Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-14-03140/USCOURTS-ca7-14-03140-0/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 April 14, 2015*

Decided April 15, 2015

Before

RICHARD A. POSNER, Circuit Judge

JOEL M. FLAUM, Circuit Judge

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge

No. 14-3140

JOHNNY M. GIBSON,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

WILLIAM POLLARD, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.

No. 14-C-45

William C. Griesbach,

Chief Judge.

O R D E R

Johnny Gibson, a Wisconsin prisoner, appeals from the dismissal of his 

civil-rights suit claiming that his right to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment 

was violated when he twice was placed in administrative confinement. Because Gibson 

received adequate process, we affirm.

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

unnecessary. Thus the appeal is submitted on the briefs and record. 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NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION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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In early 2000, Gibson began serving a 20-year sentence for first-degree sexual 

assault of a child. See WIS. STAT. § 948.02(1). Over the next 12 years, while housed at 

Green Bay Correctional Institution and Racine Correctional Institution, he was 

disciplined 6 times for engaging in sexual conduct with other inmates. See WIS. ADMIN.

CODE DOC § 303.15 (banning sexual contact and intercourse among inmates regardless 

of consent). He was transferred to Waupun Correctional Institution in July 2012 after his 

security classification was elevated to maximum based on his latest sex offense and 

history of predatory behavior. 

After six months at Waupun the correctional program supervisor, Officer B. Greff,

wanted Gibson placed in administrative confinement. See WIS. ADMIN. CODE DOC 

§ 308.04. Greff asserted that Gibson’s presence in the general population posed 

“a substantial risk to staff, inmates, and institutional integrity.” Greff completed a form 

“Recommendation for Administrative Confinement” that details Gibson’s many sex 

offenses while incarcerated. A copy of this form was given to Gibson a week before his 

appearance in front of the prison’s Administrative Confinement Review Committee. 

Gibson disputed being dangerous because, he said, the sexual encounters had been 

consensual. After reviewing Gibson’s history of sex offenses, including demanding 

sexual favors from inmates after sharing canteen items or assisting with legal work, the 

Review Committee issued a written decision finding that administrative confinement 

was necessary.

That decision was in March 2013. Gibson’s administrative appeals were denied, 

and he remained in administrative confinement until July 2013, when a disciplinary 

violation led to a 2-month term in disciplinary segregation. Before that punishment 

ended, Officer Greff drafted another recommendation that Gibson be returned to

administrative confinement upon his release from segregation, referring to the same 

history of sexual misconduct during Gibson’s tenure in state prison. After receiving this 

recommendation, Gibson sought to question the security director, whose concerns about 

Gibson had prompted Greff’s recommendations for administrative confinement. That 

request was denied. After another hearing attended by Gibson, the Administrative 

Confinement Review Committee concluded again in August 2013 that placing Gibson in 

the general population would create a security risk. The Review Committee highlighted

statements given by two inmates that Gibson had forced them to engage in sexual acts.

Gibson’s administrative appeals were denied.

Gibson then filed this suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. According to Gibson, he was 

not given adequate notice of the proposed placements, Officer Greff’s recommendations

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for administrative confinement included false information, he should have been allowed 

to call the security director as a witness at the second hearing, and the Review 

Committee’s decisions are not supported by sufficient evidence. 

The defendants moved to dismiss. They argued that the attachments to Gibson’s 

complaint—Officer Greff’s recommendations for administrative confinement, the 

Review Committee’s decisions, and conduct reports detailing Gibson’s sexual 

misconduct—establish that the prison provided Gibson constitutionally adequate 

process. The district judge, although assuming that Gibson had a liberty interest in 

avoiding placement in administrative confinement, agreed with the defendants that 

Gibson had pleaded himself out of court. The judge noted that Officer Greff’s two 

written recommendations had alerted Gibson to the reasons for the proposed 

placements—that his presence in the general population presented a substantial risk to 

others and institutional security, see WIS. ADMIN. CODE DOC § 308.04(2)—and that 

Gibson had an opportunity to present a defense at the hearings. No more process was 

due a prisoner facing transfer to more-restrictive conditions, the judge concluded, and so 

Gibson’s complaint does not state a claim for relief. 

On appeal Gibson maintains that he was denied adequate process. In his view, 

because new incidents of sexual misconduct had not been substantiated since his 

transfer to Waupun, Officer Greff’s written recommendations did not adequately notify

him of a reason for the proposed placements in administrative confinement at that 

institution, and the Review Committee had lacked sufficient evidence that he posed a 

danger to the general prison population.

We first note two hurdles for Gibson. One, he has not plausibly alleged that he 

has a liberty interest in avoiding administrative confinement. That inquiry requires 

knowing the duration and conditions of Gibson’s administrative confinement—details 

he has not divulged. See Hardaway v. Meyerhoff, 734 F.3d 740, 743 (7th Cir. 2013). And 

second, Gibson already was in administrative confinement when he was sent to 

disciplinary segregation for two months, so his return to administrative confinement in 

August 2013 could not have raised additional due-process concerns. See Lagerstrom v. 

Kingston, 463 F.3d 621, 623 (7th Cir. 2006). Thus, only the initial placement in March 2013 

is relevant. 

Yet even assuming that Gibson had a protected liberty interest in both March and 

August 2013, the Fourteenth Amendment does not require the amount of process that 

Gibson assumes. In Westefer v. Neal, 682 F.3d 679, 684–86 (7th Cir. 2012), we clarified that

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an inmate, like Gibson, facing transfer to a more-restrictive prison setting is not entitled 

to the same level of process as an inmate facing a longer prison stay through the loss of 

good time. Inmates in the latter class are entitled to the safeguards set forth in Wolff v. 

McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539 (1974); for inmates in Gibson’s situation, however, only 

informal, nonadversarial procedures are necessary. See Wilkinson v. Austin, 545 U.S. 209, 

228–29 (2005); Westefer v. Snyder, 422 F.3d 570, 590 (7th Cir. 2005). So Waupun only was 

constitutionally required to give Gibson notice of its rationale for placing him in 

administrative confinement and an opportunity to present his views, see Westefer, 682 

F.3d at 684–85; Bistrian v. Levi, 696 F.3d 352, 375 (3d Cir. 2012); Stevenson v. Carroll, 495 

F.3d 62, 70 (3d Cir. 2007); Senty-Haugen v. Goodno, 462 F.3d 876, 888 (8th Cir. 2006), both 

of which the prison supplied. Each time Gibson was placed in administrative 

confinement, the prison—at least a week before his hearing—notified him about the 

pending recommendation and recounted in great detail his history of sexual misconduct. 

He was present at each hearing and allowed to rebut the recommendation. And he did 

not have a constitutional right to call witnesses. See Westefer, 682 F.3d at 679. The prison 

did all that it was required to do and then some.

Finally, before this appeal Gibson had incurred two strikes under the Prison 

Litigation Reform Act, so with this latest dismissal and appeal he has struck out. Now he 

must prepay all filing fees for his future civil litigation unless he demonstrates at the 

time of the suit's commencement that he “is under imminent danger of serious physical 

injury.” See 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g); Kalinowski v. Bond, 358 F.3d 978, 979 (7th Cir. 2004). 

AFFIRMED.

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