* After examining the briefs and the record, we have concluded that oral argument is

unnecessary.  Thus the appeal is submitted on the briefs and the record.  FED. R. APP. P.

34(a)(2).

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted December 11, 2008*

Decided December 11, 2008

Before

JOHN L. COFFEY, Circuit Judge

    JOEL M. FLAUM, Circuit Judge

    MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge

No. 08‐2628

MARCELLOUS WALKER, et al.,

Plaintiffs‐Appellants,

v.

KEVIN R. HAYDEN and STEVEN

WATTERS,

Defendants‐Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District

Court for the Western District of Wisconsin.

No. 07‐CV‐675‐bbc

Barbara B. Crabb,

Chief Judge.

O R D E R

Appellants Marcellous Walker, Eric Hendrickson, Frederick Pharm, Edwin Jones,

Brandon Sustman, and Shermell Tarbor have been civilly committed as sexually violent

persons, WIS. STAT. § 980.02, and as relevant here have been confined at the Sand Ridge

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with

Fed. R. App. P. 32.1
No. 08‐2628 Page 2

1 On July 8, 2008 DHFS became the Department of Health Services.

Secure Treatment Center.  The appellants sued Kevin Hayden, the former Secretary of the

Department of Health and Family Services (“DHFS”), and Steve Watters, the director of

Sand Ridge, claiming a litany of constitutional violations.  The district court dismissed the

complaint for failure to state a claim.  We affirm.

Our review is de novo. White v. City of Markham, 310 F.3d 989, 992 (7th Cir. 2002).  To

state a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the appellants must allege that they were deprived of a

federal right, privilege, or immunity by a person acting under color of state law.  See Gomez

v. Toledo, 446 U.S. 635, 638 (1980); Brown v. Budz, 398 F.3d 904, 908 (7th Cir. 2005).  We

analyze the appellants’ claims under the most relevant provision of the Constitution.  See

Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 394 (1989); Koutnik v. Brown, 456 F.3d 777, 781 n.2 (7th Cir.

2006).  The appellants make two overarching arguments on appeal: first, that DHFS1

violated the principle of separation of powers by purportedly delegating executive power to

Wisconsin’s legislative and judicial branches, which then arbitrarily deprived the appellants

of certain fundamental rights; and, second, that specific conditions of their confinement

violate the Fourteenth Amendment.

The appellants argue that DHFS violated the principle of separation of powers by

failing to protect them from arbitrary decisions made about their confinement by the state

legislature and state courts.  The district court did not address this contention, but for good

reason.  The principle of separation of powers found in the federal Constitution does not

apply to states. Thus, branches of state government do not have to be separated in any

particular way.  See Whalen v. United States, 445 U.S. 684, 689 n.4 (1980); Pittman v. Chi. Bd. of

Educ., 64 F.3d 1098, 1101‐02 (7th Cir. 1995).

The appellants’ remaining arguments invoke their right to procedural due process.

The district court correctly held that earlier cases have resolved against the appellants’

almost all of their claims regarding the conditions of their confinement in favor of the

defendants.  Civilly committed persons may be housed in prisons and subjected to prison

rules so long as the restrictions “advance goals such as preventing escape and assuring the

safety of others.”  Allison v. Snyder, 332 F.3d 1076, 1079 (7th Cir. 2003).  Most of the

conditions challenged by the appellants can be justified on security grounds.  These

justifiable conditions include restricting the appellants’ ability to leave the facility and to

receive visitors; monitoring their telephone calls; inspecting their person, property, and

mail; requiring institutional clothing, see Thiel v. Wisconsin, 399 F. Supp. 2d 929, 934 (W.D.

Wis. 2005); and requiring restraints during transport, see Thielman v. Leean, 282 F.3d 478, 480,

482 (7th Cir. 2002).  In addition, the appellants fail to state a claim concerning their medical
No. 08‐2628 Page 3

treatment because they have not alleged substandard care. See Sain v. Wood, 512 F.3d 886,

894‐95 (7th Cir. 2008).  The appellants also fail to state a claim in alleging that they are paid

below minimum wage for work performed at Sand Ridge. See Sanders v. Hayden, No. 08‐

1596, 2008 WL 4206842, at *1 (7th Cir. Sept. 12, 2008).

On their broad claim that they are subject to “criminal punishment” for rules

infractions and for exhibiting symptoms of their conditions, the district court gave the

appellants several opportunities to describe what they were punished for and how they

were punished, but the appellants never supplied the details.  In their opening brief, the

appellants allege that Sand Ridge uses chemical and taser weapons and even “lethal force,”

yet in their reply brief they describe the unconstitutional “criminal sanctions” as earlier

curfews, loss of telephone and visitation privileges, limitations on recreation and library

time, and the temporary confiscation of their electronic gear and personal property.  The

district court reasoned that the appellants’ unwillingness to supply even cursory details

about this amorphous claim invited dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8, and

we agree.  The starkly different sanctions described in the appellants’ opening and reply

briefs evidence that the claim is undefined even now, and though federal pleading rules are

liberal, Rule 8 still mandates that a plaintiff give the defendant “enough facts to state a

claim to relief that is plausible on its face.”  Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 127 S.Ct. 1955,

1974 (2007); see Limestone Dev. Corp. v. Vill. of Lemont, Ill., 520 F.3d 797, 802‐04 (7th Cir. 2008);

George v. Smith, 507 F.3d 605, 608 (7th Cir. 2007).  The appellants’ complaint does not do so.

In any event, even apart from Rule 8, we would uphold the dismissal of this claim because

the appellants do not allege that the two defendants they sued carried out the “criminal

punishments” themselves or bear any personal responsibility for them.  See Jacobsen v. Ill.

Dept. of Transp., 419 F.3d 642, 649 (7th Cir. 2005); Sanville v. McCaughtry, 266 F.3d 724, 740

(7th Cir. 2001); Zentmeyer v. Kendall County, Ill., 220 F.3d 805, 812 (7th Cir. 2000).  This latter

point also resolves the specific claims of Walker and Hendrickson, who allege that they

were assaulted by Sand Ridge staff members who are not defendants in this litigation.

AFFIRMED.