Appellate Case: 24-2035 Document: 54-1 Date Filed: 04/28/2025 Page: 1
FILED
United States Court of Appeals
PUBLISH Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS April 28, 2025
Christopher M. Wolpert
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT Clerk of Court
_________________________________
CLIFTON WHITE,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
No. 24-2035
v.
ALISHA TAFOYA LUCERO, New
Mexico Corrections Department, in her
individual capacity; JOE LYTLE, New
Mexico Corrections Department, in his
individual capacity; MELISSA ORTIZ,
New Mexico Corrections Department, in
her individual capacity,
Defendants - Appellants,
and
LISA PADILLA, New Mexico
Correctional Department, in her individual
capacity; CATHY CATANACH, New
Mexico Corrections Department, in her
individual capacity; ELIJAH LANGSTON,
New Mexico Corrections Department, in
his individual capacity; JUDITH
ANDERSON; ANTHONY ROMERO;
JANE AND JOHN DOES (1-10);
CORECIVIC, INC., f/k/a Corrections
Corporation of America; GERMAN
FRANCO,
Defendants.
_________________________________
Appellate Case: 24-2035 Document: 54-1 Date Filed: 04/28/2025 Page: 2
_________________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of New Mexico
(D.C. No. 1:21-CV-01204-MIS-JFR)
_________________________________
Mark E. Komer, Long, Komer & Associates P.A., Santa Fe, New Mexico, for
Defendants-Appellants.
Ryan J. Villa, The Law Office of Ryan J. Villa, Albuquerque, New Mexico (Leon
Howard, ACLU of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, with him on the brief) for
Plaintiff-Appellee.
_________________________________
Before TYMKOVICH, McHUGH, and ROSSMAN, Circuit Judges.
_________________________________
TYMKOVICH, Circuit Judge.
_________________________________
Clifton White claims New Mexico Corrections Department officials knew he
was serving an unlawful sentence but failed to discharge him. He brought civil rights
claims under 28 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging the prison officials violated his
constitutional right by failing to release him after he told them that his term of
incarceration for violating probation was wrongfully entered. In response, the prison
officials argue they were relying on a facially valid sentencing order by the state
court that required White’s continued detention, and they had no power to modify the
order or release him absent a court directive—even if they believed the court erred.1
1
The Defendants in this appeal are two deputy wardens and a warden of
different facilities in the New Mexico Corrections Department system. Our decision
here does not opine on the duties or responsibilities of other employees of the
Department.
2
Appellate Case: 24-2035 Document: 54-1 Date Filed: 04/28/2025 Page: 3
The prison officials moved to dismiss the complaint, asserting qualified
immunity. The district court denied the motion, concluding the law was clearly
established that prison officials violate the law when they continue to imprison
individuals past their release date without a lawful basis.
We conclude the prison officials are entitled to qualified immunity. No
controlling Tenth Circuit law clearly establishes that prison officials act unlawfully
in keeping a defendant incarcerated when they are relying on a facially valid judicial
sentencing order, even if the officials believe the order was made in error. And
neither does our case law put prison officials on notice that they have a duty or the
power to disregard a judicial sentencing order if they suspect it is flawed. Yet
according to White, that is exactly what these officials were required to do. But
when there is a judicial order mandating a sentence in which the defendant disagrees,
the proper recourse is to appeal that sentence through the state or federal judicial
process. No clearly established law requires prison officials to ignore, correct, or act
contrary to a facially valid sentencing order in these circumstances.
Because the law is not clearly established that the prison officials’ conduct in
this case is unconstitutional, we REVERSE.
I. Background
White’s long track record with law enforcement started in 2002, when he was
indicted for various crimes, including armed robbery, kidnapping, trafficking, and
aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. In 2003, he entered a plea agreement on
his state charges, and the court sentenced him to nineteen years of a suspended
3
Appellate Case: 24-2035 Document: 54-1 Date Filed: 04/28/2025 Page: 4
sentence, six years of imprisonment, and probation. After serving jail time, White
was released on probation in January 2008.
But by the end of 2012, White had violated probation four times. In December
2012, after his fourth probation violation, the state court sentenced him to five years
of incarceration with the New Mexico Corrections Department. In May 2015, the
court adjusted his sentence based on a stipulation between White’s counsel and the
district attorney, which recalculated his time served. The court then ruled White
would serve two additional years of probation, with parole to run concurrently, upon
his release in June 2015. White completed his term and was released on June 5,
2015. His two-year probation started that same day.
But White violated probation once again, and the State moved for revocation
in July 2016. The revocation hearing was set for February 2017. This time, White
challenged the State’s power to revoke his probation and parole on the ground that,
based on his earned credits, the State’s jurisdiction over him had ended in September
2016. In response, the district attorney provided a jurisdictional calculation that
found the State still had 2,922 days remaining on his suspended sentence. White
apparently did not object to this calculation. The state district court accepted these
representations, and on February 16, 2017, reinstated White’s term of probation for
another three years.
This probation did not last long, either. In December 2017, after White again
violated probation, the state district court revoked probation and sentenced him to
4
Appellate Case: 24-2035 Document: 54-1 Date Filed: 04/28/2025 Page: 5
two years in jail. The court also ordered two years of parole after completion of the
two-year sentence.
White challenged this order in two ways. First, he filed a habeas petition on
December 13, 2017, claiming he had completed his 2003 sentence based on various
presentence confinement and probation credits he had earned. The petition was
denied on January 11, 2018, with the reviewing court concluding that as of White’s
“December 7, 2017 sentencing, the Court had more than five years of jurisdiction left
and therefore, the two-year sentence did not exceed the [sentencing] Court’s
jurisdiction.” App., Vol. I at 139. Second, White made a direct appeal of the 2017
order to the New Mexico Court of Appeals, challenging the State’s revocation of
probation. Notably, White did not challenge the validity of the 2017 order in this
appeal on the ground that the State lost jurisdiction over him, nor did he argue that he
had completed his 2003 sentence by the time he was sentenced in 2017. Rather, he
challenged whether there was sufficient evidence to show his violation of probation
was willful. Id. at 95. In March 2019, the New Mexico Court of Appeals answered
that question in the affirmative and found no reason to disturb the state district
court’s ruling.
Id.
After his habeas petition was denied, White allegedly spoke at various times
with Deputy Wardens Alisha Tafoya Lucero and Joe Lytle and Warden and Deputy
Director Melissa Ortiz, all of whom were New Mexico Corrections Department
officials. According to White, he told these officials he should not be in prison
because his earned credits for his previous probation violations had been incorrectly
5
Appellate Case: 24-2035 Document: 54-1 Date Filed: 04/28/2025 Page: 6
calculated. If they had been correctly calculated and applied, the State’s jurisdiction
had lapsed as of September 6, 2016, and he should have been discharged completely
from his 19-year sentence by the time his probation revocation hearing occurred in
February 2017. In other words, White told them he should not have been on
probation in 2017 in the first place, and the state court had no jurisdiction to sentence
him in December 2017 for a probation violation.
White claims these officials acknowledged that he might be right the State lost
jurisdiction over him after he completed his previous sentence for probation
violations. But despite this acknowledgment, they continued to keep him in custody.
As a result, White remained incarcerated and finished his two-year sentence in
September 2019. He was then set to serve parole for two years. But in June 2020,
White was arrested again for violating the terms of his parole. During the
preliminary hearing before the Parole Hearing Officer, White argued the State did not
have jurisdiction over him. The Hearing Officer disagreed, and White was sentenced
by the state district court to a jail term once again.
But a few months later, in October 2020, and for reasons not stated in the
complaint, the district attorney and White jointly filed a stipulation asking the state
district court to order his release. Neither White nor the prison officials explain the
events prompting the stipulation or the reasoning behind it. The stipulated order,
which the state district court approved, found that White had earned various
presentence confinement and probation credits that had not been properly applied.
According to the stipulation, when White was sentenced in 2012 for a five-year
6
Appellate Case: 24-2035 Document: 54-1 Date Filed: 04/28/2025 Page: 7
period of imprisonment, “neither the Parties nor the Court properly accounted for or
delineated in the probation revocation order the amount of probation credit that
Defendant had already earned toward Count 5.” App., Vol. I at 32–33. As a result,
“Defendant discharged all remaining parole jurisdiction on or about September 6,
2016, and thus was inadvertently erroneously released onto parole on September 16,
2019.” Id. In other words, the State lost jurisdiction over White as of September 6,
2016, and thus had no authority to place him on parole after the completion of his
sentence. White was released after the stipulation and discharge order.
White then filed suit, asserting 28 U.S.C. § 1983 civil rights claims against
twenty defendants. The defendants moved to dismiss, but the court denied the
motion to dismiss as to Lucero, Lytle, and Ortiz. Relevant here, the district court
rejected their assertion of qualified immunity. According to the district court, it was
clearly established that prison officials violate the Eighth and Fourteenth
Amendments “when they continue to imprison individuals they know to be
incarcerated without lawful basis, or when they are deliberately indifferent to the
prospect that prisoners in their charge are incarcerated without lawful basis.” App.,
Vol. II. at 398–99.
II. Discussion
The prison officials argue they are entitled to qualified immunity because,
among other things, they were bound to keep White detained based on a facially valid
7
Appellate Case: 24-2035 Document: 54-1 Date Filed: 04/28/2025 Page: 8
court order, and it was not clearly established they had a duty to release White in
contravention of a court order that required his detention.
The denial of qualified immunity on a motion to dismiss is an “appealable
final order if it turns on an issue of law.” Mayfield v. Bethards, 826 F.3d 1252, 1255
(10th Cir. 2016) (citation omitted). “When a defendant raises a qualified immunity
defense, the court must dismiss the action unless the plaintiff shows that (1) the
defendant violated a statutory or constitutional right, and (2) the right was clearly
established at the time of the violation.”
Id. (citation omitted). “If the plaintiff fails
to satisfy either prong of qualified immunity, his suit fails.” Hemry v. Ross,
62 F.4th
1248, 1253 (10th Cir. 2023). “Accordingly, we have discretion to decide the order in
which these two prongs should be addressed, and need not address both.”
Id.
(internal quotation marks and citation omitted). But if disputed facts must be
resolved to determine whether qualified immunity applies, we do not have
jurisdiction. See Mayfield,
826 F.3d at 1255 (the denial of a motion to dismiss for
qualified immunity is reviewable on appeal so long as the order “turns on an issue of
law”).
The prison officials argue they did not violate a constitutional right, nor was
any right clearly established that imposed a duty on them to correct or act contrary to
a facially valid sentencing order. But even assuming White plausibly alleged the
violation of a constitutional right, it was not clearly established that the law applied
to the circumstances in this case.
8
Appellate Case: 24-2035 Document: 54-1 Date Filed: 04/28/2025 Page: 9
A. Appellate Jurisdiction
Before reaching the merits, we must establish whether we have jurisdiction.
White argues we lack jurisdiction because the prison officials’ arguments turn on
disputed questions of fact. He contends the officials are asserting a factual defense
that they were simply following a 2017 court order, which mandated White’s two-
year sentence and was not alleged in the complaint.
We disagree. There is no dispute White was incarcerated pursuant to the 2017
court order. In the complaint, White alleged that “[o]n December 8, 2017, the court
remanded [him] to the Department of Corrections for two years beginning on
December 6, 2017.” Third Amended Compl. (TAC) ¶ 77. By relying on the 2017
court order mandating White’s two-year sentence, the prison officials are not raising
a factual construction at odds with the allegations in the complaint. To the contrary,
their reliance on the order is consistent with the facts White alleged. The order is
also consistent with White’s allegation that the New Mexico Corrections Department
miscalculated or misapplied his sentence prior to 2017—though to be sure, White
does not allege Lucero, Lytle, and Ortiz were the ones who miscalculated his
sentence. Nor does he allege the prison officials in this appeal were involved in any
way in the legal proceedings that led to his discharge in 2020.
In other words, we can accept both things as true: (1) the New Mexico
Corrections Department miscalculated his good-time credits prior to 2017; and (2) in
December 2017, the state court issued an order sentencing White to two years of
9
Appellate Case: 24-2035 Document: 54-1 Date Filed: 04/28/2025 Page: 10
imprisonment. Both were sufficiently alleged in the complaint. And since these
allegations are consistent with each other, no factual dispute exists here.
Still, even if White had not sufficiently alleged the existence of the 2017 court
order in his complaint, we may not ignore it, since that order directly pertains to the
situation the prison officials faced when they interacted with White. We can take
judicial notice of the 2017 court order, since courts can consider a “document central
to the plaintiff’s claim and referred to in the complaint . . . in resolving a motion to
dismiss, at least where the document’s authenticity is not in dispute.” Utah Gospel
Mission v. Salt Lake City Corp., 425 F.3d 1249, 1253–54 (10th Cir. 2005). Indeed,
courts can even take judicial notice of documents sua sponte as long as the
documents have “a direct relation to matters at issue.” St. Louis Baptist Temple, Inc.
v. Fed. Deposit Ins. Corp.,
605 F.2d 1169, 1172 (10th Cir. 1979); see also Bruce v.
City & Cnty. of Denver,
57 F.4th 738, 741 n.3 (10th Cir. 2023). The 2017 court order
goes to the primary question at issue here: whether the prison officials should have
released White in the face of a facially valid judicial order mandating his continued
incarceration. Neither party disputes the authenticity of that order. Accordingly, we
take judicial notice of the 2017 sentencing order.
B. Clearly Established Law
Because courts “are free to decide which prong to address first” in the two-
prong qualified immunity inquiry, we choose to begin with whether clearly
established law exists that applies to the prison officials’ conduct. Weise v. Casper,
593 F.3d 1163, 1166–67 (10th Cir. 2010).
10
Appellate Case: 24-2035 Document: 54-1 Date Filed: 04/28/2025 Page: 11
To show clearly established law, “there must be a Supreme Court or Tenth
Circuit decision on point, or the clearly established weight of authority from other
courts must have found the law to be as the plaintiff maintains.” Toevs v. Reid, 685
F.3d 903, 916 (10th Cir. 2012) (citation omitted). “Although Supreme Court
precedent ‘does not require a case directly on point for a right to be clearly
established, existing precedent must have placed the statutory or constitutional
question beyond debate.’” Grissom v. Roberts,
902 F.3d 1162, 1168 (10th Cir. 2018)
(emphasis added) (citation omitted). The relevant question is whether the clearly
established law “appl[ies] with obvious clarity to the specific conduct in question.”
Halley v. Huckaby,
902 F.3d 1136, 1157 (10th Cir. 2018) (citation omitted).
We agree with the prison officials that no clearly established law required
them to correct White’s sentence or release him contrary to the 2017 sentencing
order.2 The cases cited by White stand for the uncontroversial proposition that prison
officials may not keep a prisoner longer than what the sentencing court had ordered.
But that is not the case here. Rather, the prison officials were detaining White
because the judicial order mandated it. None of the cases cited by White hold that
2
White argues the prison officials waived their right to challenge the district
court’s framing of clearly established law because they do not identify where the
district court erred. We disagree. The prison officials obviously contend the district
court erred by failing to acknowledge the 2017 court order, and they are urging us to
consider the 2017 order when examining whether relevant, clearly established law
exists.
11
Appellate Case: 24-2035 Document: 54-1 Date Filed: 04/28/2025 Page: 12
prison officials have a duty to ignore or reject a facially valid judicial order—and
release an individual entirely—even if they acknowledge it might contain errors.3
1. Tenth Circuit Cases
As far as in-circuit cases go, the district court relied on an unpublished New
Mexico district court case, Saiz v. Franco, No. 15 CV 587 JAP/JHR, 2018 WL
1124197, at *10 (D.N.M. Feb. 27, 2018), to show clearly established law. But two
problems exist in relying on Saiz. First, “[d]istrict court cases lack the precedential
weight necessary to clearly establish the law for qualified immunity purposes.”
Crane v. Utah Dep’t of Corr.,
15 F.4th 1296, 1306 (10th Cir. 2021). Second,
unpublished cases “provide little support for the notion that the law is clearly
established.” Knopf v. Williams,
884 F.3d 939, 947 (10th Cir. 2018) (citation
omitted).
3
To the extent White argues it was clearly established that prison officials had
a duty to investigate his claim of wrongful detention—as opposed to release him
entirely—that argument fails by White’s own allegations. After he was informed of
White’s claim of overincarceration, Lytle allegedly “brought this conversation to
Defendant Tafoya Lucero’s attention,” arranged for “Lucero to speak with Mr.
White,” and told White that the “head of records . . . would continue to be in touch
about the calculation of his sentence with Defendant Tafoya Lucero.” TAC ¶ 72(g)–
(h). As for Lucero, she allegedly came to talk to White as the Deputy Warden after
being informed of White’s complaints, reviewed White’s files, and told a “records
custodian at that facility to look at Mr. White’s files.” Id. ¶ 72(i). Finally, Ortiz
allegedly had a “personal conversation” with White about his complaints. Id.
¶ 72(x)–(z). In other words, according to the complaint, far from doing nothing, the
prison officials actually looked into White’s claims. To the extent that White argues
the prison officials should have done more, he cites no case law clearly establishing
what they should have done short of releasing him entirely, which in turn would have
violated the 2017 court order, something no clearly established law required them to
do, as we explain.
12
Appellate Case: 24-2035 Document: 54-1 Date Filed: 04/28/2025 Page: 13
But even on the merits, Saiz lacks sufficient similarity. In Saiz, the plaintiff
inmate appeared for an in-prison hearing after being accused of “brutally assaulting
another inmate.” 2018 WL 1124197, at *2. The presiding hearing officer ruled
against the plaintiff, so plaintiff lost his good time credits and was moved to a
disciplinary segregation unit. The plaintiff then appealed this decision to the New
Mexico Corrections Department, and the Department reversed the decision for
procedural error and ordered the “disciplinary officer/records coordinator” to “update
the good-time along with readjusting [the plaintiff’s] PRD date [projected release
date].”
Id. at *3. But no one notified the warden about this decision, so the plaintiff
was detained longer than he should have been.
Id. at *4. The plaintiff sued the
warden, but the court granted qualified immunity because the warden lacked any
knowledge about plaintiff’s updated release date.
Id. at *11.
Saiz is not on point because that case was about prison officials who
overdetained the plaintiff contrary to a governing order. That principle seems
obvious enough: prison officials may not hold a prisoner longer than what the court
allows. But here, the prison officials kept White in custody pursuant to a valid court
order. Saiz does not speak to whether prison officials have a duty—or the power—to
ignore or undermine a court order that mandates a sentence simply because they
believe the sentencing court erred.
If anything, recent case law cuts against White’s argument. In a case decided
after the district court issued the order in this case, we granted qualified immunity to
corrections officials where the inmate “fail[ed] to show that defendants—who [were]
13
Appellate Case: 24-2035 Document: 54-1 Date Filed: 04/28/2025 Page: 14
merely prison officials—ha[d] any authority, let alone duty, to review the legality of
the parole board’s revocation orders and correct any orders it deem[ed] illegal.”
Dyer v. Carlson, 2024 WL 3290231 (10th Cir. 2024) (unpublished).4 In Dyer, the
prisoner escaped from parole supervision and was arrested in a different state.
Id. at
*1. The Colorado State Board of Parole “revoked his parole for the remainder of the
parole period.”
Id. Dyer believed the parole board violated his rights by “revoking
his parole [beyond] 30 days based on an absconding violation,” since the Colorado
parole-revocation statute only allowed the parole board to “revoke his parole for up
to 30 days.”
Id. (emphasis added). Dyer sued corrections officials under § 1983,
arguing that although he told several corrections officials that his sentence was
invalid, they failed to do anything about it. Id. at *1. The panel, however, affirmed
the officials’ qualified immunity, finding the law was not clearly established that the
corrections officials’ “fail[ure] to investigate [Dyer’s] ex post facto complaint,
correct the parole board’s revocation order, and facilitate his release from prison—
violated the Constitution.” Id. at *2. This case only shows the law is not clearly
established that the prison officials’ inactions here were unconstitutional.
White directs us to no other Tenth Circuit case on point. So as far as Tenth
Circuit cases go, we find it is not clearly established that the prison officials’ conduct
here was unlawful.
4
Unpublished opinions “can be quite relevant in showing that the law was not
clearly established.” Grissom v. Roberts, 902 F.3d 1162, 1168 (10th Cir. 2018)
(emphasis added).
14
Appellate Case: 24-2035 Document: 54-1 Date Filed: 04/28/2025 Page: 15
2. Out-of-Circuit Cases
The district court also relied on several out-of-circuit cases for clearly
established law. And that is permissible, as long as “the clearly established weight of
authority from other courts . . . found the law to be as the plaintiff maintains.”
Cummings v. Dean, 913 F.3d 1227, 1239 (10th Cir. 2019) (citation omitted). The
rule is no different for out-of-circuit cases: they must involve “materially similar
conduct” and apply with “obvious clarity to the conduct at issue.” Lowe v. Raemisch,
864 F.3d 1205, 1208 (10th Cir. 2017) (internal quotation marks and citations
omitted). “The dispositive question” remains the same: “whether the violative nature
of the particular conduct is clearly established.” Ullery v. Bradley,
949 F.3d 1282,
1291 (10th Cir. 2020) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
But like Saiz, all the out-of-circuit cases are unhelpful because the prison
officials in each case kept the prisoner incarcerated longer than his ordered sentence
allowed. That is not the case here, where the prison officials were in fact complying
with the court’s order in detaining White. Consider the facts from the cases cited by
White:
In Whirl v. Kern, 407 F.2d 781, 785 (5th Cir. 1968), the plaintiff was
detained even though the district attorney had “sought and obtained
dismissal of the indictments” against him, and the court’s minute order
stated the charges against the plaintiff were dismissed.
In Sample v. Diecks, 885 F.2d 1099, 1104 (3d Cir. 1989), prison officials
refused to release the plaintiff even though his murder conviction was
overturned and the court had granted bail. The prison official mistakenly
believed the plaintiff “still had time to serve on another sentence” and
therefore refused to release him, even though the plaintiff had already
served that sentence. Id. at 1102–03.
15
Appellate Case: 24-2035 Document: 54-1 Date Filed: 04/28/2025 Page: 16
In Alexander v. Perrill, 916 F.2d 1392 (9th Cir. 1990), the plaintiff was
arrested in Germany on local charges, served time in German prison, and
was extradited to the United States where he was convicted of fraud and
income tax charges. The district court found that the plaintiff should
receive credit for his time spent in German custody, but the prison officials
tried to keep him “incarcerated for a longer period” by failing to give him
all the credit he was entitled. Id. at 1394–95.
In Davis v. Hall, 375 F.3d 703 (8th Cir. 2004), the plaintiff entered into a
plea agreement and received a new sentence after his felony conviction was
reversed. Id. at 706. The court imposed a “one-year sentence with credit
for time served,” but the plaintiff had already “served approximately one
and one-half years, and there were no other warrants or holds on him.” Id.
The plaintiff was ordered to be “immediately released,” yet he was still
detained for 57 days at the county jail and state corrections facility,
contrary to court order. Id. at 706–07, 709.
Like Saiz, these cases stand for the noncontroversial proposition that, if the
court orders the prisoner to be released by a certain date, prison officials must
generally release him by that date. Prison officials may not overdetain a prisoner or
lengthen a sentence contrary to court order.
But White’s complaint involves no such facts. As we have explained, this case
does not involve prison officials lengthening an inmate’s sentence contrary to court
order but in compliance with it. So the relevant question is whether the prison
officials were constitutionally obligated to ignore or correct a court order they must
otherwise enforce if they believed the court erred. None of the cases above shed any
light on this question, and therefore, there is no clearly established law that “appl[ies]
16
Appellate Case: 24-2035 Document: 54-1 Date Filed: 04/28/2025 Page: 17
with obvious clarity to the specific conduct in question.” Halley, 902 F.3d at 1157
(citation omitted).5
The case that comes closest is Sabo v. Erickson, 100 F.4th 880 (7th Cir. 2024).
But even there, White’s reliance on that case is misplaced. First, that case was
decided after the prison officials’ conduct here, so it cannot be used for clearly
established law. See DeSpain v. Uphoff,
264 F.3d 965, 979 (10th Cir. 2001) (for
clearly established law, “we examine the law as it existed at the time of the
challenged actions”). Second, that case has been reversed en banc. In the original
panel decision, the court denied qualified immunity to corrections officials whose
tasks included “review[ing] and correct[ing] sentences that exceeded the statutory
maximum” and submitting those corrections, if any, to sentencing judges “as a
courtesy.” Sabo,
100 F.4th at 884. The corrections officials failed to realize they
had been conducting their reviews under the wrong legal standard for various
offenses and therefore did not catch the mistake on the plaintiff’s sentence, along
with scores of others. These mistakes also escaped the court’s notice, and the court
sentenced the plaintiff to a five-year probation term, even though he was only subject
to three-years of probation, maximum. The plaintiff then sued the corrections
5
The existence of this court order also distinguishes Haygood v. Younger, 769
F.2d 1350, 1354–55 (9th Cir. 1985), and Figgs v. Dawson,
829 F.3d 895, 906 (7th
Cir. 2016), which White cites in passing. Both cases involved sentencing
miscalculations by the corrections department, but none of the corrections officials in
either case faced a court order that mandated the prisoner’s continued incarceration.
Accordingly, neither case provides any guidance on the situation the prison officials
faced here.
17
Appellate Case: 24-2035 Document: 54-1 Date Filed: 04/28/2025 Page: 18
officials, and the Seventh Circuit denied their qualified immunity defense. The court
found that the defendants’ failure to correct these sentencing errors was
unconstitutional—even though the court had issued its order, and they did not know
their error affected plaintiff’s case specifically.
But the Seventh Circuit reversed course en banc, and the original panel
decision is no longer good law. In finding the corrections officials were entitled to
qualified immunity, the en banc court stated, “[o]ur legal system divides
responsibility between judges, who impose sentences of probation and imprisonment,
and correctional officers, who administer those sentences.” Sabo v. Erickson, 128
F.4th 836, 847 (7th Cir. 2025). The en banc panel therefore “reject[ed] the
contention that existing law clearly establishes that prison officials violate the Eighth
Amendment when they do not intervene to correct a sentencing judge’s error.”
Id.
The same reasoning applies here. Even if the court’s order was based on
previous miscalculations that occurred years earlier, the prison officials had no duty
or power to disregard a facially valid judicial order. Whether the error originated
with the Corrections Department is irrelevant as far as these prison officials are
concerned, since the court had issued a sentence in the intervening time, and as
prison officials, they were tasked with enforcing that order; they were not
constitutionally required to second-guess it. Indeed, White cites no case that requires
prison officials to disregard a facially valid court order and issue a certificate of
discharge to the inmate on the spot if they believe the court erred. That would be an
extraordinary step, because state officials are not “pseudo-appellate courts
18
Appellate Case: 24-2035 Document: 54-1 Date Filed: 04/28/2025 Page: 19
scrutinizing the orders of judges.” Turney v. O’Toole, 898 F.2d 1470, 1473 (10th
Cir. 1990) (citation omitted). That is not their job; “[t]he Constitution does not
require personnel outside the judiciary to seek, find, and fix judicial errors.” Sabo,
128 F.4th at 848 (Easterbrook, J., concurring). To the contrary, “[p]rison officials
may properly assume that they have the authority to execute the sentencing orders
delivered to them by the court without fear of civil liability.” Stein v. Ryan,
662 F.3d
1114, 1119 (9th Cir. 2011). “Even assuming that the [sentencing] order was infirm
as a matter of state law, it was facially valid. ‘Facially valid’ does not mean ‘lawful.’
An erroneous order can be valid.” Turney, 898 F.2d at 1473.
We recognize the dilemma here. A mistake was apparently made that should
have been corrected at his 2016 discharge or in the various judicial proceedings
afterwards, including his habeas petition. But White does not allege these three
prison officials were involved in that mistake, and once the court issues a facially
valid sentencing order, no clearly established law permits them to disregard it.
III. Conclusion
For the reasons stated above, we reverse.
19
