UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF INDIANA

SOUTH BEND DIVISION

WILLIAM HOLLY, )

 )

Plaintiff, )

)

v. ) No. 3:12 CV 47

)

B. LEMMON, Commissioner, Indiana )

Department of Correction, et al., )

)

Defendants. ) 

OPINION and ORDER

Plaintiff William Holly filed this cause of action in the United State District Court

for the Southern District of Indiana while he was a prisoner confined at the Miami

Correctional Facility (“MCF”). That court transferred Holly’s complaint to this district

as the proper venue. In the meantime, Indiana Department of Correction Officials

transferred Holly to the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility.

Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915A, the court must review the merits of a prisoner

complaint and dismiss it if the action is frivolous or malicious, fails to state a claim upon

which relief may be granted, or seeks monetary relief against a defendant who is

immune from such relief. FED. R. CIV. P. 12(b)(6) provides for the dismissal of a

complaint, or any portion of a complaint, for failure to state a claim upon which relief

can be granted. Courts apply the same standard under § 1915A as when addressing a

motion under RULE 12(b)(6). Lagerstrom v. Kingston, 463 F.3d 621, 624 (7th Cir. 2006).

Holly brings this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, which provides a cause of action

to redress the violation of federally secured rights by a person acting under color of state

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law. “In order to state a claim under § 1983 a plaintiff must allege: (1) that defendants

deprived him of a federal constitutional right; and (2) that the defendants acted under

color of state law.” Savory v. Lyons, 469 F.3d 667, 670 (7th Cir. 2006). 

In his complaint, Holly states that MCF officials “submitted transfer documents

to the Classification Department of the Indiana Department of Correction, to have the

Plaintiff transferred to a level four (4) facility, all the while knowing that [he] has been

attacked at all three (3) level four facilities” and that transferring him to a level 4 facility

“would be placing his life in danger.” (DE # 1 at 4.) Holly asks the court to enter

injunctive relief ordering Indiana Department of Correction officials not to transfer him

to a level 4 facility.

When dealing with prisoner cases, federal courts must accord wide-ranging

deference to correctional professionals in the adoption and execution of policies for the

operation of penal institutions. Whitley v. Albers, 475 U.S. 312, 321-22 (1986). The federal

courts must defer to correctional professionals on questions of the best way to run a

prison, in the absence of an “exaggerated response.” Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U.S. 337,

349 n.14 (1981); Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 547 (1979). Federal courts do not interfere

with matters of prison management, such as which facility a particular prisoner is

housed, without a showing that a particular situation violates the Constitution. Mendoza

v. Miller, 779 F. 2d 1287, 1292 (7th Cir. 1986). 

Holly brings his claim under the Constitution’s Eighth, Ninth, and Fourteenth

Amendments. (DE # 1 at 4.) The Ninth Amendment provides “that the enumeration of

certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the

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people.” Holly asserts enumerated rights under the Eighth and Fourteenth

Amendments, but he does not suggest an un-enumerated right that would prevent his

transfer from the MCF to a higher security facility. 

Holly asserts that his transfer to another facility would violate the Fourteenth

Amendment’s due process clause, but there is no Fourteenth Amendment liberty

interest implicated in the inter-institutional or intra-institutional transfer of an inmate.

Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 225-226 (1976); Montayne v. Haymes, 427 U.S. 236 (1976);

Mauricio v. Bronnenberg, 688 F. Supp. 1206 (N.D. Ind. 1986). “The conviction (of a

criminal defendant) has sufficiently extinguished the defendant’s liberty interest to

empower the State to confine him in any of its prisons,” Meachum, 427 U.S. at 224, and

Holly has no right to demand that the State of Indiana confine him in any specific

facility or in a facility of any particular security level. Subject only to Eighth

Amendment restrictions, “a state can confine a prisoner as closely as it wants, in solitary

confinement if it wants.” Smith v. Shettle, 946 F.2d 1250, 1252 (7th Cir. 1991). 

Holly asserts that transferring him to a level 4 facility would violate the Eighth

Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments because he might be

attacked by other inmates at a level 4 facility. A violation of the Eighth Amendment’s

cruel and unusual punishments clause consists of two elements: (1) objectively, whether

the injury is sufficiently serious to deprive the prisoner of the minimal civilized

measure of life’s necessities; and (2) subjectively, whether the official’s actual state of

mind was one of “deliberate indifference” to the deprivation. Farmer v. Brennan, 511

U.S. 825, 834 (1994); Wilson v. Seiter, 501 U.S. 294 (1991).

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Prison “officials have a duty . . . to protect prisoners from violence at the hands

of other prisoners.” Farmer, 511 U.S. at 833. Deliberate indifference in such

circumstances is defined as “criminal recklessness.” Id. at 839-840. Deliberate

indifference is shown by “something approaching a total unconcern for [the plaintiff’s]

welfare in the face of serious risks, or a conscious, culpable refusal to prevent harm.”

Duane v. Lane, 959 F.2d 673, 677 (7th Cir. 1992). The defendant “must be both aware of

facts from which the inference could be drawn that a substantial risk of serious harm

exists, and he must draw the inference.” Farmer, 511 U.S. at 836. A defendant must have

“actual knowledge of impending harm easily preventable, so that a conscious, culpable

refusal to prevent the harm can be inferred from the defendant’s failure to prevent it.”

Duckworth v. Franzen, 780 F.2d 645, 653 (7th Cir. 1986).

Holly does not allege a specific danger to him, such as a claim that transfer to a

specific facility might endanger him because a particular inmate who had assaulted him

in the past was housed there. Rather, he asserts a very generalized claim that he should

not be transferred to a level 4 facility because he might be attacked there by other

inmates. Under this theory, any inmate could seek injunctive relief against being sent to

a level 4 facility.

The courts have long recognized that prisons “are dangerous places. Housing the

most aggressive among us, they place violent people in close quarters.” McGill v.

Duckworth, 944 F.2d 345, 349 (7th Cir. 1991). Thus, the right to reasonable protection

does not include the right to protection from random acts of violence. See id. at 348

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(“some level of brutality . . . among prisoners is inevitable no matter what guards do”).

Holly basically seeks protection from a random act of violence that might occur at a

level 4 facility, which is not a claim upon which this court can enter injunctive relief.

Moreover, the injunctive relief Holly seeks would be contrary to the deference this court

is to provide to correctional officials in the adoption and execution of policies for the

operation of penal institutions. Whitley, 475 U.S. at 321-22.

For the foregoing reasons, the court DISMISSES this complaint pursuant to 28

U.S.C. § 1915A(b)(1).

SO ORDERED.

Date: July 31, 2012

s/James T. Moody 

JUDGE JAMES T. MOODY

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

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