Slezak v. Evatt

• Citation: 21 F.3d 590
• Decision Date: 14 April 1994
• Docket Number: 92-6964,Nos. 92-6864,s. 92-6864
• Parties: Gary SLEZAK, Plaintiff-Appellant, and James Plyler; Donald M. Cogdill, Plaintiffs, v. Parker EVATT, Commissioner, South Carolina Department of Corrections; Kirkland Correctional Institution, in their individual and collective official capacities; Laurie F. Bessinger, Warden, Defendants-Appellees. James PLYLER, Plaintiff-Appellant, and Donald M. Cogdill; Gary Slezak, Plaintiffs, v. Parker EVATT, Commissioner, South Carolina Department of Corrections; Kirkland Correctional Institution, in their individual and collective official capacities; Laurie F. Bessinger, Warden, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (4th Circuit)

Page 590

21 F.3d 590

Gary SLEZAK, Plaintiff-Appellant, and James Plyler; Donald M. Cogdill, Plaintiffs, v. Parker EVATT, Commissioner, South Carolina Department of

Corrections; Kirkland Correctional Institution, in their

individual and collective official capacities; Laurie F.

Bessinger, Warden, Defendants-Appellees.

James PLYLER, Plaintiff-Appellant, and Donald M. Cogdill; Gary Slezak, Plaintiffs, v. Parker EVATT, Commissioner, South Carolina Department of

Corrections; Kirkland Correctional Institution, in their

individual and collective official capacities; Laurie F.

Bessinger, Warden, Defendants-Appellees.

Nos. 92-6864, 92-6964.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued July 14, 1993.

Decided April 14, 1994.

ARGUED: W. Gaston Fairey, Fairey, Parise & Mills, P.A., Columbia, SC, for appellants. E. Meredith Manning, Robinson, McFadden & Moore, P.C., Columbia, SC, for appellees. ON BRIEF: James M. Brailsford, III, Robinson, McFadden & Moore, P.C., Columbia, SC; Barbara M. Bowens, Asst. Gen. Counsel, South Carolina Department of Corrections, Columbia, SC, for appellees.

Before PHILLIPS and MURNAGHAN, Circuit Judges, and BUTZNER, Senior Circuit Judge.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge PHILLIPS wrote the opinion, in which Judge MURNAGHAN and Senior Judge BUTZNER joined.

OPINION

PHILLIPS, Circuit Judge:

Gary Slezak and James Plyler, inmates in the South Carolina prisons system, appeal the dismissal by summary judgment of their respective claims brought under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 against state prison officials in which they alleged deprivations of various constitutional rights in connection with their security classifications. ¹ Because we conclude that South Carolina law creates no liberty interests protected by the Fourteenth Amendment in the respects claimed, we affirm.

I

Slezak and Plyler, inmates of Kirkland Correctional Institution (KCI), which operates under the authority of the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC), filed a pro se complaint under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 against SCDC Commissioner Parker Evatt, KCI, and KCI Warden Laurie Bessinger (collectively, "defendants"), seeking injunctive relief and damages for alleged violations of rights guaranteed by the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments as well as violations of state tort law. Among their claims were allegations that defendants had subjected them to "punitive, high security" classification without notice or hearing, J.A. 19, and wrongly refused to classify them as "A or AA custody status"--i.e., minimum custody. J.A. 123. In particular, they alleged that the defendants failed to take account of certain earned work credits which, if considered, would have enhanced their custody status. J.A. 137. Slezak additionally alleged that "he was denied due process when his restricted A status was taken" without a hearing when he was housed at another correctional institution, J.A. 124, and that the warden of that institution wrongly considered a past escape attempt in making that classification decision. Id.

The district court, on recommendation of a magistrate judge, granted summary judgment to the defendants on all the claims. This appeal followed.

II

On this appeal, we consider only one of the several claims originally made by the inmates: that the defendants' implementation of the state's inmate classification system denied them the protections of procedural (and substantive?) due process. ² In doing so, we review de novo the district court's dismissal of that claim by summary judgment. Felty v. Graves-Humphreys Co., 818 F.2d 1126, 1127-28 (4th Cir.1987).

A

The basic principles are clear enough. To prevail on a Sec. 1983 claim that actions by state officials respecting a state prison inmate's security and custody classification have violated the inmate's procedural due process rights, the claimant must prove that (1) he had a protected liberty interest in receiving a new or retaining a current classification, (2) which interest was adversely affected by the actions, (3) without the protections of due process guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. See Wolff v. McDonnell 18 U.S. 539, 555-57, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 2974-75, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974).

The logical first question in assessing such a claim is, therefore, whether the inmate has a protectible liberty interest in the classification he seeks either to retain (against a "demotion") or to receive (by a "promotion"). This, in turn raises the question of where such a liberty interest might be found. Here, again, the basics are plain. The federal constitution itself vests no liberty interest in inmates in retaining or receiving any particular security or custody status " '[a]s long as the [challenged] conditions or degree of confinement ... is within the sentence imposed ... and is not otherwise violative of the Constitution.' " Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U.S. 460, 468, 103 S.Ct. 864, 869, 74 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983) (quoting Montanye v. Haymes, 427 U.S. 236, 242, 96 S.Ct. 2543, 2547, 49 L.Ed.2d 466 (1976)). Within these limits, so far as the federal constitution is concerned, the security and custody classification of state prison inmates is a matter for state prison-official discretion whose exercise is not subject to federal procedural due process constraints.

But such a liberty interest to retain or attain a particular security or custody classification may be created by state law having a very specific quality. Its effect must be to "plac[e] substantive limitations on official discretion," Olim v. Wakinekona, 461 U.S. 238, 249, 103 S.Ct. 1741, 1747, 75 L.Ed.2d 813 (1983), thereby giving rise, at the limits imposed upon discretion, to "legitimate claim[s] of entitlement," Kentucky Dep't of Corrections v. Thompson, 490 U.S. 454, 460, 109 S.Ct. 1904, 1908, 104 L.Ed.2d 506 (1989), to the classification sought and administratively denied.

The rub has come in determining whether particular state law has the required quality. Some fleshing out and clarification of the test has been provided in the line of Supreme Court decisions applying it to various state law patterns. Early on, Hewitt emphasized the need for "explicitly mandatory language in connection with requiring specific substantive predicates." 459 U.S. at 472, 103 S.Ct. at 871. And Olim emphasized that if under state law "the decisionmaker is not 'required to base its decisions on objective and defined criteria,' but instead 'can deny the requested [classification] for any constitutionally permissible reason or for no reason at all,' " that law creates no protected liberty interest. 461 U.S. at 249, 103 S.Ct. at 1747 (quoting Connecticut Bd. of Pardons v. Dumschat, 452 U.S. 458, 467, 101 S.Ct. 2460, 2465, 69 L.Ed.2d 158 (1981) (Brennan, J., concurring)). And, again, per Olim, the mere fact that state law mandates specific procedures does not suffice, since "[t]he State may choose to require procedures for reasons other than protection against deprivation of substantive rights." Id. 461 U.S. at 250-51, 103 S.Ct. at 1748. For, as Thompson most recently has pointed out, that which must be found mandated by state law is not procedures alone, or even procedures plus substantive predicates (objective criteria) alone, but substantive results once prescribed procedures have revealed that substantive predicates have been established. 490 U.S. at 464, 109 S.Ct. at 1910 (state laws that "stop short of requiring that a particular result is to be reached upon a finding that the substantive predicates are met" do not create protected liberty interests).

From these Supreme Court decisions, we have derived and applied the following understandings. No matter how firmly and in what detail procedural protections are mandated by state law for making decisions respecting the conditions of inmate custody and confinement, those standing alone create no protected liberty interest--either in the procedures or in any substantive result sought. See Stewart v. Bailey, 7 F.3d 384, 392 (4th Cir.1993). By the same token, no matter how plainly and explicitly substantive predicates for making such decisions are provided by state law, those either alone or in conjunction with prescribed procedures do not, without more, create protected liberty interests. ³ See Berrier v. Allen 951 F.2d 622, 624-25 (4th Cir.1991) (North Carolina prison regulations); O'Bar v. Pinion, 953 F.2d 74, 84-85 (4th Cir.1991) (same); Paoli v. Lally, 812 F.2d 1489, 1492-93 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 864, 108 S.Ct. 184, 98 L.Ed.2d 137 (1987). (Maryland regulations).

What this all comes to is that constitutionally protected liberty interests are only created by state law regimes which in the end effectively say to inmates: "If facts A, B, and C are established in an appropriate fact-finding process, you are thereupon legally entitled to a more favorable security or custody classification than you presently have," or, "Unless facts A, B, and C are so established, you are legally entitled not to be placed in a less favorable classification than you now have."

Thus, even if a state law regime mandates both a detailed procedural process for making classification decisions, and substantive criteria to be used in making those decisions, no constitutionally protected liberty interest is thereby created if under the regime either the primary decisionmaker or any reviewing authority is authorized to override, as a matter of discretion, any classification suggested by application of the prescribed substantive criteria. See Stewart, 7 F.3d at 392; Paoli, 812 F.2d at 1493.

B

Applying these principles here, we conclude that South Carolina law does not create a constitutionally protected liberty interest in the classifications sought by the claimants in this action. Three possible sources in state law need consideration.

The first possible source is in the state statutes which create and define the powers of the SCDC. In pertinent part, these provided at the time that SCDC was...