Pittman v. Gomez ( 2022 )

Appellate Case: 21-1114 Document: 010110706167 Date Filed: 07/06/2022 Page: 1
FILED
United States Court of Appeals
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT July 6, 2022
_________________________________
Christopher M. Wolpert
Clerk of Court
DARNELL LOVE PITTMAN, SR.,
Petitioner - Appellant,
v. No. 21-1114
(D.C. No. 1:19-CV-02221-STV)
CHRISTOPHER GOMEZ, (D. Colo.)
Respondent - Appellee.
_________________________________
ORDER AND JUDGMENT*
_________________________________
Before HARTZ, HOLMES, and McHUGH, Circuit Judges.
_________________________________
Darnell Pittman appeals the denial of his 28 U.S.C. § 2241 petition challenging
the loss of good time credit due to prison disciplinary proceedings. Exercising
jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 2253(a), we affirm.
BACKGROUND
During the events giving rise to this habeas petition, Pittman was an inmate at
the Administrative Maximum Facility of the United States Penitentiary in Florence,
*
After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist in the determination of
this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore
ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding
precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral
estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with
Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.
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Colorado. In 2018, prison officials served him with an incident report charging him
with possession of a hazardous tool, a violation of prison rules.
See 28 C.F.R. § 541.3(a)-108. The hazardous tool at issue was a razor blade
concealed in a macroeconomics textbook labeled “Property of Darnell Pittman” in
black permanent marker. Officer Megan Boze reported that she found the razor blade
while searching Pittman’s cell. At the time of the search, prison officials had brought
Pittman out of his cell for questioning regarding an unrelated investigation. The Unit
Disciplinary Committee (UDC) conducted a hearing at which Pittman denied the
charge, stating: “This is false—bogus[.] My property was mishandled, and I do not
own the book that is referenced.” R. vol. 1 at 222.
The UDC referred the matter to a Disciplinary Hearing Officer (DHO) for
further hearing. Pittman requested a staff representative, Recreation Specialist James
Dahlquist, to assist him before the DHO. On his witness list, Pittman requested
review of “[c]amera [f]ootage R&D.” Id. at 230.1 Pittman’s witness list also
included officers who found abandoned books in the unit containing Pittman’s cell,
including three books (other than the macroeconomics textbook) that an officer
returned to Pittman around the time Officer Boze discovered the razor blade. Pittman
also gave a handwritten note to the UDC requesting “D-unit camera footage,” and
“R&D camera footage.” Id. at 236. In subsequent correspondence, Pittman
requested that Dahlquist “review[] certain camera footage.” Id. at 237. Pittman later
1
“R& D” refers to the Inmate Services Unit at the facility.
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requested that Dahlquist “[o]btain access to review the ADX Security Surveillance
Camera footage between July 6th–July 9th of 2018; [i]n relation to D-block Unit;
C-block Unit, and the R&D Dep’t.” Id. at 238.
The DHO held a disciplinary hearing over two days. On the first hearing date,
the DHO continued the proceedings to give Dahlquist more time to attempt to fulfill
Pittman’s requests. Meanwhile, between the first and second hearing dates, the DHO
emailed Officer Boze, writing:
Hello. You authored this incident report, correct? If so,
can please clarify something for me? The inmate alleges
there were three books which were sitting on the floor
outside of his cell on the day he and his property were
removed from the cell. He said you picked those three
books up and “disappeared.” Do you happen to remember
if . . .any of that information is accurate? Also, if so, do
you remember what those three books were and what you
did with those books? Were they placed back in his
property before the search where you found the razor
blade? Was one of those books the [m]acroeconomics
book?
Id. at 232. Officer Boze replied:
Hello Ma’am,
Yes Ma’am I did. The three books in the hallway belonged
to the ADX library and Chapel[;] I placed those three
books in the sallyport of the unit for those respective
departments to collect. Inmate Pittman had other
institution books in his cell which belonged to those
departments as well[;] I added them to the first three. The
[m]acroeconomics book which I discovered the razor blade
concealed in the binder of was located inside of his cell
underneath his legal materials, along with a few other
personal books.
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I discovered several home-made greeting cards when I
searched and inventoried his property; the cards had
precise cuts made in the paper which could only be made
with a very sharp cutting instrument. Inmate Pittman had
made threats to harm himself that morning. The
[m]acroeconomics book set off the metal detector, and I
saw the razor blade inside of the book when we took his
property to C-Unit to scan it through the x-ray machine as
Inmate Pittman was placed on suicide watch.
If you have any further questions[,] please feel free to
contact me!
Id. Ultimately, Dahlquist did not obtain, and the DHO did not review, any
surveillance camera footage.
The DHO resumed the hearing, at which she expressly considered the incident
report, the email exchange, photographs of the macroeconomics textbook and razor
blade, and a seven-page, handwritten document listing thirty-one “Defensive Case
Points” that Pittman submitted, id. at 42–48. In that document, Pittman stated
camera footage “would show that the so-called ‘macroeconomics’ book was not
removed out of my property on July 6–7; because I did not own said book, nor was
said book taken out of my cell.” Id. at 45. He also stated the camera footage would
show how officers handled the three other books they found outside of his cell. The
DHO determined, by the greater weight of the evidence, that Pittman was guilty of
the disciplinary violation and imposed a sanction including the loss of 31 days of
good time credit.
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Pittman then filed a § 2241 application in the District of Colorado challenging
the disciplinary conviction.2 The parties consented to the exercise of jurisdiction by
a magistrate judge, who denied the application without a hearing. Pittman filed a
notice of appeal in this court and a Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e) motion in the district court.
We abated the appeal until the district court addressed the Rule 59 motion. When the
district court resolved the Rule 59 motion, Pittman’s notice of appeal ripened. See
Breeden v. ABF Freight Sys., Inc., 115 F.3d 749, 752 (10th Cir. 1997).
DISCUSSION3
“When reviewing the denial of a habeas petition under § 2241, we review the
district court’s legal conclusions de novo and accept its factual findings unless
clearly erroneous.” al-Marri v. Davis, 714 F.3d 1183, 1186 (10th Cir. 2013).
“Prison disciplinary proceedings are not part of a criminal prosecution, and the full
panoply of rights due a defendant in such proceedings does not apply.” Wolff v.
McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 556 (1974). Nonetheless, “[w]here a prison disciplinary
hearing may result in the loss of good time credits, . . . the inmate must receive . . . an
opportunity, when consistent with institutional safety and correctional goals, to call
2
The record is unclear whether Pittman pursued any other administrative
appeals, or if such appeals would have been available to him. The government,
though, in its preliminary response to Pittman’s habeas application, indicated it
would not raise the defense of exhaustion of administrative remedies.
3
Because Pittman “is a federal prisoner proceeding under 28 U.S.C. § 2241,
. . . his appeal is not governed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act
of 1996, and thus no certificate of appealability is required.” Howard v. U.S. Bureau
Of Prisons, 487 F.3d 808, 810 n.1 (10th Cir. 2007) (internal citation omitted).
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witnesses and present documentary evidence in his defense.” Superintendent, Mass.
Corr. Inst. v. Hill, 472 U.S. 445, 454 (1985). “In addition, the decision must be
supported by some evidence.” Wilson v. Jones, 430 F.3d 1113, 1117 (10th Cir. 2005)
(internal citation omitted).
Determining whether prison disciplinary proceedings satisfy the “some
evidence” standard “does not require examination of the entire record, independent
assessment of the credibility of witnesses, or weighing of the evidence. Instead, the
relevant question is whether there is any evidence in the record that could support the
conclusion reached by the disciplinary board.” Hill, 472 U.S. at 455–56. “The
decision can be upheld even if the evidence supporting the decision is meager.”
Mitchell v. Maynard, 80 F.3d 1433, 1445 (10th Cir. 1996) (internal quotation marks
omitted).
We have no trouble concluding “some evidence” supports the imposition of
discipline here. Prison officials charged Pittman with possession of contraband—a
razor blade. Evidence supporting that charge included the incident report from
Officer Boze, who found the razor blade in Pittman’s cell hidden in a textbook with
Pittman’s name on it, as well as photographs of the textbook and razor blade.
Pittman’s defense alluded to various scenarios in which Officer Boze (or other prison
officials) might have planted the razor, mixed up the textbook found inside his cell
with other books found outside his cell, or otherwise mishandled his property in some
way, but the DHO was not obligated to credit these conjectures over Officer Boze’s
account.
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Pittman presents two challenges to the disciplinary hearing proceedings. First,
he argues it was unreasonable for the DHO to render a decision without reviewing the
video footage he requested. Second, he argues the DHO was not impartial because of
her email exchange with Officer Boze before the hearing.
We reject the first argument because, in substance, Pittman’s various requests
to the DHO to review video evidence were so broad and wide ranging as to conflict
with institutional safety and correctional goals. The DHO attested that “[Pittman’s]
requests would have required [her] to review three calendar days of video from
numerous locations in the ADX,” such that the requested review “would have taken
so much time that it would have prevented [her] from fulfilling [her] duties as a DHO
in other cases.” R. vol. 1 at 429–30. To this end, Pittman’s reliance on Howard—
where we held a DHO violated an inmate’s due process rights by denying his request
to review videotape from a single, identified camera of a discrete incident (a prison
fight), 487 F.3d at 813–14—is misplaced.
Pittman criticizes the district court for crediting this aspect of the DHO’s
attestation, noting she made it more than two years after the disciplinary hearing and
arguing that “[t]he failure to review even some of the video indicates the DHO had
no intention of viewing any of it, which demonstrates lack of good faith and lack of
impartiality.” Aplt. Opening Br. at 16 n.6. But these criticisms are, at most, an
invitation to reweigh the evidence before the district court, which we cannot do when
reviewing for clear error. See Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564,
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573–74 (1985) (“If the district court’s account of the evidence is plausible in light of
the record viewed in its entirety, the court of appeals may not reverse it even though
convinced that had it been sitting as the trier of fact, it would have weighed the
evidence differently.”). And, while Pittman is correct about the timing of the
attestation—the DHO did supplement her account of Pittman’s video request in her
second declaration the government submitted in the § 2241 proceedings—he points to
no inconsistencies between this account and any of her earlier statements.
We also reject Pittman’s second argument—that the DHO’s pre-hearing email
communications with Officer Boze evidenced improper bias. Although “[a]n
impartial decisionmaker is a fundamental requirement of due process that is fully
applicable in the prison context,” Gwinn v. Awmiller, 354 F.3d 1211, 1220
(10th Cir. 2004) (internal quotation marks omitted), “because honesty and integrity
are presumed on the part of a tribunal, there must be some substantial countervailing
reason to conclude that a decisionmaker is actually biased with respect to factual
issues being adjudicated,” id. Pittman offers no basis to conclude the neutrally
phrased investigative questions the DHO posed to Officer Boze over email evidence
improper bias. Although such ex parte communications are improper on the part of
judges in criminal trials, see United States v. Carter, 973 F.2d 1509, 1515
(10th Cir. 1992) (concluding “Constitutional error occurred” when trial judge
answered juror questions outside the presence of defendant and counsel), these same
constraints do not apply in prison disciplinary proceedings, see Wolff, 418 U.S. at
556.
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Pittman’s argument that the emailed questions were improper because they
“should have been asked in the hearing itself, with Pittman present for them and able
to cross-examine Officer Boze on her answers,” Aplt. Opening Br. at 28, is
particularly misplaced in the prison disciplinary hearing context where, unlike in
criminal trials, the accused has no inherent due process right to confront and
cross-examine adverse witnesses. See Howard, 487 F.3d at 812–13. Pittman
therefore did not set forth a “substantial countervailing reason” to overcome the
presumption of honesty and integrity on the part of the DHO and so did not establish
a due process violation in his disciplinary proceedings. See Gwinn, 354 F.3d at 1220.
CONCLUSION
We affirm the judgment of the district court.
Entered for the Court
Jerome A. Holmes
Circuit Judge
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