Opinion
23-2972
08-15-2024
DAVID PANNELL, PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT, v. SARAH EADS, ET AL., DEFENDANTS-APPELLEES
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
Submitted August 14, 2024 [*]
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, Terre Haute Division. No. 2:18-cv-00522-JRS-MKK James R. Sweeney II, Judge.
Before FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Circuit Judge
ORDER
David pannell contends that, in violation of his First Amendment rights, prison officials confiscated books (which they believed he did not own) because he asked to spend more time in the library. The district court entered summary judgment for the defendants. It correctly ruled that undisputed evidence showed that the officials lawfully confiscated the books because they did not belong to Pannell. We thus affirm.
When Pannell was transferred from Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, Indiana, to the Putnamville Correctional Facility in Greencastle, Indiana, in May 2018, he brought with him nearly ninety law books. Because he could keep only ten books in his cell, the warden let him keep the rest in the prison library. Shortly after his arrival, Sarah Eads, the prison librarian, notified Pannell about a new policy that applied to all prisoners that reduced the number of days each week that Pannell could access the library-down from three to two days per week. Pannell did not like that change. He asked Eads to continue his access at three days per week. Eads denied the request. On August 2, he told her that, in his view, denying his request restricted his access to the courts by limiting his contact with his law books.
The day after Pannell told Eads that he wanted more frequent access to his law books than the prison's policy permitted, several events involving his books occurred. First, Eads asked Pannell for his consent to scan his law books onto a computer hard drive assigned to Pannell. He refused. An hour later, Eads emailed the law librarian at Indiana State Prison, asking for information about Pannell and whether he had bought law books there. Around the same time, a different prison official, having "received word" that Pannell was "slowly removing his legal documents from the law library" at Putnamville, asked an officer to check Pannell's cell to "make sure he does not have a cardboard box full of legal materials." The other officer reported that Pannell had excess property in his cell and told Pannell to put it into his property box.
A few days later, Eads received information about Pannell's books. The librarian at Indiana State Prison told Eads that Pannell had not bought any books through its law library and that it does "not give any of our books away to any offenders." Eads worried that Pannell was "exchanging books out" and that "some books have names of other offenders and law library scratched out." A prison official "shook down" Pannell and did not find unauthorized books in his possession, but said that "someone else" might be "holding them for him." Eads sent the librarian at Indiana State Prison photos of Pannell's books and manuals in the Putnamville library, and the librarian identified several that appeared to belong to Indiana State Prison. Meanwhile, Pannell asked prison officials for a grievance form to complain that Eads had denied him access to the courts by refusing his request for a three-days-a-week library schedule.
After Eads learned that Pannell may have stolen books, Pannell was charged with misconduct. Eads confiscated the suspected books and, when Pannell saw Eads, she asked him to sign forms stating that the books belonged to another offender or another institution's law library. Pannell refused to sign the forms. He then complained about these events to a grievance specialist, who wrote a conduct report charging Pannell with unauthorized possession of property. The report stated that the prison confiscated twenty-seven books because they belonged to another institution and seven books because they had other offenders' names on them or "other markings ... to hide the owner name." Pannell complained to the warden and others that Eads and other staff were retaliating against him. After a hearing and unsuccessful appeal, Pannell was convicted of the charges based on the evidence of the email exchanges between the law librarians.
This lawsuit followed. Pannell sued Eads and others for violating his First Amendment rights by confiscating his books in retaliation for "past grievances" that he had filed. The district court dismissed the suit for failure to state a claim. In a previous appeal, we vacated the judgment for a "narrow" remand to allow the district court to reevaluate the claim under the proper standard. Pannell v. Eads, 856 F. App'x. 628 (7th Cir. 2021). As the defendants conceded, the district court had incorrectly focused on Pannell's persistence in filing new grievances after the defendants confiscated his books, rather than on how an "ordinary" inmate would react to the confiscation. Id. at 629. On remand, the district court initially gave Pannell several extensions of time to amend his complaint. But it denied Pannell's final request because he sought to add claims against a new defendant, the librarian of Indiana State Prison, and these claims fell "outside the narrow scope of the remand." The defendants then successfully moved for summary judgment. The court reasoned that, although the confiscation of books could deter an ordinary prisoner from filing grievances, the undisputed evidence showed that the defendants confiscated the books for a legitimate reason-their genuine belief that Pannell did not own them.
On appeal, Pannell argues that the district court wrongly entered summary judgment on his First Amendment claim. We assess that ruling de novo, viewing the record in the light most favorable to Pannell, the non-moving party. See Manuel v. Nalley, 966 F.3d 678, 680 (7th Cir. 2020). In his first appeal, Pannell contended that Eads confiscated his books in order to punish him for his constitutionally protected speech of filing "past grievances." In the current appeal, he argues that Eads investigated whether he owned the law books in his possession in order to punish him for his constitutionally protected speech of asking Eads for more personal library time.
Pannell's reframed argument is unavailing for three reasons. First, he assumes that the First Amendment protects "everything" that a prisoner asks of a member of the prison staff-in this case, Pannell's request for more personal library time-but that assumption is questionable. See Herron v. Meyer, 820 F.3d 860, 863-64 (7th Cir. 2016). Second, Pannell assumes that an ordinary prisoner who asks for something (i.e., library access) would be deterred from doing so if, in response to the request, the prison official to whom the request is made asks whether the prisoner has violated any rules (i.e., possesses books he does not own). But Pannell has not cited authority to support this assumption, and we are not aware of any. Third, the undisputed evidence is that, for a genuine and legitimate reason, the defendants would have confiscated Pannell's law books regardless of any hostility about his grievances: The defendants reasonably and honestly believed, from the report from Indiana State Prison, that Pannell possessed books he did not own. And under Putnamville's uncontested rules, the prison must confiscate from a prisoner property that does not belong to him. Offender Personal Property, Ind. Dep't of Corr. Pol'y &Admin. Proc. 02-01-101. Thus Pannell cannot prevail on his First Amendment claim because, once the defendants learned that he possessed books he did not own, they would have confiscated the books regardless of their views about his grievances. See Greene v. Doruff, 660 F.3d 975, 979 (7th Cir. 2011).
Finally, Pannell argues that the district court wrongly denied him leave to amend his complaint to add claims against a new defendant, but this argument fails for two reasons. The first reason is the mandate rule. We made clear that our earlier remand was narrow, and it did not contemplate an expansion of the case to include new defendants, such as the librarian from Indiana State Prison, as Pannell proposed. The district court did not err by staying within the narrow scope of our remand. See Sullivan v. Flora, Inc., 63 F.4th 1130, 1138 (7th Cir. 2023). Second, a district court may deny a motion for leave to amend if the amendment would be futile. Runnion ex el. Runnion v. Girl Scouts of Greater Chi. &Nw. Ind., 786 F.3d 510, 519-20 (7th Cir. 2015). An amendment is futile if it proposes an untimely claim. See Sound of Music Co. v. Minn. Mining &Mfg. Co., 477 F.3d 910, 922-23 (7th Cir. 2007). The confiscation of books occurred in 2018, but Pannell did not propose to add the other librarian until 2023, more than two years after the expiration of Indiana's two-year statute of limitations. See Richards v. Mitcheff, 696 F.3d 635, 637 (7th Cir. 2012); IND. CODE § 34-11-2-4. That delay rendered the proposed claim futile.
AFFIRMED
[*] This appeal is successive to No. 20-1313 and is decided under Operating procedure 6(b) by members of the panel in No. 20-1313 who remain on this court. The third member of the panel in this appeal, No. 23-2972, was selected at random. We have agreed to decide this 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. See FED. R. APP. p. 34(a)(2)(C).