[ DO NOT PUBLISH] 

## In the 

# United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________
No. 22

- 12184
Non

- Argument Calendar

____________________
WENDALL JERMAINE HALL,
Plaintiff

- Appellant,

versus ELIZABETH PORFERT, Clinician, PATRICK MCCAWLEY, Clinician, JON CARNER, Security Chief,

Defendants

- Appellees.

____________________2 Opinion of the Court 22

- 12184 Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida D.C. Doc ket No. 2:20

- cv

- 00380

- JES

- MRM

____________________ Before J ORDAN , B RANCH , and B RASHER , Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM : Wendall Hall is a sexually violent predator housed in Florida’s Civil Commitment Center. In May 2020, he was reported by two Commitment Center clinicians, Elizabeth Porfert and Patrick McCawley, for two separate instances of misconduct

. Security Chief Carner held a disciplinary hearing and concluded that Hall violat ed the Commitment Center’s conduct pol icy . As punishment, Chief Carner sent Hall to the Commitment Center’s confinement wing for sixty days . Chief Carner also lowered Hall’s “care level,” which appears to be a measurement of how far along Hall is in his rehabilitative process

. Hall contends that Chief Carner’s findings and punishment will have a secondary effect of extending the amount of time Hall will be forced to spend in the Commitment Center.
Hall sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. H e asserts that Por fert, McCawley, and Chief Carner purposefully lied about Hall’s conduct . These lies were allegedly part of a coordinated effort aimed at getting Hall back for filing lawsuits or grievances against Porfert, as well as the defendants’ friends, Donald Sawyer and Emily Salema. Hall contends that Porfert’s, McCawley’s, and Chief22

- 12184 Opinion of the Court 3

C arner’s behavior was First Amendment r etaliation . Hall also objects to Chief Carner’s handling of the disciplinary proceeding : Hall says that he was not given pre

- hearing notice, nor was he allowed to call witnesses on his behalf or otherwise present a def ense. Hall argues the disciplinary hearing and resulting punishment thus violated his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process of law

. Finally, Hall claims that the Commitment Center’s conduct policy is facially violative of the Due Process Clause because it is a duplicative punishment for past crimes for which Hall has already been convicted and served a prison sentence. The district court rejected all of Hall’s claims. Hall appealed. We affirm.Hall’s First Amendment retaliation claim and his due proce ss attack on the disciplinary hearing are barred by the rule first announced in Heck v. Humphrey , 512 U.S. 477 (1994). Heck held that a plaintiff cannot maintain a section 1983 suit if a favorable ruling would undermine or invalidate the plaintiff’s convic tion or sentence

. See Hall v. Merola , 67 F.4th 1282, 1290

– 91 (11th Cir. 2023)

. This so

- called “ Heck bar” prevents a plaintiff from suing under section 1983 unless and until the conviction has been ruled invalid. See Heck , 512 U.S. at 486

– 87.
Heck is not confined to challenges to criminal convictions

. The Supreme Court has applied it to suits that would question the validity of “prison disciplinary convictions.” Hall
, 67 F.4th at 1291 (citing Edwards v. Balisok , 520 U.S. 641, 645

– 48 (1997) )

. And o th er circuits have held that Heck applies to claims brought by the civilly4 Opinion of the Court 22

- 12184

committed

. See Thomas v. Eschen , 928 F.3d 709, 711

– 13 (8th Cir. 2019) ; Huftile v. Miccio

- Fonseca , 410 F.3d 1136, 1139

– 40 (9th Cir. 2005) ; see also Turner v. Johnson
, 466 F.App’x 214 (4th Cir

. 2012) ; Thomas v. Schmitt , 380 F.App’x 549 (7th Cir. 2010) ; Banda v. N.J. Special Treatment Unit Annex , 164 F.App’x 286 (3d Cir

. 2006) . That’s a logical step : We often extend rules with prison origins to the civil commitment context. S ee Boatman v. Berreto , 938 F.3d 1275, 127 6

– 7 7 (11th Cir. 2019) ; Dolihite v. Maughon ex rel. Videon , 74 F.3d 1027, 1041 (11th Cir. 1996)

. Because Heck applies, Hall’s suit is materially indistinguishable from Edwards v. Balisok , 520 U.S. 641 (1997). There, the plaintiff alleged “that he was completely denied the opportunity to put on a defense” or call witnesses to a prison disciplinary proceeding

. Edwards , 520 U.S. at 646

– 47. The Edwards plaintiff likewise accused the “hearing officer himself” of “deceit and bias

. ” Id. at 647. Because the Edwards plaintiff’s success would have “necessarily impl [ied] the invalidity of” the internal disciplinary conviction, the Supreme Court held that Heck barred the claim. Id. at 646. So too here. Hall claims that the two main witnesses against him lied in their reports and that the hearing officer not only denied him the ability to put on a defense but worked with those two witnesses to punish him. To succeed on suc h claims would “necessarily imply” that his internal conviction for violating the Commitment Center’s conduct policy was invalid. Id

. Thus, Heck bars his First Amendment retaliation claims and his due process attack on the disciplinary proceedings.22

- 12184 Opinion of the Court 5

That l eaves Hall’s facial constitutional attack on the Commitment Center’s conduct policy

. Heck does not bar that claim

— at least to the extent that Hall is seeking to avoid future enforcement of that policy

. Id. at 648. But the claim fails because Hall cannot

es tablish that the policy is a punishment for his past crimes. The civil commitment system is an effort to rehabilitate, not to punish. Accordingly, we have said that involuntary residency in the Florida Civil Commitment Center is not punitive. See Pesci v. Budz
, 935 F.3d 1159, 1166 (11th Cir. 2019). Our decision in Pesci presupposes that the Commitment Center’s rules are not punitive. If being civilly committed in the first place is not punishment for a previous crim e as we held in Pesci , then it is not punitive to require residents to follow the C ommitment C enter’s conduct policy. So Hall’s facial constitutional attack must also fail.

We AFFIRM the judgment of the dist rict court.