Steven A. Johnson v. D. MURRAY and TOPOLEWSKI

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted January 16, 2024*
Decided January 19, 2024
Before
DIANE S. SYKES, Chief Judge
MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Circuit Judge
DORIS L. PRYOR, Circuit Judge
No. 23-1805
STEVEN A. JOHNSON,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
D. MURRAY and TOPOLEWSKI,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Northern District of
Illinois, Western Division.
No. 23 C 50012
Iain D. Johnston,
Judge.
* The defendants were not served with process and are not participating in the
appeal. We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the
appellant’s brief and record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral
argument would not significantly aid the court. F ED. R. APP . 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NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION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. 23-1805 Page 2
O R D E R
Jail officials may punish a pretrial detainee for violating the facility’s rules, but in
doing so they must afford the procedural safeguards required by the Due Process
Clause. By contrast, staff may discipline convicted prisoners for rule violations without
these procedural safeguards if the punishment involves no severe and atypical
hardship. In this lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Steven Johnson alleges that while he
was a pretrial detainee, sheriff’s deputies at the Lee County Jail in Dixon, Illinois
punished him for a rule violation without sufficient notice and an opportunity to
defend himself. The district judge dismissed Johnson’s amended complaint, concluding
that the 10 days of segregation imposed on him did not amount to a hardship severe
enough to implicate a protected liberty interest and, thus, procedural rights. Because
this ruling mistakenly applied the atypical-hardship standard for convicted prisoners to
a pretrial detainee, we vacate the judgment and remand the case for further
proceedings.
We construe Johnson’s pro se complaint liberally and assume the truth of his
allegations, as supplemented by jail records he attached. Otis v. Demarasse, 886 F.3d 639,
644 (7th Cir. 2018). While he was a pretrial detainee, Johnson received a disciplinary
report alleging a major rule violation for fighting with another detainee; the report
announced that a hearing would be held at least 24 hours later. Yet less than ten hours
later, Deputy D. Murray (a defendant here) convened the hearing, found Johnson
guilty, and recommended 10 days’ in-cell confinement with just one hour out-of-cell per
day. The other defendant, Deputy Topolewski, approved this discipline despite the
problematic timeline. (The complaint provides defendants’ last names and badge
numbers, and only the initial of Deputy Murray’s first name.) Johnson alleges that he
was surprised by the truncated schedule, lacked time to prepare his side of the story,
and was afforded no opportunity to present evidence or argument. Whether he was
present at the hearing is unclear from the complaint and attached documents.
After unsuccessfully pursuing grievances within the jail system, Johnson turned
to federal court, suing the deputies for restricting his liberty without due process. The
district judge screened Johnson’s initial complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A and
dismissed it for failure to state a claim, reasoning that Johnson had not shown that the
10 days of segregation amounted to a hardship atypical of everyday life in jail. Johnson
amended his complaint, but its key details remained the same. The judge again
dismissed it for the same reason—this time with prejudice.

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No. 23-1805 Page 3
On appeal, we review challenges to a screening order de novo. Otis, 886 F.3d at
644. Here, drawing all reasonable inferences in Johnson’s favor, as we must at this stage,
we conclude that the amended complaint should have survived screening.
Johnson argues that the district judge wrongly conflated the due process
standard governing discipline of pretrial detainees—which requires adequate notice
and a proper hearing when imposing any nontrivial punishment—with the one for
convicted prisoners, who may be summarily disciplined without procedural protections
if the sanction involves no serious hardship atypical of ordinary prison life. Compare
Higgs v. Carver, 286 F.3d 437, 438 (7th Cir. 2002) (pretrial detainee cannot be placed in
disciplinary segregation without due process protections), with Hardaway v. Meyerhoff,
734 F.3d 740, 743 (7th Cir. 2013) (convicted prisoner lacks a liberty interest in avoiding
segregation unless sanction amounts to “atypical and significant hardship on the
inmate in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life”) (quoting Sandin v. Conner,
515 U.S. 472, 484 (1995)). Essentially, the fact of conviction reduces a prisoner’s baseline
interest in liberty below that of a pretrial detainee. See Rapier v. Harris, 172 F.3d 999,
1004–05 (7th Cir. 1999). Because pretrial detainees have not yet been convicted, “it
cannot be said that they ought to expect whatever deprivation can be considered
incident to serving a sentence.” Id.; see Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 535–36 (1979).
When discipline impinges on a detainee’s recognized liberty interest, due process
requires (among other things) timely notice and the right to call witnesses and present
evidence. Prude v. Meli, 76 F.4th 648, 656–57 (7th Cir. 2023). Johnson alleges that he was
denied those safeguards, so this appeal turns on his asserted liberty interest.
And his asserted liberty interest suffices at the screening stage. Although the
district judge recognized that Johnson was a pretrial detainee, his ruling that Johnson’s
10-days’ segregation did not infringe on a protected liberty interest mistakenly relied on
the atypical-hardship standard for convicted prisoners. As we explained in Rapier, the
atypical-hardship analysis does not apply to pretrial detainees. 172 F.3d at 1004–05. So
far as the complaint alleges and the disciplinary documents attached to it appear to
show, the defendant deputies’ express intent was to punish Johnson for a rule violation,
not to segregate him for immediate safety or other administrative reasons. Cf. Higgs,
286 F.3d at 438 (no hearing required if pretrial detainee is placed in confinement for
managerial, nonpunitive reasons). Because Johnson, as a pretrial detainee, was
segregated as punishment for committing a major rule infraction, he was entitled to the
procedural safeguards of due process. See id.; Rapier, 172 F.3d at 1005.

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No. 23-1805 Page 4
The complaint thus plausibly states a due process claim. See Prude, 76 F.4th at
656–57. In so holding, we express no view on what further development may reveal
once the defendants have been served, any defenses they might raise, or whether
42 U.S.C. § 1997e(e) would limit recovery for this kind of non-bodily injury to nominal
or punitive damages, see, e.g., Lisle v. Welborn, 933 F.3d 705, 719 (7th Cir. 2019).
The dismissal at screening was premature. We therefore VACATE the judgment
of the district court and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this order.

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