates, damaged jail property, and used property of other inmates without authorization (Doc. 27-2). As a result of Plaintiff's disruptive conduct, he was placed in a segregation cell on different occasions "for the purpose of maintaining order in the jail and for purposes of jail management" (Id.). Defendant Shaffer stated that the time Plaintiff was put in segregation for using other inmates PIN cards to make telephone calls was for "his personal protection" from other inmates while Shaffer investigated the allegations (Id.).
LEGAL STANDARD
Summary judgment is proper if there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. FED. R. CIV. P. 56(a). "Factual disputes are genuine only if there is sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to return a verdict in favor of the non-moving party on the evidence presented, and they are material only if their resolution might change the suit's outcome under the governing law." Maniscalco v. Simon, 712 F.3d 1139, 1143 (7th Cir. 2013) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). In deciding a motion for summary judgment, "[a] court may not . . . choose between competing inferences or balance the relative weight of conflicting evidence; it must view all the evidence in the record in the light most favorable to the non-moving party and resolve all factual disputes in favor of the nonmoving party." Hansen v. Fincantieri Marine Grp., LLC, 763 F.3d 832, 836 (7th Cir. 2014) (citations omitted).
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
"A pretrial detainee cannot be placed in segregation as a punishment for a disciplinary infraction without notice and an opportunity to be heard." Higgs v. Carver, 286 F.3d 437, 438-39 (7th Cir. 2002) (citing Rapier v. Harris, 172 F.3d 999, 1004-05 (7th Cir. 1999)). No process is required, however, when a pretrial detainee is placed in segregation for a legitimate administrative, protective, or investigative purpose. Higgs, 286 F.3d at 438; Zarnes v. Rhodes, 64 F.3d 285, 291-92 (7th Cir. 1995). See also Holly v. Woolfolk, 415 F.3d 678, 680 (7th Cir. 2005) ("[T]he due process clauses do not confer a right to a predeprivation hearing in every case in which a public officer deprives an individual of liberty or property."). This type of "discretionary segregation" is imposed for a myriad of reasons, such as "because the prison has no other space, wishes to protect some prisoners from others, wishes to keep prisoners isolated from one another in order to minimize the risks of riots or other disturbances, wishes to prevent the spread of disease, and so forth." Lekas v. Briley, 405 F.3d 602, 608 n.4 (7th Cir. 2005). It is also employed for "prisoners who are an escape risk, incorrigible, gang leaders, or awaiting transfer or classification." Id.
"To establish a right to due process, a pretrial detainee must demonstrate either 1) an 'expressed intent to punish on the part of detention facility officials' or 2) that the challenged condition or restriction lacked a reasonable relationship to a legitimate, non-punitive administrative purpose." Love v. Kirk, 360 Fed. Appx. 651, 653 (7th Cir. 2010) (quoting Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 538-39 (1979)); see also Rapier, 172 F.3d at 1005.
Here, Defendant Shaffer provided a sworn statement that Plaintiff was not put in segregation for punitive purposes (see Doc. 27-2). Instead, Plaintiff's conduct was "disruptive of jail operations" and he was placed in segregation "for the purpose of maintaining order in the jail and for purposes of jail management" or for his own personal protection (Doc. 27-2). Plaintiff presented absolutely no evidence to contradict Defendant's sworn statement that his segregation was nonpunitive (see Doc. 34). And nothing else in the record suggests that Defendant Shaffer expressly intended to punish Plaintiff when he placed Plaintiff in segregation. For example, Plaintiff was never told his segregation was punishment for his misconduct and he never received any type of disciplinary ticket or incident report (see Doc. 27-1).
There is also no evidence in the record that Plaintiff's segregation was arbitrary. Instead, the evidence only suggests that it was reasonably related to a legitimate, non-punitive, administrative purpose. In particular, it is undisputed that each of Plaintiff's stints in segregation was preceded by some type of incident, including altercations and arguments with other inmates, property damage, the alleged unauthorized use of other inmates' property, and an alleged plot to escape and harm the state's attorney. It is plainly apparent why a jail administrator would view each of these incidents as a potential threat to prison security and/or to the safety of other inmates, staff, the public, or to Plaintiff himself. As the Seventh Circuit previously noted, "in the volatile atmosphere of a prison, an inmate easily may constitute an unacceptable threat to the safety of other prisoners and guards even if he himself has committed no misconduct; rumor, reputation, and even more imponderable factors may suffice to spark potentially disastrous incidents." Holly, 415 F.3d at 681. See also Zarnes, 64 F.3d at 290-91 (upholding placement of pretrial detainee in segregation after verbal conflict with another inmate). Furthermore, it is also undisputed that after all but one of his stints in segregation, Plaintiff was moved to a different housing unit at the jail (or a different jail altogether). These moves were an obvious effort to maintain or restore order and to diffuse tensions between Plaintiff and other detainees.
Because Plaintiff has failed to marshal any evidence that his segregation was punitive or arbitrary, no reasonable jury could find in his favor and Defendant Shaffer is entitled to summary judgment.
RECOMMENDATIONS
For the reasons set forth above, it is RECOMMENDED that the Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. 27) be GRANTED and judgment be entered in favor of Defendant Chet Shaffer.
Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1) and SDIL-LR 73.1(b), OBJECTIONS to this Report and Recommendation/Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law are due fourteen (14) days after service (see attached Notice).
DATED: November 21, 2019
s/ Mark A. Beatty
MARK A. BEATTY
United States Magistrate Judge