Wood v. Hanks

49 F. App'x 638
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedOctober 24, 2002
DocketNo. 01-4069
StatusPublished

This text of 49 F. App'x 638 (Wood v. Hanks) 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
Wood v. Hanks, 49 F. App'x 638 (7th Cir. 2002).

Opinion

ORDER

Correctional officers found homemade wine in Rodney Wood’s prison cell. The prison’s disciplinary board found Wood guilty of possessing intoxicants and took away 90 days of earned good-time credit. After exhausting his administrative appeals, Wood petitioned the district court for a writ of habeas corpus, alleging that he was denied due process at his prison disciplinary hearing. Specifically, Wood alleged that contrary to prison regulations, an officer issued inconsistent conduct reports to himself and his cellmate and broke the chain of custody in testing the wine. Additionally, Wood alleged that the disciplinary board denied his requests for a continuance and to present witness testimony. The district court denied Wood’s petition and we affirm.

On August 28, 2000, while searching Wood’s cell at the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility in Indiana, Sergeant A. Shouse found homemade wine in a wrapped trash can in Wood’s property box. Shouse issued conduct reports for both Wood and his cellmate for possession of intoxicants. Shouse’s conduct report for Wood noted that “Wood did ask me if he could dump his wine out in the toñet. I advised him I could not.” Shouse confiscated the trash can to have the liquid tested for alcohol content. In his witness statement Shouse stated that he or other officers supervised the trash can at all times until he dropped it off for testing. Sergeant R. Marshall tested the liquid later that day and found that it did contain alcohol.

On August 30, during a preliminary screening, prison officials notified Wood that a disciplinary hearing had been set for September 5. At this screening Wood pleaded not guilty and requested witness statements from one correctional officer and four prisoners. Wood stated that he would get the prisoner statements himself.

At the hearing, Wood presented witness statements from two prisoners. Although the hearing report notes that Wood did not [640]*640request a continuance, Wood maintains that the board denied his request for both a continuance and the opportunity to contact internal affairs investigators about the wine’s chain of custody. Relying on the statements of various correctional officers, the disciplinary board found Wood guilty. Wood unsuccessfully appealed the decision to the prison superintendent and the final reviewing authority of the Indiana Department of Corrections. Having exhausted his administrative remedies, see Webb v. Anderson, 224 F.3d 649, 651 (7th Cir.2000), Wood brought this action under 28 U.S.C. § 2254.

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Bluebook (online)
49 F. App'x 638, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wood-v-hanks-ca7-2002.