Court Opinion

ID: 9554840
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-10 00:00:30.202818+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:36:50.477462
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-10094      Document: 00516851901         Page: 1     Date Filed: 08/09/2023

            United States Court of Appeals
                 for the Fifth Circuit                                 United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                Fifth Circuit
                                 ____________                                 FILED
                                                                         August 9, 2023
                                  No. 22-10094
                                                                         Lyle W. Cayce
                                 ____________
                                                                              Clerk

   Leo P. Collins,

                                                             Plaintiff—Appellant,

                                       versus

   Dallas Leadership Foundation; James Reed, C.E.O. and
   Director; Salvatore Alfredo, Chaplain,

                                            Defendants—Appellees.
                   ______________________________

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                       for the Northern District of Texas
                            USDC No. 3:21-CV-2568
                   ______________________________

   Before Clement, Elrod, and Willett, Circuit Judges.
   Edith Brown Clement, Circuit Judge:
          Leo Collins is a former Texas state prisoner proceeding pro se and in
   forma pauperis. Collins alleges in his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action that James Reed,
   the director of his former state prison’s faith-based dorm program, conspired
   with Salvatore Alfredo, a prison chaplain, to retaliate against him for filing a
   complaint under the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), 34 U.S.C. §§
   30301–09. He challenges the district court’s order dismissing his civil-rights
   complaint pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(i). We AFFIRM the
   dismissal of Collins’ complaint.
Case: 22-10094        Document: 00516851901             Page: 2      Date Filed: 08/09/2023

                                        No. 22-10094

                                               I
           As alleged in his briefing and complaint, Collins was a member of the
   faith-based dorm program. While he was enrolled, fellow inmates played
   homosexual “come-on” games. Finding the conduct inappropriate, and
   perhaps dangerous, Collins reported the behavior to his prison’s PREA
   coordinator. In late February 2021, Collins completed the program and
   moved into his prison’s general population facilities.
           Fortunately for Collins, he was also up for a parole review around this
   time. He believed his chances were good. After all, he had successfully
   completed the faith-based dorm program, and his parole officer told him the
   parole board “should be sending [him] on up the road!” Collins spoke with
   Salvatore Alfredo, a prison chaplain, about ensuring his time in the dorm
   program reflected as “C” for “Complete” in his parole materials. Alfredo
   assured Collins that he was good to go, but that wasn’t the case. In fact, when
   the parole board met, they saw an “E” for “Enrolled” in Collins’ paperwork
   regarding the faith-based dorm program instead of the “C” for “Complete,”
   which would have accurately reflected the progress he had made. In the end,
   the board denied parole at that time. 1
           Collins confronted Reed and Alfredo about his inaccurate parole
   materials and asked the PREA coordinator for advice. Collins then decided
   to initiate a grievance through the prison’s internal grievance procedure,
   which took about six months to complete. Subsequently, Collins filed this
   lawsuit.

           _____________________
           1
              Collins eventually received parole. But he is not a free man. Currently, he is
   federally incarcerated at Forrest City Medium FCI in Arkansas. See Find an inmate, Fed.
   Bureau of Prisons, https://www.bop.gov/inmateloc (search for BOP Register
   Number 15509-078) (last visited July 20, 2023).

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                                          No. 22-10094

           At the district court, the magistrate judge screened Collins’ IFP
   complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(i). He determined that Heck v.
   Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), barred Collins’ claims as frivolous. The
   magistrate judge then supplemented his recommendation after Collins filed
   a nearly identical amended complaint, again coming to the same conclusion.
   The district court adopted the recommendation and supplement and issued
   a judgment dismissing Collins’ complaint.
                                                II
           The district court must dismiss a plaintiff’s IFP civil-rights complaint
   if it is frivolous. 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(i). We review the district court’s
   order dismissing a complaint as frivolous for an abuse of discretion. Hamilton
   v. Lyons, 74 F.3d 99, 102 (5th Cir. 1996). And “[a] § 1983 claim which falls
   under the rule in Heck is legally frivolous unless the conviction or sentence at
   issue has been reversed, expunged, invalidated, or otherwise called into
   question.” Id. We also construe Collins’ filings liberally because he is a pro se
   litigant. See Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520–21 (1972).
                                                III
           Collins’ complaint asserts two causes of action: First, a due process
   violation regarding his allegedly flawed parole hearing; and Second, a
   retaliation claim based on his report to the PREA coordinator. 2 Both theories

           _____________________
           2
             In his brief, Collins raises a myriad of further constitutional claims for the first
   time. But even a pro se appellant cannot raise new theories for relief for the first time on
   appeal. See Johnson v. Cheney, 313 F. App’x 732, 733 (5th Cir. 2009) (per curiam) (“This
   court does not consider . . . new legal theories raised for the first time on appeal.” (citing
   Leverette v. Louisville Ladder Co., 183 F.3d, 342 (5th Cir. 1999))).

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   are premised on the same actions by Reed and Alfredo. The Heck rule bars
   both theories. 3
           In Heck, the Supreme Court determined 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 or sentence.” 512 U.S. at 487. The Court clarified what it meant
   by a “sentence” in Wilkinson v. Dotson, informing us that “[i]n context, Heck
   uses the word ‘sentence’ to refer not to prison procedures, but to substantive
   determinations as to the length of confinement,” such as parole decisions.
   544 U.S. 74, 83 (2005). So, if a court’s judgment would imply the invalidity
   of a parole determination, “the complaint must be dismissed unless the
   plaintiff can demonstrate that the [parole decision] has already been
   invalidated” by being “reversed on direct appeal, expunged by executive
   order, declared invalid by a state tribunal authorized to make such
   determination, or called into question by a federal court’s issuance of a writ
   of habeas corpus.” Heck, 512 U.S. at 487. The Heck rule applies whether a
   plaintiff is currently incarcerated or not. See Randell v. Johnson, 227 F.3d 300,
   301 (5th Cir. 2000) (per curiam).
           Collins relies on Dotson for the proposition that Heck does not bar his
   claim. There, the Supreme Court explained that claims of alleged due process
   violations during parole proceedings were not barred under the rule laid out

           _____________________
           3
             Regarding Collins’ due process claim, even if Heck did not apply, the magistrate
   judge was correct to dismiss that cause of action under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii)
   because it “fail[ed] to state a claim on which relief may be granted.” Under our precedent,
   “because Texas prisoners have no protected liberty interest in parole they cannot mount a
   challenge against any state parole review procedure on procedural (or substantive) Due
   Process grounds.” Johnson v. Rodriguez, 110 F.3d 299, 308 (5th Cir. 1997) (citations
   omitted). Consequently, because Collins bases his due process cause of action on the
   unfairness of his parole hearing, it fails to state a claim on which we can grant relief.

                                               4
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                                      No. 22-10094

   in Heck because an attack on the constitutionality of the parole proceeding’s
   procedures would not “necessarily have meant immediate release or a
   shorter period of incarceration; the prisoners attacked only the wrong
   procedures, not the wrong result.” Dotson, 544 U.S. at 78–80 (alteration
   adopted) (quotation marks and citation omitted).
          But Collins is not really challenging his parole procedures at all. Instead,
   he argues that the parole board’s determination was erroneous because it
   considered his inaccurate parole documents—an error Reed and Alfredo
   allegedly inserted into his parole review. In Collins’ own words, Reed and
   Alfredo’s actions “prevented [him] from a favorable review decision that
   could have expedited his parole release,” and he seeks $1,000 a day “since
   his parole was denied.” The implication is clear: But for the error in his
   paperwork, he would have been released, and he deserves damages because
   he was not. Collins thus challenges a “wrong result”—which Dotson
   specifically prohibits. 544 U.S. at 80.
          We have addressed a substantially similar case before. In Jeffery v.
   Owens, we held that Heck barred a prisoner from attacking a parole denial
   which he alleged was due to a specific error in his parole proceedings. 216 F.
   App’x 396, 397 (5th Cir. 2006) (per curiam). In that case, the plaintiff alleged
   that his parole record included arrests that had been expunged before review
   and that, as a result, the individuals on his parole board violated his civil rights
   by considering the faulty information. Id. And as with Collins, the plaintiff in
   Jeffery demanded punitive and compensatory monetary damages as part of
   his requested relief. As we found then, “[g]ranting [compensatory and
   punitive damages] necessarily implies that [the plaintiff] was denied parole
   in error.” Id. Consequently, it ran afoul of Heck’s prohibition of granting such
   relief “until the decision to deny [the plaintiff] parole is reversed or otherwise
   called into question.” Id. (citing Heck, 512 U.S. at 486–87).

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                                    No. 22-10094

          Collins argues that his parole decision was invalidated by a subsequent
   parole hearing that granted him parole. He says that “parole and release are
   ‘executive orders’ by the State of Texas, equivalent to a judge’s orders or
   decisions. Meaning, [they] satisfy[] the Heck favorable termination
   requirement.” However, by his admission, “another parole proceeding”
   ultimately released him. And the Certificate of Parole itself does not imply
   that the result of the prior parole hearing was invalid, much less that it was
   invalid due to the parole board having inaccurate information at the time of
   the preceding review.
          Of course, Jeffery does not bind us. But its logic is persuasive. Cf.
   Ballard v. Burton, 444 F.3d 391, 401 n.7 (5th Cir. 2006) (“An unpublished
   opinion issued after January 1, 1996 is not controlling precedent, but may be
   persuasive authority.”). The purpose of the rule laid out in Heck was to stop
   civil tort actions for damages where the plaintiff would be required “to prove
   the unlawfulness of his . . . confinement.” 512 U.S. at 486. Here, Collins
   believes he is owed money damages because he was not released after his
   early 2021 parole hearing due to Reed and Alfredo’s alleged retaliatory
   actions. Granting such relief would necessarily imply the invalidity of his
   confinement after that hearing for reaching the wrong determination.
   Consequently, Heck renders Collins’ claims frivolous.
          We AFFIRM. Collins’ outstanding motions are DENIED as moot.

                                         6