William Chavis v. Charles J. Rowe, Director, Illinois Department of Corrections

643 F.2d 1281, 1981 U.S. App. LEXIS 19386
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedMarch 11, 1981
Docket78-1889
StatusPublished
Cited by186 cases

This text of 643 F.2d 1281 (William Chavis v. Charles J. Rowe, Director, Illinois Department of Corrections) 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
William Chavis v. Charles J. Rowe, Director, Illinois Department of Corrections, 643 F.2d 1281, 1981 U.S. App. LEXIS 19386 (7th Cir. 1981).

Opinion

FAIRCHILD, Chief Judge.

Plaintiff William Chavis, an inmate at the Menard Correctional Center, filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 seeking monetary damages, injunctive and declaratory relief against certain officials of the Illinois Department of Corrections who allegedly violated his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The district court dismissed his complaint for failure to state a claim. Because we find that plaintiff stated both an Eighth Amendment claim and a Fourteenth Amendment due process claim, we reverse and remand for further proceedings.

I.

The facts alleged in plaintiff’s complaint are as follows. On September 28, 1976, correctional officer Robert H. Sipp was stabbed as he was escorting a group of residents, including Chavis, at the Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet, Illinois. In his Inmate Violation Report filed September 30,1976, Officer Sipp stated that he did not know his attacker. The report then states:

Chavis was standing there looking with his hands in his pockets. When someone said “Kill the son of a bitch,” inmate Chavis took his hands out of his pockets and moved toward me as if he was going to help the inmate. I broke and ran. There [were] other inmates moving with Chavis but [illegible]. I believe that inmate Chavis offered a further threat to [me] as I had already been [stabbed] twice by the inmate that attacked [me].

The Stateville Adjustment Committee held a hearing on the incident on October 2, 1976, after which Sipp’s ticket was dismissed as improperly written. 1 Captain J. Boles, a correctional officer named as a defendant in this action and a member of the Adjustment Committee, then wrote a second Inmate Violation Report, dated October 9, 1976, charging Chavis with “assaulting an employee.” The only other statement on this second report was: “Through investigation you have been identified as having stabbed Officer R. Sipp.” Chavis was served on October 10,1976 with Boles’ report and with a notice stating he had the right to appear at the hearing, present a defense and to call witnesses.

The Adjustment Committee, composed of defendants J. M. Check, Chairman, E. M. Camy, a State Correctional Counselor, and Captain T. Wheaton, a correctional officer, heard Boles’ charge against Chavis on October 12, 1976. Although Chavis did not present any witnesses, he did testify in his own behalf. He denied any involvement in the incident and informed the Committee of Sipp’s report indicating that he had not stabbed Sipp. Without telling Chavis about the information or witnesses relied on by Boles, the Committee found Chavis guilty and ordered him transferred to segregation, demoted to “C grade” and deprived of two years of statutory good time. The Committee’s written findings, in their entirety, were: “We recognize and consider the residentes statement^] however[,] we accept the reporting officer[’]s charges.” Chavis was then sent to segregation, where, he alleges, he was confined with four other men in a seven by five foot cell.

*1284 Chavis appealed the findings of the second Adjustment Committee to the State-ville Inquiry Board, which reported on November 1, 1976, that it “found no error in the processing of the disciplinary violation report ... and no basis for [Chavis’] grievance.” He then appealed to the Administrative Review Board of the Illinois Department of Corrections (hereinafter the “Review Board”). They met to consider Chavis’ appeal and to interview Chavis on February 4, 1977.

The Review Board members discussed the investigation of the stabbing incident with Assistant Warden Kapture, who provided them with a copy of the investigation report. This report, which was not provided to Chavis during the Adjustment Committee proceedings, contained the results of a polygraph examination administered to one of the residents providing information about the stabbing. The examination indicated that the resident was telling the truth when he identified another resident as having stabbed Officer Sipp. The Review Board concluded that the investigation report did not substantiate the allegations of Boles’ disciplinary report written on October 9, 1976. The Review Board therefore recommended that the disciplinary report be expunged from all institutional records, that Chavis be released from segregation and restored to grade, and that his two years of statutory good time be restored. Defendant Rowe, who was then Acting Director of the Department, ordered that these actions be taken, and further ordered that Chavis be transferred to Menard Correctional Center no later than March 31, 1977.

On September 26, 1977, Chavis filed a § 1983 pro se complaint alleging: (1) a denial of his right to confront his accuser and present evidence in his own behalf at the October 12, 1976 disciplinary hearing; (2) a denial of his Fourteenth Amendment due process right by not being given the investigation report relied on by the Adjustment Committee; (3) a denial of his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights by defendants’ reliance on an investigation report which did not support their finding of guilty or their imposition of sanctions; (4) a denial of his Fourteenth Amendment due process rights in being transferred to Menard without being given a hearing or being informed of the reasons for the transfer; (5) a denial of his Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment in being confined for six months in a five by seven cell with four other men, without adequate bedding, lighting, food, toilet facilities, and without access to showers, yard, legal materials, medical and dental care, while he was appealing the Adjustment Committee’s finding of guilty. Chavis sought declaratory relief, a preliminary injunction ordering an immediate hearing on his transfer to Menard, $25,-000 in compensatory damages and $20,000 in punitive damages, against the defendants, respectively.

Defendants Boles, Check and Wheaton filed a Motion to Dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. The district court, by Order and Memorandum Opinion dated May 31,1978, granted the motion to dismiss in favor of all named defendants. It found that Chavis was not denied due process at his October 12, 1976 hearing. It further found that the Review Board’s action in vacating the Adjustment Committee’s finding of guilt mooted Chavis’ claim that the guilty verdict was not justified by substantial evidence. Furthermore, Chayis was not entitled to monetary relief for the time he spent in segregation, the court said, because he failed to allege bad faith by the correctional officers. Finally, the court held that he had no right, under either the Constitution or Illinois law, to a hearing prior to transfer from one state institution to another.

II. The Due Process Claims

A.

Three of Chavis’ four due process claims stem from his October 12, 1976 disciplinary *1285

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Bluebook (online)
643 F.2d 1281, 1981 U.S. App. LEXIS 19386, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/william-chavis-v-charles-j-rowe-director-illinois-department-of-ca7-1981.