Opinion ID: 2998269
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Gang Plaintiffs’ Claims

Text: The gang plaintiffs asserted that their transfer to Tamms, on account of gang membership, violated their First Amendment right to freedom of association and the Ex Post Facto Clause. The district court rejected the associational rights claim on the grounds that the prisoners had no First Amendment right to belong to a gang and that regulating gang activity served legitimate penological goals. The court rejected the ex post facto argument because the change in prison conditions constituted a reasonable regulation and not additional punishment. Therefore, reasoned the district court, even if IDOC transferred them to Tamms in retaliation for their gang activities, the gang plaintiffs had no cognizable claim. We review these § 1915A dismissals de novo. Calhoun v. DeTella, 319 F.3d 936, 939 (7th Cir. 2003). In undertaking such a review, we must construe all allegations as true and in the light most favorable to the prisoners. Id.
The gang plaintiffs submit that IDOC’s policy of transferring STG members to Tamms violates their First Amendment right of association. They allege that IDOC’s policy prior to 1996 encouraged gang membership; current policy, by contrast, restricts prisoners’ rights to associate with 3 prison gangs. The gang plaintiffs challenge IDOC’s regulations that allow officials to transfer prisoners who are gang 3 At oral argument, IDOC admitted that prisons in the system had a pre-1996 practice of cooperating with prison gangs to maintain order in the facilities. 6 No. 03-3318 members or “who may be planning to engage” in gang activity, Ill. Admin. Code tit. 20, § 505.40(b), as unconstitutionally overbroad. IDOC contends that the prisoners’ transfers to Tamms implicate neither expressive nor intimate rights to association. In its view, regardless of whether IDOC once had a policy of cooperating with prison gangs, prisoners have no First Amendment right to associate with gangs. We agree with IDOC on this point. “Prison walls do not form a barrier separating prison inmates from the protections of the Constitution.” Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 84 (1987). “When a prison regulation or practice offends a fundamental constitutional guarantee, federal courts will discharge their duty to protect constitutional rights.” Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S. 396, 405-06 (1974). Although we have not so held expressly, we have opined that “gang membership seems not to implicate the right of association.” Fuller ex rel. Fuller v. Decatur Pub. Sch. Bd. of Educ., 251 F.3d 662, 667 (7th Cir. 2001) (citing City of Chicago v. Morales, 527 U.S. 41 (1999)). But cf. Fuller v. Johnson, 114 F.3d 491, 498 (5th Cir. 1997) (assuming protection but holding no constitutional error in admitting evidence of membership in a gang that had committed brutal acts, as evidence of future dangerousness, with citation to Dawson v. Delaware, 503 U.S. 159 (1992)). We see no basis for maintaining that those who have been incarcerated as a result of a criminal conviction and consequently deprived of some of the most basic of associational opportunities during their imprisonment somehow retain the right to belong to a gang within the prison walls when prison officials have determined that such a group is detrimental to the achievement of the prison’s legitimate penological goals. The decision of prison administrators as No. 03-3318 7 to the detrimental effect of such groups is a decision to which we owe great deference. See Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners’ Labor Union, Inc., 433 U.S. 119, 132 (1977). Moreover, just recently, the Supreme Court spelled out, in no uncertain terms, the incompatibility of prison gangs with any penological system: Prison security, imperiled by the brutal reality of prison gangs, provides the backdrop of the State’s interest. Clandestine, organized, fueled by race-based hostility, and committed to fear and violence as a means of disciplining their own members and their rivals, gangs seek nothing less than to control prison life and to extend their power outside prison walls. See Brief for State of California et al. as Amici Curiae 6. Murder of an inmate, a guard, or one of their family members on the outside is a common form of gang discipline and control, as well as a condition for membership in some gangs. See, e.g., United States v. Santiago, 46 F.3d 885, 888 (C.A.9 1995); United States v. Silverstein, 732 F.2d 1338, 1341 (C.A.7 1984). Testifying against, or otherwise informing on, gang activities can invite one’s own death sentence. It is worth noting in this regard that for prison gang members serving life sentences, some without the possibility of parole, the deterrent effects of ordinary criminal punishment may be substantially diminished. See id., at 1343 (“[T]o many inmates of Marion’s Control Unit [a federal Supermax facility,] the price of murder must not be high and to some it must be close to zero”). Wilkinson, 125 S. Ct. at 2396-97. Although, in the past, some prison officials in Illinois apparently intentionally abdicated their authority to prison gang leaders, this inexplicable deviation certainly does not 8 No. 03-3318 cast doubt on the reality that prison gangs are a manifest threat to prison order and discipline and that there is no federal constitutional impediment to their ban by prison officials. We thus agree with the district court that the gang plaintiffs’ contention that they have a right grounded in the First Amendment to belong to a prison gang is simply too tenuous to state a claim. See Jones, 433 U.S. at 126-29; Rios v. Lane, 812 F.2d 1032, 1036 (7th Cir. 1987).
The gang plaintiffs further submit that the district court erred in dismissing their § 1983 complaint because IDOC’s policy of transferring them to Tamms violates the Ex Post Facto Clause of the Constitution. They base their argument on IDOC’s pre-1996 policy of cooperating with prison gangs. According to the prisoners, IDOC’s policy shift from encouraging gang membership to transferring gang members to Tamms once the facility opened, constitutes ex post 4 facto punishment of previously allowed activity. The Ex Post Facto Clause forbids a legislature from passing laws retroactively altering the elements of or increasing the punishment for a crime. California Dep’t of Corr. v. Morales, 514 U.S. 499, 504 (1995). For ex post facto purposes, therefore, we must address whether (1) the action complained of constitutes a “law,” and (2) the sanction can be considered a “punishment.” Id. 4 In the alternative, the prisoners argue that the change in IDOC’s policy violates their due process rights because they were not given fair warning that gang membership would give rise to additional criminal penalties. We discuss this alternative argument in the due process discussion infra. No. 03-3318 9 On the first inquiry, we generally have limited ex post facto consideration to legislative acts, and have not extended the definition to interpretations of law made by administrative agencies. See Prater v. U.S. Parole Comm’n, 802 F.2d 948 (7th Cir. 1986) (en banc). Under Illinois law, IDOC has the discretionary authority to assign prisoners to any facility in its system, 730 ILCS § 5/5-8-6(a), and we cannot say that the exercise of this discretionary authority constitutes a “law” for ex post facto purposes. The prisoners also fail the second inquiry. “As Collins [v. Youngblood, 497 U.S. 37 (1990)] and subsequent cases make clear, the Ex Post Facto Clause does not prohibit every alteration in a prisoner’s confinement that may work to his disadvantage.” Gilbert v. Peters, 55 F.3d 237, 238 (7th Cir. 1995). “Punishment” for ex post facto analysis concerns the length of imprisonment, not the conditions of imprisonment. Garner v. Jones, 529 U.S. 244, 250 (2000); United States v. Shorty, 159 F.3d 312, 317 (7th Cir. 1998). We have noted that a significant factor to consider in determining whether a law is punitive is the statute’s purpose. Gilbert, 55 F.3d at 238. Although a transfer to Tamms constitutes a change in the conditions of confinement for a duly-convicted prisoner, it cannot be characterized as an increase in the punishment for the crime of conviction, but rather is a response to legitimate security concerns and forwards valid penological interests. See Morales, 514 U.S. at 510. The district court correctly dismissed the gang plaintiffs’ ex post facto claims.