Williams v. Litscher et al
Filing
35
ORDER signed by Judge Lynn Adelman on 1/13/20 that the defendants' motion for summary judgment 26 is GRANTED. Plaintiff's motion for leave to file the second amended complaint 24 is DENIED. (cc: all counsel) (jad) Modified on 1/13/2020 (jad).
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF WISCONSIN
EUGENE WILLIAMS,
Plaintiff,
v.
Case No. 18-C-0583
JON E. LITSCHER, et al.,
Defendants.
______________________________________________________________________
DECISION AND ORDER
Eugene Williams brings this action for damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against
employees of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. He alleges that the defendants
failed to promptly correct an error relating to his criminal sentence that resulted in the
extension of his extended supervision past the statutory maximum. The plaintiff was in
jail on a supervision hold when one of the defendants noticed the error, and he spent 36
days in jail before the error was corrected and he was released. The plaintiff alleges that
the defendants acted with deliberate indifference in failing to correct the error in his
sentence faster than they did, and that therefore they violated the Cruel and Unusual
Punishments Clause of the Eighth Amendment. Before me now is the defendants’
motion for summary judgment and the plaintiff’s motion for leave to amend her
complaint to add a new defendant, Rita Haroski. 1
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The plaintiff’s complaint mentions the Fourth Amendment and purports to state a claim
for false imprisonment under state law. The defendants move for summary judgment
dismissing plaintiff’s entire case, which would include the Fourth Amendment and falseimprisonment claims. See ECF No. 26. However, in their brief, the defendants discuss
only the plaintiff’s claim under the Eighth Amendment. They ignore the Fourth
Amendment and the claim for false imprisonment. In his response brief, the plaintiff
does not mention any claim other than his Eighth Amendment claim or contend that
even if the court grants summary judgment on the Eighth Amendment claim it should
I. BACKGROUND
In 2004, the Milwaukee County Circuit Court entered a judgment convicting
Williams of two counts of attempted armed robbery with threat of force and a third count
of substantial battery with intent to cause bodily harm. On each of the attempted armed
robbery counts, the court sentenced the plaintiff to five years’ imprisonment and 10
years’ extended supervision. On the battery count, the court sentenced the plaintiff to 18
months’ imprisonment and 24 months’ extended supervision. All sentences were to run
concurrently.
On March 11, 2004, staff members in the records department of Dodge
Correctional Institution (who are not defendants here) calculated the plaintiff’s sentence.
They determined that his “max discharge date” was April 19, 2018. Def. Prop. Finding of
Fact (“PFOF”) ¶ 11. 2 In 2008, Williams was released from prison and began serving the
extended-supervision component of his sentence. In March 2014, defendant Susan
Wundrow became Williams’ probation agent.
On Sunday, May 7, 2017, Williams was arrested and taken into custody after a
woman claimed he battered her. Williams also admitted to snorting cocaine and was
found with drug paraphernalia. On the following Monday, Wundrow learned of the
arrest. A day later, her supervisor placed a “supervision hold” on Williams, which had
the effect of keeping him in jail pending a revocation decision. Def. PFOF ¶ 19. That
allow the other claims to proceed. Thus, I assume that the plaintiff has abandoned all
claims other than his claim under the Eighth Amendment.
2
The plaintiff did not file a response to the defendants’ proposed findings of fact. Thus,
under the local rules of this court, those proposed findings are deemed admitted. See
Civ. L.R. 56(b).
2
same day, May 9, 2017, Wundrow sent an email to the general mailbox for the records
department at Dodge Correctional Institution for the purpose of finding out how much
time was left on Williams’ sentence. She intended to use this information to guide her
revocation decision.
Wundrow’s email to the records department attached a form known as DOC-416.
Agents regularly use this form when requesting sentence computations from the records
department. The agent completes the top half of the form. The records department
enters the sentence computation on the bottom half of the form and returns it to the
agent. The typical timeline from when a DOC-416 form is emailed to the records
department to when it is completed and returned to the agent is 1–2 weeks.
On May 9, 2017, defendant Amber Devries (formerly known as Amber
Parenteau) received Wundrow’s email and was assigned to perform the sentence
computation. Prior to that date, Devries was not involved with Williams’ case; she was
not the records employee who calculated Williams’ max-discharge date in 2004. When
she received the email, she did not know that Williams was on a probation hold.
On May 12, 2017, Devries completed the sentence computation for Williams. In
the course of doing so, she noticed that the court’s judgment of conviction contained an
error. In counts 1 and 2, Williams was convicted of attempted armed robbery. Under
Wisconsin law, when a person is convicted of an attempted crime, the maximum term of
extended supervision is one-half the maximum term for the completed crime. See Wis.
Stat. 939.32(1m)(b). Williams’ armed-robbery conviction was a Class C felony. The
maximum term of extended supervision for a completed Class C felony is 15 years. See
Wis. Stat. § 973.01(2)(d)2. Thus, the maximum term of extended supervision to which
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the court could have sentenced Williams on each of counts 1 and 2 was 7.5 years.
However, the court actually sentenced him to 10 years’ extended supervision on each
count, thus creating an excessive sentence.
When Devries finished her sentence computation, she sent it to the “Central
Records Office” for “proofing,” as she was required to do under the department’s
procedures. Def. PFOF ¶ 30. The proofing process usually takes a week to complete.
Here, proofing was complete on May 17, 2017, and the proofer determined that Devries’
computations were correct.
When the Department of Corrections notices a possible sentencing error, it
notifies the sentencing court. Def. PFOF ¶ 31. On May 18, 2017, Devries sent a letter to
the Milwaukee County Circuit Court notifying it that the records department believed the
court had made a mistake in sentencing Williams to 10-year terms of extended
supervision on the attempted armed robbery counts. ECF No. 10-1 at p. 1 of 24. After
she sent this letter, Devries had no further involvement in Williams’ case.
Meanwhile, on May 15, 2017, Wundrow and her supervisor decided that they
would not revoke Williams’ extended supervision based on his recent arrest. Instead,
they planned to send him to a halfway house and see that he received mental-health
treatment and treatment for alcohol abuse. However, because a bed at the halfway
house was not immediately available, Williams continued to be confined at the jail.
On May 22, 2017, the Milwaukee County Circuit Court entered an order
commuting Williams’ terms of extended supervision to 7.5 years. The court agreed that
the original terms of 10 years exceeded the amounts allowed under the Wisconsin
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Statutes. On May 24, 2017, the court entered an amended judgment of conviction
reflecting the reduced terms.
An amended judgment of conviction does not specify a new release date; it
simply amends the sentence. When the Department of Corrections receives an
amended judgment, it computes a new sentence and identifies a new release date.
There is generally a delay of a couple of weeks between when the court enters the
judgment and when the Department of Corrections routes it to an employee who
performs the new sentence calculation. Def. PFOF ¶¶ 64–65. The delay occurs
because the Department must retrieve the offender’s file from its archives before the
sentence can be calculated. Id.
In the present case, the amended judgment of conviction was eventually routed
to Rita Haroski, who was responsible for recalculating Williams’ sentence. Haroski does
not know the date on which she received the judgment. At that time, however, she did
not know that Williams was in jail on a supervision hold. Haroski completed her
computation on June 6, 2017. The computation showed that Williams should have been
released from extended supervision on October 19, 2015. Per departmental policy,
Haroski sent her computation to a proofer. Proofing was complete on June 8, 2017, and
records show that Haroski received documentation back from the proofing department
that day. See Haroski Dep. at 22:4–22:8. However, she does not remember whether
she saw the documentation that day, which was a Thursday. Id. at 22:9–22:12.
On Monday, June 12, 2017, Haroski informed Wundrow that Williams’ extended
supervision had expired in 2015. Wundrow immediately arranged to have Williams
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released from custody, and he was released later that day. Wundrow also helped
Williams find a place to spend the night after he was released from prison.
Williams was surprised by his abrupt release from prison, and for this reason he
asked Wundrow to prepare documentation confirming that his extended supervision had
ended. On June 22, 2017, Wundrow created such a document, which the parties refer
to as an “informal discharge certificate.” Def. PFOF ¶ 57. The Secretary of the
Wisconsin Department of Corrections, Jon Litscher, signed a formal discharge
certificate for Williams on June 15, 2017. However, the informal and formal discharge
certificates were informational only—they did not have to be executed for Williams’
sentence to end. The parties agree that Williams’ sentence actually ended on June 12,
2017, the date on which he was released from jail.
Williams now sues Wundrow and Devries under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that
they are liable for damages for the 36 days he spent in jail on the probation hold.
Williams had previously also sued Jon Litscher, the former Secretary of the Department
of Corrections, and the State of Wisconsin. However, after these defendants filed a
motion to dismiss, the plaintiff withdrew his claims against them without prejudice to
adding them back to the case if he discovered a viable claim against them during
discovery. See ECF No. 21. The plaintiff has not sought to bring Litscher or the State of
Wisconsin back into the case, and therefore I will not discuss them further.
After the plaintiff learned in discovery that Rita Haroski was the one who
recalculated his release date based on the amended judgment, he moved for leave to
file a second amended complaint that added her as a defendant. A short time later, the
existing defendants filed their motion for summary judgment. Their motion assumes that
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Haroski is a party to the case and argues that she, like the existing defendants, is
entitled to summary judgment. They then argue that because Haroski is entitled to
summary judgment, granting leave to file the second amended complaint would be
futile.
In this order, I decide both the defendants’ motion for summary judgment and the
plaintiff’s motion for leave to file a second amended complaint.
II. DISCUSSION
A.
Summary Judgment
Summary judgment is required where “there is no genuine dispute as to any
material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P.
56(a). When considering a motion for summary judgment, I view the evidence in the
light most favorable to the non-moving party and must grant the motion if no reasonable
juror could find for that party. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 255
(1986).
A defendant violates the Eighth Amendment if, because of his or her deliberate
indifference, a plaintiff is held in custody after the time specified in his sentence has
expired. See Figgs v. Dawson, 829 F.3d 895, 903 (7th Cir. 2016); Childress v. Walker,
787 F.3d 433, 439 (7th Cir. 2015); Burke v. Johnston, 452 F.3d 665, 667 (7th Cir. 2006).
In the present case, there is no dispute that the plaintiff was held in custody after the
time specified in his sentence had expired. The issue is whether Wundrow, Devries,
and/or Haroski were deliberately indifferent to the risk that the plaintiff was being held
beyond his release date. Deliberate indifference requires more than negligence or even
gross negligence; a plaintiff must show that the defendant was essentially criminally
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reckless, that is, ignored a known risk. Figgs, 829 F.3d at 903. A state officer is
deliberately indifferent when he does nothing, or when he takes action that is so
ineffectual under the circumstances that deliberate indifference can be inferred. Id.
Before proceeding, I note that, until the Milwaukee County Circuit Court entered
its amended judgment of conviction on May 24, 2017, Williams was not being held in
custody after the time specified in his sentence had expired. Rather, until that date,
Williams was subject to a state-court judgment providing that he was to serve a 10-year
period of extended supervision. We now know that the court had made an error of law in
sentencing Williams to 10 years of extended supervision rather than the maximum 7.5
years. But this error did not render the judgment void or invalid. Moreover, Williams or
his criminal defense attorney could have noticed the error at the time the judgment was
entered (or at any later time) and brought it to the court’s attention. If the court refused
to correct the error, he could have appealed. Thus, until May 24, 2017, Williams was
lawfully in custody, and no defendant could be liable for causing him to be imprisoned
beyond his maximum release date. In any event, as explained below, a jury could not
reasonably find that Wundrow, Devries, or Haroski acted with deliberate indifference at
any time.
I start with Wundrow, Williams’ probation agent. Prior to his release, Williams did
not suspect that his sentence had been miscalculated. Thus, he never asked Wundrow
to investigate the matter. Moreover, Wundrow had no reason to think that she might
have been exercising custody over Williams beyond his release date. Wundrow was not
responsible for calculating Williams’ release date. Until Williams was arrested and she
needed to make a revocation decision, Wundrow had no reason to even inquire about
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his release date. And when she inquired, she made an appropriate request to the
records department, which is the department responsible for computing sentences. Cf.
Burks v. Raemisch, 555 F.3d 592, 595 (7th Cir. 2009) (bureaucracies may divide tasks
among officials). As soon as she received the response from the records department
telling her that Williams’ extended supervision had expired, she swiftly arranged for his
release. Thus, a reasonable jury could not find that when Wundrow was alerted to the
risk that Williams was being held past his release date, she either did nothing or took
action that was so ineffectual under the circumstances that deliberate indifference could
be inferred. See Figgs, 829 F.3d at 903. To the contrary, it is difficult to imagine what
more she could have done under the circumstances. Accordingly, Wundrow is entitled
to summary judgment.
Turning to Devries, the plaintiff contends that a jury could find that she acted with
deliberate indifference because, he claims, after she discovered the error in the court’s
judgment, she “did nothing” for six days. Pl. Br. at 3, ECF No. 31. However, this is not a
reasonable characterization of her conduct. Devries received Wundrow’s request for a
sentence calculation on May 12, 2017 and completed it that same day. Under
departmental policy, she was required to send her computation to the Central Records
Office for proofing before she could take further action. Proofing was completed on May
17, 2018. The very next day, Devries sent a letter to the court advising it of the potential
error in its sentence. Devries could not have taken any additional action until the court
amended its judgment. Thus, no reasonable jury could find that when Devries learned of
the problem with the judgment, she either did nothing or took action that was so
ineffectual under the circumstances that deliberate indifference could be inferred. See
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Figgs, 829 F.3d at 903. To the contrary, she did exactly what she was supposed to do
under the department’s procedures. Accordingly, Devries is entitled to summary
judgment.
As for Haroski, the plaintiff contends that “there is no explanation as to why it
took several weeks for [her] to act after” the amended judgment was entered. Br. in
Opp. at 3, ECF No. 31. But this is false, as the record contains exactly such an
explanation, and this explanation is undisputed. Specifically, in failing to respond to the
defendants’ proposed findings of fact, the plaintiff has admitted that “when an amended
judgment of conviction is entered by a court, it does not immediately reach a corrections
sentencing associate at Dodge Correctional; the amended judgment goes through
several people, including the Offender Records Associate, before being presented to
the office responsible for calculating a new release date, which cannot be done until the
offender’s file is pulled from the archives.” Def. PFOF ¶ 64. The plaintiff has further
admitted that this process can take “a couple of weeks.” Id. ¶ 65. In the present case,
Haroski completed Williams’ new sentence calculation on June 6, 2017, which was less
than two weeks after the court entered the amended judgment. Because it is undisputed
that it normally takes about two weeks for an amended judgment to be routed to a
sentence calculator, it appears that Haroski calculated the new sentence very soon after
she received the amended judgment.
Once Haroski calculated the new sentence, she was required to send it out for
proofing. Thus, she could not have immediately informed Wundrow of her conclusion
that Williams’ extended supervision had expired in October 2015. The proofing
department sent its results back to Haroski on June 8, 2017, a Thursday. Haroski
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notified Wundrow of the results on the following Monday. The plaintiff does not argue
that a reasonable jury could find that this two-business-day delay between when the
proofing department sent its results to Haroski and when she passed the results on to
Wundrow was unjustified. Thus, Haroski is entitled to summary judgment.
B.
Motion for Leave to Amend
The remaining issue is whether to grant the plaintiff leave to file the second
amended complaint, which adds Haroski as a defendant. As discussed above, even if
Haroski were added as a party, she would be entitled to summary judgment. The
Seventh Circuit has held that a district court may deny leave to amend a complaint to
add a party who would be entitled to summary judgment on the ground that the
amendment is futile. See, e.g., King ex rel. King v. East St. Louis Sch. Dist. 189, 496
F.3d 812, 819 (7th Cir. 2007) (“An amendment is futile if the amended complaint would
not survive a motion for summary judgment.”). Accordingly, I will deny the plaintiff’s
motion to amend.
III. CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated, IT IS ORDERED that the defendants’ motion for
summary judgment (ECF No. 26) is GRANTED.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the plaintiff’s motion for leave to file the second
amended complaint (ECF No. 24) is DENIED.
Dated at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, this 13th day of January, 2020.
s/Lynn Adelman_________
LYNN ADELMAN
United States District Judge
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