Smith v. Butler et al

Filing 71

ORDER: For the reasons stated in the attached memorandum and order, the Court DENIES Smith's motions for injunctive relief (Docs. 38 , 49 , and 63 ). Signed by Chief Judge Michael J. Reagan on 9/27/2016. (wtw)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
KENNETH SMITH,
Plaintiff,
vs.
KIMBERLY BUTLER,
COUNSELOR WOODS,
SHERRY BENTON,
GLADYS TAYLOR,
JOHN BALDWIN, and
JEANETTE COWAN,
Defendants.

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Case No. 15-cv-1277-MJR-SCW

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
REAGAN, Chief District Judge:
Pro se Plaintiff Kenneth Smith, an inmate formerly housed at the Menard
Correctional Center, brought the present lawsuit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 based on
the denial of protective custody placement by a number of officials at Menard. (Doc. 1).
Plaintiff filed a number of motions for preliminary injunctive relief related to protective
custody, and those motions are now before the Court for review (Doc. 38; Doc. 49; Doc.
63). For the reasons set forth below, the Court DENIES all three injunction motions.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
On November 16, 2015, Plaintiff filed the present suit, alleging violations of his
Eighth Amendment rights. (Doc. 1; Doc. 3, p. 4). In sum, Plaintiff alleges he has
received death threats from members of a rival gang and that Defendants have denied
his requests to be placed in protective custody related to those threats. (Doc. 1, p. 3 –

11). In its threshold review order, this Court found that Plaintiff had stated “a colorable
Eighth Amendment claim that [certain] Defendants . . . have failed to protect him from
danger of an impending attack by one of the fellow inmates who have issued threats
against him, or by an affiliated inmate who may carry out the threats.” (Doc. 3, p. 4).
In the course of this suit, Plaintiff has filed four motions seeking injunctive relief
(Docs. 4, 38, 49, 63). A hearing was held on the first motion (Doc. 4), dated November,
18, 2015, and that motion will be ruled on by separate order today—the Court does not
address the November 18, 2015 motion (Doc. 4) by way of this order. This order will
rule on Plaintiff’s three other motions for injunctive relief, filed on January 25, 2016 (Doc.
38), February 22, 2016 (Doc. 49), and June 13, 2016 (Doc. 63), respectively.
1. January 25, 2016 & February 22, 2016 Motions
In the January 25th (Doc. 38) and February 22nd (Doc. 49) motions, Plaintiff seeks
to be transferred out of Menard. After being kicked out of protective custody on
January 5, 2016, Plaintiff admits that he refused housing in order to avoid going to the
East Cell House where Level E inmates like Plaintiff are housed.

(Doc. 38, p. 1).

According to the Plaintiff, Defendant Cowan asked him if he was going to East House, to
which he responded he was not. (Id.). He alleges Cowan then told him that he could
not go into protective custody. (Id.). Plaintiff claims that after Cowan left, another
correctional officer, who is not a defendant, started “making threats” directed at Plaintiff
and tried to take Plaintiff’s property. (Id.). He alleges another non-defendant officer
took his legal property, and he claims that his property will be taken each time he refuses
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housing at Menard. (Doc. 49, p. 2). Plaintiff also claims that he has been denied
medical care for a particular injury. (Doc. 38, p. 2). However, he acknowledges seeing
medical staff every month in the cell house, and says that he sees a physician every six
weeks. (Id.). In addition, Plaintiff makes allegations of threats from Menard staff.
These allegations consist of unspecified threats from defendants and non-defendants.
(See Doc. 38, p. 2; Doc. 49, p. 2). In one of these allegations, Plaintiff states that he “sees
the start of Menard Administration starting to harass him due to the filings [sic] of this
suit.” (Doc. 38, p. 2). Given these problems, Plaintiff asks to be transferred from
Menard to another Illinois facility. (Doc. 38, p. 3; Doc. 49, p. 3; Doc. 50, p. 4).
In response to these motions, Defendants point to a prison Adjustment
Committee Final Report regarding a proceeding pertaining to Plaintiff for the offenses of
“Intimidation or Threats” and “Disobeying a Direct Order.” (Doc. 45-1, p. 1). The
witnesses who came before the Committee for that matter testified that Plaintiff did not
want to be housed in East House, but instead wanted to be placed in protective custody.
(Id.). The Committee found Plaintiff guilty of those offenses, specifically observing that
Plaintiff improperly refused housing at the East House and said he would kill someone
if sent there. (Id.). Defendants assert that Plaintiff has a history of manipulating prison
regulations to obtain a transfer to a prison he desires. (Doc. 45, p. 2; Doc. 51, p. 3).
2. June 13, 2016 Motion
The latest in Plaintiff’s series of preliminary injunction requests was filed on June
13, 2016. In addition to repeating most of the other allegations in his past motions,
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Plaintiff again alleges generalized threats by staff and claims that staff are threatening to
kill him. (Doc. 63, p. 2-3). He claims he is in imminent danger due to those threats.
(Id. at p. 3). As always, Plaintiff again seeks a transfer out of Menard. (Id. at 3-4).
However, Plaintiff also claims he was involved in a sexual relationship with a female
correctional officer at Menard (Doc. 63, p. 2), which he previously detailed at length in a
filing with the Court. (See Doc. 61). In addition to retaliation for filing the underlying
suit, Plaintiff now claims that Menard officials are threatening him in retaliation for his
relationship with the female officer. (Doc. 63, p. 2).
LEGAL STANDARD
A preliminary injunction is “an extraordinary and drastic remedy, one that
should not be granted unless the movant, by a clear showing, carries the burden of
persuasion.” Mazurek v. Armstrong, 520 U.S. 968, 972 (1997). To obtain a preliminary
injunction, a plaintiff must show (1) that he is likely to succeed on the merits of this case,
(2) that he is likely to suffer irreparable harm without the preliminary injunction, (3) that
the harm he would suffer without a preliminary injunction is greater than the harm the
injunction would inflict on the defendants, and (4) that the injunction is in the public
interest. Judge v. Quinn, 612 F.3d 537, 546 (7th Cir. 2010). The “considerations are
interdependent: the greater the likelihood of success on the merits, the less net harm the
injunction must prevent in order for preliminary relief to be warranted.” Id. at 546.
In the context of prisoner civil rights litigation, there are further restrictions on the
scope of the Court’s injunctive power. The scope of the Court’s authority to enter an
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injunction in the corrections context is circumscribed by the Prison Litigation Reform
Act. Westefer v. Neal, 682 F.3d 679, 683 (7th Cir. 2012). Under that Act, preliminary
injunctive relief “must be narrowly drawn, extend no further than necessary to correct
the harm the court finds requires preliminary relief, and be the least intrusive means
necessary to correct that harm.” See 18 U.S.C. § 3626(a)(2); see also Westefer, 682 F.3d
at 683 (the Prison Litigation Reform Act enforces the point that “prison officials have
broad administrative and discretionary authority over the institutions they manage”).
ANALYSIS
The Court finds that Plaintiff is not likely to succeed on the merits because his
requests for preliminary injunctive relief are not related to the operative claims in this
case.

Plaintiff’s sole claim in this case is based on Eighth Amendment violations

regarding the failure to protect Plaintiff from other inmates. However, Plaintiff’s claims
in the motions before the Court concern retaliation by Menard officials related to
Plaintiff’s initial lawsuit, his decision to refuse housing in the East House, and his
alleged love affair with a Menard officer. As evidenced in the merits review order of
Plaintiff’s operative complaint, Plaintiff has no active claims based on those allegations
at this time, so there is no basis for the Court to provide Plaintiff the relief he seeks. In
addition, Plaintiff’s request to amend his complaint, which is currently pending before
Magistrate Judge Williams, also doesn’t seem to raise a retaliation claim linked to those
points, instead raising claims under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
Even if the motions now before the Court were somehow related to Plaintiff’s
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claims or the claims in his proposed amended complaint, the Court finds that the largely
generalized allegations in the Plaintiffs’ motions render Plaintiff unable to demonstrate
that he is likely to suffer irreparable harm without injunctive relief. Though Plaintiff
has made some allegations regarding specific acts of retaliation, the vast majority of the
allegations concern vague, non-specific threats from prison officials.

In this vein,

neither generalized averments of “threats” nor Plaintiff’s personal belief that he “sees
the start” of harassment are sufficient to demonstrate the likelihood of irreparable injury.
See Winter, 555 U.S. at 22 (“Issuing a preliminary injunction based only on a
possibility of irreparable harm is inconsistent with [the Supreme Court’s]
characterization of injunctive relief as an extraordinary remedy . . . .”).
Additionally, the scope of the injunctive relief sought by Plaintiff is too broad.
Assuming that Plaintiff’s allegations of retaliation by Menard officials are true, an
injunction ordering Plaintiff transferred out of Menard altogether would be in
contravention of Congress’s mandate that injunctions in prisoner cases be narrowly
drawn. None of the allegations, if true, warrant a wholesale transfer out of Menard;
there are less intrusive remedies, like transfer to another house in Menard and isolation
from the officials in question, than the broader remedy that Plaintiff seeks. The Court
will certainly not grant a transfer when the problems alleged by Plaintiff appear to
largely be the result of his own refusal to accept housing—a refusal admitted by Plaintiff.
Further, based on the number of motions and other pleadings filed by Plaintiff,
the Court finds that Plaintiff is having no problem litigating his suit at Menard. In fact,
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the number of motions filed by Plaintiff seeking the drastic remedy of a transfer, based
on the allegations pleaded, lends support to the Defendants’ suggestion that Plaintiff is
manipulating the system in order to obtain a transfer to a facility he prefers. This Court
will not be used as a tool for Plaintiff to move to his preferred correctional facility.
Over and above the defects above, all of Plaintiff’s motions must be denied for
another reason, namely that they are now moot. While all of his motions are a bit
muddled, they all seem to seek a transfer from Menard to Pontiac Correctional Center.
Smith was transferred to Pontiac in August 2016, so he no longer has any need for a
transfer order from this Court. See Higgason v. Farley, 83 F.3d 807, 811 (7th Cir. 1996).
CONCLUSION
Because Smith hasn’t shown sufficient irreparable harm to justify the injunctive
relief he seeks, and because he has already obtained a transfer out of Menard either way,
the Court DENIES Smith’s motions for injunctive relief (Docs. 38, 49, and 63).
IT IS SO ORDERED.
DATED: September 27, 2016
/s/ Michael J. Reagan
Chief Judge Michael J. Reagan
United States District Court

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