by Chuck Sharman

In a ruling on September 30, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit found not one but two errors in a lower court’s dismissal of a Michigan prisoner’s excessive force claim against two guards who tackled him after an altercation with a fellow prisoner, breaking his foot.

The appellate Court said that preclusive effect should not have been granted to the findings of a state Department of Corrections (DOC) administrative hearing officer because prisoner Brent James Nash was not provided an opportunity to review the video evidence that was relied on to find him guilty of provoking the takedown. The Court then reviewed the video evidence and found it too unclear to refute Nash’s testimony about the events.

Nash got into the altercation with the unnamed fellow prisoner at the St. Louis Correctional Facility in April 2021. Surveillance video from the prison dining area captured Nash as he slammed a food tray into the other prisoner’s head, drawing guards Austin Bryce and Calvin Turner to the scene. They tackled Nash to the floor and handcuffed him behind his back before leading him out of the room.

Surveillance video from a dayroom captured the guards leading Nash down the hallway toward a door into the prison yard. As the Court noted, the video showed Nash was “swaying slightly from side to side,” but when “his torso ben[t] forward momentarily,” the video was unclear in revealing “what prompted him to bend over.”

A third video from the prison yard caught the trio as they exited the building. The open door obscured the camera’s view of any interaction that might have occurred between them. As they passed that obstruction, the video showed that the prisoner’s “footsteps appear to shuffle slightly—but we can’t tell what causes his feet to shuffle,” the Court continued. At that point, “Nash’s body then turn[ed] to his left, and Bryce and Turner slam[med] him to the ground.”

The prisoner’s foot was fractured in two places. But the guards insisted that he was resisting them, provoking and justifying their response. Importantly, their testimony was inconsistent about the details of Nash’s alleged resistance. Nevertheless, when they charged him with assault, an administrative hearing officer did not permit him to review the video evidence before relying on it to disregard his testimony. Crediting the guards’ accounts instead, the hearing officer found Nash guilty of the charge.

Nash filed suit pro se in January 2022 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, which transferred the case to the Eastern District of Michigan the following month. After attempted mediation failed, Nash picked up counsel from attorney Zachary T. Runyan of Runyan Law Group in St. Clair Shores.

A magistrate judge then reviewed the case and recommended dismissal, finding that the video “blatantly contradicted” Nash’s version of events and therefore must be disregarded under Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372 (2007). Given that the hearing officer had relied on the same video evidence, moreover, his administrative determination must be given preclusive effect, the magistrate continued, pointing to University of Tennessee v. Elliott, 478 U.S. 788 (1986). That also entitled the guards to qualified immunity (QI). The district court adopted the magistrate’s report and recommendation and dismissed the case. Nash appealed.

Sixth Circuit Determination

The Sixth Circuit began its analysis by analyzing the four Elliott factors necessary to give the hearing officer’s determination preclusive effect. The Court determined that the hearing officer acted in a “judicial capacity” for the DOC to resolve “a disputed issue of fact that was properly before” him, thereby satisfying the first two factors. But the Court said that the proceeding failed the third factor because Nash wasn’t given “adequate opportunity to litigate” the “factual dispute” in the discrepancy between the testimonies of those involved in the incident.

Pointing first to Peterson v. Johnson, 714 F.3d 905 (6th Cir. 2013), the Court said that the lack of counsel to represent a prisoner at a disciplinary hearing was not “‘categorically dispositive’ of the inquiry under Michigan law.” However, as elaborated in Roberson v. Torres, 770 F.3d 398 (6th Cir. 2014), that “should not be read as a ‘blanket blessing’ to afford preclusion to ‘every factual … finding in a major-misconduct hearing.’”

Nash noted that he was denied the opportunity to review the video evidence. The hearing officer wrote that the prisoner was given an opportunity and declined. However, the disciplinary record included a letter from Nash requesting “ALL evidence,” and the hearing officer labeled the videos and seven other pieces of evidence “confidential,” citing “facility safety and security” in withholding them from review. As the Court said, “It is difficult to imagine how an individual who is denied access to any part of the most crucial evidence has received an adequate opportunity to litigate a dispute.”

The DOC also argued that Nash did not take advantage of his statutory right to litigate the hearing officer’s determination in state court. But the Court brushed aside that concern, noting that it was a dead-end: Nash could be found guilty of resisting the guards based on his struggle while they handcuffed him. So “[t]he factual issue to have preclusive effect in this litigation—whether Nash resisted Bryce and Turner as they walked him into the prison yard—was also not ‘essential to the hearing officer’s judgment,” the Court said.

Turning then to the video evidence itself, the Court said that the recordings “were far from clear.” Based on that alone, it “agree[d] with Nash and h[e]ld that the district court erred in disregarding his testimony.” The resulting factual dispute also defeated the guards’ QI claims. Dissenting Judge Chad A. Readler would have dispensed any analysis after the administrative hearing officer’s determination, saying that under Peterson it must be given preclusive effect. The majority was unpersuaded, however, vacating the district court’s order and remanding the case; a subsequent motion for rehearing before the full Sixth Circuit en banc was denied on December 1, 2025. See: Nash v. Bryce, 157 F.4th 436 (6th Cir. 2025); and 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 31237 (6th Cir. 2025).

The case has now returned to the district court, which set a settlement conference for late February 2026. PLN will continue to update case developments as they unfold. See: Nash v. Bryce, USDC (E.D. Mich.), Case No. 2:22-cv-10258.  

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