Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-16-03495/USCOURTS-ca7-16-03495-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 530
Nature of Suit: Prisoner Petitions - Habeas Corpus
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted March 17, 2017*

Decided March 17, 2017

Before

DANIEL A. MANION, Circuit Judge

MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge

ANN CLAIRE WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge

No. 16‐3495

BYRON JOHNSON,

Petitioner‐Appellant,

v.

RICHARD BROWN,

Respondent‐Appellee.

Appeal from the United States   

District Court for the Southern District

of Indiana, Indianapolis Division.   

No. 1:15‐cv‐01523‐WTL‐MJD

William T. Lawrence,

Judge.

O R D E R

After a disciplinary hearing, inmate Byron Johnson was found guilty of

attempting to traffic contraband at Pendleton Correctional Facility in Indiana. He was

stripped of all 149 days of his earned good‐time credit and demoted to a lower

credit‐earning class. He also was placed in disciplinary segregation for 180 days and

                                                 

* 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. See 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NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION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. 16‐3495    Page 2

denied phone privileges for 45 days. After exhausting his administrative remedies,

Johnson petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, alleging that he

was not permitted to make effective use of exculpatory video evidence at his disciplinary

hearing. The district court rejected that contention, but we conclude that Johnson was

denied due process and thus remand the case for further proceedings.

The allegation of misconduct was made by guard Steven Hall, who wrote in a

disciplinary report that at 9 a.m. on July 30, 2015, Johnson came to the “1/3 range officers

desk” in E Unit and tried to convince him to smuggle unspecified contraband into the

prison. According to the report, Johnson promised that Hall “could make a lot of

money” and would “never get caught.” After receiving written notice of the accusation,

Johnson requested video from “camera 1/3 of E at officers desk at 9 00 AM.” A lieutenant

rejected that request two days before Johnson’s disciplinary hearing. On a preprinted

form the lieutenant checked a box next to a boilerplate assertion that “allowing the

offender to view video recorded evidence” would “jeopardize the safety and/or security

of the facility.” The lieutenant did not elaborate, but he did review and summarize the

video: “At time stamp 8:53:27 am camera clearly shows a black male offender standing at

the officer’s desk on the 1/3 side of E unit.” The lieutenant added, however, that he “was

unable to positively identify the offender” because of “the panning of the camera.”   

Yet the lieutenant did not conduct the later disciplinary hearing, and the staff

member who did preside never watched the video. Johnson asserted his innocence,

explaining that he was in his cell at the time of the alleged 9 a.m. conversation with Hall.

Hall did not testify, and the hearing officer indicated (by checking a box) that he was

relying on “staff reports” in finding Johnson guilty.

Johnson appealed to the warden, arguing that the hearing officer should have

personally viewed the video. Johnson pointed out that the lieutenant’s summary relates

to 8:53 a.m., not 9 a.m., and says nothing about guard Hall appearing in the video. And,

Johnson continued, the lieutenant had reported seeing a black inmate at the desk. “I am

NOT BLACK,” Johnson explained, “I am MIXED, ‘Light Skinned,’ I Look More White!!!”

The warden denied the appeal without addressing Johnson’s contentions. Johnson

repeated his argument to the final reviewing authority, emphasizing that the lieutenant

had seen a black inmate on the video, and yet “I AM A WHITE MALE!!” The handling of

the video, Johnson insisted, had denied him due process. Again his appeal was rejected.

In his § 2254 petition Johnson reiterated the contentions from his administrative

appeals. Once more he claimed that he was denied due process when his request to use

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the video evidence was refused and the hearing officer did not watch it. Johnson’s race is

identified as black on the Department of Correction website, INDIANA DEPARTMENT OF

CORRECTION, https://www.in.gov/apps/indcorrection/ofs/ofs?previous_page=1&detail

=188316 (visited Mar. 3, 2017), but again he insisted that, while he is of “white/mixed”

heritage, “if I was ever mistaken it be for white.” In response the state ducked Johnson’s

emphatic assertion that he is seen as white, not black; the state’s lawyer acknowledged

only that Johnson is “mixed race” and then argued that the video would have been

irrelevant because the lieutenant was unable to identify the “black male” he reported

seeing. Counsel for the state also informed the court that the video—which the

lieutenant had viewed from a movie file accessed on a Department of Correction

server—was “no longer in existence” and thus could not be tendered for in camera

review.

In denying the § 2254 petition, the district court misconstrued Johnson’s assertion

that if his race is “ever mistaken it be for white.” The court read this statement as an

admission that Johnson had “been mistaken for being black in the past, even if not for a

while.” Were it not for this “admission,” the court conceded, Johnson’s “claim that he is

of mixed race and not black would compel a finding that the video was exculpatory.”

On appeal, Johnson maintains that he was denied due process because

exculpatory video evidence repeatedly was disregarded. Johnson has a liberty interest in

his good‐time credit and his credit‐earning class, so he was entitled to procedural

due process before those interests could be taken away. See Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S.

539, 557 (1974); Scruggs v. Jordan, 485 F.3d 934, 939 (7th Cir. 2007); Piggie v. Cotton

(Piggie II), 344 F.3d 674, 677 (7th Cir. 2003). That right to due process presumptively

entitles inmates to view exculpatory evidence, not only to ensure that the hearing officer

considers all relevant evidence, but also to enable the inmate to make use of the evidence

and prepare the best defense. See Piggie II, 344 F.3d at 678; Chavis v. Rowe, 643 F.2d 1281,

1285–86 (7th Cir. 1981).

This case illustrates the importance of the disclosure requirement. The state’s

lawyer, having not seen the video, speculates that it contains nothing relevant. Yet

Johnson well understood how the video could help establish his defense that he wasn’t

anywhere near the officer’s desk at 9 a.m. For one, it should be readily apparent whether

the “black male” in the video is Johnson, whose claim to be “white” or “light skinned”

has never been denied by the state. What is more, the video will answer whether the

lieutenant’s silence about seeing Hall at the desk was inadvertent or because Hall does

not appear in the video. And, too, the lieutenant’s summary says that an inmate was

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present at 7 minutes before 9:00; what does the video show at 9 a.m. when the

conversation between Johnson and the guard allegedly took place? The district court

minimized the significance of these issues, but they are central to Johnson’s defense that

the conversation never happened, at least not with him. As it was, Johnson had no

means of making effective use of the video, which—inexplicably—the hearing officer

did not even watch. Cf. Ellison v. Zatecky, 820 F.3d 271, 274 (7th Cir. 2016) (“[A] hearing

officer cannot refuse to consider an inmate’s evidence simply because other evidence

supports a finding of guilt.”); Whitlock v. Johnson, 153 F.3d 380, 388–89 (7th Cir. 1998)

(concluding that summaries of witness interviews are inadequate substitute when live

testimony would be feasible at prison disciplinary hearing).

Of course, prison administrators may limit access if giving evidence directly to an

inmate would threaten the safety or security of the institution. Donelson v. Pfister,

811 F.3d 911, 917–18 (7th Cir. 2016); Scruggs, 485 F.3d at 940. But prison authorities who

assert a security justification for nondisclosure still have the burden of proving that their

denial of requested evidence was not “arbitrary or capricious.” Piggie v. McBride

(Piggie I), 277 F.3d 922, 925 (7th Cir. 2002). And in this case the state has never asserted—

not in the district court or in this court—that Pendleton staff were warranted in

withholding the video from Johnson for security reasons. That the state makes no such

argument is understandable; adding a checkmark to preprinted boilerplate saying that

disclosing evidence “□ would □ would not jeopardize the safety and/or security of the

facility” is inadequate to override the right to disclosure under the Due Process Clause.

Cf. Forbes v. Trigg, 976 F.2d 308, 317 (7th Cir. 1992) (“The Constitution requires that a

determination be made on a case‐by‐case basis that requested witnesses pose

institutional problems.”); Hayes v. Walker, 555 F.2d 625, 630 (7th Cir. 1977) (rejecting as

inadequate “broad conclusory” assertion that allowing inmate’s witnesses to testify at

disciplinary hearing could expose them to retribution and “prove hazardous to both

witnesses and institutional security”). The prison’s form simply incants the standard for

withholding evidence, but checking a box does not explain how that standard is met.

This practice effectively encourages prison staff to always opt for nondisclosure, which is

not permissible. See Piggie II, 344 F.3d at 679 (“[W]e have never approved of a blanket

policy of keeping confidential security camera videotapes for safety reasons.”); Whitlock,

153 F.3d at 388; Hayes, 555 F.2d at 630 (explaining that courts must be able to evaluate

whether prison staff acted arbitrarily and thus “some support for the denial of a request

for witnesses” is required).

Moreover, even when prison administrators have a valid justification for

withholding video evidence, “due process requires that the district court conduct an

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No. 16‐3495    Page 5

in camera review” to assess whether the undisclosed video is exculpatory. Piggie II,

344 F.3d at 679 (citing Campbell v. Henman, 931 F.2d 1212, 1215 (7th Cir. 1991)). The state’s

lawyer recognized this obligation but was told by prison staff that the video no longer

exists. We are skeptical; the lieutenant’s summary identifies the video evidence as a

digital file stored on a server and readily identifiable by Johnson’s name.1 Counsel did

not explain to the district court why that file would not still be on the server or a backup

drive, nor did counsel explain when or why the file and all copies were deleted, if that is

what happened. The video is the central issue in Johnson’s § 2254 petition, which he

submitted less than two weeks after his final administrative appeal was rejected.

Johnson was denied due process. We therefore remand the case to the district

court to first determine whether the video file still exists. If it does exist, Johnson is

entitled to disclosure (since prison authorities did not validly assert that disclosure

would undermine institutional security) and a disciplinary hearing that complies with

Wolff. If the file does not exist, Johnson’s good‐time credit and credit‐earning class must

be restored. See Piggie I, 277 F.3d at 926 (ordering that relief be granted if inmate

requested video before it was erased).

The district court’s decision is VACATED, and the case is REMANDED for

further proceedings.

                                                 

1 S:\CAB\Video 2015\Johnson Byron – 188316 – 15‐08‐0013.mov.

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