Johnson v. Finnan

Disciplinary panels in state prisons are not courts. White v. Indiana Parole Board, 266 F.3d 759, 765-66 (7th Cir. 2001). From this it follows that facts found (or assumed) by a prison disciplinary board are not entitled to the presumption of correctness that 28 U.S.C. §2254(e) affords to judicial findings. Piggie v. McBride, 277 F.3d 922, 925 (7th Cir. 2002). This means, in turn, that when a prisoner who seeks a writ of habeas corpus provides competent evidence (such as an affidavit by someone with personal knowledge of the events) contradict- ing an assertion by the prison disciplinary board on a material question of fact pertinent to an issue of constitutional law, the district court must hold an evidentiary hearing to determine where the truth lies. Piggie, 272 F.3d at 926; Pannell v. McBride, 306 F.3d 499 (7th Cir. 2002). We publish an opinion in this run-of-the-mine appeal because these established propositions frequently are overlooked in litigation arising from Indianas prison system.