Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-24-01995/USCOURTS-ca7-24-01995-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 555
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Prison Condition
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted December 18, 2024*

Decided December 18, 2024 

Before

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge

DORIS L. PRYOR, Circuit Judge

NANCY L. MALDONADO, Circuit Judge

No. 24-1995 

GREGORY TYSON BELOW,

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

HEIDI BROWN, et al., 

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Western District of 

Wisconsin.

No. 19-cv-31-wmc

William M. Conley

Judge. 

O R D E R

Gregory Below, a Wisconsin state prisoner, appeals the summary judgment 

rejecting his claims that prison officials conducted pat-down searches on him in 

violation of the Eighth Amendment and then retaliated against him in violation of the 

First Amendment when he complained. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The district court 

* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and 

record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not 

significantly aid the court. FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with FED. R. APP. P. 32.1

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No. 24-1995 Page 2 

concluded that Below failed to present evidence sufficient to support his claims. We 

affirm.

We construe all facts and reasonable inferences in favor of Below, the party 

opposing summary judgment. Decker v. Sireveld, 109 F.4th 975, 979 (7th Cir. 2024). The 

events in question occurred in 2014, when Below was incarcerated at the Wisconsin 

Secure Program Facility. He attests that a correctional officer, Heidi Brown, targeted 

him for unconstitutional pat searches that she carried out in a sexually inappropriate 

manner. According to the prison’s security protocol, officers must complete five 

random pat searches per shift, as well as pat down prisoners who leave or return to 

their cells. Below states that Brown sought him out with excessive frequency, searching 

him as often as two to three times a day, up to four days a week. He spotlights three 

improper searches that occurred in 2014. In one search that February, he asserts that 

Brown “chop[ped]” his groin area. In a second search the next month, he asserts that he 

felt Brown chop and rub his testicles. And in a third search a week later, he attests that 

Brown initiated another pat search despite knowing that they were supposed to be 

separated; a verbal altercation ensued. He asserts that these encounters were captured 

by security cameras, but the video has since been deleted. 

Around this same time, Below filed two grievances under the Prison Rape 

Elimination Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 15601–15609, complaining that Brown pat searched him 

inappropriately and purposefully touched his genitals with sexual intent. His 

complaints were investigated by and eventually dismissed by prison officers Kurt 

Hoeper and Daryl Flannery and complaint examiner William Brown. 

In May, the prison asked an outside investigator to look into Below’s allegations 

of improper pat searches. The request appears to have been prompted by reports that 

Below had sought to recruit other inmates to complain about Brown, as well as a 

separate investigation initiated by the Grant County Sheriff’s Department at Below’s 

urging. The outside investigator, like the Sheriff’s Department, found the claims 

unsubstantiated.

Also in May, Brown filed a conduct report about Below’s noncompliance and the 

altercation during the third search. He was found guilty of disobeying orders and 

disruptive conduct and punished with 30 days’ room confinement, during which he 

was not allowed to leave his quarters without permission. WIS. ADMIN. CODE DOC § 

303.72(3). 

Case: 24-1995 Document: 13 Filed: 12/18/2024 Pages: 5
No. 24-1995 Page 3 

While under room confinement, Below filed administrative complaints over two 

episodes in which he was denied permission to leave his room, allegedly in retaliation 

for instigating conflict with Brown. He alleged that in one instance the prison’s 

“property officer” prevented him from attending a scheduled appointment at the 

prison’s property room. And in another instance, Sergeant Lesa Novinska denied him 

permission to leave his cell for a regularly scheduled tooth cleaning to treat his 

periodontitis. 

Below also asserts that in May, Brown retaliated against him further when she 

submitted three incident reports charging him with trying to recruit other inmates to 

complain about her and even requesting that one physically assault her. Based on these 

incident reports, defendant William Brown (the Institution Complaint Examiner) placed 

Below in temporary segregation for a month while the charges were investigated. 

Below then brought this § 1983 suit, asserting that Heidi Brown conducted 

unconstitutional pat down searches on him; that other staff failed to protect him from 

those searches; that prison staff retaliated against him when he complained; and that 

the staff was deliberately indifferent to the risk of serious medical harm caused by his 

delayed dental appointment. The defendants then moved for summary judgment based 

on a failure of proof. 

During briefing at the summary judgment stage, Below moved to continue 

discovery so that he could obtain documentation from Brown’s personnel file of 

complaints of any sexual assault, harassment or retaliation filed against her. According 

to Below, such documentation would call into question her truthfulness, credibility, and 

her assertion that she is a good employee. The district court denied Below’s motion for 

continuance, explaining that summary judgment was not the stage for credibility 

determinations to be made or evidence to be weighed. After the close of briefing, Below 

again moved to compel production of the same documentation.

The district court granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment on 

Below’s Eighth and First Amendment claims. Regarding his allegations of improper 

pat-searches, the court determined that Below had not substantiated his general 

assertion that Brown pat searched him too often, let alone with sexual intent. As for his

failure-to-protect allegations, the court determined that Below had not shown he was 

subject to a substantial risk of serious harm from Brown, so he could not suggest that 

any of the staff defendants had reason to protect him from her searches. With regard to 

his assertion that the defendants were deliberately indifferent to his medical needs, the 

Case: 24-1995 Document: 13 Filed: 12/18/2024 Pages: 5
No. 24-1995 Page 4 

court ruled that he had not introduced sufficient evidence to show that his chronic 

periodontitis was a serious medical need or that the delay in cleaning worsened his 

condition. As for his argument that the defendants retaliated against him in violation of 

the First Amendment, the court found no evidence that Below suffered any 

consequence from the short delay in getting access to his property or that complaint 

examiner Wiliam Brown acted with any retaliatory motive when placing him on 

temporary lockup status pending the investigation of Heidi Brown’s incident reports. 

The court then denied Below’s motion to compel as moot. 

On appeal, Below argues that the district court erred when it entered summary 

judgment without ruling on his second motion to compel documentation about Brown’s 

employment files. He maintains that he needed this evidence to ascertain whether she 

previously had been disciplined for sexual misconduct. But to receive relief on appeal, 

an appellant must explain how he was prejudiced by the denial of discovery. See 

Midthun-Hensen on behalf of K.H. v. Group Health Cooperative of South Central Wisconsin, 

110 F.4th 984, 988 (7th Cir. 2024). As the district court noted when denying Below’s first 

motion to compel, Brown’s credibility was not in issue at summary judgment, and 

Below makes no showing that her personnel files would provide relevant information 

Absent any showing that the denial of discovery prejudiced Below, we see no abuse of 

discretion by the district court. 

Regarding his Eighth Amendment pat down claim, Below argues that the district 

court overlooked evidence—specifically, his attestations about the frequency and 

targeted nature of Brown’s pat downs, which, he argues, reflect malice and an intent to 

humiliate him. An unwanted touching of a prisoner’s private parts can violate the 

Constitution if intended to humiliate him or gratify the prison guard’s sexual desires. 

Washington v. Hively, 695 F.3d 641, 642-43 (7th Cir. 2012) (reversing summary judgment 

where detainee asserted that prison guard “spent five to seven seconds gratuitously 

fondling the plaintiff’s testicles and penis through the plaintiff’s clothing and then while 

strip searching him fondled his nude testicles for two or three seconds”). But Below’s 

attestations do not call into question the defendants’ evidence that Brown was following 

prison protocol during her pat down searches. Below acknowledges, for instance, that 

he felt Brown “chop” his testicles—a reference confirming that Brown followed protocol 

by conducting her search with a bladed hand. And Below’s assertions about the 

frequency of the searches, without more, do not create an inference that Brown acted 

with a motive that was anything but legitimate. 

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Regarding his related Eighth Amendment argument that the defendants failed to 

protect him from Brown’s unlawful searches, Below maintains that his complaints 

under the Prison Rape Elimination Act put the defendants on notice that Brown 

conducted pat searches in a sexually assaultive manner. But as the district court found, 

Below points to nothing in the record to show that Brown’s searches subjected him to a 

“substantial risk of serious harm”—a necessary component of an Eighth Amendment

claim. Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 834 (1994). 

Regarding his claim of delayed dental care, Below argues that the defendants’ 

conduct was enough to create a reasonable inference that they were deliberately 

indifferent to his medical needs in violation of the Eighth Amendment. But here too, 

Below failed to introduce evidence to suggest that the 6 day delay created a substantial 

risk of serious harm. Id. at 837. 

Lastly, Below generally disagrees with the district court’s ruling rejecting his 

First Amendment claim for retaliation. But even if Below could establish a prima facie 

case of retaliation, he does not point to anything in the record to challenge the court’s 

finding that the defendants—the prison’s property officer or William Brown—would

not have taken the steps they did even without retaliatory motive. See Mays v. 

Springborn, 719 F.3d 631, 634 (7th Cir. 2013). As the court explained, prison policy at the 

time did not allow the property officer to let prisoners under room confinement to go to 

the property room. As for William Brown, the court appropriately explained that the 

record—which contained evidence that Below was potentially planning to harm Heidi 

Brown—supplied ample reason to isolate him.

AFFIRMED

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