Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-08-01434/USCOURTS-ca7-08-01434-0/pdf.json

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

---

*

After examining the briefs and the record, we have concluded that oral argument is

unnecessary.  Thus, the appeal is submitted on the briefs and the record.  See FED. R. APP. P.

34(a)(2).

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois  60604

Submitted July 17, 2008*

Decided July 29, 2008

Before

    JOEL M. FLAUM, Circuit Judge

DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge

   DIANE S. SYKES, Circuit Judge

No. 08‐1434

TERRANCE J. SHAW,

Plaintiff‐Appellant,

v.

MATTHEW J. FRANK, et al.,

Defendants‐Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District

Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.

No. 05‐C‐872

J.P. Stadtmueller,

Judge.

O R D E R

Wisconsin inmate Terrance Shaw sued various prison officials under 42

U.S.C. § 1983, claiming a host of constitutional violations in connection with his denial of

parole.  See Wilkinson v. Dotson, 544 U.S. 74, 81‐82 (2005) (permitting challenges to state

parole procedures under § 1983).  The district court denied his request for counsel,

dismissed three of his claims for failure to exhaust the grievance process, and ultimately

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with

Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

Case: 08-1434 Document: 20 Filed: 07/29/2008 Pages: 5
No. 08‐1434 Page 2

granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants.  Shaw challenges each of these

rulings.  We affirm in all respects.

Shaw is currently serving a life sentence plus twenty years for rape and murder.  In

the hopes of someday attaining parole, Shaw participated in the Sex Offender Treatment

Program (SOTP).  But prison doctors expelled Shaw from SOTP in 1999 on the grounds that

he had refused to participate fully and had failed to acknowledge the seriousness of his

crimes and violent sexual tendencies.  Four years later, Shaw’s therapist noted a marked

improvement in “self‐disclosure and feedback.”  His therapist stopped short of any

treatment recommendation, though, because “[a]ny final treatment decisions should also

include physiological measures of current sexual deviancy.”

  

In light of his therapist’s suggestion, Shaw requested a penile plethysmograph

procedure, which the Wisconsin Department of Corrections uses to measure sexual arousal

in response to suggestive content.  Prison officials construed Shaw’s request as an

application for re‐enrollment in the SOTP program—the procedure is typically

administered as part of the program—and denied the request because “priority is given to

inmates who have not yet been afforded their first opportunity” to participate in SOTP.

Shaw responded with a grievance in which he clarified that he had not requested re‐

enrollment in the “3 to 4 years Sex Offender Treatment Program.”  Shaw explained:

All I (very clearly) requested . . . was for them to hook me up to their

plythismalgraph [sic] that they have housed over there in K‐Building. . . .

Measuring my current sexual deviancy on this plythismalgraph [sic] only

takes an hour or two.

Prison officials ultimately dismissed Shaw’s grievance because he had not articulated any

violations of law or prison regulations in connection with the denial of his request.

After he was denied parole for reasons that included unsatisfactory participation in

SOTP, Shaw sued various prison officials under § 1983, claiming, as relevant here, that the

defendants had refused his request for re‐enrollment in SOTP in violation of his right to

equal protection.  Shaw also claimed that the unwritten requirement of SOTP completion

prior to parole violated the Ex Post Facto Clause because the program was not in place at

the time that Shaw was sentenced and the requirement of completion retroactively extended

his punishment.  Finally, Shaw requested that the district court furnish him with counsel in

light of the complexity of the issues presented.

  The district court denied Shaw’s motion for appointment of counsel, noting that

civil litigants do not have a right to counsel.  See Pruitt v. Mote, 503 F.3d 647, 649, 656‐58 (7th

Case: 08-1434 Document: 20 Filed: 07/29/2008 Pages: 5
No. 08‐1434 Page 3

Cir. 2007) (en banc).  While the court acknowledged that Shaw had been unable to recruit

counsel, the court concluded that the legal issues he presented were “straightforward and

uncomplicated.”  Moreover, the court reasoned, Shaw’s extensive filings showed that he

was capable of litigating his case.  In any event, the court wrote, the presence of counsel

would not likely affect the outcome of Shaw’s case.

The court also dismissed Shaw’s equal‐protection claim for failure to exhaust his

administrative remedies.  See 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a); Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U.S. 81, 83‐92 (2006).

The court reasoned that Shaw’s grievance asked for only the plethysmograph

procedure—not reinstatement in SOTP—and thus could not have put prison officials on

notice of his desire to return to SOTP.

Finally, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants on

Shaw’s ex post facto claim because Shaw had not identified any “law” requiring him to

complete SOTP before he could be released on parole.  Given Shaw’s sentence of life

imprisonment, the court wrote, he enjoyed no entitlement to mandatory release under

Wisconsin law, and parole in Wisconsin is a matter of discretion to which the Ex Post Facto

Clause does not apply.

On appeal Shaw contends that the district court erred in finding that he failed to

exhaust his administrative remedies with respect to his equal‐protection claim.  We review

de novo a district court’s determination of failure to exhaust.  Dole v. Chandler, 438 F.3d 804,

809 (7th Cir. 2006).  Exhaustion is a modest requirement: “All the grievance need do is object

intelligibly to some asserted shortcoming” so that prison officials can remedy the problem

before facing a lawsuit.  Strong v. David, 297 F.3d 646, 650 (7th Cir. 2002); see Ngo, 548 U.S. at

89.  Shaw argues that his grievance amounted to a request for re‐enrollment because the

procedure sought is only available to SOTP participants.  Any language to the contrary,

Shaw insists, sought to clarify only that he did not wish to start the program anew but

rather pick up where he left off in 1999—two units short of completion.  Yet a plain reading

of the grievance makes clear that Shaw asked for the procedure and nothing more.  Shaw

explicitly instructed prison officials that his request did not pertain to SOTP.  Accordingly,

we agree with the district court’s conclusion that Shaw did not apprise the defendants of his

desire to re‐enter SOTP.

Next up is Shaw’s assertion that a genuine issue of material fact existed as to his ex

post facto claim.  We considered—and rejected—an identical argument in Grennier v. Frank,

453 F.3d 442, 444‐45 (7th Cir. 2006).  Grennier, a Wisconsin inmate serving a life sentence for

murder, argued that his sex‐offender designation and the requirement of treatment before

parole violated the Ex Post Facto Clause because it “hamper[ed] his chance for parole

release.”  Id. at 444.  We held, however, that any requirement of treatment was not a “law”

Case: 08-1434 Document: 20 Filed: 07/29/2008 Pages: 5
No. 08‐1434 Page 4

for purposes of the clause.  Id. at 444‐45.  Our opinion in Grennier identified the flaw in this

argument:

Defendants allow that Wisconsin has become less willing to release persons

convicted of serious offenses and now demands assurance that interests in

deterrence, desert, and public safety have been satisfied before a murderer

will be let free.  Neither the ex post facto clause nor the due process clause has

anything to say about how discretion will be exercised under an open‐ended

system, however. See Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296, 308‐10, 124 S. Ct.

2531, 159 L.Ed.2d 403 (2004). . . . The constitutional interest is in the rules and

statutes—the “laws” to which it refers—rather than the attitudes of public

officials who administer a discretionary system. See Prater v. U.S. Parole

Commission, 802 F.2d 948 (7th Cir. 1986) (en banc).  Parole officials who

become more concerned with public safety—and who act on that concern by

insisting that prisoners complete sex‐offender treatment programs before

release—do not violate the Constitution.  See, e.g., McKune v. Lile, 536 U.S. 24,

122 S. Ct. 2017, 153 L.Ed.2d 47 (2002).

Id. at 445.

Finally, Shaw argues that the district court erred in denying him counsel.  See 28

U.S.C. § 1915(e)(1).  Civil litigants do not have a constitutional or statutory right to counsel,

though a court may, in its discretion, put out the call for a volunteer attorney to represent an

indigent plaintiff. Id.; see Johnson v. Doughty, 433 F.3d 1001, 1006 (7th Cir. 2006).  When

faced with a request to recruit counsel, a district court must consider whether the plaintiff

has made reasonable attempts to find counsel on his own and whether the plaintiff has

demonstrated an ability to litigate his case.  See Pruitt, 503 F.3d at 654‐55.  Any examination

of a plaintiff’s ability to prosecute his case must consider his “literacy, communication skills,

educational level, and litigation experience.”  Id. at 655.  We review a denial of a motion to

recruit counsel under § 1915(e)(1) for abuse of discretion coupled with prejudice.  Hammer v.

Ashcroft, 512 F.3d 961, 971 (7th Cir. 2008); Pruitt, 503 F.3d at 658‐60.  Our task on appeal,

then, begins with an examination of “whether the district court applied the correct legal

standard and reached a reasonable decision based on facts supported by the record.”  Pruitt,

503 F.3d at 658.

There is no doubt that the district court applied the correct legal standard in rejecting

Shaw’s request for counsel.  We conclude that it was a reasonable decision as well.  Shaw

demonstrated his competence throughout the litigation.  He submitted requests for

discovery, filed numerous motions, cited relevant case law, and made cogent legal

arguments.  Five of his civil‐rights claims survived screening.  See 28 U.S.C. § 1915A.  We

Case: 08-1434 Document: 20 Filed: 07/29/2008 Pages: 5
No. 08‐1434 Page 5

detect no abuse of discretion in the decision to let him continue his litigation without the

support of an attorney.  See Hammer, 512 F.3d at 971.

One final point warrants discussion.  Shaw appears to raise a fourth issue in his brief

by posing the question, “Did Shaw present sufficient evidence to establish the denial of the

use of his new religious name placed a substantial burden on the practice of his religion?”

Shaw says nothing more, however, so he has waived this argument.  See Campania Mgmt.

Co. v. Rooks, Pitts & Poust, 290 F.3d 843, 852 n.6 (7th Cir. 2002) (“Perfunctory and

undeveloped arguments are waived.”).

AFFIRMED.

Case: 08-1434 Document: 20 Filed: 07/29/2008 Pages: 5