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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 May 11, 2020*

Decided May 11, 2020

Before

DIANE P. WOOD, Chief Judge

MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Circuit Judge

MICHAEL Y. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge

No. 19-2791

MATTHEW C. STECHAUNER,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

PAUL S. KEMPER, et al.,

Defendants-Appellants.

Appeal from the United States District

Court for the Western District of

Wisconsin.

No. 17-cv-582-jdp

James D. Peterson,

Chief Judge.

O R D E R

After he collapsed in his cell from respiratory distress, Michael Stechauner, a 

Wisconsin prisoner, sued two correctional officers and a nurse for deliberate 

indifference to his serious medical need, and the warden for retaliating against him for 

filing grievances over his medical care. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. A jury found in favor of the 

warden and the officers, and the district court entered a default judgment against the 

* 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NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION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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nurse. Stechauner appeals, challenging only the district court’s denials of his requests

for recruited counsel and his motion for issuance of trial subpoenas. We affirm.

Stechauner, who was housed at Racine Correctional Institution in 2015, suffers 

from respiratory issues. Over the course of two weeks, he complained to guards about 

chest pains, dizziness, and difficulty breathing. On October 28, he collapsed in his cell

with blood coming out of his mouth, became unresponsive, and had to be hospitalized. 

He later filed several grievances over his medical care. In November, the warden, Paul 

Kemper, recommended Stechauner’s transfer to another prison based on his 

dissatisfaction with medical staff at Racine. Kemper did not have final authority over 

the decision, but a committee later approved the transfer.

In his complaint, Stechauner alleged that two correctional officers and a nurse 

knew that he had serious respiratory issues, including asthma attacks, shortness of 

breath, and a chronic cough (sometimes bloody), but they ignored his complaints of 

pain and difficulty breathing and deliberately denied him medical care. He also 

asserted that his transfer was retaliatory.

After Stechauner filed his complaint, he moved for attorney representation. He 

submitted evidence that he could read only at a sixth-grade level and said that a 

jailhouse lawyer who had been assisting him was soon to be transferred. He also 

asserted that he would struggle to prosecute his case because he suffered from mental 

illnesses, lacked sufficient access to the law library, and could not easily locate potential 

witnesses from his new prison. The complexity of the case, he continued, was beyond 

his capabilities because it would require medical evidence and expert testimony.

The district court denied the motion. It acknowledged that Stechauner made 

reasonable attempts to obtain counsel on his own and recognized his mental-health 

conditions, low level of education, limited access to the law library, and the loss of 

assistance from another inmate. Even so, it had “not seen evidence that any limitations 

[would] prevent him from litigating the case.” And although the case involved medical

claims, it was “too early to tell” whether expert testimony would be needed. If he 

needed information to locate witnesses, he could obtain it through discovery. 

Eventually, the parties cross-moved for summary judgment, and Stechauner 

moved for a default judgment against the nurse, who had not answered the complaint. 

At the same time, he requested counsel again. The district court denied both motions for 

summary judgment, finding genuine factual issues about the guards’ knowledge of and 

responses to Stechauner’s respiratory symptoms and the warden’s motivations for 

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transferring him. The clerk entered default against the nurse, but the district court 

deferred entry of judgment pending a showing of damages. (It later entered judgment 

against the nurse for $5,000, and Stechauner does not challenge that decision on appeal.) 

Finally, the court denied Stechauner’s request for counsel because, in addition to the 

reasons given the last time, the nurse had now defaulted, so the case would not hinge 

on medical issues. Stechauner “simply need[ed] to tell his side of the story.” The court 

then issued a lengthy order instructing Stechauner on what steps he should take next 

and how to prepare for trial. 

Before trial, Stechauner filed three more requests for counsel, again citing his 

mental-health issues and limited education. He argued that the court had seen his 

performance at trial in another case, which was “not good” because he mumbled and 

spoke too quickly. He also asked the court to issue subpoenas for two witnesses (former 

inmates) and, because he lacked funds in his general account, to order the Wisconsin 

Department of Corrections to pay the service and witness fees from his release 

account—a special account that state prisoners must maintain separately from their 

general funds. See WIS. ADMIN. CODE DOC § 309.466. 

The court denied the three motions for counsel because it was “still not 

convinced that [the] case was too difficult for Stechauner to litigate on his own.” 

Stechauner had lost his other trial because he lacked evidence, not because he was not 

competent. And he could learn from that experience to improve his presentation in his

next trial. With regard to the subpoenas, the court concluded that it did not have 

authority to order payment of litigation costs from inmate release accounts. In any 

event, declarations Stechauner had filed with his summary judgment motion showed

that the testimony of his two proposed witnesses would only corroborate his own 

account of his symptoms and his exchanges with Kemper. 

At trial, Stechauner delivered opening and closing statements (though the court 

had to remind him to slow down) and introduced several exhibits in support of his 

claims. He presented his own testimony in narrative form, describing his symptoms 

and his interactions with guards, nurses, and Kemper. The two correctional officers and 

the warden also testified. The first officer said that she did not realize how severe 

Stechauner’s symptoms were but had notified the Health Services Unit when he 

complained of pain and was told that he would be placed on a call list. (Stechauner 

pointed out that this testimony was not born out by call logs.) The second officer 

acknowledged that Stechauner had complained of respiratory distress on the evening of 

his collapse but said Stechauner had instructed her not to call Health Services. When 

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she learned that Stechauner had collapsed, she immediately told the shift lieutenant and 

called for an ambulance at a nurse’s instructions. And the warden testified that he 

recommended the transfer because Stechauner’s grievances, in which he repeatedly 

complained about understaffing, led him to believe Stechauner would benefit from 

interacting with other medical personnel. The jury returned a verdict for the 

defendants. 

On appeal, Stechauner first contends that, in denying his requests for counsel,

the district court failed to consider his limited education and mental-health conditions. 

We review denials of requests for recruited counsel for abuse of discretion, evaluating 

whether the district court applied the proper legal standard and arrived at a reasonable 

conclusion using the facts in the record. Pruitt v. Mote, 503 F.3d 647, 649, 658 (7th Cir. 

2007) (en banc). As relevant here (because Stechauner attempted to find counsel 

independently), the district court had to assess whether, given the difficulty of the case, 

Stechauner appeared competent to litigate it himself. Olson v. Morgan, 750 F.3d 708, 711 

(7th Cir. 2014), citing Pruitt, 503 F.3d at 654. 

Each time Stechauner requested counsel, the district court properly explored the 

nature of his claims, assessed their difficulty, and weighed their complexity against his 

ability to litigate the case himself. After the nurse defaulted, the court identified the 

remaining issues for trial as being straightforward: whether the guards knew of his

(undisputed) serious medical need and responded adequately, and whether Kemper 

had retaliatory motives for recommending his transfer. Though the case was of a 

medical nature, the standard of appropriate medical care was not an issue at trial.

The court also assessed Stechauner’s competence to litigate his case as it 

advanced to trial. See Walker v. Price, 900 F.3d 933, 938–39 (7th Cir. 2018). 

Acknowledging his limited education and mental illnesses, it monitored his filings after 

he said that his jailhouse lawyers could no longer assist him and concluded that they 

remained coherent and intelligible. And mindful of the difficulty of trying a case before 

a jury, it issued a detailed order instructing Stechauner on both procedural and 

substantive issues, including what he needed to prove, how to take testimony, and how 

to enter exhibits. Further, the court had observed and evaluated Stechauner’s ability to 

present to a jury in another trial. Because the district court considered the relevant 

factors and gave sounds reasons for its decision, we cannot conclude that it abused its 

discretion in declining to recruit counsel.

Stechauner also contends that the district court erred in denying his requests for 

an order authorizing disbursements from his inmate release account to cover the costs 

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of serving two witnesses with trial subpoenas and paying their witness fees. He insists 

that this decision affected his ability to present crucial facts supporting his claims, but 

he offers no details.

We have not yet addressed whether district courts have authority to order 

Wisconsin prison officials to disburse funds from inmate release accounts to pay federal

litigation costs other than the initial filing fee. But we do not reach the issue today

because Stechauner has not informed us of any material information he desired from 

the two witnesses that he was unable to present through alternative means. See Mason v. 

S. Ill. Univ. at Carbondale, 233 F.3d 1036, 1047 (7th Cir. 2000); McNeil v. Lowney, 831 F.2d 

1368, 1373–74 (7th Cir. 1987). At trial, he was able to recount his complaints of distress, 

requests for medical assistance to guards, and interactions with Kemper, and he 

supported his testimony with call logs, medical records, grievances, and records of his 

transfer. Further, the guards did not dispute that he complained to them, nor did 

Kemper dispute that the transfer recommendation was based in part on Stechauner’s 

grievances. He therefore did not need corroboration on these points. Without any 

explanation of how the absence of the two former prisoners affected his ability to prove 

his claims, Stechauner has not persuaded us that the decision not to subpoena them 

affected the outcome of his case. See Jordan v. Binns, 712 F.3d 1123, 1137 (7th Cir. 2013).

AFFIRMED

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