Bey v. Schartz et al

Filing 12

ORDER DISMISSING CASE. Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(b)(1), this action is DISMISSED without prejudice for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. Plaintiff Prince Bey is advised that the dismissal of this case counts as a "strike" within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g). The Clerk of Court will enter judgment in accordance with the attached order. Signed by Judge G. Patrick Murphy on 1/19/2012. (jhs)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
PRINCE BEY, IDOC # N60745,
Plaintiff,
vs.
GREG SCHARTZ, et al.,
Defendants.

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CIVIL NO. 11-951-GPM

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
MURPHY, District Judge:
Plaintiff Prince Bey, a prisoner of the Illinois Department of Corrections (“IDOC”) who
currently is on mandatory supervised release (“MSR”), brings this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983 for alleged deprivations of his constitutional rights by persons acting under color of state law.
This case is before the Court for screening pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915A, which provides, in
relevant part:
(a) Screening. – The court shall review, before docketing, if feasible or, in any event,
as soon as practicable after docketing, a complaint in a civil action in which a
prisoner seeks redress from a governmental entity or officer or employee of a
governmental entity.
(b) Grounds for dismissal. – On review, the court shall identify cognizable claims or
dismiss the complaint, or any portion of the complaint, if the complaint –
(1) is frivolous, malicious, or fails to state a claim upon which relief may
be granted[.]
28 U.S.C. § 1915A. An action or claim is frivolous if “it lacks an arguable basis either in law or in
fact.” Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 325 (1989). A complaint fails to state a claim upon which
relief may be granted if it does not plead “enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on
its face.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007). A complaint is plausible on its face
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“when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that
the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. 1937, 1949 (2009).
Though the Court must accept a plaintiff’s factual allegations as true, “some factual allegations will
be so sketchy or implausible that they fail to provide sufficient notice to defendants of the plaintiff’s
claim.”

Brooks v. Ross, 578 F.3d 574, 581 (7th Cir. 2009).

Also, courts “should not

accept as adequate abstract recitations of the elements of a cause of action or conclusory legal
statements.” Id. The factual allegations of a pro se complaint must be liberally construed.
See Marshall v. Knight, 445 F.3d 965, 969 (7th Cir. 2006) (citing Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S.
519, 520 (1972)).
In Bey’s pro se complaint in this case, Bey alleges that as a result of denial of good-time
credit and miscalculation of his MSR date by IDOC officials, he was not released on his correct
MSR date and thus was required wrongly to spend time in IDOC incarceration. Defendants in the
case are Greg Schartz, the warden of the Pinckneyville Correctional Center (“Pinckneyville”), the
Records Office Supervisor at Pinckneyville, and the chair of the IDOC’s Prisoner Review Board
(“PRB”). Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Bey seeks compensatory and punitive damages for
violations of unspecified constitutional rights. Bey’s Section 1983 action is clearly a challenge to
the validity and length of his sentence. Under Illinois law, a term of MSR is a part of any sentence
of imprisonment: “Except when a term of natural life is imposed, every sentence includes a term
in addition to the term of imprisonment. For those sentenced under the law in effect before
February 1, 1978, that term is a parole term. For those sentenced on or after February 1, 1978, that
term is a mandatory supervised release term.” 730 ILCS 5/5-4.5-15(c) (emphasis added). However,
the PRB “may enter an order releasing and discharging one from parole or mandatory supervised
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release, and his commitment to the [IDOC], when it determines that he is likely to remain at liberty
without committing another offense.” 730 ILCS 5/3-3-8(b). See also Owens v. Snyder, 811 N.E.2d
738, 746 (Ill. App. Ct. 2004) (“Terms of mandatory supervised release are imposed by statute ‘in
addition’ to imprisonment and cannot be stricken by the courts.”); People v. Russell, 801 N.E.2d
977, 983 (Ill. App. Ct. 2003) (“[A] defendant’s sentence must be accompanied by a period of
mandatory supervised release.”).
Of course, under the familiar rule of Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), a challenge
to the validity or length of a prison sentence cannot proceed as an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983
unless and until the sentence is otherwise invalidated. This rule prevents an “end-run” around
habeas corpus procedures:
[A] § 1983 suit for damages that would ‘necessarily imply’ the invalidity . . . of an
inmate’s conviction, or ‘necessarily imply’ the invalidity of the length of an inmate’s
sentence, is not cognizable under § 1983 until the inmate obtains favorable
termination of a state, or federal habeas, challenge to his conviction or sentence.
This ‘favorable termination’ requirement is necessary to prevent inmates from doing
directly through damages actions what they could not do directly by seeking
injunctive relief – challenge the fact or duration of their
confinement without complying with the procedural limitations of the federal
habeas statute.
Nelson v. Campbell, 541 U.S. 637, 646-47 (2004) (quoting Heck, 512 U.S. at 487) (other citations
omitted). See also Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 500 (1973) (“[W]hen a state prisoner is
challenging the very fact or duration of his [sentence], and the relief he seeks is a determination that
he is entitled to immediate release or a speedier release from that [sentence], his sole federal remedy
is a writ of habeas corpus.”). A Section 1983 claim based on loss of good-time credit is a claim that
implicates the validity or length of a prison sentence and thus is Heck-barred. See Walker v.
O’Brien, 216 F.3d 626, 633 (7th Cir. 2000) (the correct federal vehicle for a state prisoner to contest
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a loss of good-time credit in prison disciplinary proceedings is 28 U.S.C. § 2254); Clayton-El v.
Fisher, 96 F.3d 236, 242-45 (7th Cir. 1996) (where a prisoner sought damages for his placement in
segregation, the court was required to consider whether the prisoner would have been found guilty
and placed in segregation without procedural irregularities in the disciplinary proceedings; this
finding necessarily would implicate the actual result of the disciplinary hearing, including loss of
good-time credit, so that the case should have been brought as a habeas corpus action). Similarly,
a person on parole (or MSR), though no longer incarcerated, remains “in custody” for purposes of
the federal habeas corpus statutes and thus has a federal habeas remedy. See Maleng v. Cook, 490
U.S. 488, 491 (1989) (“[A] prisoner who [has] been placed on parole [is] still ‘in custody’ under his
unexpired sentence.”); Jones v. Cunningham, 371 U.S. 236, 238 (1963) (a parolee may seek a writ
of habeas corpus, which is available only to those that are “in custody”); Williams v. Wisconsin, 336
F.3d 576, 579-80 (7th Cir. 2003) (a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, rather than an action under
Section 1983, was the appropriate remedy for a parolee seeking release from one of the restrictions
imposed by his parole, specifically, a ban on international travel, so that he could travel to a foreign
country to marry a woman with whom he had been corresponding while incarcerated). Because
Bey’s only federal remedy in this case is a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, this suit will be
dismissed without prejudice.1

1. The Court notes in passing that it is not authorized to construe Bey’s complaint under 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983 as a petition for a writ of habeas corpus brought pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. “[W]hen a
suit that should have been prosecuted under the habeas corpus statute is prosecuted as a
civil rights suit instead, it should not be ‘converted’ into a habeas corpus suit and decided on the
merits.” Pischke v. Litscher, 178 F.3d 497, 500 (7th Cir. 1999). Instead, the civil rights suit “should
simply be dismissed, leaving to the prisoner to decide whether to refile it as a petition for habeas
corpus. The reasons are various, and include the fact that habeas corpus for state prisoners requires
exhaustion of state remedies and that prisoners generally are limited to seeking federal habeas corpus
only once.” Id.
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To conclude, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915A, the Court finds that Bey’s complaint in this
case fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.

Therefore, this case

is DISMISSED without prejudice. Bey is advised that the dismissal of this case counts as one of
his three allotted “strikes” under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g). The Clerk of Court is directed to enter
judgment in accordance with this Order.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
DATED: January 19, 2012

/s/ G. Patrick Murphy
G. PATRICK MURPHY
United States District Judge

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