Calvillo v. Marquez

Background

Carlos Calvillo, a prisoner at the Correctional Training Facility, filed a civil-rights lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 without a lawyer against Lieutenant J. Marquez. The court had previously found that his complaint stated potentially valid claims for retaliation under the First Amendment and for due process and equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.

On February 10, 2022, prison investigators searched Calvillo’s housing unit and found an altered tablet in his cell. Officer Madsen issued a rules-violation report. Marquez conducted the disciplinary hearing on March 10, 2022. Calvillo argued that Marquez should not preside because Marquez had supervised the search and because Calvillo had filed a grievance concerning the search. The parties disputed whether Marquez participated in the search and what statements he made during the hearing. Calvillo was found guilty and received several punishments, including a 30-day loss of good-time credit, 30-day losses of access to the telephone, canteen, packages, and certain property, and a one-year loss of family visits.

Marquez moved for summary judgment, which asks whether the evidence shows that no important factual dispute requires a trial and that the moving party is entitled to judgment under the law. Calvillo opposed the motion and asked to file a sur-reply. The court denied the sur-reply request because it repeated arguments from his opposition and added no new facts.

Court’s Analysis

Retaliation. A prison-retaliation claim required Calvillo to show, among other things, that Marquez took adverse action because of protected conduct and that the action did not reasonably advance a legitimate correctional goal. Calvillo identified Marquez’s guilty finding as the only retaliatory act. The court held that the finding reasonably advanced a legitimate correctional goal because the parties did not dispute that the tablet belonged to Calvillo, that it had been altered, and that the alteration was impermissible. The court therefore granted summary judgment to Marquez on the retaliation claim.

Equal protection. Calvillo argued that Marquez found him guilty because of his race. The court held that he provided no evidence supporting that claim. Although Marquez mentioned Calvillo’s affiliation with the Mexican Mafia, the court found that this reference alone did not show discriminatory intent regarding the rules-violation decision. The court also noted that Calvillo testified that he had no idea whether race caused the guilty finding and had not shown that prisoners of other races would have been found not guilty in similar circumstances. The court granted summary judgment to Marquez on the equal-protection claim.

Due process. The court explained that a due-process claim first requires a protected liberty or property interest and then constitutionally sufficient procedures. It held that Calvillo had not identified a protected liberty interest affected by the disciplinary proceeding. The 30-day loss of good-time credit did not establish such an interest because Calvillo’s sentence required a later parole-board decision, so the loss did not necessarily affect the length of his imprisonment. The court also held that the losses of telephone, canteen, package, property, and family-visit access did not trigger a protected liberty interest. The court granted summary judgment to Marquez on the due-process claim.

Disposition

The court held that Calvillo had not identified a material factual dispute on any of his three claims. It GRANTED Marquez’s motion for summary judgment and DENIED Calvillo’s motion to file a sur-reply. The clerk was directed to terminate all pending motions and close the file.