George M. Miller v. Trueasial Sanford ( 2007 )

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT FILED
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
------------------------------------------- ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
DECEMBER 6, 2007
No. 06-16334
THOMAS K. KAHN
Non-Argument Calendar
CLERK
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D.C. Docket No. 06-80926-CV-KLR
GEORGE M. MILLER,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
TRUEASIAL SANFORD,
LT. JOSEPH,
MARGARET KOVACS,
R. P. TIFFT,
JOHN DOE,
Defendants-Appellees.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
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(December 6, 2007)
Before EDMONDSON, Chief Judge, BIRCH and PRYOR, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
George M. Miller (“Miller”), a Florida prisoner proceeding pro se, appeals
the district court’s dismissal of Miller’s civil rights action. We see no reversible
error in the district court’s order; we therefore affirm.
Miller, a Florida prisoner held at Glades Correctional Institution (“GCI”),
filed a complaint pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against several GCI officials,
alleging the violation of Miller’s Fourteenth Amendment due process rights.
Miller alleged that, in July 2006, a GCI officer issued a disciplinary report that
falsely stated that Miller had lied to the officer. The complaint further alleged that
the prison disciplinary team that found Miller guilty of disrespect to an official
failed to investigate the charge adequately, was biased against Miller, and
committed other procedural errors. As a result of this finding of disrespect, Miller
was sentenced to 25 days of disciplinary confinement and 60 days’ loss of gain
time. Miller also alleged that the supervisory officials at GCI acted with deliberate
indifference to Miller’s due process rights by approving the disciplinary team’s
finding and sentence and by denying Miller’s grievances and appeals. Miller
sought expungement of the disciplinary report and monetary damages.
The magistrate judge recommended that Miller’s complaint be dismissed
pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(b)(ii) for failure to state a claim on which relief
2
may be granted. The magistrate determined that Miller’s suit was barred by Heck
v. Humphry, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), and Edwards v. Balisok, 520 U.S. 641 (1997):
Miller’s “allegations, if true, would necessarily imply the invalidity of the
deprivation of gain time alleged in the complaint,” and Miller had not alleged –
and could not prove – that the prison disciplinary proceeding had been invalidated.
After reviewing the magistrate’s report and recommendation and Miller’s
objections thereto, the district court dismissed Miller’s complaint. Miller now
appeals, arguing that Heck is inapplicable.
We review the district court’s sua sponte dismissal of an in forma pauperis
complaint for failure to state a claim de novo, viewing the allegations in the
complaint as true and construing the pro se pleading liberally. Hughes v. Lott, 350
F.3d 1157, 1159-60 (11th Cir. 2003).
In Heck, the Supreme Court ruled that
to recover damages for an allegedly unconstitutional conviction or
imprisonment, or for other harm caused by actions whose unlawfulness
would render a conviction or sentence invalid, a 42 U.S.C. § 1983plaintiff must prove that the conviction or sentence has been reversed on
direct appeal, expunged by executive order, declared invalid by a state
tribunal authorized to make such determination, or called into question
by a federal court’s issuance of a writ of habeas corpus.
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Heck, 512 U.S. at 486-87. Thus, where “a judgment in favor of the plaintiff would
necessarily imply the invalidity of his conviction or sentence[,]. . . the complaint
must be dismissed unless the plaintiff can demonstrate that the conviction or
sentence has already been invalidated.” Id. at 487. In Edwards, the Supreme
Court applied Heck to a section 1983 action in which a prisoner alleged that the
procedures used in his disciplinary proceeding violated the Fourteenth
Amendment. Edwards, 520 at 643-44. The Court reached this conclusion even
though the prisoner sought only declaratory and monetary relief and did not
request restoration of the good-time credits he had lost as a result of the
disciplinary action.1 Id. at 643.
Miller attempts to distinguish his case from Heck and Edwards by
contending that he is merely challenging prison conditions rather than his
conviction or the length of his sentence. But this argument overlooks that, if
Miller’s allegations are true, he would be entitled to have the misconduct finding
reversed and his gain time restored, which would result in a shorter sentence. See
id. at 646. Miller’s suit is thus distinguishable from the section 1983 action at
1
The Court suggested that the prisoner had purposefully structured his section 1983 action to
avoid application of Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 500 (1973), in which the Court determined
that the sole federal remedy for a prisoner seeking restoration of good-time credits was a writ of
habeas corpus. Edwards, 520 at 643-44.
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issue in Jenkins v. Haubert, 179 F.3d 19 (2nd Cir. 1999), on which Miller relies,
because the challenge in Jenkins merely addressed the conditions – not the overall
length – of the prisoner’s confinement. See id. at 27 (concluding that Heck did not
bar prisoner’s section 1983 action challenging a term of disciplinary segregation).
Because Miller’s section 1983 action necessarily implicates the validity of
the duration of his confinement, and Miller has not alleged that the disciplinary
decision has been invalidated, his action is barred by Heck and Edwards. We
therefore affirm the district court’s dismissal.2
AFFIRMED.
2
Miller also contends that, because the district court filing instructions provided that the required
filing fee for his section 1983 complaint was $150, the district court erred in imposing a $350 lien
on his prison account to cover the fee. But Miller did not object in district court to the amount of
the fee and continued to litigate his suit after being notified of the $350 fee; he cannot now properly
argue that the district court erred in assessing the fee. See Access Now, Inc. v. Southwest Airlines
Co., 385 F.3d 1324, 1331 (11th Cir. 2004) (noting that “an issue not raised in the district court and
raised for the first time in an appeal will not be considered by this court” (internal quotation marks
and citation omitted).
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