Adams v. James

• Decision Date: 18 March 1986
• Docket Number: No. 85-3294,85-3294
• Citation: 784 F.2d 1077
• Parties: Douglas L. ADAMS and Gary M. Piccirillo, Plaintiffs-Appellants, Ronnie McKane, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Rodrick JAMES, Henry Ziegler, Jr., Don Merritt, J.F. Tompkins, and Louie L. Wainwright, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 1077

784 F.2d 1077

Douglas L. ADAMS and Gary M. Piccirillo, Plaintiffs-Appellants, Ronnie McKane, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Rodrick JAMES, Henry Ziegler, Jr., Don Merritt, J.F.

Tompkins, and Louie L. Wainwright, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 85-3294.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

March 18, 1986.

Steven Seliger, Quincy, Fla., for plaintiffs-appellants.

Douglas B. MacInnes, Walter M. Meginniss, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, Fla., for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

Before HATCHETT and CLARK, Circuit Judges, and ALLGOOD ^*, Senior District Judge.

HATCHETT, Circuit Judge:

Does a prison inmate have a constitutional right not to be transferred from a job as law clerk because it deprives other inmates of the law clerk's legal services? Or, stated otherwise, may a "jailhouse lawyer" interpose the interests of other inmates to block an action by prison officials, if it will make the jailhouse lawyer less available to help the other inmates to file grievances or lawsuits? In Bridges v. Russell, 757 F.2d 1155 (11th Cir.1985), this court held open the question whether the first amendment encompasses a prisoner's asserted right to assist other inmates in filing grievances. In this case, the district court held that depriving other inmates of services by transferring a prison law clerk would not infringe the law clerk's first amendment rights. We affirm on that issue, but remand for consideration of other legal theories the plaintiffs sought to put before the district court.

Douglas L. Adams and Gary M. Piccirillo were inmate law clerks at Polk Correctional Institute (Polk), an institution in the Florida State Prison System. West Publishing Company had trained them as law clerks.

At the peak of their activity as inmate law clerks, Adams and Piccirillo and two other law clerks assisted an average of 400 inmates a month with legal problems. They also conducted classes to teach legal skills to other inmates.

This dispute centers on the dismissal of Adams and Piccirillo from their jobs as law clerks and their later transfer to Union Correctional Institution (UCI), which for purposes of this opinion we deem a more punitive institution. The events leading to their dismissal began with a letter typed by Adams to news outlets about one of Adams's cases. Roderick James, educational supervisor at Polk, intercepted the letter and thereafter informed all the law clerks that letters to the media could not be typed on law library typewriters and that law clerks could not help inmates complete DC77 complaint forms (administrative appeals).

Soon after, Adams and Piccirillo discovered copies of case papers they had mailed for another inmate on the desk of their supervisor, Henry Ziegler, Jr. Piccirillo removed the papers. Ziegler immediately ordered Adams and Piccirillo to accompany him to the office of Don Merritt, the classification supervisor at Polk. When the group arrived at Merritt's office, he dismissed Adams and Piccirillo from their jobs as law clerks. Merritt assigned Adams to the prison cabinet shop and assigned Piccirillo to be a dorm orderly. No reasons for the reassignments were given.

Both Adams and Piccirillo filed administrative appeals of their dismissals. Each was denied without a reason. Adams and Piccirillo were eventually denied access to the prison library.

On August 18, 1982, prison officials transferred Adams and Piccirillo to Union Correctional Institution. The reason given was to relieve overcrowding at Polk.

Prison officials have offered explanations for their removal of Adams and Piccirillo from their duties as law clerks and for their transfer to UCI. Merritt stated that he transferred Adams to alleviate the cost burden of filling Adams's many requests (2,000 to date) for documents not available in Polk's "minor law library." Ziegler states that he and James suspected Adams and Piccirillo of charging for their services to other inmates, sabotaging prison typing equipment, and violating policy and procedure by sending written requests to outside sources, such as the Florida State University Law Library in Tallahassee. Ziegler further stated that Adams's and Piccirillo's "behaviors are very anti-institutional ... making their continuance as inmate law clerks less than desirable and even counter-productive."

The district judge granted the appellees' motion for summary judgment under Rule 56, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. In reviewing a summary judgment, we subject legal conclusions to "the same standard of appellate review as any question of law raised upon appeal." Morrison v. Washington County, Alabama, 700 F.2d 678, 682 (11th Cir.1983). On a question of law our review is plenary. See Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. v. Dye, 642 F.2d 837, 841 (5th Cir.1981). We view any inferences to be drawn from the evidence in the light most favorable to the party opposing the motion. Bingham Ltd. v. United States, 724 F.2d 921, 924 (11th Cir.1984).

The first basis for the district court's dismissal of Adams's and Piccirillo's claims was the principle that prison inmates do not have a constitutionally protected right to remain at a particular penal institution, Fla.Stat. Sec. 945.09(3); see Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 96 S.Ct. 2532, 49 L.Ed.2d 451 (1976). The district court also ruled that inmates do not have an expectation of keeping a certain job, cf. Gibson v. McEvers, 631 F.2d 95, 98 (7th Cir.1980) (citing Altizer v. Padernick, 569 F.2d 812, 813 (4th Cir.1978)); Bryan v. Werner, 516 F.2d 233 (3d Cir.1975).

These conclusions are correct. Prison administration requires a flexibility that cannot be burdened by the accumulation of expectations about the situations in which prisoners are placed temporarily. The due process clause does not "in and of itself protect a duly convicted prisoner against" a change of status. See Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 225, 96 S.Ct. 2532, 2538, 49 L.Ed.2d 451 (1976) (transfer from one institution to another within the state prison system).

An assignment to the job of law clerk does not invest an inmate, or those he assists, with a property interest in his or her continuation as a law clerk. Despite the aspect of property in the accumulation of experience and intellectual capital by the inmate law clerk, job assignment and reassignment remain the prerogative of the prison administrators. A routine reassignment of an inmate law clerk does not enable an inmate to state a claim in federal court. This is true despite the nexus between a law clerk's primary activity and other constitutional rights retained by inmates, such as the right of free speech, and the right of access to court. See Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S. 396, 94 S.Ct. 1800, 40 L.Ed.2d 224 (1974); Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 97 S.Ct. 1491, 52 L.Ed.2d 72 (1977); compare Hoppins v. Wallace, 751 F.2d 1161 (11th Cir.1985) (reasonableness of limitation on affirmative assistance to litigious inmate).

Adams and Piccirillo, however, have constitutional rights independent of any asserted property interest in being law clerks. Prisoners retain constitutional protections despite the necessary restrictions on their rights and privileges. Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 556, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 2974, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974). The lack of entitlement to a particular privilege does not free prison administrators to grant or withhold the privilege for impermissible reasons. The doctrine of unconstitutional conditions prohibits terminating benefits, though not classified as entitlements, if the termination is based on motivations that other constitutional provisions proscribe. See Thomas v. Review Bd., 450 U.S. 707, 101 S.Ct. 1425, 67 L.Ed.2d 624 (1981); Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 96 S.Ct. 2673, 49 L.Ed.2d 547 (1976); Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 92 S.Ct. 2694, 33 L.Ed.2d 570 (1972).

This court has applied the unconstitutional conditions doctrine to prisoner suits. In Bridges v. Russell, 757 F.2d 1155 (11th Cir.1985), a prisoner's allegation that he was transferred to another prison in retaliation for his exercise of first amendment rights of free speech was held to require factual resolution. In Hall v. Sutton, 755 F.2d 786 (11th Cir.1985), an allegation of a constitutionally improper retaliatory motive for the taking of tennis shoes enabled an inmate to avoid the rule of Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 104 S.Ct. 3194, 82 L.Ed.2d 393 (1984), that an intentional deprivation of property does not violate due process if an adequate state procedure exists to redress the deprivation.

Similarly, the Seventh Circuit has applied independent constitutional scrutiny to a prison's assignment of cellmates. The court held that, although prisoners have no valid expectation of a cellmate or job of their own choosing, an inmate's charge that the prison had a policy of segregating black from white inmates in cell and job assignments stated a claim for which relief could be granted. Harris v. Greer, 750 F.2d 617 (7th Cir.1984).

The district court also concluded that Adams and Piccirillo lacked standing to state a constitutional claim because they were complaining about the deprivation their removal as law clerks imposed on other inmates.

In Bridges v. Russell, this court left open the question whether the first amendment encompasses an inmate's asserted right to assist other inmates in filing grievances. Bridges, 757 F.2d at 1157. In Bridges, speech personal to the inmate constituted part of the conduct for which he alleged he had been assigned to a more punitive prison. This allegation was sufficient to require remand.

In one view, Adams and Piccirillo are simply asserting other inmates' right of access to the courts. In this view, other inmates still have legal assistance available through replacement clerks, and Adams and Piccirillo may not assert whatever interest other inmates have in being assisted by them rather than someone else....