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April 6, 2026 Get Citation Alerts Download PDF Add Note

William Walls v. Erin Posey

Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit

• Citations: None known
• Docket Number: 24-1509

• Judges: Easterbrook

• Opinion

• Authorities (12)

• Cited By (0)

• Summaries (0)

• Similar Cases (0)

• PDF

Combined Opinion

                        by [Frank Hoover Easterbrook](https://www.courtlistener.com/person/960/frank-hoover-easterbrook/)

In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit

No. 24-1509
WILLIAM WALLS,
Petitioner-Appellant,

v.

ERIN POSEY, Manager of the Treatment and Detention Facility,
Respondent-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of Illinois.
No. 4:23-cv-4012-SLD — Sara Darrow, Chief Judge.

ARGUED FEBRUARY 26, 2026 — DECIDED APRIL 6, 2026

Before EASTERBROOK, SCUDDER, and ST. EVE, Circuit Judges.
EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge. William Walls is in state cus-
tody following a court’s conclusion that he is a sexually vio-
lent person. 725 ILCS 207/1 to 99. He seeks federal collateral
review under 28 U.S.C. §2254, principally contending that his
custody depends on constitutionally impermissible use of
statements that he or a person treating him made while he
was in prison. He lost in the district court for procedural rea-
sons and must lose here for the same reasons.
2 No. 24-1509
The background is complex, but we strip away unneces-
sary detail. In 2015 a state court, following a trial, found that
Walls was a sexually violent person who must be confined un-
der state law. He immediately appealed pro se—though he
was represented by counsel. His lawyer sought a new trial;
the state judge denied that motion, and counsel then filed a
notice of appeal. The state’s appellate court dismissed Walls’s
pro se appeal after he failed to file a brief. Counsel’s appeal
lingered on the docket. In 2017 Walls filed a petition under
§2254 challenging the 2015 decision, and he lost because he
had defaulted in state court by not filing a brief or seeking
review in the state’s supreme court. The district judge appar-
ently did not know that an appeal from the 2015 decision re-
mained pending in state court; the dismissal was based on
procedural default rather than failure to exhaust. Walls did
not appeal the district judge’s decision to this court.
Meanwhile, as the statute requires, 725 ILCS 207/55, the
state’s judiciary continued holding hearings to determine
whether Walls remains sexually violent. After a trial judge
found in 2018 that there was insufficient reason to doubt that
Walls still qualified as sexually violent, he filed another notice
of appeal. This at last prompted the state’s appellate court to
resolve counsel’s appeal from the 2015 decision. In a single
opinion covering the 2015 and 2018 decisions, the state’s ap-
pellate court affirmed. In re Commitment of Walls, 2022 IL App
(1st) 151075-U (Feb. 18, 2022). Walls then filed another petition
under §2254, which the district judge dismissed as an unau-
thorized second collateral aback on the 2015 order. See 28
U.S.C. §2244 (b)(1) (prohibiting repetition of a claim previ-
ously rejected), (b)(3) (requiring advance approval from the
court of appeals and limiting the grounds on which approval
may be given). With the aid of appointed counsel Walls has
appealed from this decision.
No. 24-1509 3
If Walls is waging a successive contest to the 2015 commit-
ment order, dismissal was required. If he is contesting the
2018 order, he is entitled to a decision on the merits—for each
state decision imposing a period of custody may be contested
independently in federal court, whether or not the same fed-
eral objection was or could have been asserted against the ear-
lier decision. Magwood v. Pa>erson, 561 U.S. 320 (2010); Martin
v. Bartow, 628 F.3d 871, 874 (7th Cir. 2010). We think that Walls
is contesting the 2015 decision. Seeing this requires a brief ex-
planation of his principal legal theory.
In 1993 Walls was convicted of sexual assault of a minor.
While in prison for that crime, he participated in a treatment
program for sex offenders. As a condition of receiving bene-
fits, Walls had to admit to sexual misconduct. See McKune v.
Lile, 536 U.S. 24 (2002). (This is his contention; the state denies
his characterization of the program, and indeed it denies that
he participated. But we describe his contentions.) Illinois then
used some of Walls’s statements, plus a diagnosis that he suf-
fers from a personality disorder, in the 2015 commitment pro-
ceeding. We shall assume that this is proper if the state’s sex-
ually-violent-persons program is civil in nature but not if it is
criminal—for, if it is a criminal proceeding, then the Self-In-
crimination Clause of the Fifth Amendment limits the state’s
ability to use evidence that was collected under compulsion
(which is how Walls describes events). See Kansas v. Hendricks,
521 U.S. 346, 369–71 (1997). But the Supreme Court of Illinois
has held that proceedings under the Sexually Violent Persons
Commitment Act are civil in nature, In re Samuelson, 189 Ill.
2d 548 (2000), as the Supreme Court of the United States held
about a parallel Illinois law, the Sexually Dangerous Persons
Commitment Act. Illinois v. Allen, 478 U.S. 364 (1986).
As far as we can see, however, statements that would not
be allowed in criminal litigation were not used against Walls
4 No. 24-1509
in 2018. Nor did Walls object during 2018, on federal grounds,
to any aspect of that proceeding. The state’s appellate court
did not identify any federal issue raised or resolved in 2018,
and in this court Walls does not contend that any federal issue
was raised or resolved then. So if we understand Walls’s cur-
rent collateral aback to be contesting the 2018 adjudication, he
loses on the twin grounds of default and failure to exhaust. To
make any sense of the legal arguments that Walls now pre-
sents, we must understand them as directed against the 2015
decision. That takes us straight to §2244(b). A challenge to the
2015 decision order is an unauthorized successive collateral
aback.
What would have happened if Walls had raised a federal
argument in state court in 2018, then contested that decision
under §2254, is hard to say. For he is no longer in custody un-
der the 2018 decision. Illinois requires periodic reviews of cus-
tody under the Sexually Violent Persons Commitment Act,
and the state has conducted annual reviews since 2018. Did it
use potentially tainted evidence in any of them? Did Walls
raise constitutional arguments in reply? Does the validity of a
decision in 2019 or later depend on the validity of the 2015 or
2018 decision? He does not address this subject. A conclusion
that something went wrong in 2015 or 2018 would not neces-
sarily entitle Walls to release, so it is hard to see why he has
confined his arguments to the decisions rendered in those two
years. A challenge to the 2015 or 2018 decision on its own
seems to be moot.
We appreciate that an annual cycle of review may be too
short to allow a decision by a state trial court, appellate review
within the state system (recall that the 2015 decision was not
addressed on appeal until 2022), and disposition of a federal
petition under §2254. Perhaps a court would say that any
given annual decision is capable of repetition between the
No. 24-1509 5
same parties but evades review. See Weinstein v. Bradford, 423
U.S. 147 (1975). To take advantage of that doctrine, however,
Walls must at least start with a challenge to a decision more
recent than 2015 (for which §2244(b) blocks review) and must
explain how that more recent decision was affected by evi-
dence gathered or deployed in violation of the Self-Incrimina-
tion Clause. He has not tried to do that, so like the district
court we do not address the substance of his constitutional
argument.
Before closing, we offer some thoughts about the delay
that Walls has experienced. The custodial term for his crimi-
nal conviction ended in 2003. That year state officials filed a
petition for detention under the Sexually Violent Persons
Commitment Act and kept him in custody pending a deci-
sion. The petition was not resolved until 2015—an extraordi-
nary 12 years while Walls remained in custody without an ad-
judication. After a trial court entered a commitment order in
2015, it took another seven years for the appellate court to re-
solve the appeal filed by his lawyer. For four years the court
did not appoint counsel or set deadlines. The 2015 appeal lay
dormant until Walls appealed from the 2018 decision, which
prompted the court (after still another year of delay) to con-
solidate the appeals and appoint a new lawyer. Another three
years’ delay lay in store before that consolidated appeal was
resolved. From Walls’s scheduled release in 2003 until the ap-
pellate decision in 2022, nineteen years elapsed.
Walls was a difficult client, no doubt. He fired several law-
yers before the 2015 hearing, and others withdrew. Occasion-
ally he refused to be transported to court. He bypassed his
lawyers to file papers, including the original appeal, despite
the norm that represented litigants must proceed through
counsel. Yet many persons who are subject to proceedings un-
der the Sexually Violent Persons Commitment Act are
6 No. 24-1509
mentally disturbed, and the state’s judiciary must have means
of coping with them that do not produce generation-long
waits. Walls has been in custody for 33 years following a crime
that led to a 15-year criminal sentence (only 10 of which were
supposed to be custodial). He does not contend that this delay
in resolving his objections independently violates the Consti-
tution, but surely the State of Illinois can do beber by the peo-
ple it holds in custody. “[C]ivil commitment for any purpose
constitutes a significant deprivation of liberty that requires
due process protection.” Addington v. Texas, 441 U.S. 418, 425–
26 (1979). See also Jackson v. Indiana, 406 U.S. 715, 738 (1972).
In Carter v. Buesgen, 10 F.4th 715, 722–23 (7th Cir. 2021),
this court excoriated the State of Wisconsin for a four-year de-
lay in resolving a criminal appeal. The appellate delay in
Walls’s case was seven years, on top of a twelve-year pretrial
delay. Carter observed that 28 U.S.C. §2254 (b)(1)(B)(ii) permits
a person in state custody to bypass the state judiciary, and ob-
tain federal review, when it appears that the state’s remedial
processes are ineffective. Lauderdale-El v. Indiana Parole Board,
35 F.4th 572, 575–80 (7th Cir. 2022), adds that a prisoner is en-
titled to immediate appellate review if a district judge de-
clines to act on the ground that state remedies have not been
exhausted. Such an appeal can present arguments under
§2254(b)(1)(B)(ii). Both state officials and the private bar
should keep this in mind when they encounter delays of the
sort that have afflicted the proceedings against Walls.
AFFIRMED