Opinion ID: 155223
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Good Time Credits

Text: The revocation of Mr. Janke’s good time credits, however, may be another matter. See Thiret v. Kautzky, 792 P.2d 801, 804-06 (1990) (providing a general explanation of Colorado parole law). Mr. Janke was apparently convicted of crimes committed between July 1, 1979 and July 1, 1985, and thus he is entitled to mandatory parole based in part on his accumulated good time credits. See Colo. Rev. Stat. § 17-22.5-303(1)-(3) (1986); Thiret, 792 P.2d at 805.1 As such, the deprivation of these good time credits “has real substance and is sufficiently embraced within Fourteenth Amendment ‘liberty’ to entitle [Mr. Janke] to those minimum procedures appropriate under the circumstances as required by the Due Process Clause.” Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 556-57 (1974) (noting that the Nebraska statutory scheme created a right to good time credits and a shortened prison sentence); see Taylor v. Wallace, 931 F.2d 698, 700 (10th Cir. 1991) (quoting Ponte v. Real, 471 U.S. 491, 495 (1985)). 1 Specifically, Mr. Janke was convicted of several counts of sexual assault and kidnaping. See People v. Janke, 895 P.2d 1102 (Colo. App. 1994); People v. Janke, 720 P.2d 613 (Colo. App. 1986). Under Colo. Rev. Stat. 17-2-201(5)(a), persons sentenced for sexual offenses, including sexual assault, are exempt from mandatory parole provisions. Because Appellees do not raise this issue here, and because the record is unclear as to Mr. Janke’s underlying convictions, we follow the district court’s assumption that Mr. Janke’s claims fall within Colorado’s mandatory parole scheme. 5
Because Mr. Janke’s procedural due process claims concern the revocation of good time credits, thereby challenging the length of his sentence, we must determine whether they are cognizable in § 1983 at all, or whether, instead, the claim should be classified as a habeas corpus action. See Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 481-83 (1994). In Heck, the Supreme Court held that when a state prisoner seeks damages in a § 1983 suit, “the district court must consider whether a judgment in favor of the plaintiff would necessarily imply the invalidity of his conviction and sentence; if it would, the complaint must be dismissed unless the plaintiff can demonstrate that the conviction or sentence has already been invalidated. But if the district court determines that the plaintiff’s action, even if successful, will not demonstrate the invalidity of any outstanding criminal judgment against the plaintiff, then the action should be allowed to proceed in the absence of some other bar to the suit.” Id. at 487. Recently, in Edwards v. Balisok, 117 S. Ct. 1584, 1588 (1997), in an action based on due process violations similar to those alleged here, the Court refined the Heck limitation on the scope of § 1983 actions. Specifically, the Court rejected the Ninth Circuit’s ruling that “a claim challenging only the procedures employed in a disciplinary hearing is always cognizable under § 1983.” Edwards 117 S. Ct. at 1587. The Court observed that there was a well-established distinction in the case law between a claim “that the procedures were wrong” and a claim “that the result was.” Id. However, the 6 Court further stated, “the nature of the challenge to the procedures could be such as necessarily to imply the invalidity of the judgment.” Id. The Edwards Court then applied the distinction between claims that necessarily imply the invalidity of the judgment and claims that do not. Mr. Edwards, the plaintiff prisoner in a § 1983 action alleging a procedural due process claim, had alleged that he was deprived of the opportunity to present any exculpatory evidence whatsoever at his disciplinary hearing and that the hearing officer “intentionally denied” him the right to present extant exculpatory statements. 117 S. Ct. at 1588. According to Mr. Edwards, the cause of the exclusion of the exculpatory evidence was the “deceit and bias of the hearing officer himself.” Id. In spite of these allegations, Mr. Edwards “limited his request to damages for depriving him of good-time credits without due process, not for depriving him of goodtime credits as a substantive matter.” Id. at 1587. Although Mr. Edwards had not specifically requested a restoration of good time credits, the Supreme Court concluded that if he established the principal procedural defect that he alleged, this result necessarily implied the invalidity of the deprivation of his good time credits. The Court analogized Mr. Edwards’s allegations to those of a criminal defendant tried by a partial judge: if the allegations were established, the defendant would be “entitled to have his conviction set aside no matter how strong the evidence against him.” Id. at 1588 (citing Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U.S. 510, 535 (1927) and Arizona v Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 308 (1991)). Thus, 7 the Court said, the plaintiff prisoner’s claim “for declaratory relief and money damages, based on allegations of deceit and bias on the part of the decisionmaker that necessarily imply the invalidity of the punishment imposed, is not cognizable under § 1983,” but is properly addressed as a petition for habeas corpus relief. See id. at 1588-89; Heck, 512 U.S. at 481 (stating that “habeas corpus is the exclusive remedy for a state prisoner who challenges the fact or duration of his confinement and seeks . . . speedier release”) (citing Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 488-90 (1973)); Smith v. Maschner, 899 F.2d 940, 951 (10th Cir. 1990). In the instant case, unlike the artful plaintiff in Edwards, Mr. Janke undisputedly seeks the restoration of his good-time credits (see Aplt’s Br. at XV; Rec. Doc. 3, at 3, and 5).2 Mr. Janke alleges that had he been allowed to present witnesses at the disciplinary hearing, the evidence would have established that he was not guilty of the alleged infractions. See Rec. doc. 18 ex. E at 3; doc. 3, addendum at 3; Janke, 43 F.3d at 1291, 1292. Specifically, he alleges that the disciplinary hearing officer, defendant Timothy R. Ritter, deprived Mr. Janke the opportunity to present two witnesses and related 2 On appeal, Mr. Janke prays for prospective injunctive relief enjoining the defendants from future violations of due process during disciplinary hearings and from further retaliation against Mr. Janke for this action or any other action. “Ordinarily, a prayer for such prospective injunctive relief will not ‘necessarily imply’ the invalidity of a previous loss of good time credits,” and is cognizable under § 1983. Edwards, 117 S. Ct. at 1589. Mr. Janke did not present this prayer for relief below, however, and we shall not consider it on appeal. See John Hancock Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Weisman, 27 F.3d 500, 506 (10th Cir. 1994) (citing Allen v. Minnstar, Inc., 8 F.3d 1470, 1475 (10th Cir. 1993)). 8 documentary evidence at his disciplinary hearing. See Aplt’s Br. at VI-VII, XI-XII; see Wolff, 418 U.S. at 566 (inmate subjected to discipline is entitled to call witnesses and present documentary evidence in his defense if not unduly hazardous to institutional safety). Unlike the Edwards claimant, the record here indicates that Mr. Janke was allowed some opportunity to present a defense: he called one witness and he engaged in crossexamination of the prosecution’s witnesses. Arguably, Mr. Janke’s procedural due process claims, if established, would not necessarily entitle him “to have his conviction set aside no matter how strong the evidence against him,” as was the case in Edwards. See 117 S. Ct. at 1588. Because Mr. Janke emphasizes his innocence, however, and seeks restoration of his good times credits, we are not at liberty to parse his claims to find one that is immediately cognizable under § 1983. Moreover, as both this court and the district court have recognized, Mr. Janke’s claims focus on the outcome of the disciplinary proceeding. See Janke v. Price, 43 F.3d at 1391 ( “Mr. Janke alleges that in the disciplinary proceeding that followed, the defendants violated his due process rights, thereby making his subsequent conviction and punishment invalid.”); Rec. doc. 51, at 3 (Dist. Ct. Order of Dismissal) (Mr. Janke’s claims “would have tended to show that [he] did not place the dangerous drugs . . . in the cell;” but the court found and “concluded that the excluded testimony would not have affected the outcome of the hearing.”). In other words, according to Mr. Janke, the 9 alleged procedural due process violations led prison officials to reach the wrong result at the disciplinary hearing and to improperly revoke his good time credits. Unlike prisoner plaintiffs with cognizable § 1983 claims, Mr. Janke does not allege a procedural due process claim “without any regard to the outcome of the disciplinary process in his case” or a claim that “does not require a federal court to decide whether the disciplinary process against [him] reached the correct result” or that “would be viable even if either of his disciplinary hearings had not led to any sanctions at all.” See Clayton-El v. Fisher, 96 F.3d 236, 241-43 (7th Cir. 1996) (discussing claims that are cognizable in § 1983 and claims that are cognizable in habeas).3 Accordingly, Mr. Janke’s claims that seek restoration of his good time credits are not cognizable under § 1983 until he has established that the conviction or sentence has been declared invalid. See Heck, 512 U.S. at 483; see also Clayton-El, 96 F.3d at 242 (“These principles of deference and reticence that guide the federal courts . . . prevent the district courts from considering any issues that could be cognizable in a § 2254 claim until the state prisoner has exhausted his state court remedies.”).4 3 “The distinction between these two sorts of claims is clearly established in our case law, as is the plaintiff’s entitlement to recover at least nominal damages under § 1983 if he proves [a procedural due process error] without also proving [that the result was wrong].” Edwards, 117 S. Ct. at 1587 (citing Carey v. Piphus, 435 U.S. 247, 260 (1978)). That is, the procedural error might be harmless to the outcome of the claimant’s hearing. 4 Similarly, an insufficiency of the evidence claim can be cognizable in § 1983. Because the burden of evidence required to support the disciplinary hearing officer’s decision to revoke good time credits is minimal, we could find a procedural violation 10 Mr. Janke’s cognizable remedy is a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. “The district court could liberally construe his complaint as a section 2254 petition.” Smith, 899 F.2d at 951. The magistrate judge addressed this issue, finding nothing in the record to suggest that Mr. Janke had exhausted his state court remedies. See Rec. doc. 55 at 10. Although the district court adopted nearly all of the magistrate’s recommendations, it stated it “need not reach [the magistrate judge’s] alternate conclusion that Mr. Janke’s case is a petition for habeas corpus as to which he has not exhausted state remedies.” Id. doc. 57 at 5. We have closely examined the record, and we agree with the magistrate judge’s report that Mr. Janke has not exhausted his state court remedies on his claims that he is entitled to restoration of his good time credits. Therefore, we dismiss these claims without prejudice. without implying the invalidity of the loss of the claimant’s good-time credits. See Edwards, 117 S. Ct. at 1588-89 (suggesting that where the challenge is based on an insufficiency of the evidence, a finding of a procedural due process violation may not implicate the invalidity of defendant’s conviction); Mitchell v. Maynard, 80 F.3d 1433, 1445 (10th Cir. 1996) (“If there is some evidence to support the disciplinary [hearing officer’s] decision to revoke good time credits, then the requirements of procedural due process have been met.”). Here, however, Mr. Janke couples his insufficiency of the evidence claim with his inability to present witnesses and evidence, and we are unwilling to supply Mr. Janke with arguments, nor to extend the dicta in Edwards to this case. See Drake v. City of Fort Collins, 927 F.2d 1156, 1159 (10th Cir. 1991) (“Despite the liberal construction afforded pro se pleadings, the court will not construct arguments or theories for [claimant] in the absence of any discussion of those issues.”) (citing Dunn v. White, 880 F.2d 1188, 1197 (10th Cir. 1989)). 11