Robert Westefer v. Snyder .

725 F.Supp.2d 735

Robert WESTEFER, et al., Plaintiffs,

v.Donald SNYDER, et al., Defendants.

No. CIV 00-162-GPM, CIV 00-708-GPM.

United States District Court,S.D. Illinois.

July 20, 2010.

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Alan S. Mills, Uptown People's Law, Lawrence A. Wojcik, Raj N. Shah, Raja S. Gaddipati, Tomas M. Thompson, David J. Pivnick, Elizabeth Bartels, Nika K. Gembicki, DLA Piper US LLP, Paul Homer, Piper Rudnick, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiffs.

Christopher L. Higgerson, Ellen C. Bruce, Joseph N. Rupcich, Larry J. Lipka, Ryan A. Nelson, Terence Corrigan, Julie Morgan, Illinois Attorney General's Office, Springfield, IL, Erik Light, Illinois Attorney General's Office, Chicago, IL, for Defendants.

Kelly R. Choate, Illinois Attorney General's Office, Springfield, IL.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

MURPHY, District Judge:

I. Introduction

The named Plaintiffs in this case, Robert Westefer, Mark Von Perbandt, Alejandro Villazana, Armando Tinajero, Corey A. Taylor, Michael Sparling, Joe Sorrentino, Anibal Santiago, Tyshawn Ross, Vincente Rodriguez, Edward Rodriguez, Vincent Reyna, Alex Muller, William Lasley, Ted Knox, Michael Johnson, Eugene Horton, George Harper, Timothy Hall, John Gill, Larry Gambrell, Larry Foutch, Robert Felton, Kennard Combs, Maurice Coleman, Leverne Clayton, Gary Clark, Roosevelt Burrell, Finner Bryant, Larry Brown, Aryules Bivens, and Bennie Cunningham, are past and present inmates in the custody of the Illinois Department of Corrections (“IDOC”) who, at the times relevant to this case, have been incarcerated in the closed maximum security prison (“supermax prison”) at the Tamms Correctional Center (“Tamms”) in Tamms, Illinois. ¹ Plaintiff Mary Chapman is the legal representative of Marcus Chapman, who formerly was a Plaintiff in this case until he committed suicide while in IDOC custody at Tamms on August 26, 2004. Defendants Donald Snyder, Odie Washington, Michael V. Neal, George DeTella, Michael O'Leary, Dwayne Clark, Jerry Gilmore, Rodney Ahitow, Roger Cowan, Thomas Page, Roger Walker, Salvador Godinez, Guy Pierce, Barbara Hurt, Rick Orr, Ronald Meek, Jason Garnett, Deirdre Battaglia, Eddie Jones, Don Hulick, and Roger Zimmerman are present and former officials and employees of the IDOC.

Plaintiffs seek relief in this case under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that Defendants have violated their right to procedural due process under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution by employing constitutionally inadequate procedures when assigning IDOC inmates to the supermax prison at Tamms. Additionally, Plaintiffs Westefer, Von Perbandt, Villazana, Tinajero, Sparling, Sorrentino, Santiago, Ross, V. Rodriguez, E. Rodriguez, Reyna, Muller, Lasley, Knox, Johnson, Horton, Harper, Hall, Gill, Gambrell, Foutch, Felton, Combs, Coleman, Clayton, Clark, Chapman, Burrell, Bryant, Brown, and Bivens represent a class defined as “[a]ll inmates who have been transferred to [Tamms] since January 1, 1998, and all prisoners who will be transferred to Tamms in the future.” Westefer v. Snyder, Civil Nos. 00-162-GPM, 00-708-GPM, 2006 WL 2639972, at *12 (S.D.Ill. Sept. 12, 2006). The class-wide claims in this case are solely for injunctive and declaratory relief, not damages. See id. at *9. Also, in previous orders in this case the Court has held that the doctrine of qualified immunity shields Defendants from liability in damages to the named Plaintiffs in this case as individuals for the due process violations alleged by the named Plaintiffs. See Westefer v. Snyder, Civil Nos. 00-162-GPM, 00-708-GPM, 2009 WL 2905548, at **9-11 (S.D.Ill. Sept. 4, 2009); Cunningham v. Snyder, 472 F.Supp.2d 1023, 1033 (S.D.Ill.2006). The class-wide procedural due process claims in this case now have been fully tried to the Court in the course of an eight-day bench trial. Pursuant to Rule 52(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Court enters this Order as its findings of fact and conclusions of law with respect to the class-wide procedural due process claims. ²

II. Analysis

A. Mootness

Before addressing the merits of the claims for violations of procedural due process in this case, the Court feels constrained to address the issue of whether the due process claims are moot in light of certain reforms that are being implemented by the IDOC in connection with confinement at the supermax prison at Tamms. The issue of mootness is one that implicates the Court's subject matter jurisdiction, which extends, of course, only to “Cases” and “Controversies.” Summers v. Earth Island Inst., --- U.S. ----, 129 S.Ct. 1142, 1148, 173 L.Ed.2d 1 (2009) (quoting U.S. Const. art. 3, § 2, cl. 1). See also Wernsing v. Thompson, 423 F.3d 732, 745 (7th Cir.2005) ( “Mootness ... is always a threshold jurisdictional question that we must address even when it is not raised by the parties.”); Ortiz v. John O. Butler Co., 94 F.3d 1121, 1125 (7th Cir.1996) (“A federal court's subject matter jurisdiction extends only to actual cases and controversies.”). In light of the case or controversy requirement, a federal court has no jurisdiction to entertain moot controversies. See Church of Scientology of Cal. v. United States, 506 U.S. 9, 12, 113 S.Ct. 447, 121 L.Ed.2d 313 (1992) (quoting Mills v. Green, 159 U.S. 651, 653, 16 S.Ct. 132, 40 L.Ed. 293 (1895)) (“[A] federal court has no authority ‘to give opinions upon moot questions or abstract propositions, or to declare principles or rules of law which cannot affect the matter in issue in the case before it.’ ”); Powell v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486, 496-97, 89 S.Ct. 1944, 23 L.Ed.2d 491 (1969) (a federal court can consider only cases and controversies and therefore cannot consider moot cases). Accordingly, the issue of mootness needs to be addressed by the Court as a threshold matter. See Leroy v. Great W. United Corp., 443 U.S. 173, 180, 99 S.Ct. 2710, 61 L.Ed.2d 464 (1979) (issues affecting a court's subject matter jurisdiction are “fundamentally preliminary”); Walters v. Edgar, 163 F.3d 430, 432 (7th Cir.1998) (“[T]he existence of a case or controversy in the Article III sense, that is, a real dispute between parties with tangible stakes in the outcome, must be continuous from the beginning of the suit to the end. If a case becomes moot, the court loses jurisdiction, even though the case was not moot when filed.”) (citations omitted).

On September 3, 2009, IDOC Director Michael Randle submitted to Patrick Quinn, the Governor of Illinois, a “Ten-Point Plan” (hereinafter, “the Ten-Point Plan” or simply “the Plan”) aimed at ameliorating aspects of confinement at the supermax prison at Tamms. See Tamms Closed Maximum Security Unit: Overview and Ten-Point Plan (Plaintiffs' Exhibit 7). A number of the reforms proposed in the Ten-Point Plan are pertinent to the procedural due process claims in this case, including: allowing each IDOC inmate that is placed at the supermax prison at Tamms to have a transfer review hearing where the inmate can contest his placement at the supermax prison; furnishing each inmate, on arrival at Tamms, with an estimate of the probable length of his stay and explaining how, through good behavior, the inmate can earn transfer out of the supermax prison; ensuring that inmates assigned to Tamms receive a full mental health examination within thirty days of placement at the supermax prison and taking measures to identify and monitor inmates that may be suffering deteriorating mental health as a result of placement at Tamms; increasing inmate privileges such as telephone calls, out-of-cell time, and showers, as an incentive for good behavior; offering General Educational Development (“GED”) testing at Tamms; implementing congregate religious services at Tamms; lifting certain restrictions on the amount of printed material Tamms inmates are allowed to possess; developing a reassignment unit at Tamms to help inmates reassigned from the supermax prison to lower-security prisons to adjust to their reassignment; and reevaluating the eligibility for transfer of inmates who have been incarcerated long-term at Tamms. See id. at 14-26. As should become apparent presently from the Court's discussion of whether IDOC inmates have a due process liberty interest in avoiding confinement at Tamms, IDOC Director Randle's proposed reforms directly address a number of objections to Tamms raised by Plaintiffs and the class.

As Plaintiffs point out, the Ten-Point Plan, though it has been approved by Governor Quinn, has not yet been fully implemented by the IDOC through, for example, the promulgation of appropriate regulations. See Doc. 522 (Testimony of Michael Randle) at 41-42. Also, as the Court has had occasion to note at an earlier stage of this case, “it is well settled that a voluntary cessation of complained-of conduct generally does not moot a lawsuit.” Westefer, 2006 WL 2639972, at *10 (collecting cases). See also Federation of Adver. Indus. Representatives, Inc. v. City of Chicago, 326 F.3d 924, 929 (7th Cir.2003) (quoting United States v. W.T. Grant Co., 345 U.S. 629, 632, 73 S.Ct. 894, 97 L.Ed. 1303 (1953)) (noting “the general principle that a defendant's voluntarily cessation of challenged conduct will not render a case moot because the defendant remains ‘free to return to his old ways.’ ”); Milwaukee Police Ass'n v. Jones, 192 F.3d 742, 747 (7th Cir.1999) (voluntary cessation of activity does not render a case moot unless the defendant can demonstrate that there is no reasonable expectation that the wrong will be repeated). In this instance the Court believes it is inappropriate to find mootness, given that, despite IDOC Director Randle's proposed reforms, Defendants continue to insist that conditions at Tamms do not implicate due process concerns. Even more importantly, as will be discussed in more detail presently, the Ten-Point Plan as proposed by IDOC Director Randle and approved by Governor Quinn does not cure...