Castro v. Terhune
| Citation | 712 F.3d 1304 |
| Decision Date | 05 April 2013 |
| Docket Number | No. 11–16837.,11–16837. |
| Parties | Carlos CASTRO, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. Cal TERHUNE; G. Bonnie Garibay; J. Batchelor; S.C. Wolhwend; Robert L. Ayers, Jr., Warden; A. Scribner; J. Stokes; E. Derusha, Correctional Officer; Michael G. Yarborough, Warden; L. Hood; C. Campbell; A.M. Gonzales; M. Ayala; J. Martinez; A. Jordan, Defendants–Appellees. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (9th Circuit) |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
James E. Burns, Jr., James E. Thompson (briefed and argued), and Jennifer N. Nejad (argued), Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, San Francisco, CA, for Plaintiff–Appellant.
Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General, Jonathan L. Wolff, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Thomas S. Patterson, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, Brendan M. Kenny, Deputy Attorney General (briefed), and Jose Zelidon–Zepeda, Deputy Attorney General (argued), San Francisco, CA, for Defendants–Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, William Alsup, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. 3:98–cv–04877–WHA.
Before: JEROME FARRIS, SIDNEY R. THOMAS, and N. RANDY SMITH, Circuit Judges.
Under the “void-for-vagueness” doctrine, due process requires enactments to be written with “sufficient definiteness that ordinary people can understand what conduct is prohibited and in a manner that does not encourage arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.” Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U.S. 352, 357, 103 S.Ct. 1855, 75 L.Ed.2d 903 (1983). Cal.Code Regs. tit. 15, § 3378(c)(4), an administrative regulation that guides prison officials in validating inmates as gang affiliates, satisfies both requirements. Due process also requires such validations to be supported by “some evidence.” Superintendent v. Hill, 472 U.S. 445, 455, 105 S.Ct. 2768, 86 L.Ed.2d 356 (1985); Bruce v. Ylst, 351 F.3d 1283, 1287 (9th Cir.2003). Here, the district court erred, because it did not evaluate whether “some evidence” supported Castro's validation as a prison gang “associate.” Nevertheless, we affirm, because the record contains “some evidence” that Castro is an “associate” of the Mexican Mafia prison gang.
California's prison regulations require an inmate to be placed in administrative segregation whenever he or she “presents an immediate threat to the safety of the inmate or others.” Cal.Code Regs. tit. 15, § 3335(a) (2013). An inmate who affiliates with a prison gang presents such a threat. Madrid v. Gomez, 889 F.Supp. 1146, 1241 (N.D.Cal.1995). California's prison regulations recognize two degrees of gang affiliation: (1) “member,” and (2) “associate.” Cal.Code Regs. tit. 15, § 3378(c)(3)-(4). “[O]nce [prison officials] determine[ ] that an inmate is a member or associate of a prison gang, the inmate is routinely transferred to administrative segregation in the [Security Housing Unit (SHU) ].” Madrid, 889 F.Supp. at 1241. Prison officials follow a multi-step administrative process, known as “validation,” to classify an inmate as a gang “member” or “associate.” See id. at 1241–43.
Here, Castro brings only a facial challenge to the definition prison officials use to validate inmates as gang associates. “An associate is an inmate/parolee or any person who is involved periodically or regularly with members or associates of a gang.” Cal.Code Regs. tit. 15, § 3378(c)(4). Prison officials must show such involvement by “three (3) independent source items of documentation indicative of association with validated gang members or associates.” Id. Of those source items, one must be a “direct link to a current or former validated member or associate of the gang.” Id.
On April 24, 1997, prison officials validated Castro as an “associate” of the Mexican Mafia, a recognized prison gang. Officials then transferred him to the SHU at Pelican Bay State Prison. In 1998, he filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, challenging his validation on due process grounds.
The district court granted defendants' motion for summary judgment. On appeal, we reversed and remanded. Castro v. Terhune, 29 Fed.Appx. 463, 466 (9th Cir.2002). We opined that due process required prison officials to give Castro an opportunity to present his views to the “critical decisionmaker.” Id. at 465. Accordingly, we remanded so the district court could determine (1) what prison official was the critical decisionmaker, and (2) whether Castro had an opportunity to present his views to that official. Id.
On remand, the district court entered summary judgment for the defendants on both issues. It concluded that Institutional Gang Investigator (“IGI”) Michael Ayala was the critical decisionmaker, and that Castro had an opportunity to present his views to IGI Ayala. Castro then appealed the district court's summary judgment decision. We again reversed and remanded, finding that genuine issues of fact precluded summary judgment. Castro v. Terhune, 237 Fed.Appx. 153 (9th Cir.2007).
On remand, the district court held a bench trial. It concluded that (1) IGI Gonzalez was the “critical decisionmaker,” and that (2) there was no evidence in the record that Castro had an opportunity to present his views before any member of the IGI's office during his 1997 validation. Accordingly, the district court found that Castro did not receive due process in his initial validation procedure. Based on that finding, the district court granted Castro prospective relief in a Remedial Order, pursuant to the Prisoner Litigation Reform Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3626.
The Remedial Order required California prison officials to determine “whether [Castro] is a gang associate now, not in 1997 or 2009 (or any other time)” based on a new validation procedure. Pursuant to the Order, California prison officials conducted a new procedure between December 17, 2010 and April 19, 2011. David Barneburg (an IGI at Pelican Bay State Prison) began the process by “review[ing] Castro's central file to determine whether it contained items showing gang activity.” His review revealed several items indicating gang affiliation. Barneburg then searched Castro's cell, but did not discover any new evidence of gang activity there. He also photographed Castro. After concluding this review, Barneburg sent Castro a description of the evidence that could support Castro's validation as an associate.
Barneburg then conducted Castro's “validation interview” on January 24, 2011. At the interview, Barneburg went over the evidence of Castro's gang involvement he had collected. Castro's attorney also made a presentation to Barneburg and submitted a binder containing “sixty-six pages of argument and 392 pages of exhibits,” challenging the reliability of the evidence Barneburg produced. The interview lasted nearly three hours.
After the interview, Barneburg reviewed the evidence, his own notes, and Castro's written submissions. He then prepared a thirteen-page document, recommending that Castro be validated as an associate of the Mexican Mafia prison gang. In that document, Barneburg cited the following items as evidence showing Castro had been involved with the Mexican Mafia: (1) a drawing, previously found in Castro's cell, which depicted the “Shield of the Eternal Warrior” (an image commonly identified with the Mexican Mafia); (2) testimony of an inmate contained in a debriefing report, identifying Castro as the gang member who supervised the inmate's portion of the prison; (3) a hand-drawn birthday card for a validated Mexican Mafia associate, which Castro had signed; (4) two drawings containing the “Mactlactlomei” symbol, which is distinctively identified with the Mexican Mafia gang; and (5) a statement in a second debriefing report, implicating Castro in a gang-related plot to stab an inmate.1 Barneburg also rejected three source items, because they were unreliable.
Barneburg then submitted the foregoing information in Castro's “gang-validation package,” along with his recommendation to validate, to the Office of Correctional Safety (OCS). The OCS ultimately determines whether to validate an inmate as a prison-gang affiliate. Cf. Madrid, 889 F.Supp. at 1275–76. Thus, on April 19, 2011, the OCS validated Castro as a “prison-gang associate” for a second time, based on the package Barneburg submitted.
Following Castro's re-validation, defendants filed a motion in district court to terminate the case. After reviewing the validation procedure that defendants had followed, the district court concluded that the process satisfied the requirements of the Remedial Order, and terminated the action in an Order Terminating Action (Termination Order). Castro then filed the instant appeal from the Termination Order.
On appeal, Castro asks us to vacate the Termination Order on three grounds. First, he argues that his 2011 validation procedure did not comport with due process, because the definition of “associate” in the prison regulations used to validate him is “unconstitutionally vague.” Second, he claims that he did not receive due process, because the district court did not evaluate whether the evidence used to validate him met the “some evidence” standard. Third, he argues that the district court failed to determine that he is a prison gang associate “now.” We affirm.
Castro argues that the definition of “associate” in Cal.Code Regs. tit. 15, § 3378(c)(4) is unconstitutionally vague.2 We analyze a challenge to the constitutionality of a regulation de novo. See Lansdale v. Hi–Health Supermart Corp., 314 F.3d 355, 357 (9th Cir.2002). Assuming inmates can challenge prison administrative regulations on vagueness grounds, section 3378(c)(4) satisfies the requirements of due process.
Castro does not cite to any cases that have found prison administrative regulations to be unconstitutional under the...
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