UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

 TENTH CIRCUIT

DEREK I. ALLMON, 

 Plaintiff–Appellant, 

v. 

R. WILEY, Warden; MR. CHURCH, 

Captain; L. BRAREN, SIS Tech, 

Defendants–Appellees. 

No. 11-1498 

(D.C. No. 1:08-CV-01183-MSK-CBS) 

(D. Colo.) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT*

Before LUCERO, O’BRIEN, and MATHESON, Circuit Judges. 

 

 Derek Allmon, a federal inmate proceeding pro se, appeals the district court’s 

order granting summary judgment in favor of the defendant prison officials on his civil 

rights claims. Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm. 

 

* The case is unanimously ordered submitted without oral argument pursuant to 

Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2) and 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). This order and judgment is not 

binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and 

collateral estoppel. The court generally disfavors the citation of orders and judgments; 

nevertheless, an order and judgment may be cited under the terms and conditions of 10th 

Cir. R. 32.1. 

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

May 21, 2012

Elisabeth A. Shumaker 

Clerk of Court
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I 

 Allmon is serving multiple concurrent terms of life imprisonment for trafficking 

drugs and attempting to kill witnesses set to testify against him. The sentencing court 

recommended that Allmon “be placed at the highest security federal correctional facility” 

and ordered various restrictions on Allmon’s ability to correspond with the outside world. 

One restriction requires prison officials to open, copy, and forward to the United States 

Attorney any mail not addressed to Allmon’s counsel of record. Due to Allmon’s 

repeated attempts to circumvent screening and to convince individuals on the outside to 

carry out crimes on his behalf, the sentencing court increased these restrictions in 2010. 

United States v. Allmon, 4:04-CR-00169-01-WRW, 2010 WL 936560, at *1-2 (E.D. 

Ark., Mar. 15, 2010) (unpublished). 

 Since October 3, 2007, Allmon has been incarcerated at the United States 

Penitentiary, Administrative Maximum (“ADX”) in Florence, Colorado. AppelleeDefendant Braren is an employee at ADX whose duties include monitoring inmate mail. 

On November 15, 2007 Braren intercepted a letter from Allmon to “Miles Davis,” an 

individual not affiliated with Allmon’s counsel of record. In the letter, Allmon asked 

Davis to include four Bureau of Prison (“BOP”) employees in a civil complaint and to 

“place liens against their assets.” BOP regulations prohibit inmates from interfering with 

a BOP employee’s performance of her duties, including by filing false liens against them. 

As such, Braren issued an incident report against Allmon. A discipline officer conducted 

a hearing, found that Allmon violated the rules by soliciting Davis to file a fraudulent 
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lien, and imposed various sanctions. 

 During this time, Allmon, who had recently been transferred to ADX from another 

institution, was housed in a special temporary unit while awaiting formal placement. 

Allmon maintains that he was originally to be placed in general population housing. 

However, on November 28, 2007, Warden Wiley and Associate Warden Church assigned 

Allmon to the H unit, a highly restrictive housing unit where inmates’ communications 

can be closely monitored. According to Wiley and Church, ADX’s practice at the time 

was to house all inmates subject to court-imposed communications restrictions, or special 

administrative measures, in the H unit.

 Allmon brought suit against Braren, Wiley, and Church under Bivens v. Six 

Unknown Named Agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), 

alleging that they retaliated against him in violation of the First Amendment: Braren by 

initiating disciplinary proceedings against him, and Wiley and Church by assigning him 

to the H unit.1 Concluding that the defendants were entitled to qualified immunity, the 

district court granted summary judgment on each of Allmon’s claims. 

II 

 We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo, using the same 

standards applied by the district court. Roberts v. Barreras, 484 F.3d 1236, 1239 (10th 

 1

 Allmon’s initial suit included additional claims against Wiley and Church, as 

well as claims against other defendants. The district court dismissed those claims, and 

they are not at issue on appeal. 
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Cir. 2007). Viewing the evidence and reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most 

favorable to the nonmoving party, id., we will affirm a grant of summary judgment only 

if “there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment 

as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). “When a defendant asserts qualified immunity 

at summary judgment, the burden shifts to the plaintiff to show that: (1) the defendant 

violated a constitutional right and (2) the constitutional right was clearly established” 

under Supreme Court or Tenth Circuit precedent. Martinez v. Beggs, 563 F.3d 1082, 

1088 (10th Cir. 2009). 

A 

 Allmon first claims that Braren retaliated against him in violation of the First 

Amendment by issuing an incident report after intercepting his letter to “Miles Davis.” 

However, an inmate’s exercise of his First Amendment rights may be limited by rules 

reasonably related to legitimate penological interests. Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 89 

(1987). Allmon does not challenge the discipline officer’s finding that his letter ran afoul 

of BOP regulations that prohibit inmates from interfering with staff members in the 

performance of their duties. Nor has he shown that a rule preventing inmates from filing 

fraudulent liens is illegitimate under the Turner test. 482 U.S. at 89-90. Accordingly, we 

agree with the district court that Allmon has not demonstrated a clearly established 

constitutional violation. 

 In reaching this conclusion, we reject Allmon’s contention that constitutional 

protection for his statements was “restored” when, two months after the incident, Braren 
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allegedly mailed his letter to Davis. Even accepting Allmon’s assumption that the BOP 

prohibits employees from mailing communications that violate prison regulations, the 

fact that Braren ignored this instruction does not undo Allmon’s violation of prison rules. 

B 

 We also agree that summary judgment in favor of Wiley and Church was proper. 

Allmon alleges that Wiley and Church placed him in the H unit because he “fil[ed] 

grievances,” wrote “the disliked letter to Miles Davis,” and used a racially charged slur 

against Wiley. As discussed above, Allmon’s statement regarding liens in the letter is not 

protected by the First Amendment. We therefore focus our attention on whether Allmon 

has shown that defendants retaliated against him because he lodged complaints or 

insulted them. On appeal, Allmon primarily attacks the district court’s finding that 

defendants did not alter his original housing assignment, but rather assigned him to a 

restrictive unit in the first instance. But even if the district court erred in this regard, 

Allmon cannot prevail on his claims against Wiley and Church. 

 To survive summary judgment, Allmon “must prove that ‘but for’ the retaliatory 

motive, the incidents to which he refers . . . would not have taken place.” Peterson v. 

Shanks, 149 F.3d 1140, 1144 (10th Cir. 1998) (quotation omitted). “[A]n inmate is not 

inoculated from the normal conditions of confinement . . . merely because he has engaged 

in protected activity.” Id. Before the district court, Wiley and Church presented 

evidence that they assigned Allmon to the H unit because of his court-ordered 

communications restrictions and past attempts to circumvent these restrictions. In the H 
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unit, prison officials could closely monitor Allmon’s communications and better prevent 

him from passing along correspondence through inmates not subject to strict restrictions. 

Aside from a handful of conclusory statements, Allmon presented almost no rebuttal 

evidence from which a jury could reasonably find that defendants were motivated 

because he filed grievances or insulted Wiley. Although Allmon may have described 

Wiley in offensive terms shortly before the wardens made the assignment, “we have 

consistently held that temporal proximity between protected activity and a challenged 

prison action does not, in itself, demonstrate the causal nexus for a retaliation claim.” 

Strope v. Cummings, 381 F. App’x 878, 883 (10th Cir. 2010) (unpublished) (citing 

Friedman v. Kennard, 248 F. App’x 918, 922 (10th Cir. 2007) (unpublished) (collecting 

cases)). Allmon has therefore failed to show that appellants violated his clearly 

established constitutional rights. 

III 

We AFFIRM the district court. Because Allmon has not presented a reasoned, 

non-frivolous argument in support of the issues he raises on appeal, DeBardeleben v. 

Quinlan, 937 F.2d 502, 505 (10th Cir.1991), his motion to proceed in forma pauperis is 

DENIED. 

Entered for the Court 

Carlos F. Lucero 

Circuit Judge