# United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted September 17, 2019 *

Decided September 23, 2019

Before

FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge

AMY C. BARRETT, Circuit Judge

No. 18-3143

J ASMON STALLINGS, Plaintiff-Appellant

,

v

.

CHARLES BEST, et al.

, Defendants-Appellees

. Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Northern District of Illinois,

Eastern Division.

No. 16 C 11063

J orge L. Alonso,
J udge

.

O R D E R

Prison officials at Stateville Correctional Center caught inmate Jasmon Stallings
with contraband in his cell, and, after a hearing, an adjustment committee punished him with disciplinary segregation for six months . Stallings has sued the committee members and others involved in the discipline. He alleges that they deprived him of liberty without due process and that his cell condit ions (pests) in segregation violated the

* We have agreed to decide the case wi thout oral argument because the briefs and record adequately present the facts and le gal arguments, and oral argument would not significantly aid the court. F ED

. R. A PP

. P. 34(a)(2)(C). NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited onl y in accordance with Fed. R. A pp . P. 32.1No. 18-3143 Page 2

Eighth Amendment. We agree with the distri ct court that Stallings received all the process he was due and failed to state an Eighth Amendment claim, so we affirm. During an unannounced search, prison o fficials found contraband in Stallings’s cell. Prison officials charged Stallings with possessing 12 bottles of “hooch” (self-made alcohol); a bag of “mash” (a distilling mi xture); a “stinger” (a makeshift heating element); and a cassette player with the inmate identification numbers filed off. Officials destroyed the items without chemically test ing the liquid in the bottles for alcohol.

Stallings promptly received a copy of th e disciplinary ticket listing his charges (he says that an officer threw it into his cell) . A tear-off portion of the ticket notified him that “[y]ou must indicate in advance of the hearing the witnesses you wish to have interviewed and specify what they could test ify by filling out the appropriate space on this form, tearing it off, and returning it to the Adjustment Committee.” Stallings never

did so.

A week later, an adjustment committee he ld a hearing on Stallings’s charges. Stallings admitted to possessing the cassette player but denied possessing the other items, asserting that the bottles belonged to his cellmate and contained only fruit juice. Stallings asked the committee to call his cellmat e as a witness, but because Stallings had
not asked for the witness in advance, th e committee denied his request. After the hearing, the committee found Stallings guilty of possessing all the charged contraband and recommended discipline, including si x months’ segregation. The next day, Stallings’s cellmate gave him a signed letter sa ying that the bottles contained fruit juice,

not hooch.

The cell where Stallings spent his segregat ion had pests. He occasionally found cockroaches on his breakfast trays and once bi t into one, after which he became ill. He suspects a roach once crawled into his ear, and at one point, a rodent either scratched or bit his foot in the night.

After Stallings unsuccessfully filed grieva nces about his discipline in general and these conditions in particular, he brought th is lawsuit. He alleged that the committee did not give him due process before discipl ining him, and that his conditions in segregation violated the Eighth Amendme nt. At screening, the court allowed the due-process claim to proceed but dismi ssed the Eighth Amendment claim without prejudice because Stallings failed to allege that the defendants knew about his cell conditions. Stallings asserts that at a later status hearing (the transcript of which he has not ordered), the district court refused to allow him to amend his complaint. TheNo. 18-3143 Page 3

docket, however, reflects that in October 2017 the district court granted Stallings leave to amend, and that a month later Stallings withdrew that request. After discovery, the district court entered summary judgment for the officers on the due-process claim. It reasoned that Stallings’s segregation did not deprive him of any liberty interest, but that even if it had, Stallings received all the process that he was due.

In this court, Stallings focuses primarily on his due-process claim. He maintains that the committee deprived him of liberty without due process by segregating him without letting him call witnesses, withou t considering his cellmate’s post-hearing affidavit, and without confirming that the bottles actually contained alcohol.

We need not decide whether Stallings’s segregation imposed such an “atypical and significant hardship” that his liberty was impinged, Sandin v. Conner , 515 U.S. 472, 484 (1995), because even if it did, he received all the process that he was due. Before prison officials may deprive a prisoner of liberty for misconduct, due process requires (1) advance written notice of the charge; (2) an opportunity to call witnesses in defense; (3) a written statement by a factfinder expl aining the evidence relied on; and (4) “some

evidence” of the offense. See Superintendent, Mass. Corr. Inst., Walpole v. Hill , 472 U.S. 445, 454 (1985); Eichwedel v. Chandler , 696 F.3d 660, 675 (7th Cir. 2012). Stallings admits he received written notice of the charges (t he disciplinary ticket thrown into his cell). Stallings had the opportunity to call witnesse s by completing the form attached to the ticket and returning it, which he did no t do. And Stallings received a written, post-hearing statement of the evidence relie d on by the committee: the hooch, the mash, the stinger, and the unauthorized cassette pl ayer. Stallings says that the committee did

not test the bottles for alcohol or consider his cellmate’s letter disputing their content. But in disciplining Stallings, the committee also relied on other evidence: the prohibited mash, stinger, and cassette player (and Stallings admitted to possessing the cassette player). Any of this evidence satisfies Hill ’s “some evidence” standard. 472 U.S. at 454 (1985).

Stallings’s next argument—that the distri ct court unreasonably refused to allow him to amend his complaint—is baseless. Th e docket shows that the district court granted Stallings leave to amend but that Stal lings withdrew his request, and Stallings has failed to supply a transcript contradicting these entries

. see F ED

. R. A PP

. P. 10(b)(1).

Finally, insofar as Stallings challenges the dismissal of his Eighth Amendment claim, the challenge fails. As the district co urt observed, Stallings does not contend thatNo. 18-3143 Page 4

any defendant knew about pests in his cell. Wi thout that allegation, he has not stated a

conditions-of-confinement claim. See Farmer v. Brennan , 511 U.S. 825, 834 (1994).

AFFIRMED