Seyon Haywood v. Jody Hathaway

CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedNovember 29, 2016
Docket12-1678
StatusPublished

This text of Seyon Haywood v. Jody Hathaway (Seyon Haywood v. Jody Hathaway) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Seyon Haywood v. Jody Hathaway, (7th Cir. 2016).

Opinion

In the

United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 12‐1678 SEYON R. HAYWOOD, Plaintiff‐Appellant,

v.

JODY HATHAWAY, Defendant‐Appellee. ____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois. No. 3:09‐cv‐00807‐MJR‐SCW — Michael J. Reagan, Chief Judge. ____________________

ARGUED OCTOBER 30, 2013 — DECIDED NOVEMBER 29, 2016 ____________________

Before EASTERBROOK, RIPPLE, and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM. Seyon Haywood, formerly an inmate at Illi‐ nois’s Shawnee Correctional Center, accused his auto mechan‐ ics teacher of attacking him. Guards charged him with mak‐ ing false statements. A disciplinary panel found him guilty and ordered him transferred to segregation for two months; the panel also revoked one month of good‐time credit. After 2 No. 12‐1678

these events he was transferred to a different prison, where he remains in custody. Haywood contends in this proceeding under 42 U.S.C. §1983 that these penalties violate his right to speech, protected by the Constitution’s First Amendment (applied to states by the Fourteenth). He also alleges that the conditions of his con‐ finement in segregation were cruel and unusual, violating the Eighth Amendment (again applied via the Fourteenth). The district court dismissed the first claim on the pleadings and granted summary judgment to defendants on the second. The only defendant against whom Haywood still seeks damages is Jody Hathaway, Shawnee’s Warden during Haywood’s time there. The district court dismissed the First Amendment claim because the disciplinary panel’s decision, which affected the duration of Haywood’s confinement, had not been set aside on collateral review or by executive clemency. The Supreme Court held in Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), that §1983 cannot be used to seek damages when relief necessarily im‐ plies the invalidity of a criminal conviction that remains in force. Edwards v. Balisok, 520 U.S. 641 (1997), extends this ap‐ proach to prison discipline. Haywood offers two responses: first, that his good‐time credits have now been restored, and, second, that he has waived any challenge to the duration of his confinement and therefore (he contends) should be al‐ lowed to seek damages. Although Haywood maintains that his good‐time credits were restored while this appeal has been pending, the forms that Haywood has submitted show only the Department of Corrections’s calculation of his projected release date, not whether the disciplinary board’s decision has been vacated in No. 12‐1678 3

the manner Heck and Edwards require. At all events, things that happen after a district court’s decision do not demon‐ strate that the court erred. Heck and Edwards hold that a §1983 claim does not accrue until the conviction or discipline had been set aside. Once that occurs, the prisoner has the time al‐ lowed by the statute of limitations (two years in Illinois) to commence suit. A dismissal under Heck and Edwards is with‐ out prejudice to litigation after a conviction or disciplinary sanction is annulled. As for his waiver of any challenge to the duration of con‐ finement: that’s irrelevant because no matter what a prisoner demands, or waives, §1983 cannot be used to contest the fact or duration of confinement. See Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475 (1973). From its outset, this suit has been a quest for money damages. That’s not all. The holding of Heck and Ed‐ wards is that a claim under §1983 does not accrue as long as it would imply the invalidity of a conviction or disciplinary sanction that affects the duration of custody. If the claim has not accrued, it cannot matter what relief a prisoner seeks. Yet if it is possible to seek damages while waiving other relief, this must mean that the claim accrues immediately and the statute of limitations runs from the time of the events said to be wrongful. That would surprise the many prisoners who wait patiently until they are entitled to sue under Heck, for if Hay‐ wood is right the time to do so could have expired. Haywood relies on Peralta v. Vasquez, 467 F.3d 98 (2d Cir. 2006), which held that a prisoner who foreswears any contest to the length of his confinement may use §1983 to seek dam‐ ages. The Second Circuit understood “the purpose of the Heck favorable termination requirement [to be] to prevent prison‐ 4 No. 12‐1678

ers from using §1983 to vitiate collaterally a judicial or admin‐ istrative decision that affected the overall length of their con‐ finement”. 467 F.3d at 104. To disavow any collateral attack on the conviction or revocation of good‐time credits is to take the situation outside Heck, the court concluded. We do not agree with that conclusion, which no other circuit has adopted (though none has expressly rejected it, either). Heck and Edwards say that a challenge is not possible as long as it is inconsistent with the validity of a conviction or disciplinary sanction. See also Nelson v. Campbell, 541 U.S. 637, 646 (2004): “a §1983 suit for damages that would ‘necessarily imply’ the invalidity of the fact of an inmate’s conviction, or ‘necessarily imply’ the invalidity of the length of an inmate’s sentence, is not cognizable under §1983 unless and until the inmate obtains favorable termination of a state, or federal ha‐ beas, challenge to his conviction or sentence.” This is a version of issue preclusion (collateral estoppel), under which the out‐ standing criminal judgment or disciplinary sanction, as long as it stands, blocks any inconsistent civil judgment. See Simp‐ son v. Nickel, 450 F.3d 303 (7th Cir. 2006); DeWalt v. Carter, 224 F.3d 607 (7th Cir. 2000); Carr v. O’Leary, 167 F.3d 1124 (7th Cir. 1999). It is a rationale considerably different from the one that Peralta attributed to the Court. In Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384, 392 (2007), the Justices em‐ phasized another of Heck’s rationales: [Heck] analogized [the §1983] suit to one for malicious prosecu‐ tion, an element of which is the favorable termination of criminal proceedings. [512 U.S.] at 484. We said: “[I]n order to recover damages for allegedly unconstitutional conviction or imprisonment, or for other harm caused by ac‐ tions whose unlawfulness would render a conviction or sen‐ tence invalid, a §1983 plaintiff must prove that the conviction No. 12‐1678 5

or sentence has been reversed on direct appeal, expunged by executive order, declared invalid by a state tribunal author‐ ized to make such determination, or called into question by a federal court’s issuance of a writ of habeas corpus, 28 U.S.C. §2254. A claim for damages bearing that relationship to a con‐ viction or sentence that has not been so invalidated is not cog‐ nizable under §1983. Id., at 486–487 (footnote omitted).” We rested this conclusion upon “the hoary principle that civil tort actions are not appropriate vehicles for challenging the validity of outstanding criminal judgments.” Id., at 486.

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Related

Preiser v. Rodriguez
411 U.S. 475 (Supreme Court, 1973)
Heck v. Humphrey
512 U.S. 477 (Supreme Court, 1994)
Edwards v. Balisok
520 U.S. 641 (Supreme Court, 1997)
Nelson v. Campbell
541 U.S. 637 (Supreme Court, 2004)
Wallace v. Kato
127 S. Ct. 1091 (Supreme Court, 2007)
Ashcroft v. Iqbal
556 U.S. 662 (Supreme Court, 2009)
Vance v. Rumsfeld
653 F.3d 591 (Seventh Circuit, 2011)
William McCurdy v. Sheriff of Madison County
128 F.3d 1144 (Seventh Circuit, 1997)
Richard Carr v. Michael O'Leary and Michael P. Lane
167 F.3d 1124 (Seventh Circuit, 1999)
Sanville v. Mccaughtry
266 F.3d 724 (Seventh Circuit, 2001)
Willie Simpson v. Janel Nickel
450 F.3d 303 (Seventh Circuit, 2006)
Estate of Miller, Ex Rel. Bertram v. Tobiasz
680 F.3d 984 (Seventh Circuit, 2012)
Donald Vance v. Donald Rumsfeld
701 F.3d 193 (Seventh Circuit, 2012)
Brian Burd v. Gail Sessler
702 F.3d 429 (Seventh Circuit, 2012)
Farmer v. Brennan
511 U.S. 825 (Supreme Court, 1994)
Burks v. Raemisch
555 F.3d 592 (Seventh Circuit, 2009)
Hayes v. Snyder
546 F.3d 516 (Seventh Circuit, 2008)

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Seyon Haywood v. Jody Hathaway, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/seyon-haywood-v-jody-hathaway-ca7-2016.