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

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In the 

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

No. 14-3395 

CHARLES DONELSON, 

Petitioner-Appellant, 

v.

RANDY PFISTER, 

Respondent-Appellee. 

____________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Central District of Illinois. 

No. 13-CV-1523 — Joe Billy McDade, Judge. 

____________________ 

SUBMITTED MAY 26, 2015 — DECIDED JANUARY 28, 2016 

____________________ 

Before POSNER, ROVNER, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges. 

HAMILTON, Circuit Judge. In this appeal we address an 

unusual state court ruling denying a prisoner’s challenge to 

discipline that deprived him of liberty, he says, without having an opportunity to call supporting witnesses and to offer 

 

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

argument is unnecessary. The appeal has been submitted on the briefs 

and record. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2)(C).

Case: 14-3395 Document: 40 Filed: 01/28/2016 Pages: 12
2 No. 14-3395 

supporting evidence. The state appellate court denied relief 

without reaching the merits. The court’s reason, not mentioned at any earlier stage of the case, was that the prisoner 

had not followed the instruction on the paper form for requesting witnesses or evidence to tear off the top portion of 

the form. As we explain below, this novel ruling carried bureaucratic concerns about paperwork to an unreasonable extreme and does not bar federal consideration of the prisoner’s constitutional claim on the merits. 

Appellant Charles Donelson, an Illinois prisoner, lost a 

year of accumulated good time as punishment for two incidents involving the same guard. After unsuccessfully challenging that punishment in state court, Donelson filed in the 

federal district court a petition for a writ of habeas corpus 

under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Donelson claims that the prison adjustment committee violated his right to due process by disciplining him without adequate evidence and by not allowing him to call witnesses or to have access to exculpatory 

video and audio recordings. The district court ruled against 

Donelson, partly on the merits and partly on a procedural 

ground. We agree with the partial merits ruling but disagree 

with the procedural ruling. We therefore vacate the judgment and remand for further proceedings. 

The two incidents both involved guard Jimmie Watson 

and occurred on the same day in July 2011. Watson, who 

wrote one of two reports accusing Donelson of misconduct, 

said that he caught Donelson trying to leave his prison wing 

and ordered him back to his cell because he was “not 

properly dressed to leave the wing and did not have permission to leave.” But at first, Watson said, Donelson ignored 

instructions to show his inmate identification card and to 

Case: 14-3395 Document: 40 Filed: 01/28/2016 Pages: 12
No. 14-3395 3

move away from the door to the wing. And when he did finally comply, Watson added, Donelson muttered, “I’ll fix 

you, I’ll have your job, bitch.” 

An hour later Donelson and Watson had their second 

confrontation. Matthew Lindsey, the guard who wrote the 

other incident report, alleged that he saw Donelson step 

around a closing door, evade two nearby guards, and run 

straight at Watson. According to Lindsey, Donelson punched 

Watson in the face several times with a closed fist before the 

other guards could intervene. Even then, Lindsey said, 

Donelson kicked and jerked his arms to avoid being restrained. 

Donelson has consistently disputed both of the guards’ 

reports. In a written statement submitted to the prison adjustment committee and attached to his § 2254 petition, Donelson asserted that he was leaving his wing with permission, that he presented his identification card to Watson 

when asked, that he never refused a command to move 

away from the door to the wing, and that he never said anything offensive to Watson. Video from a surveillance camera 

would confirm his account, said Donelson in his written 

statement. As for the alleged assault an hour later, Donelson 

asserted that Watson attacked him. Watson, he said, had 

been threatening him for months and during their earlier encounter had warned, “I should kick your ass.” When he was 

later called to a meeting with Watson, Donelson continued, 

he expected a lieutenant to be present as well. Instead, Watson started throwing punches. In his statement Donelson 

said that he ran for the door because another guard who was 

present would not intervene. At some point he tried using an 

emergency telephone to request help. Again Donelson addCase: 14-3395 Document: 40 Filed: 01/28/2016 Pages: 12
4 No. 14-3395 

ed that video surveillance and the recording of his telephone 

call would back his version of events. 

After these incidents Donelson was charged with unauthorized movement within the prison, disobeying orders, 

insolence, and assaulting Watson. He was given copies of the 

incident reports that Watson and Lindsey had written using 

a standard form. 

The form explains that inmates may call witnesses and 

present physical evidence at disciplinary hearings. At the 

bottom of the form, below a dotted line, is space for the 

names of two witnesses and a single line to describe their 

anticipated testimony. Above the dotted line, inmates are 

told that, if they want to call witnesses, they must name 

those witnesses “in advance of the hearing” and “specify 

what they could testify to by filling out the appropriate 

space on this form, tearing it off, and returning it to the Adjustment Committee.” The form says nothing about physical 

evidence, above or below the line. 

On Watson’s incident report, Donelson asked for the video from the “R1 B Wing Camera” and named as witnesses 

“C/O Cox” and “I/M Leamon,” a guard and inmate who, 

Donelson says, witnessed the first incident with Watson. On 

Lindsey’s incident report, Donelson again asked for the video from the “R1 B Wing Camera” along with the recording 

of his phone call (which he identified with a number). 

But Donelson then took action that the state appellate 

court deemed fatal to his claim. Rather than detaching and 

submitting just the bottom portion of the incident reports, 

Donelson made copies for himself and then submitted the 

entire pages to the adjustment committee. There is no indicaCase: 14-3395 Document: 40 Filed: 01/28/2016 Pages: 12
No. 14-3395 5

tion that his submissions were refused, returned, or discarded because they included the portions above the dotted line. 

According to Donelson, when he asked at the disciplinary 

hearing about his witnesses and physical evidence, the 

committee chair told him, “We’ll get to that,” but the requested physical evidence and witnesses were never produced. No one gave as a reason that his written requests 

were not cut on the dotted line. 

The adjustment committee found Donelson guilty and, in 

addition to other punishments, revoked a year of his good 

time. The deprivation of a statutory right to credit toward a 

prisoner’s sentence is a deprivation of liberty that requires 

due process of law. E.g., Meeks v. McBride, 81 F.3d 717, 719 

(7th Cir. 1996), citing Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 557 

(1974); Jackson v. Carlson, 707 F.2d 943, 946 (7th Cir. 1983). The 

committee’s “Summary Report” drew heavily from Watson’s 

and Lindsey’s incident reports in the section titled “Basis for 

Decision.” The committee wrote, “No Witness Requested” in 

the section reserved for identifying the hearing witnesses. 

No mention was made of physical evidence. 

After exhausting his administrative remedies, Donelson 

filed a petition for a writ of mandamus in an Illinois trial 

court. See 735 ILCS 5/14-101 to 5/14-109. That’s the established means for an Illinois inmate to challenge in court a 

disciplinary decision and is also a prerequisite for Illinois 

prisoners challenging disciplinary actions in federal court by 

bringing a § 2254 petition in federal court. See McAtee v. 

Cowan, 250 F.3d 506, 508 (7th Cir. 2001) (noting that prisoners 

ordinarily must exhaust available state remedies, and comparing Indiana, which has no state judicial review for prison 

discipline, to Illinois and Wisconsin, which do). As in his latCase: 14-3395 Document: 40 Filed: 01/28/2016 Pages: 12
6 No. 14-3395 

er federal petition, Donelson contended that the prison adjustment committee had violated his right to due process by 

relying on inadequate evidence and refusing his requests to 

call witnesses and to submit the video and audio recordings. 

The state trial court rejected Donelson’s petition “for the 

reasons stated” in the respondent’s motion to dismiss. None 

of those arguments had anything to do with Donelson asking for witnesses and physical evidence on forms that were 

not cut on the dotted line. Nor did the respondent make that 

argument when Donelson appealed the state trial court’s decision. 

Instead, the state appellate court on its own initiative first 

faulted Donelson for not following the instruction to detach 

and submit only the bottom portion of the form. Donelson v. 

Godinez, No. 4-12-0795, 2013 WL 3325003, at *4 (Ill. App. 

2013). On that basis the state appellate court, which did not 

distinguish between witnesses and physical evidence, reasoned that Donelson was not entitled to relief “on this issue” 

because he “failed to follow Department rules in requesting 

witnesses.” Id. As for the evidence supporting the adjustment committee’s decision, the appellate court concluded 

that the guards’ reports underlying that decision were “sufficiently detailed” to satisfy due process. Id. The Supreme 

Court of Illinois denied review. 996 N.E.2d 11 (Ill. 2013).

In denying Donelson’s federal petition, the district court 

first found that relief under § 2254 is not available regarding 

the alleged denial of Donelson’s right to present evidence. 

The respondent insisted, and the district court agreed, that 

the Illinois appellate court had rejected this part of the case 

based on an “adequate and independent state law ground.” 

The district court then concluded that Donelson had not simCase: 14-3395 Document: 40 Filed: 01/28/2016 Pages: 12
No. 14-3395 7

ilarly defaulted his challenge to the strength of the evidence, 

but that the state court’s application of the “some evidence” 

standard was reasonable. See Superintendent v. Hill, 472 U.S. 

445, 454 (1985); Scruggs v. Jordan, 485 F.3d 934, 941 (7th Cir. 

2007). On appeal Donelson challenges all of the district 

court’s reasoning. 

We first consider Donelson’s argument that the adjustment committee’s decision was not supported by “some evidence.” The state appellate court reached the merits of this 

due-process theory, and we must uphold that court’s decision unless it was “contrary to, or involved an unreasonable 

application of, clearly established federal law,” or otherwise 

rested on an “unreasonable determination of the facts.” 28 

U.S.C. § 2254(d); see, e.g., Campbell v. Reardon, 780 F.3d 752, 

761 (7th Cir. 2015). Under Hill “the relevant question is 

whether there is any evidence in the record that could support the conclusion reached by the disciplinary board.” 472 

U.S. at 455–56; see also McPherson v. McBride, 188 F.3d 784, 

786 (7th Cir. 1999). Here, the adjustment committee relied on 

the two guards’ incident reports. The state court’s finding 

that those reports satisfy the modest “some evidence” standard was not an unreasonable departure from federal law. 

See McPherson, 188 F.3d at 786; Rudd v. Sargent, 866 F.2d 260, 

262 (8th Cir. 1989). 

Donelson also contends that the disciplinary hearing was 

not fair because he was denied due process when he could 

not present evidence in his defense. Before considering the 

merits of this argument, we must first decide whether the 

Illinois appellate court relied on an adequate and independent state-law ground to reject this aspect of Donelson’s claim: 

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8 No. 14-3395 

that Donelson failed to tear off the top of the forms before he 

returned his requests for witnesses and evidence. 

The state appellate court did not cite, the respondent 

does not identify, and we have not found any Illinois law, 

regulation, or precedent requiring inmates, on penalty of 

loss of their right to be heard, to detach and submit only the 

bottom portion of the form. As far as we can tell, the Department of Corrections added this directive to its standard 

form, most likely so that the inmate could retain what is in 

essence the charging information on the top of the form 

without having to make a copy before submitting a witness 

request. 

The respondent has never before claimed that an adjustment committee is authorized to reject a request for witnesses or physical evidence on the ground that too much of the 

form has been submitted. Nor has the respondent asserted 

that any adjustment committee, including Donelson’s, has 

ever done so. Instead, the state appellate court itself was the 

source of this post-hoc rationale. The respondent did not 

make this argument to the state trial or appellate courts, and 

the adjustment committee did not give this rationale during 

the hearing or in its summary report. The committee instead 

said mistakenly that Donelson just did not request any witnesses. See Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 526–27 (2003) (rejecting post-hoc rationale invoked by state courts and respondent); see also Marcrum v. Luebbers, 509 F.3d 489, 502–03 

(8th Cir. 2007). 

This asserted state-law ground is not adequate to support 

the state appellate court’s decision and thus does not bar our 

review of Donelson’s federal due-process claim on the merits. See Kaczmarek v. Rednour, 627 F.3d 586, 591 (7th Cir. 2010) 

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No. 14-3395 9

(explaining that review under § 2254 is foreclosed if state 

court resolves federal claim on state-law ground that is 

“both independent of the federal question and adequate to 

support the judgment”); Woods v. Schwartz, 589 F.3d 368, 373 

(7th Cir. 2009) (same). To be “adequate,” a state-law ground 

must be “a firmly established and regularly followed state 

practice at the time it is applied.” Kaczmarek, 627 F.3d at 592; 

accord, Thompkins v. Pfister, 698 F.3d 976, 986 (7th Cir. 2012). 

Illinois allows prison administrators to refuse to hear 

witness testimony when offenders do not timely request 

those witnesses on the provided form. See 20 Ill. Admin. 

Code § 504.80(f)(2), (h)(3); Taylor v. Frey, 942 N.E.2d 758, 764 

(Ill. App. 2011); Newsome v. Illinois Prison Review Bd., 776 

N.E.2d 325, 328 (Ill. App. 2002). But these authorities—the 

only ones cited by respondent on this point—do not support 

the notion that a disciplinary committee may deny a timely 

request for witnesses simply because the properly completed 

bottom portion of the form was submitted with the top portion of the form still attached. See 20 Ill. Admin. Code 

§ 504.80(f)(2), (h)(3) (requiring inmates to submit witness requests on form provided but not specifying that bottom portion be detached); Taylor, 942 N.E.2d at 764 (noting that inmate conceded “he did not use the slip,” which was blank 

and “still attached at the bottom of the disciplinary ticket”); 

Newsome, 776 N.E.2d at 328 (noting that inmate first requested witnesses orally at disciplinary hearing). 

The respondent has not identified any case in which an 

adjustment committee has denied a request for witnesses or 

physical evidence on the ground that a properly completed 

form was not trimmed to the correct size. Nor does the respondent deny Donelson’s assertion in the district court that 

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he previously submitted witness requests in the same way. 

Nor has the respondent identified any case before this one in 

which an Illinois court found that an adjustment committee 

was authorized to refuse an inmate’s request for witnesses or 

physical evidence simply because the inmate sent in too 

much of a properly completed request form. 

The record simply does not support the respondent’s assertion that such a procedural rule “had been established 

and regularly followed for several years prior to petitioner’s 

July 2011 hearing.” We must therefore reject respondent’s 

argument that the state court relied on an adequate state-law 

ground. The procedural rule adopted and enforced by the 

state court could not support a defense of procedural default 

against Donelson unless that rule was already established. 

See Ford v. Georgia, 498 U.S. 411, 423–24 (1991). Aberrant state 

procedural rulings are not adequate to foreclose federal review under § 2254. See Miranda v. Leibach, 394 F.3d 984, 995 

(7th Cir. 2005); Page v. Frank, 343 F.3d 901, 908–09 (7th Cir. 

2003); Prihoda v. McCaughtry, 910 F.2d 1379, 1383 (7th Cir. 

1990). And this procedural rule—to the extent it exists at 

all—certainly appears to be aberrant. 

Because the Illinois appellate court did not reach the merits of Donelson’s claim that he was denied the right to call 

witnesses and to present video and audio recordings, federal 

courts will review the adjustment committee’s actions without any deference to the state court’s decision. See Woolley v. 

Rednour, 702 F.3d 411, 422 (7th Cir. 2012); Harris v. Thompson, 

698 F.3d 609, 624 (7th Cir. 2012); Sturgeon v. Chandler, 552 F.3d 

604, 611 (7th Cir. 2009). Due process requires that prisoners 

in disciplinary proceedings, before being deprived of good 

time, be allowed to call witnesses and present other eviCase: 14-3395 Document: 40 Filed: 01/28/2016 Pages: 12
No. 14-3395 11

dence. Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 566 (1974); Scruggs, 

485 F.3d at 939. Prison authorities are not compelled to accept requests “that threaten institutional goals or are irrelevant, repetitive, or unnecessary.” Piggie v. Cotton, 342 F.3d 

660, 666 (7th Cir. 2003); see Jones v. Cross, 637 F.3d 841, 847 

(7th Cir. 2011); Piggie v. McBride, 277 F.3d 922, 925 (7th Cir. 

2002). But the respondent has not contended that these exceptions apply to any of the witnesses or recordings that 

Donelson sought to introduce. In fact, the respondent has yet 

to oppose Donelson’s due-process claim on the merits. 

Donelson told the adjustment committee that the named 

witnesses would testify that he complied with rather than 

opposed Watson’s orders, that the surveillance videos would 

confirm he had permission to leave the wing during the first 

incident and that two guards kept him from fleeing Watson’s 

assault during the second incident, and that the telephone 

recording would show that he called for help during 

Watson’s assault. This evidence, if Donelson has described it 

accurately, would undermine the committee’s decision. We 

could not conclude that any error in excluding the evidence 

was harmless. Compare Pannell v. McBride, 306 F.3d 499, 503 

(7th Cir. 2002) (remanding for evidentiary hearing when testimony “might have buttressed a potentially valid defense”), 

and Piggie v. Cotton, 344 F.3d 674, 679 (7th Cir. 2003) (remanding for evidentiary hearing when record did not 

“demonstrate with any degree of certainty that” requested 

evidence “lacked exculpatory value or was otherwise irrelevant”), with Jones, 637 F.3d at 846–47 (affirming denial of 

§ 2254 petition because proffered testimony would not have 

changed disciplinary committee’s guilty finding), and Piggie, 

344 F.3d at 678 (rejecting argument that denial of requested 

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12 No. 14-3395 

witnesses violated due process since inmate failed to explain 

how testimony would have aided his defense).1

Accordingly, we VACATE the district court’s judgment 

and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this 

opinion. 

 

1 Donelson also argues that an Illinois statute governing disciplinary 

proceedings, 730 ILCS 5/3-8-7, is unconstitutional. Donelson failed to 

make this argument in the district court. He cannot raise it for the first 

time on appeal. See Pole v. Randolph, 570 F.3d 922, 939–40 (7th Cir. 2009); 

Winsett v. Washington, 130 F.3d 269, 274 (7th Cir. 1997). 

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