Court Opinion

ID: 9866831
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 14:00:42.202934+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:41:45.933556
License: Public Domain

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
                        In the
         United States Court of Appeals
               For the Eleventh Circuit

                ____________________

                     No. 22-12184
                Non-Argument Calendar
                ____________________

WENDALL JERMAINE HALL,
                                        Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
versus
ELIZABETH PORFERT,
Clinician,
PATRICK MCCAWLEY,
Clinician,
JON CARNER,
Security Chief,

                                    Defendants-Appellees.

                ____________________
2                      Opinion of the Court                  22-12184

           Appeal from the United States District Court
                for the Middle District of Florida
            D.C. Docket No. 2:20-cv-00380-JES-MRM
                    ____________________

Before JORDAN, BRANCH, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
       Wendall Hall is a sexually violent predator housed in Flor-
ida’s Civil Commitment Center. In May 2020, he was reported by
two Commitment Center clinicians, Elizabeth Porfert and Patrick
McCawley, for two separate instances of misconduct. Security
Chief Carner held a disciplinary hearing and concluded that Hall
violated the Commitment Center’s conduct policy. As punish-
ment, Chief Carner sent Hall to the Commitment Center’s confine-
ment wing for sixty days. Chief Carner also lowered Hall’s “care
level,” which appears to be a measurement of how far along Hall
is in his rehabilitative process. Hall contends that Chief Carner’s
findings and punishment will have a secondary effect of extending
the amount of time Hall will be forced to spend in the Commit-
ment Center.
        Hall sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. He asserts that Porfert,
McCawley, and Chief Carner purposefully lied about Hall’s con-
duct. These lies were allegedly part of a coordinated effort aimed
at getting Hall back for filing lawsuits or grievances against Porfert,
as well as the defendants’ friends, Donald Sawyer and Emily
Salema. Hall contends that Porfert’s, McCawley’s, and Chief
22-12184               Opinion of the Court                         3

Carner’s behavior was First Amendment retaliation. Hall also ob-
jects to Chief Carner’s handling of the disciplinary proceeding: Hall
says that he was not given pre-hearing notice, nor was he allowed
to call witnesses on his behalf or otherwise present a defense. Hall
argues the disciplinary hearing and resulting punishment thus vio-
lated his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process of law. Fi-
nally, Hall claims that the Commitment Center’s conduct policy is
facially violative of the Due Process Clause because it is a duplica-
tive punishment for past crimes for which Hall has already been
convicted and served a prison sentence.
      The district court rejected all of Hall’s claims. Hall appealed.
We affirm.
       Hall’s First Amendment retaliation claim and his due pro-
cess attack on the disciplinary hearing are barred by the rule first
announced in Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994). Heck held that
a plaintiff cannot maintain a section 1983 suit if a favorable ruling
would undermine or invalidate the plaintiff’s conviction or sen-
tence. See Hall v. Merola, 67 F.4th 1282, 1290–91 (11th Cir. 2023).
This so-called “Heck bar” prevents a plaintiff from suing under sec-
tion 1983 unless and until the conviction has been ruled invalid. See
Heck, 512 U.S. at 486–87.
       Heck is not confined to challenges to criminal convictions.
The Supreme Court has applied it to suits that would question the
validity of “prison disciplinary convictions.” Hall, 67 F.4th at 1291
(citing Edwards v. Balisok, 520 U.S. 641, 645–48 (1997)). And other
circuits have held that Heck applies to claims brought by the civilly
4                      Opinion of the Court                  22-12184

committed. See Thomas v. Eschen, 928 F.3d 709, 711–13 (8th Cir.
2019); Huftile v. Miccio-Fonseca, 410 F.3d 1136, 1139–40 (9th Cir.
2005); see also Turner v. Johnson, 466 F.App’x 214 (4th Cir. 2012);
Thomas v. Schmitt, 380 F.App’x 549 (7th Cir. 2010); Banda v. N.J. Spe-
cial Treatment Unit Annex, 164 F.App’x 286 (3d Cir. 2006). That’s a
logical step: We often extend rules with prison origins to the civil
commitment context. See Boatman v. Berreto, 938 F.3d 1275, 1276–
77 (11th Cir. 2019); Dolihite v. Maughon ex rel. Videon, 74 F.3d 1027,
1041 (11th Cir. 1996).
       Because Heck applies, Hall’s suit is materially indistinguisha-
ble from Edwards v. Balisok, 520 U.S. 641 (1997). There, the plaintiff
alleged “that he was completely denied the opportunity to put on
a defense” or call witnesses to a prison disciplinary proceeding. Ed-
wards, 520 U.S. at 646–47. The Edwards plaintiff likewise accused
the “hearing officer himself” of “deceit and bias.” Id. at 647. Because
the Edwards plaintiff’s success would have “necessarily impl[ied]
the invalidity of” the internal disciplinary conviction, the Supreme
Court held that Heck barred the claim. Id. at 646. So too here. Hall
claims that the two main witnesses against him lied in their reports
and that the hearing officer not only denied him the ability to put
on a defense but worked with those two witnesses to punish him.
To succeed on such claims would “necessarily imply” that his in-
ternal conviction for violating the Commitment Center’s conduct
policy was invalid. Id. Thus, Heck bars his First Amendment retali-
ation claims and his due process attack on the disciplinary proceed-
ings.
22-12184               Opinion of the Court                          5

        That leaves Hall’s facial constitutional attack on the Com-
mitment Center’s conduct policy. Heck does not bar that claim—at
least to the extent that Hall is seeking to avoid future enforcement
of that policy. Id. at 648. But the claim fails because Hall cannot
establish that the policy is a punishment for his past crimes. The
civil commitment system is an effort to rehabilitate, not to punish.
Accordingly, we have said that involuntary residency in the Florida
Civil Commitment Center is not punitive. See Pesci v. Budz, 935
F.3d 1159, 1166 (11th Cir. 2019). Our decision in Pesci presupposes
that the Commitment Center’s rules are not punitive. If being civ-
illy committed in the first place is not punishment for a previous
crime as we held in Pesci, then it is not punitive to require residents
to follow the Commitment Center’s conduct policy. So Hall’s facial
constitutional attack must also fail.
       We AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.