Court Opinion

ID: 9392768
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-06 00:00:48.352264+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:48.662361
License: Public Domain

Case: 21-50909    Document: 00516740169       Page: 1    Date Filed: 05/05/2023

          United States Court of Appeals
               for the Fifth Circuit                        United States Court of Appeals
                                                                     Fifth Circuit

                              ____________                         FILED
                                                                May 5, 2023
                                No. 21-50909
                                                                Lyle W. Cayce
                              ____________                           Clerk

   Hubert Edward Castro,

                                                        Plaintiff—Appellant,

                                    versus

   Warden Darren Wallace, TDCJ Hughes Unit, in his Individual and
   Official Capacity; Assistant Warden Toby Powell, TDCJ Hughes
   Unit, in his Individual and Official Capacity; Chimdi Akwitti;
   Beverly Dawn Smith; Captain Annette Martinez, TDCJ
   Hughes Unit, in her Individual and Official Capacity; Counsel
   Substitute K. Brase, TDCJ Hughes Unit, in his Individual and
   Official Capacity; Counsel Substitute Jane #2 Doe, TDCJ
   Hughes Unit, in her Individual and Official Capacity; Counsel
   Substitute Jane Doe #3, TDCJ Hughes Unit, in her Individual and
   Official Capacity; Director’s Review Committee -
   Huntsville, Individual and Official Capacity; Nichole McEntire;
   Diana Duff; Veronyka Kiss,

                                          Defendants—Appellees.
                 ______________________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Western District of Texas
                           USDC No. 6:20-CV-1116
                 ______________________________

   Before Richman, Chief Judge, and Stewart and Dennis, Circuit
   Judges:
Case: 21-50909         Document: 00516740169             Page: 2      Date Filed: 05/05/2023

                                          No. 21-50909

   Per Curiam:*
          Hubert Edward Castro, Texas prisoner #1049656, appeals the
   dismissal of his pro se 42 U.S.C. § 1983 civil rights complaint. For the
   following reasons, we AFFIRM in part, VACATE in part, and REMAND.
                                                I.
          Castro filed his complaint in 2020, arguing that the defendants
   violated his constitutional rights by filing false disciplinary charges against
   him and restricting his contact with his wife. Specifically, he alleged that in a
   2013 Inter-Office Communication (IOC), Darren Wallace, then the Stiles
   Unit assistant warden, recommended restricting Castro’s communications
   with his wife, Mrs. Cash-Castro, a former prison employee. The IOC
   indicated that Castro was a member of the Mexican Mafia and that Cash-
   Castro had provided Castro with a cellular telephone. Castro’s complaint
   further alleged that, in 2019, the defendants initiated a false disciplinary case
   against him based on conduct occurring in the Hughes Unit. Castro alleged
   that prison officials overheard him and his wife discussing the 2013 IOC and
   the possibility of initiating legal action against Wallace, who had become the
   Hughes Unit warden. Castro alleges that in retaliation for discussing this
   possible legal action, one of the defendants, Beverly Dawn Smith, falsely
   charged him in a disciplinary case with planning to inflict harm on Wallace
   and to smuggle contraband drugs (K2) into the prison with his wife’s help.
   Castro alleged that Smith based these false charges on alleged recordings or
   transcripts of conversations between him and his wife.
          Castro also alleged that certain defendants, including Chimdi Akwitti,
   improperly handled the grievances he filed challenging his disciplinary
   conviction for the false charges. Further, he alleges that K. Brase and the Jane
   Doe defendants, who acted as his counsel substitute during the disciplinary

          _____________________
          *
              This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.

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                                    No. 21-50909

   proceedings, violated his constitutional rights by failing to secure either a
   recording or a transcript of the alleged conversations between Castro and his
   wife. Castro sought compensatory and punitive damages, declaratory relief,
   and injunctive relief. After Castro filed a more definite statement at the
   request of the district court, defendants moved to dismiss the case pursuant
   to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b). The district court granted the
   motion to dismiss, and Castro appeals.
                                        II.
          We review a dismissal of a complaint pursuant to Federal Rules of
   Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6) de novo. See Smith v. Hood, 900 F.3d
   180, 184 (5th Cir. 2018).
                                        III.
                                        A.
          An individual state officer sued in his official capacity for § 1983
   money damages is entitled to immunity. See Oliver v. Scott, 276 F.3d 736, 742
   (5th Cir. 2002). Dismissal of such claims is proper under Rule 12(b)(1) and is
   reviewed de novo. See Smith, 900 F.3d at 184. Claims for declaratory and
   prospective injunctive relief against such state officers in their official
   capacities are permissible. Aguilar v. Texas Dep’t of Crim. Just., 160 F.3d
   1052, 1054 (5th Cir. 1998). Contrary to Castro’s arguments, the district court
   properly dismissed his claims for damages against the defendants in their
   official capacities and recognized that the immunity doctrine did not bar his
   remaining claims. See Oliver, 276 F.3d at 742.
                                        B.
          The district court also dismissed Castro’s claims against K. Brase and
   the Jane Doe defendants, who acted as Castro’s counsel substitutes during
   the disciplinary proceedings. The court determined that the defendants were

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                                    No. 21-50909

   not state actors for purposes of § 1983 liability, and Castro had not alleged a
   conspiracy to commit an illegal act and violate his constitutional rights
   between the defendants and a state actor.
          To state a § 1983 claim against his counsel substitutes, Castro was
   required to “(1) allege a violation of a right secured by the Constitution or
   laws of the United States and (2) demonstrate that the alleged deprivation
   was committed by a person acting under color of state law.” Pratt v. Harris
   Cnty., 822 F.3d 174, 180 (5th Cir. 2016) (internal quotation marks and
   citation omitted). In Banuelos v. McFarland, we analogized the role of a
   counsel substitute to that of a public defender and noted that a public
   defender does not act under color of state law when acting as an advocate. 41
   F.3d 232, 234 (5th Cir. 1995) (citing Polk Cnty. v. Dodson, 454 U.S. 312, 318-
   19 (1981)). We therefore held that the actions of counsel substitute in a prison
   disciplinary hearing likewise are not actions under color of state law. Id. As
   alleged in Castro’s complaint, K. Brase and the Jane Doe defendants served
   as counsel substitutes, acting as Castro’s advocates during the disciplinary
   hearing, and are therefore not state actors. See id. The district court did not
   err in dismissing Castro’s claims against these defendants.
                                         C.
          The district court also rejected Castro’s claim against Akwitti, noting
   that supervisory officials cannot be held vicariously liable in § 1983 cases;
   rather, they only may be held liable if they are personally involved in the
   alleged constitutional violation. Here, Castro has not alleged that Akwitti was
   personally involved aside from his routine handling of a grievance, and Castro
   had no constitutional right to have his grievance resolved in a favorable
   manner. Further, even if a prison official overturned the disciplinary
   conviction after Castro filed a Step 2 grievance, Castro’s argument that he
   was denied a meaningful prison grievance proceeding by Akwitti’s denial of

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                                     No. 21-50909

   his Step 1 grievance was properly dismissed because any due process error in
   his disciplinary case was cured when the case was overturned through the
   administrative appeal process. See Ard v. Leblanc, 404 F. App’x 928, 929 (5th
   Cir. 2010); Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 483-84 (1995).
                                          D.
          For the first time in his reply brief, Castro challenges the district
   court’s dismissal of his retaliation claim. This court does not consider issues
   raised for the first time in a reply brief, and we therefore affirm the district
   court’s dismissal of Castro’s retaliation claim. See Morin v. Moore, 309 F.3d
   316, 328 (5th Cir. 2002).
                                          E.
          In rejecting Castro’s claim that the defendants violated his
   constitutional rights by restricting contact with his wife, the district court
   held that the prison had a legitimate interest in maintaining security that
   justified such a restriction, given that Castro’s wife had smuggled an illegal
   cell phone into the prison in 2013, Castro and his wife sought to smuggle K2
   into the prison in 2019, and they sought to harm Warden Wallace in 2019.
   Although the 2019 disciplinary conviction was overturned, the district court
   concluded that the conviction was overturned for procedural reasons, which
   did not eliminate the security risk posed by Castro.
          Our review of the district court’s Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal is de novo.
   See Smith, 900 F.3d at 184. We, like the district court, must accept all well-
   pleaded facts as true and view those facts in the light most favorable to the
   plaintiff. Walker v. Beaumont Indep. Sch. Dist., 938 F.3d 724, 735 (5th Cir.
   2019). Dismissal “is warranted if the complaint does not contain sufficient
   factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on
   its face.” Id. at 734 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

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Case: 21-50909       Document: 00516740169         Page: 6   Date Filed: 05/05/2023

                                    No. 21-50909

            Prisoners retain First Amendment free speech rights that are
   consistent “with the legitimate penological objectives of the corrections
   system.” Brewer v. Wilkinson, 3 F.3d 816, 821 (5th Cir. 1993) (internal
   quotation marks and citation omitted). Restrictions on those rights cannot be
   greater than necessary to protect the correctional interests involved. Id. at
   822. “[P]risoners have no absolute constitutional right to visitation,” but
   “[e]ven so, limitations of visitation may be imposed only if they are necessary
   to meet legitimate penological objectives.” Lynott v. Henderson, 610 F.2d
   340, 342-43 (5th Cir. 1980); see Berry v. Brady, 192 F.3d 504, 508 (5th Cir.
   1999).
            To support the conclusion that there was a reasonable penological
   interest at stake, the district court pointed to the 2013 IOC that Castro and
   his wife smuggled an illegal cell phone into the prison and the 2019
   disciplinary case that claimed Castro sought to smuggle K2 into the prison
   and to harm Wallace. As to the 2013 IOC, however, Castro alleged in his
   complaint and in his response to the district court’s request for a more
   definite statement that the IOC contained false charges and that the
   defendants permitted him to resume contact with his wife five years after the
   2013 IOC. Viewing the facts as true and in the light most favorable to Castro,
   see Walker, 938 F.3d at 735, the defendants no longer considered the
   smuggled telephone a security concern in 2019, because he was permitted to
   resume contact with her.
            The remaining two grounds supporting the district court’s decision—
   Castro’s supposed attempts to smuggle K2 into the prison and to harm
   Wallace with his wife’s help—are belied by Castro’s attachment to his
   complaint, which shows that these grounds were the basis of the 2019
   disciplinary conviction, which was subsequently overturned. Castro alleged
   in his complaint that he and his wife never discussed smuggling K2 into the
   prison, nor did they discuss harming Wallace, but instead had discussed filing

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Case: 21-50909      Document: 00516740169           Page: 7     Date Filed: 05/05/2023

                                     No. 21-50909

   a lawsuit against Wallace, and the defendants made false accusations against
   him in the disciplinary proceeding in retaliation for his intent to file a lawsuit
   against Wallace. Although the district court concluded that the disciplinary
   conviction was overturned for procedural reasons, which could mean that the
   grounds underlying the conviction remained valid security concerns, the
   grievance report provides no express reason for the decision to overturn the
   conviction. It is true that Castro argued that his procedural due process rights
   were violated during the disciplinary proceedings, and it is therefore possible
   that the grievance officer’s decision to overturn the conviction was based on
   these procedural reasons. But construing the facts in Castro’s favor, we
   cannot conclude that the conviction was certainly overturned for procedural
   reasons, and the district court therefore erred in not construing the facts in
   the light most favorable to Castro.
          Given Castro’s allegations that the defendants permitted him to
   resume contact with his wife a few years after the 2013 IOC, that his 2019
   disciplinary conviction was overturned, and that the charges against him
   were false, and the absence of facts showing that the conviction was
   overturned for procedural reasons, we conclude that the district court did not
   accept Castro’s allegations as true and view them in the light most favorable
   to Castro. See Walker, 938 F.3d at 735. Accordingly, we vacate and remand
   as to the district court’s ruling on Castro’s First Amendment claim. As it
   appears that Castro is no longer housed in either the Stiles or Hughes Units
   where he alleged that the 2013 and 2019 incidents occurred, the district court
   will be in a better position to determine the effect of his transfer on remand.
   See Cooper v. Sheriff, Lubbock Cnty., 929 F.2d 1078, 1084 (5th Cir. 1991).
                                          IV.
          Accordingly, the district court’s judgment is AFFIRMED in part,
   VACATED in part, and REMANDED for further proceedings consistent

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                               No. 21-50909

   with this opinion. Castro’s motion for the appointment of counsel is
   DENIED.

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