Antonio M. Smith v. Eric Peters

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted June 16, 2026*
Decided June 16, 2026
Before
FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge
JOHN Z. LEE, Circuit Judge
REBECCA TAIBLESON, Circuit Judge
No. 25-1513
ANTONIO M. SMITH,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
ERIC PETERS, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Western District of Wisconsin.
No. 23-cv-191-jdp
James D. Peterson,
Chief Judge.
O R D E R
Antonio Smith, a Wisconsin prisoner, sued prison officials for retaliation under
42 U.S.C. § 1983. After finding that Smith fabricated evidence to rebut the officials’
* 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NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION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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No. 25-1513 Page 2
exhaustion defense, the district court sanctioned him by dismissing the case with
prejudice. We affirm.
Smith, who is incarcerated at Columbia Correctional Institution, sued, among
others, Eric Peters, an investigative captain, for alleged violations of his constitutional
rights. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Peters, Smith alleged, wrote him up in a phony conduct
report in retaliation for a lawsuit Smith filed against another prison official. (The
conduct report, which Smith attached to a later filing, stated that his incoming legal
mail tested positive for narcotics. Additional attachments to that filing reflect that a
hearing was held on the report, that Smith was found guilty, and that the report was
dismissed on his appeal to the warden after a second test of the legal papers detected no
trace of narcotics.)
Later, during discovery, Smith produced a version of his appeal of the conduct
report that differed from the appeal he previously had filed with the district court. The
previously filed version was a single page; the new version was three—Smith added
two pages of “continuation forms” (additional pages provided by the prison to allow a
prisoner to elaborate on his complaint or appeal). On these additional pages, Smith
argued that the conduct report was retaliatory. The appeal documents also contained
two peculiar details: (1) the first page of the longer version bore a handwritten page
number (“1 of 3”) absent from the otherwise identical page of the initial version, and (2)
both versions were dated December 2023, despite the appeal’s having been resolved in
December 2022.
The defendants moved for summary judgment arguing that Smith failed to
exhaust his administrative remedies, as required under the Prison Litigation Reform
Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). According to the defendants, Smith failed to exhaust by not
raising his retaliation claim during the conduct-report proceedings. The defendants,
pointing out the discrepancy in the dates of the appeal, also questioned whether Smith
fabricated his later version.
After reviewing the parties’ filings, the district court stayed the summary
judgment proceedings to hold an evidentiary hearing on whether Smith had fabricated
the two continuation pages in the later version of his submitted appeal. The court found
that Smith, to support his opposition to the exhaustion motions, fabricated the
continuation pages. The court highlighted the differing versions of the appeal; the
broader scope of the issues stated in the continuation pages than in the prisoner
statement recorded at the hearing; the inaccurate dates reported on the appeal; and

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No. 25-1513 Page 3
other inconsistencies in Smith’s testimony. As a sanction for his dishonesty, the court
dismissed the case with prejudice.
On appeal, Smith challenges the district court’s sanction, arguing that the court
violated Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure when it imposed the sanction
sua sponte and without advance warning. But we review the court’s chosen sanction for
abuse of discretion, Martin v. Redden, 34 F.4th 564, 568 (7th Cir. 2022), and the court’s
exercise of discretion here was sound. While Rule 11(c) requires a court to issue a
show-cause order before imposing sanctions sua sponte, the district court
independently possesses inherent authority to sanction parties who act in bad faith,
Chambers v. NASCO, Inc., 501 U.S. 32, 48–49 (1991); Mach v. Will Cnty. Sheriff, 580 F.3d
495, 502 (7th Cir. 2009). Under this broad authority, a court may impose the severe
sanction of dismissal with prejudice if warranted. See Fuery v. City of Chicago, 900 F.3d
450, 463 (7th Cir. 2018) (citing Barnhill v. United States, 11 F.3d 1360, 1367 (7th Cir. 1993)).
And the court here determined that Smith fabricated evidence—a finding that Smith
does not challenge on appeal.
Smith also contends that the district court abused its discretion by failing to
sanction the defendants for destroying the records of the conduct-report proceedings
after the report was dismissed. But Smith made no showing that these records were
destroyed in bad faith, a prerequisite to assessing sanctions for the destruction of
evidence. See Trask-Morton v. Motel 6 Operating L.P., 534 F.3d 672, 681 (7th Cir. 2008). To
the contrary, the district court determined that, before Smith filed his lawsuit, the
records were destroyed because of the prison’s retention policy.
AFFIRMED

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