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Parties Involved:
Cook County, Illinois
Appellee
Thomas J. Dart
Appellee
Gregory Koger
Appellant

Document Text:

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 19-2892

GREGORY KOGER,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

THOMAS J. DART, Sheriff of Cook County, and COOK COUNTY,

ILLINOIS,

Defendants-Appellees.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 14 C 6361 — Maria Valdez, Magistrate Judge.

____________________

ARGUED FEBRUARY 20, 2020 — DECIDED FEBRUARY 25, 2020

____________________

Before BAUER, EASTERBROOK, and MANION, Circuit Judges.

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge. While he was confined in the 

Cook County Jail, Gregory Koger accumulated books in his 

cell. Eventually guards removed more than 30, relying on a 

policy that prisoners may not have more than three books or 

magazines at a time (excluding religious and legal materials, 

which do not count against the limit). A magistrate judge, 

presiding by consent under 28 U.S.C. §636(c), dismissed the 

Case: 19-2892 Document: 19 Filed: 02/25/2020 Pages: 8
2 No. 19-2892

resulting suit without reaching the merits. In a prior decision 

we agreed with that ruling in part but remanded with instructions to resolve two claims on the merits: whether the 

policy is valid and whether Koger is entitled to compensation for the books he lost as a result of its enforcement. Lyons 

v. Dart, 901 F.3d 828 (7th Cir. 2018).

The magistrate judge then granted summary judgment to 

the defendants. She held that the three-book policy is valid 

under the First Amendment (applied to states via the Due 

Process Clause of the Fourteenth) and that it makes no 

difference whether the guards asked Koger which three 

books he wanted to keep or what the Jail did with the confiscated books, because his complaint does not articulate a dueprocess (or Takings Clause) theory. 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS

106447 (N.D. Ill. June 26, 2019), reconsideration granted and 

original decision reaffirmed with additional reasoning, 2019 

U.S. Dist. LEXIS 152878 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 9, 2019). We start with 

Koger’s contention that the three-book limit violates his right 

to freedom of speech, which defendants concede includes a 

right to read what other persons have spoken or wriien.

Cook County did not prevent Koger from receiving and 

reading books. He could receive as many and read as much 

as he wanted. Seiing a cap on how many books could be in 

his cell at once did not hamper his reading—he does not say 

that he could read four books in a day, so his ability to send 

finished books home and obtain more in the mail from 

friends and family could support even a voracious reading 

habit. We know from Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78 (1987), and 

Overton v. BazzeBa, 539 U.S. 126 (2003), that prisons have 

substantial discretion to manage their charges and that freedoms enjoyed by persons not in detention (such as the freeCase: 19-2892 Document: 19 Filed: 02/25/2020 Pages: 8
No. 19-2892 3

dom to have extensive libraries) need not be available to 

those in custody. Beard v. Banks, 548 U.S. 521 (2006), applies

this principle to conclude that prisons may deny some classes of inmates access to any reading maier. The Jail’s threebooks-at-a-time policy is much more favorable to inmates 

than the policy sustained in Beard. And Koger does not contend that the exclusion of religious and legal materials from 

the three-book limit is a form of content discrimination that 

spoils the Jail’s policy.

Nonetheless, Koger insists, Cook County forfeited its 

ability to curtail the size of prisoners’ in-cell collections by 

not enforcing its policy strictly enough. Allowing prisoners 

to accumulate books (recall that Koger amassed more than 

30), demonstrates that the three-book restriction is unimportant to prison management. Or so the argument goes.

Turner, Overton, and Beard give wardens substantial discretion to balance inmates’ interests against the needs of security, but since lax enforcement demonstrates that the Jail’s interests do not really support the policy, the inmate’s interests 

must prevail, Koger insists.

Yet rules and regulations are never perfectly enforced. A 

federal statute prohibits felons from possessing firearms, but 

no one would say that if agents fail to arrest every felon in 

possession, or prosecutors decline to press charges against 

all arrested felons, this shows that the prohibition isn’t important. It shows instead that enforcement is costly, and like 

all good things it will be pursued only to the extent that the 

benefits exceed the costs. Prison guards have many tasks in 

addition to removing excess books from inmates’ cells, and 

some of those tasks—including confiscating drugs and 

weapons, preventing violence among the prisoners, and enCase: 19-2892 Document: 19 Filed: 02/25/2020 Pages: 8
4 No. 19-2892

suring that food, medicine, and emergency assistance are delivered as needed—have higher priority. Not even Stalin’s 

Gulag enforced all rules against all prisoners all the time. 

Stringent enforcement is not essential to establishing that 

given rules are reasonable.

Cook County advances, and the district court accepted, 

multiple reasons for the three-book policy. One is that books 

can be used to contain or exchange coded messages among 

prisoners, making it necessary to leaf through the pages 

when doing a property search. The more books a cell has, 

the more onerous this task. Another is that books may be 

hollowed out to hide drugs and other forbidden items, or 

that weapons such as razors or knives may be hidden in 

books’ covers and spines. Curtailing the need for laborintensive searches is a good reason for limiting the number 

of books in a cell. These considerations also show why the 

Jail did not adopt Koger’s proposal to allow any books that 

fit within an inmate’s property bag. Many items in the bag 

(the Jail permits roughly two cubic feet of clothes and goods, 

not counting shoes) are easy to assess for danger; not so with 

books. The Jail offers other reasons in support of its policy, 

but those we have mentioned suffice.

Although the three-book policy is valid, it does not follow that guards are free to throw confiscated books on a 

bonfire or otherwise dispose of them. Books are property, 

yet Koger was not asked whether he wanted them sent home 

or mailed to a friend. The prison could have charged Koger 

the mailing costs, see Streckenbach v. VanDensen, 868 F.3d 594 

(7th Cir. 2017), but his books were destroyed without any 

option to send them outside the prison. Nor was Koger

asked which three he wanted to keep.

Case: 19-2892 Document: 19 Filed: 02/25/2020 Pages: 8
No. 19-2892 5

The descriptions in this opinion track Koger’s affidavits, 

which we must accept for now because he is the party opposing the Jail’s motion for summary judgment. The magistrate judge wrote that Koger’s affidavits are self-serving and 

would be disregarded unless corroborated. 2019 U.S. Dist. 

LEXIS 152878 at *10. For this proposition she relied on a 

statement in Hall v. Bodine Electric Co., 276 F.3d 345, 354 (7th 

Cir. 2002), that was overruled by Hill v. Tangherlini, 724 F.3d 

965, 967–68 & n.1 (7th Cir. 2013). We observed in Hill that 

most evidence can be called self-serving, but a witness’s selfinterest does not prevent a trier of fact from crediting a

statement based on personal knowledge. Accord, e.g., Payne 

v. Pauley, 337 F.3d 767 (7th Cir. 2003); Sanders v. Melvin, 873 

F.3d 957 (7th Cir. 2017). It is regreiable that a district court 

should rely on an ill-considered comment that has been disavowed expressly and repeatedly.

The self-serving nature of Koger’s factual assertions is 

not the only reason he lost. The magistrate judge added that 

the complaint’s failure to mention the Due Process Clause 

meant that Koger could not collect damages to reflect the 

value of the lost books. 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 106447 at *5. The 

judge recognized that Johnson v. Shelby, 574 U.S. 10 (2014), 

held that complaints need not set out legal theories, but she 

dismissed Johnson as irrelevant because defendants moved 

for summary judgment rather than to dismiss the complaint. 

This distinction eludes us. If as Johnson holds complaints 

need not plead law, then it does not maier whether the defendant moves to dismiss the complaint or for summary 

judgment; in either event, the fact that the complaint omits a 

legal theory cannot block a plaintiff from invoking that theory.

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6 No. 19-2892

Complaints plead grievances, not legal theories, and 

Koger’s complaint spelled out his grievance: the Jail confiscated his books and did not return them when he was released. What rule of law, if any, those acts violated, was a 

subject to be explored in other papers, such as motions, 

memoranda, and briefs. Koger initially relied only on the 

First Amendment but at later stages of the suit invoked the 

Due Process Clause too; he did not need to amend the complaint to do so.

Especially not when the district court itself injected the 

Due Process Clause into the case. The initial dismissal of the 

complaint was based in part on ParraB v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527 

(1981), which holds that the opportunity to sue in state court 

is all the process due for certain kinds of deprivations. Our 

first opinion explains why ParraB does not support dismissal, see 901 F.3d at 830, but the magistrate judge’s reliance on

ParraB shows a recognition that due-process interests were at 

stake whether or not the complaint laid them out. Having 

dismissed the suit once on due-process grounds, the district 

court should not have held on remand that due-process arguments cannot be considered at all.

Defendants make a different argument: that the books (in 

excess of three) were contraband, which public officials may 

seize and destroy without notice, hearings, or compensation. 

That proposition is far from clear: That public officials call

something contraband does not make it so. For example, a 

statute may provide that a car used to transport cocaine may 

be confiscated, but that must be done through a forfeiture

proceeding, after notice and an opportunity for a hearing. 

The car’s owner may contend that it was not used to 

transport drugs, that someone else was responsible for any 

Case: 19-2892 Document: 19 Filed: 02/25/2020 Pages: 8
No. 19-2892 7

drugs (cf. Bennis v. Michigan, 516 U.S. 442 (1996)), or that 

confiscation would be a constitutionally excessive fine (see 

Timbs v. Indiana, 139 S. Ct. 682 (2019)).

Trying to determine when hearings are required before 

the seizure or destruction of chaiels that are properly called 

contraband (e.g., cocaine) is not necessary here, however, 

because books are not contraband. Illinois has adopted by 

statute a long list of items classified as contraband inside 

prisons. 720 ILCS 5/31A-0.1. Books are not on that list. Excess

books may be a kind of contraband, but only while in the 

cell. Cook County acknowledges that Koger could have 

mailed the books home an hour before the search and that 

the outbound books would not have been seized and destroyed. This is what sets up his argument: that after finding 

too many books in his cell, the Jail should have (a) asked him 

which he wanted to keep, and (b) offered to store the remainder until his release or ship them if he would pay the 

costs. By destroying the books straightaway, Koger insists, 

the Jail exposed itself to damages equal to their value.

We have seen before, and rejected, an argument that 

items deemed contraband only because found in the wrong 

hands may be summarily destroyed. Agents seized more 

than 30 firearms from Leroy Miller in connection with his 

arrest for aiding and abeiing a felon’s unlawful possession 

of weapons. They missed the deadline for initiating forfeiture proceedings but contended that the weapons, as contraband, could be destroyed anyway. We disagreed, distinguishing Miller’s possessory interest in the guns (forbidden) 

from his property interest (which continued). United States v. 

Miller, 588 F.3d 418 (7th Cir. 2009). Miller, as owner, remained free to sell the guns, have the guns sold for his acCase: 19-2892 Document: 19 Filed: 02/25/2020 Pages: 8
8 No. 19-2892

count, or give them away, though new possessors could not 

hold them for Miller’s future use. What was true of Miller is 

true of Koger too: he lost a possessory interest in the books 

by keeping too many in his cell, but he did not automatically 

lose his property interest. He was entitled to sell or ship the 

books, or reclaim them from the Jail at the end of his confinement.

This means that we must remand a second time. Cook 

County denies having a policy of destroying excess books. 

Proof of a policy is essential; it is not enough for Koger to 

show that his own books vanished. Koger has sued only the 

County, whose liability depends on proving that it implemented an unconstitutional policy. See Monell v. New York 

City Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978). The 

Sheriff, sued in an official capacity, is just a proxy for the 

County. See Will v. Michigan Department of State Police, 491 

U.S. 58 (1989). In addition to ascertaining the Jail’s policy, 

the district court will need to decide what choices, if any, 

were offered to Koger when the guards discovered the excess books and what became of them; a bad policy would 

not lead to damages if it did not injure Koger. It may be necessary to resolve other questions as well—and any disputed 

issues of material fact are the province of a jury.

The judgment is affirmed to the extent that it finds the 

Jail’s three-book policy consistent with the First Amendment 

but otherwise is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

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