Court Opinion

ID: 9496078
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:17:40.902535+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:21.699779
License: Public Domain

*447GILMAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
While incarcerated, Jeffrey Goodwin wrote a letter criticizing the Ohio Parole Board for allegedly engaging in discriminatory practices that resulted in unnecessarily long sentences, and for exercising unfettered discretion. This letter was published in the Cleveland Call and Post newspaper in October of 1996.
Goodwin had his first parole hearing in May of 1998 before Parole Board members Larry Matthews and Donald Cataldi. During this hearing, Mathews allegedly threatened to give Goodwin an “excessive-sentence” in order to punish him for publicly criticizing the Parole Board and to deter others from doing the same. Matthews then assigned Goodwin a conviction-offense level of seven, despite allegedly having acknowledged that Goodwin was entitled to a conviction-offense level of only four. Under the Parole Board Guidelines, the conviction-offense level of seven prevented Goodwin from becoming eligible for release until after April 1, 2005, whereas a conviction-offense level of four would have entitled him to almost immediate release from incarceration. The defendants assert that the increased offense level was assigned to Goodwin because of his alleged involvement in an armed robbery, not in retaliation for his letter published in the Cleveland Call and Post.
Goodwin filed a request for reconsideration with the full Parole Board, seeking review of the determination by Matthews and Cataldi. On February 12, 1999, a majority of the full Parole Board voted to rescind the prior ruling and rehear the matter. Goodwin was then given a second hearing on April 23, 1999 before Parole Board members Jay Denton and Bernice Vance. Denton and Vance found that Goodwin was entitled to -a conviction-offense level of four rather than seven. In arriving at the conviction-offense level of four, however, Denton and Vance did not consider the armed robbery offense.
Goodwin alleges that soon after the April 1999 hearing, Matthews called him into the hearing room to tell him that he would be referring Goodwin’s, case to the full Parole Board. Matthews allegedly alluded to the letter in the Cleveland Call and Post when he told Goodwin that “the outcome [before the full Parole Board] would be different.” On June 30,1999, the full Parole Board conducted a third proceeding, at which time it determined that Goodwin’s proper conviction-offense level was indeed seven, thus continuing his sentence of imprisonment until at least April of 2005.
Goodwin’s complaint, which is based upon 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleges that the Ohio Parole Board retaliated against him in violation of his First Amendment rights. The Supreme Court’s basic test for the validity of a § 1983 action by prisoners— “whether a judgment in favor of the plaintiff would necessarily imply the invalidity of [the prisoner’s] conviction or sentence,” Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 487, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994) — requires that these actions must be examined on a case-by-case basis in order to determine whether the prisoner has a cognizable claim. Another key Supreme Court decision, Edwards v. Balisok, 520 U.S. 641, 117 S.Ct. 1584, 137 L.Ed.2d 906 (1997), addresses “the possibility, clearly envisioned by Heck, that the nature of the challenge to the procedures could be such as necessarily to imply the invalidity of the judgment.” Id. at 645, 117 S.Ct. 1584. The district court, on the basis of Heck and Edwards, granted the state’s motion for summary judgment because a ruling in Goodwin’s favor would necessarily imply the invalidity of the Ohio Parole Board’s *448decision to deny him an immediate release on parole.
Of the three cases that are before us in this consolidated en banc appeal, Goodwin’s claim is the one that is most analogous to the facts that barred the prisoner’s § 1983 claim in Edwards. The nature of Goodwin’s claim goes to the very heart of why the Supreme Court ruled in Edwards that an attack on prison procedures can imply the invalidity of the underlying conviction or sentence. As in the case before us, Edwards’s § 1983 challenge was based on the personal animus against him that allegedly took place at a disciplinary hearing:
Respondent’s claim ... assert[s] that the cause of the exclusion of the exculpatory evidence was the deceit and bias of the hearing officer himself. He contends that the hearing officer lied about the nonexistence of witness statements, and thus “intentionally denied” him the right to present exculpatory evidence.
Id. at 647, 117 S.Ct. 1584 (internal citations omitted). Yet the Supreme Court held that Edwards’s § 1983 claim could not be maintained, because the allegation of intentional misconduct on the part of the hearing officer at the disciplinary proceeding necessarily implied the invalidity of the decision against Edwards. The same is true of Goodwin’s claim, and I see no principled distinction between the two cases. I therefore concur in affirming the judgment of the district court.