Castaneda v. Henman

• Citation: 914 F.2d 981
• Decision Date: 01 October 1990
• Docket Number: No. 89-1353,89-1353
• Parties: Frank O. CASTANEDA, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Gary L. HENMAN, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit)

Page 981

914 F.2d 981

Frank O. CASTANEDA, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Gary L. HENMAN, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 89-1353.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

Argued Oct. 31, 1989.

Decided Oct. 1, 1990.

Michael Dwyer, Office of the Federal Public Defender, St. Louis, Mo., for petitioner-appellant.

Stephen B. Clark, Asst. U.S. Atty., East St. Louis, Ill., Laura J. Jones, Asst. U.S. Atty., Benton, Ill., for respondent-appellee.

Before BAUER, Chief Judge, RIPPLE, Circuit Judge, and WILL, Senior District Judge. ¹

BAUER, Chief Judge.

Frank O. Castaneda, an inmate at the United States Penitentiary ("USP") in Marion, Illinois, appeals from the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Gary Henman, the warden of Marion. We affirm.

I.

In 1986, Castaneda filed a petition for habeas corpus, contending that his "inmate profile" ² contained four falsehoods which resulted in his 1982 transfer from the USP at Lompoc, California, to the USP at Marion. His inmate profile included the following four statements: (1) Castaneda associated heavily with members of the "Mexican Mafia" while incarcerated at Lompoc; (2) he was involved in homosexual activity at Lompoc, including pressuring other inmates for sex; (3) he threatened to kill a unit manager at Lompoc; and (4) he was a known killer. In his petition, Castaneda contended that these alleged falsehoods were the reason why he was denied parole in 1985.

The magistrate originally recommended that the district court grant summary judgment to the government on the basis that Castaneda's petition was unsuitable for habeas corpus review because it did not challenge the legality or length of his imprisonment. ³ The district court, however, found that the petition was properly brought under Del Raine v. Carlson, 826 F.2d 698 (7th Cir.1987). The magistrate thereafter recommended that the government's supplementary motion for summary judgment be granted, finding that the Parole Commission's 1985 decision to continue Castaneda's sentence to expiration did not rely on the allegedly false information in his profile. The magistrate also found that Castaneda's allegation that he was transferred to Marion because of the allegedly false information failed to raise a constitutional claim. Castaneda then filed a supplemental brief alleging that he had a liberty interest, created by section 552a(e) of the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552a(e), in ensuring that the Bureau of Prisons maintain accurate records. The magistrate rejected this claim, finding that Sec. 552a(e) does not create a liberty interest in the maintenance of accurate files so as to trigger the procedural protections of the due process clause. The district court adopted the magistrate's report and recommendation on all three issues and granted the government's motion for summary judgment. Castaneda then filed a timely notice of appeal.

II.

Castaneda claims that the district court erred in finding that his transfer to Marion failed to raise a constitutional claim. He maintains that he was transferred from Lompoc to Marion for disciplinary reasons and contends that, under Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974), a prisoner cannot be disciplined without first receiving a due process hearing. Castaneda, however, has misread the import of Wolff. Furthermore, he has failed to demonstrate that he has a protected liberty interest in remaining at Lompoc, thereby entitling him to a hearing before or after his transfer to Marion. We therefore affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment on this issue.

We first address Castaneda's contention that Wolff stands for the proposition that a prisoner cannot be disciplined without first receiving a due process hearing. In Wolff, an inmate of the Nebraska state prison system brought suit under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 charging that the prison's disciplinary proceedings, the outcome of which could result in the loss of good-time credits, did not comply with the due process clause. The Supreme Court found that the prisoners had a protected liberty interest in the accumulated good-time credits because Nebraska state law provided that an inmate could lose good-time credits only if guilty of serious misconduct, thus circumscribing the government's discretion to reduce credits. Wolff, 418 U.S. at 557, 94 S.Ct. at 2975. The Court thus required some kind of hearing consonant with the institutional environment to insure that inmates lost good-time credits only in cases of serious misconduct.

Contrary to Castaneda's assertion, the due process rights mandated by Wolff turn not upon the mere fact of discipline, but upon whether the disciplinary sanction imposed by prison officials implicates an inmate's liberty interest. Wolff, 418 U.S. at 557, 94 S.Ct. at 2975. Thus, the relevant question to this appeal is not whether Castaneda was in fact disciplined but whether the disciplinary sanction which he received implicated a protected liberty interest.

Castaneda claims that he possesses a liberty interest in remaining at Lompoc. A liberty interest may arise from the due process clause itself, see, e.g., Vitek v. Jones, 445 U.S. 480, 100 S.Ct. 1254, 63 L.Ed.2d 552 (1980); Gagnon v. Scarpelli, 411 U.S. 778, 93 S.Ct. 1756, 36 L.Ed.2d 656 (1973); or it may be created by statute or binding administrative regulation. See, e.g., Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U.S. 460, 103 S.Ct. 864, 74 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983); Wolff, 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963. For a liberty interest to be created by statute or regulation, the statute or regulation must use "language of an unmistakably mandatory character, requiring that certain procedures 'shall,' 'will,' or 'must' be employed [and that certain action will not be taken by government officials] absent specified substantive predicates." Hewitt, 459 U.S. at 471-72, 103 S.Ct. at 871. By using such language, the statute places "substantive limits on official discretion." Olim v. Wakinekona, 461 U.S. 238, 249, 103 S.Ct. 1741, 1747, 75 L.Ed.2d 813 (1983). More recently, the Supreme Court has stated that a statute or regulation creates a liberty interest "by establishing 'substantive predicates' to govern official decisionmaking, ... and, further, by mandating the outcome to be reached upon a finding that the relevant criteria have been met." Kentucky Department of Corrections v. Thompson, 490 U.S. 454, 109 S.Ct. 1904, 1909, 104 L.Ed.2d 506 (1989).

It is well-settled that an inmate does not possess a constitutional liberty interest in remaining at a particular institution:

The conviction [of a criminal defendant] has sufficiently extinguished the defendant's liberty interest to empower the State to confine him in any of its prisons.... [T]he Due Process Clause in and of itself [does not] protect a duly convicted prisoner against transfer from one institution to another within the state prison system. Confinement in any of the State's institutions is within the normal limits or range of custody which the conviction has authorized the State to impose. That life in one prison is much more disagreeable than in another does not in itself signify that a Fourteenth Amendment liberty interest is implicated when a prisoner transferred to the institution with the more severe rules.

Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 224-25, 96 S.Ct. 2532, 2538, 49 L.Ed.2d 451 (1976). See also Bruscino v. Carlson, 854 F.2d 162, 168 (7th Cir.1988), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 109 S.Ct. 3193, 105 L.Ed.2d 701 (1989). Furthermore, the reasons an inmate may be forced to leave a particular institution are irrelevant to the Due Process analysis. Montanye v. Haymes, 427 U.S. 236, 242, 96 S.Ct. 2543, 2547, 49 L.Ed.2d 466 (1976) (The "[Due Process] Clause does not require hearings in connection with transfers whether or not they are the result of the inmate's misbehavior or may be labeled as disciplinary or punitive.") (emphasis added).

Castaneda recognizes that he has no liberty interest arising from the constitution in remaining at Lompoc. He also acknowledges that federal law grants the Attorney General absolute discretion over the placement and transfer of inmates:

The Attorney General may designate as a place of confinement any available, suitable, appropriate institution or facility, whether maintained by the Federal Government or otherwise, and whether within or without the judicial district in which the person was convicted, and may at any time transfer a person from one place of confinement to another.

18 U.S.C. Sec. 4082(b) (emphasis added). Castaneda claims, however, that 28 C.F.R. Sec. 541.13 sufficiently circumscribes the discretion committed to the Attorney General by Sec. 4082(b) so that an inmate has a "justifiable expectation" that he will not be transferred for disciplinary reasons prior to a hearing. See Olim, 461 U.S. at 245, 103 S.Ct. at 1745. In relevant part, Sec. 541.13 provides:

The [Disciplinary Hearing Officer ("DHO") ] may recommend that an inmate be transferred to another institution for disciplinary reasons. Where a present or impending emergency requires immediate action, the Warden may recommend for approval of the Regional Director the transfer of an inmate prior to either a UDC or DHO hearing. Transfers for disciplinary reasons prior to a hearing before the UDC or DHO may be used only in emergency situations and only with approval of the Regional Director....

28 C.F.R. Sec. 541.13 (Table 4--Sanctions).

We disagree with Castaneda's contention that Sec. 541.13 places substantive limits upon the Attorney General's discretion to transfer inmates from one institution to another when the transfer is for disciplinary reasons. The regulation sets forth no criteria by which to distinguish between the instances in which an inmate is transferred for disciplinary reasons--a situation which Castaneda contends requires a hearing--and the instances in which an inmate is transferred for administrative, including security, reasons--a situation which requires...