Jose Carlos Arce v. Indiana Parole Board

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted February 10, 2015*
Decided March 12, 2015
Before
FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge
KENNETH F. RIPPLE, Circuit Judge
ANN CLAIRE WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge
No. 14‐2733
JOSE CARLOS ARCE,
Petitioner‐Appellant,
v.
INDIANA PAROLE BOARD,
Respondent‐Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Southern District of Indiana.
No. 1:14‐cv‐00622‐RLY‐DKL
Richard L. Young,
Chief Judge.
O R D E R
Before Jose Arce was released on parole, a hearing officer at his Indiana prison found
him guilty of disorderly conduct. He was sanctioned with 60 days’ lost good time,
demotion in good‐time earning status, and lost commissary privileges. After exhausting
his administrative appeals, Arce petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus, see 28 U.S.C.
§ 2254, contending that he had been punished without due process. The district court
denied that petition, and we affirm.
* After examining the briefs and record, we have concluded that oral argument is
unnecessary. Thus the appeal is submitted on the briefs and record. See FED. R. A PP. P.
34(a)(2)(C).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

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No. 14‐2733 Page 2
Guards confiscated a pillow from Arce’s cell during a routine shakedown. Arce
notified one of the guards that he was medically authorized to have the pillow and asked
for its return. If the pillow would not be returned, Arce added, he wanted the guard to
prepare a “Notice of Confiscated Property.” When asked for his paperwork authorizing
the pillow, Arce began yelling. Sergeant Manning arrived and ordered the guards to
handcuff Arce, who was taken to segregation and written up for disorderly conduct.
At his disciplinary hearing, Arce tendered a written statement denying yelling at the
guard named in the conduct report but admitting having yelled at Sergeant Manning. It
was the sergeant’s fault, Arce insisted, for provoking him. Witness statements from three
guards and another inmate confirmed that Arce had yelled. The incident had been
captured by the prison’s surveillance system, and a written summary of the video
(prepared by the hearing officer) was submitted as evidence. That summary describes
Arce first talking and then yelling, which continued as the guards escorted him from the
housing unit. The hearing officer concluded that Arce was guilty and gave this
explanation for the decision: “DHO has considered all evidence to include offender
statement, photo, confiscation slip, witness statements, video review, staff reports, and
finds Arce … guilty of 236 B disorderly conduct.”
In his § 2254 petition Arce asserted that the hearing officer failed to explain the guilty
verdict adequately, in particular the decision not to credit Arce’s version of events. Arce
also insisted that his right to due process under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), had
been violated when prison administrators kept him from watching the surveillance
video, which, he said, includes “exculpatory” scenes not described in the written
summary. He further alleged that his right to due process had been violated because he
did not receive a copy of the hearing officer’s report on the day of the hearing, in
violation of Department of Corrections policy. The district court rejected all of these
contentions.
Arce appeals, but before reaching the merits we must determine whether his release
from prison moots this case. The parties’ appellate briefs do not tell us when Arce’s
parole began, when it will end if he is still on parole, or whether that end date could be
affected by the disposition of this appeal. That is problematic because, without that
information, we could not tell whether Arce has “some concrete and continuing injury
other than the now‐ended incarceration or parole—some ‘collateral consequence’ of the
conviction,” necessary for his suit to be maintained. See Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S. 1, 7
(1998). We thus ordered the parties to provide supplemental memoranda to fill that
information gap. We know now that Arce’s parole is scheduled to end on October 18,
2016, and that a favorable decision could shorten Arce’s term of parole by restoring his

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No. 14‐2733 Page 3
good time. Thus, this case presents a live case or controversy, see White v. Indiana Parole
Board, 266 F.3d 759, 763 (7th Cir. 2001), and we proceed to the merits.
On appeal Arce maintains that the hearing officer’s written statement does not
adequately detail the pertinent evidence or explain the decision. According to Arce the
hearing officer was required to explain why his asserted defense—that Sergeant
Manning had provoked him into yelling—was rejected.
To satisfy Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539 (1974), the required detail for a hearing
officer’s written statement “will vary from case to case depending on the severity of the
charges and the complexity of the factual circumstances and proof offered by both
sides.” Culbert v. Young, 834 F.2d 624, 631 (7th Cir. 1987). And when “there is no
mystery” about the decision maker’s reasoning process, even a written statement of
“extreme brevity” will not be “so deficient as to create error of constitutional
magnitude.” Saenz v. Young, 811 F.2d 1172, 1174 (7th Cir. 1987). Here, every piece of
evidence confirmed that Arce had been disorderly. And the hearing officer did not need
to respond to Arce’s purported defense because provocation does not excuse disorderly
conduct. See Jones v. Cross, 637 F.3d 841, 848 (7th Cir. 2011) (noting that inmates do not
have constitutional right to raise self‐defense when accused of misconduct); Scruggs v.
Jordan, 485 F.3d 934, 938–39 (7th Cir. 2007) (same); Rowe v. DeBruyn, 17 F.3d 1047, 1052–53
(7th Cir. 1994) (same).
Arce next contends that prison administrators denied him access to exculpatory
evidence by forbidding him from viewing the surveillance video. He says that the video
would have revealed that Sergeant Manning goaded him into yelling. The
nondisclosure, he insists, violated Brady, but that contention is frivolous. Although Brady
compels disclosure of material exculpatory evidence to inmates facing disciplinary
charges, Jones, 637 F.3d at 847; Piggie v. Cotton, 344 F.3d 674, 678 (7th Cir. 2003); Chavis v.
Rowe, 643 F.2d 1281, 1285–86 (7th Cir. 1981), prison administrators need not provide
irrelevant or inculpatory evidence, Jones, 637 F.3d at 848; Scruggs, 485 F.3d at 939–40.
Because Sergeant Manning’s demeanor was irrelevant, the prison was not required to
show the video to Arce.
Last, Arce contends that the prison administrators violated his due process rights as
well as the prison system’s internal policy by failing to provide him with a copy of his
hearing report in a timely manner. Arce first stresses that he did not receive a copy of the
report until thirty days after it had been issued, well after the deadline for filing an
administrative appeal. That the prison may have violated its own policy on this issue is
irrelevant for purposes of § 2254. See Jones, 637 F.3d at 846; Rowe, 17 F.3d at 1052; Archie v.

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No. 14‐2733 Page 4
City of Racine, 847 F.2d 1211, 1217 (7th Cir. 1988) (en banc). Wolff does not require
same‐day written decisions. See Wolff, 418 U.S. at 565.
Wolff does require that hearing reports be provided promptly enough that inmates
are not at a “disadvantage in propounding [their] own cause.” Id. Here, Arce has not
demonstrated that he suffered any disadvantage because of the delayed receipt of his
hearing report. There is no indication that he was not able to exhaust fully his
administrative remedies and present his case. Without a showing that he was harmed by
the delay, he cannot, on this record, show that any violation of Wolff’s mandate was
anything other than harmless error. See Jones, 637 F.3d at 846.
AFFIRMED

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