Young v. Wisconsin Department of Corrections Division of Community Corrections

CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Wisconsin
DecidedNovember 20, 2023
Docket2:23-cv-01200
StatusUnknown

This text of Young v. Wisconsin Department of Corrections Division of Community Corrections (Young v. Wisconsin Department of Corrections Division of Community Corrections) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Wisconsin primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Young v. Wisconsin Department of Corrections Division of Community Corrections, (E.D. Wis. 2023).

Opinion

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF WISCONSIN

SEAN MICHAEL YOUNG,

Plaintiff, Case No. 23-CV-1200-JPS v.

WISCONSIN DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS DIVISION OF ORDER COMMUNITY CORRECTIONS, JASON POPP, SOLEN RICHBERGER, ROXANNE SMITH, KRYSTAL POLAKOWSKI, and JANE DOE POLYGRAPH EXAMINER,

Defendants. 1. INTRODUCTION On September 11, 2023, Plaintiff Sean Michael Young (“Young”), who proceeds pro se and is currently subject to extended supervision pursuant to a state criminal conviction, filed a complaint alleging that the Wisconsin Department of Corrections Division of Community Corrections (“DOC”), Jason Popp (“Popp”), Solen Richberger (“Richberger”), Roxanne Smith (“Smith”), Krystal Polakowski (“Polakowski”) (collectively for purposes of this Order, “Defendants”), and a Jane Doe polygraph examiner (the “Examiner”) violated his constitutional rights and federal law during his extended supervision. ECF No. 1. Plaintiff paid the filing fee, ECF No. 1, and, apparently, attempted to effect service on Defendants himself. See ECF No. 9. Counsel from the Wisconsin Department of Justice appeared on September 22, 2023 for all Defendants except the Examiner. ECF Nos. 6, 7. Currently before the Court are various motions and filings by both Young and Defendants. The Court first briefly explains the facts in Young’s complaint and outlines the pending motions. Then, based on the submissions in this case, the Court will: (1) grant Defendants’ motion to screen the complaint, (2) screen the complaint, and (3) finding that the complaint appears to raise issues more properly addressed on a petition for habeas corpus, dismiss Young’s claims without prejudice. 2. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND 2.1 Factual Allegations and Requested Relief It appears that Young is on extended state supervision with the DOC for his underlying state criminal conviction. ECF No. 1 at 3–4 (noting Young was released from prison in July 2021).1 As a condition of his extended supervision, Young made regular visits to his assigned probation officers, Richberger and, in Richberger’s absence, Smith. Id. Young made a request to Richberger that the frequency of his supervision be reduced—a request that Richberger’s supervisor, Popp, later told Young had been conditionally approved. Id. at 4–5. However, Young avers, Popp specified that the reduction in frequency of Young’s supervision visits depended on Young passing a lie detector test. Id. at 5. Young submitted to the polygraph test. Id. at 6. During that test, he apparently made a comment to the Examiner about the outfit she was wearing. Id. at 7. Popp then told Young that he would be taken into custody—not because he failed the polygraph, but because of his comment to the Examiner. Id. (Young alleging that Popp told him he was being “being locked up for . . . ‘solicit[ing] the . . . [E]xaminer while she administered the

1A search of Young’s name on the Wisconsin Offender Locator similarly indicates that he was released on extended supervision in July 2021 after serving a term of incarceration for a 2009 conviction. He was convicted of using a computer to facilitate a child sex crime and is required to register as a sex offender. See Offender Locator, Wis. Dep’t of Corrections, available at https://appsdoc.wi.gov/lop/ (last visited Nov. 20, 2023). lie D[e]tector test to [him].’”) He was frisked and then booked2 into the Waukesha County Jail, where he was held for six days3 and during which time he engaged in a food and liquid strike. Id. at 8. When Young was released, he reported as directed to Richberger. Id. at 8. At that time, he was “given a new set of Rules of Supervision []with only ONE additional rule added,” specifying that he “shall not comment or act inappropriately towards DOC staff or our providers including but not limited to commenting on their appearance, attire, or engaging in sexually inappropriate language/behavior.” Id. (emphasis added).4 Young challenges the above events as violating the First, Fourth, and Eight Amendments, as well as miscellaneous other statutes and rules. ECF No. 1 at 11–12 (characterizing claims as “Freedom of Speech,” “Abuse of Power,” “Unlawful[] Seiz[ure],” “False Imprisonment,” “Kidnapping,” “Cruel and Unusual Punishment,” “Torture,” and “Crimes Against Humanity”). For relief, he wants $7 million in monetary damages (“[a]

2Polakowski and Popp transported Young to the Waukesha County Jail. ECF No. 1 at 8. The Court discerns no other allegations against Polakowski in the complaint besides that she participated in this transport. 3Popp refers to this period of incarceration as a “PO Hold.” ECF No. 1 at 9. “Law enforcement has the authority to detain persons on probation and place them on a ‘hold’ pending charges for revoking the conditions of their probation.” Cunningham v. Kenosha County, No. 23-CV-291-PP, 2023 WL 4976167, at *4 (E.D. Wis. Aug. 3, 2023) (citing Johnson v. Sondalle, 112 Fed. App’x 524, 527 (7th Cir. 2004)). 4Based on Young’s choice of language, it seems that he is asserting that this condition was added only after he was incarcerated and jailed for allegedly soliciting the Examiner, i.e., that he did not have notice of this condition before the polygraph test, or that the condition was invalid. Requiring him to submit to a polygraph test was probably permissible, on the other hand. See Wis. Stat. § 301.132(2) (“The department may require a sex offender to submit to a lie detector test when directed to do so by the department . . . as a condition of a sex offender’s . . . extended supervision . . . .”). million dollars for each day [he] had to endure emotional, financial, mental, physical and spiritual ‘pain and suffering’ while on a hunger and liquid strike at the Waukesha County Jail”), as well as for Defendants to be terminated from their employment (or, in the case of the Examiner, her contract with DOC) and to be criminally prosecuted. Id. at 12–13. As explained further below, he also requests immediate injunctive relief requiring that DOC change the office to which he reports for extended supervision. ECF No. 5 at 1. It appears that since his six-day incarceration, Young has been taken back into custody. In a filing dated October 26, 2023, Young states that he was again “locked up on a PO hold” on September 21, 2023 and is currently being held, again at the Waukesha County Jail, pending disposition of that hold. ECF No. 14 at 1; see also ECF No. 9 at 1 (“Plaintiff . . . is currently incarcerated in the Waukesha County Jail.”). The Court has been unable to locate public records about the “PO hold” that began on September 21, 2023, and related proceedings, so it is unclear what the precise basis for the hold is—but it seems to be related to a potential revocation of Young’s extended supervision due to the above-summarized behavior (as opposed to some unrelated or new charge). See ECF No. 14 at 2 (referencing a “prelim[inary] revo[cation] hearing” and a scheduled “final revocation hearing”). Young avers that, at a preliminary hearing on October 19, 2023, he was charged with four alleged violations (Young refers to them as “four false allegations”) and two were dismissed. Id. He is scheduled for a “final revocation hearing” on November 29, 2023. Id. He theorizes that his extended supervision was revoked and he was taken back into custody in retaliation for filing this case. Id. He further states his intention to add three new defendants: the new probation officer to whom his supervision has been reassigned, Jake Mueller; Mueller’s supervisor Tammy Caputa; and Caputa’s supervisor Karen Schmitz. Id. at 3.5 2.2 Young’s Attempt at Service In an unrelated motion, Young states that “on Wed. Sept. 13, 2023, [he] went to the [DOC] office on 1900 Pewaukee Rd. to serve the Defendants . . . a copy of the summon[s] and complaint.” ECF No. 5 at 2.

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Bluebook (online)
Young v. Wisconsin Department of Corrections Division of Community Corrections, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/young-v-wisconsin-department-of-corrections-division-of-community-wied-2023.