Deshawn Gardner v. JEREMIAH BROWN, Warden

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted June 12, 2025*
Decided June 17, 2025
Before
DIANE S. SYKES, Chief Judge
MICHAEL Y. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge
DORIS L. PRYOR, Circuit Judge
No. 24-3245
DESHAWN GARDNER,
Petitioner-Appellant,
v.
JEREMIAH BROWN, Warden
Respondent-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Central District of Illinois.
No. 3:23-cv-03337-CRL
Colleen R. Lawless,
Judge.
O R D E R
DeShawn Gardner appeals the denial of his federal habeas challenge to an
Illinois prison disciplinary sanction. Because he received due process, we affirm.
Gardner is serving an 85-year prison sentence in Illinois for a gang-related
murder. Officials there accused him of two rules violations: participating in “merged”
* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and
record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not
significantly aid the court. F ED. R. A PP . P. 34(a)(2)(C).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

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phone calls that connected multiple gang members, see 20 I LL. A DMIN . C ODE § 504 app.
A 310 (banning “three-party calls”); and using “verbiage” that the Illinois Department
of Corrections associates with the Black Disciples gang, see id. § 504 app. A 205 (banning
gang “organizational activities” and “signs”). To prepare for his disciplinary hearing,
Gardner sought access to phone records, but that request was denied without
explanation. Later, during judicial review of Gardner’s disciplinary sanction, prison
officials explained the security-related reasons for denying his request for phone
records. See Ponte v. Real, 471 U.S. 491, 497 (1985) (authorizing delayed explanation of
this kind).
At the disciplinary hearing, Gardner submitted a written response and a
statement from a witness who offered a non-gang-related reason for the calls. See Wolff
v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 563–66 (1974) (outlining constitutional requirements for
prison discipline); Superintendent, Mass. Corr. Inst., Walpole v. Hill, 472 U.S. 445, 454
(1985) (same). But prison investigators reported that they listened to a phone call
Gardner placed to a gang leader who merged the call with other gang members, and
that Gardner referred to gang members as “B,” which is considered an identifier for
Black Disciples affiliates.
Gardner was found guilty of the rules violations and sanctioned with the loss of
one year of good-conduct credit. He then sought a common-law writ of certiorari, an
Illinois state-court vehicle for judicial review of prison discipline. See Gardner v. Hough,
2022 IL App (4th) 210186-U, ¶ 12 (citing Fillmore v. Taylor, 137 N.E.3d 779, 796 (Ill.
2019) (identifying certiorari as vehicle)). He claimed that denying access to recorded
phone calls without explanation deprived him of due process. As we’ve just noted,
however, prison officials supplied a declaration from a lieutenant who supervises the
prison’s intelligence team. He attested that the team monitors phone calls for gang
activity, and that allowing prisoners to access recordings or transcripts could reveal the
team’s investigative methods and thus hamper their efforts to control prison violence.
Gardner responded that the lieutenant’s declaration was false. He also attached records
from prior, unrelated disciplinary hearings to suggest that in other cases, the team had
allowed various prison employees to access similar recordings despite the lieutenant’s
assertion about the intelligence team’s exclusive access. The state trial judge granted the
officials’ motion to strike Gardner’s exhibits as irrelevant and entered summary
judgment in their favor.
The Illinois Appellate Court affirmed. Gardner, 2022 IL App (4th) 210186-U.
Citing Wolff and Real, the court reasoned that the lieutenant’s declaration gave sufficient

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institutional-safety reasons for denying access to recorded calls, and that the trial judge
was right to disregard the unrelated records Gardner tried to introduce. Id. ¶¶ 13–15.
The state supreme court denied further review.
Gardner then sought a federal writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254,
reasserting his claim about the transcripts and contesting the state-court evidentiary
rulings. But the district judge denied the petition, reasoning that the state appellate
court reasonably applied Wolff and Real to determine that the lieutenant’s declaration
adequately justified the decision to deny access to recorded calls. The judge also
explained that Gardner’s arguments about the evidentiary rulings rested on state law
and were not grounds for habeas review.
Gardner appealed. At the threshold, the respondent warden asks us to
reconsider Walker v. O’Brien, 216 F.3d 626, 637–38 (7th Cir. 2000), which holds that state
prisoners challenging prison disciplinary sanctions in federal habeas proceedings are
not required to obtain a certificate of appealability under 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(A)
before appealing an adverse district-court decision. We decline the invitation. We have
reexamined and upheld Walker before, see Grandberry v. Keever, 735 F.3d 616, 618–19
(7th Cir. 2013), and the warden does not raise arguments based on any developments
postdating Grandberry. We turn, then, to Gardner’s claims.
Because a state court denied Gardner’s due-process claim on the merits, federal
review is constrained by § 2254(d), which requires Gardner to show either that the
Illinois Appellate Court contradicted or unreasonably applied clear Supreme Court
precedent, or that its factual determinations were unreasonable. See Eichwedel v.
Chandler, 696 F.3d 660, 671 (7th Cir. 2012) (applying § 2254(d) to Illinois court decision
on prison discipline). We begin with the phone recordings. Prisoners facing the loss of
good-conduct credits have a limited right to present documentary evidence. Wolff,
418 U.S. at 557, 566. The limitation is that officials may bar access to evidence if they
provide an explanation “logically related to preventing undue hazards to ‘institutional
safety or correctional goals.’” Real, 471 U.S. at 497 (quoting Wolff, 418 U.S. at 566). The
explanation need not be given at the time of the disciplinary hearing but may instead be
withheld until state-court litigation. Id.
Here, the state-court denial of Gardner’s due-process claim did not contradict or
unreasonably apply Supreme Court precedent, nor did it rest on any unreasonable
fact-finding. Under Real, waiting to provide the lieutenant’s declaration in court
proceedings was permissible. And the lieutenant’s explanation was logically related to
prison safety: Gardner’s access to recorded calls could reveal the intelligence team’s

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methods for detecting gang activity on prison phones. For example, the warden tells us,
close review of the calls could help Gardner discern which words (besides the ones
referenced in his disciplinary charge) alerted investigators that he might be engaging in
gang activity, and Gardner could then use that information to help gang affiliates
change their practices and avoid future detection. That specific example from the
federal-court briefing squares with the general reasoning of the state courts here.
Because it was reasonable for the state appellate court to conclude that access to the
recorded calls might reveal too much about prison surveillance methods, § 2254(d) bars
relief.
Gardner also asserts that no evidence supported the charges and that the
disciplinary hearing generally failed to provide due process. But as the warden points
out, Gardner raised this argument for the first time in federal court, so it is procedurally
defaulted. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b); McAtee v. Cowan, 250 F.3d 506, 508–09 (7th Cir. 2001)
(Illinois prisoners must exhaust claims about revocation of good-conduct credits by
completing appellate process in Illinois courts). And it is meritless in any event: The
evidence of guilt included investigators’ reports that Gardner used gang-related
language on a three-way call with known gang members, and the hearing did not
otherwise fail to comply with Wolff. See 418 U.S. at 563–66.
Finally, Gardner claims that the state court erred in its evidentiary rulings—
specifically, by considering the lieutenant’s declaration and striking Gardner’s
unrelated disciplinary records. But alleged violations of state evidentiary law lie outside
the scope of federal habeas review, which concerns itself only with violations of federal
law. See Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 67–68 (1991).
AFFIRMED

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