Avant v. Clifford

• Decision Date: 23 June 1975
• Citation: 341 A.2d 629,67 N.J. 496
• Parties: Thomas X. AVANT et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Robert L. CLIFFORD, Commssioner of the New Jersey Department of Institutions and Agencies and the New Jersey Department of Institutions and Agencies, Defendants-Respondents.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

Page 496

67 N.J. 496

341 A.2d 629

Thomas X. AVANT et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Robert L. CLIFFORD, Commssioner of the New Jersey Department of Institutions and Agencies and the New Jersey Department of Institutions and Agencies Defendants-Respondents.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Argued Jan. 6, 1975.

Decided June 23, 1975.

Henry A. Hill, Jr., Princeton, and Steven H. Gifis, Newark, for plaintiffs-appellants (Mason, Griffin & Pierson, Princeton, and Steven H. Gifis, Newark, attorneys)

Joseph T. Maloney, Deputy Atty. Gen., for defendants-respondents (William F. Hyland, Atty. Gen., attorney).

Jeffry A. Mintz, First Asst. Deputy Public Defender, for amicus curiae Office of Inmate Advocacy of the Dept. of the Public Advocate (Stanley C. Van Ness, Public Advocate, attorney). AT Gregory B. Reilly, Newark, for amicus curiae N.J. Ass'n on Correction (Joseph LeVow Steinberg, Newark, attorney).

The opinion of the Court was delivered by

HUGHES, C.J.

This case involves a broad challenge, on constitutional and other grounds, of disciplinary procedures in effect in the New Jersey State Prison system. ¹ As part The complaining parties herein (plaintiffs) include a number of past and present State Prison inmates and also Mr. Stephen M. Nagler, a New Jersey resident, purporting to represent the public interest in the issue. ³ The New Jersey Association on Correction ⁴ has participated as Amicus curiae, and later the Office of Inmate Advocacy of the newly created Department of the Public Advocate was also welcomed as an The rather complicated factual and procedural history of the cause may be considered to have commenced on November 25, 1971, when a riot broke out in the New Jersey State Prison at Rahway, entailing violence including the holding of hostages, the infliction of personal injuries and extensive destruction of property. Fortunately, no deaths occurred, although such had been the case in other rebellions in prisons across the nation. ⁷ Upon the restoration of order at Rahway, a number of prisoners, including plaintiffs, suspected of active participation in the riot were temporarily removed from Rahway and transferred to the Youth Correction Center at Yardville, a minimum security facility, under the authority of N.J.S.A. 30:4--85. ⁸

                of its responsibility for the administration of the penal and correctional institutions, the Department of Institutions and Agencies, a principal department in the Executive Branch of the state government, promulgates standards and rules embodying these procedures.  The department comprises the Commissioner of the Department of Institutions and Agencies as department head and chief executive officer, the State Board of Institutional Trustees (having some policy, research and recommendatory but no administrative functions) and various divisions, officials and employees provided by law.  N.J.S.A. 30:1--1 Et seq.  In the statutory scheme, basic administrative jurisdiction and responsibility inhere in the commissioner.  2
                Amicus participant.  5  The defendants-respondents are the Commissioner of the Department of Institutions and Agencies, 6 and the Department itself as responsible [341 A.2d 634] for the challenged standards and rules.  No question is raised as to the standing and interest of parties or Amici
                

Plaintiffs thereafter instituted in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey an action under the Civil Rights Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1343 and 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983, 1985 and 1988, and the Declaratory Judgments Act, 28 U.S.C. §§ 2201 and 2202. Their complaint in that civil action, Avant v. Cahill, Docket No. 1883--71 (D.N.J. Nov. 3, 1972) alleged, in part, that their transfer from Rahway to Yardville was punitive in nature, and that their summary transfer and assignment to administrative segregation, without a hearing, offended their constitutional rights to due process. Shortly after their arrival at Yardville, plaintiffs were advised that as a result of their involvement in the riot at Rahway, disciplinary charges had been initiated against them, but the State voluntarily deferred holding administrative disciplinary hearings during the pendency of the Federal action. Evidentiary hearings in Avant v. Cahill were commenced by a District Court Judge with respect to the transfer and to the conditions under which plaintiffs were detained at Yardville. During the course of such hearings the Middlesex County Grand Jury indicted plaintiffs and others for various criminal offenses alleged to have occurred during the course of the Rahway riot.

Also during this period it was noted that the State of New Jersey (the department) had promulgated new rules with respect to prison disciplinary procedures effective January 24, 1972, and that such rules were purportedly adopted pursuant to statutory authority and were to be of statewide application. Inasmuch as plaintiffs' seeking of injunctive relief implicated the validity of such rules, this latter development withdrew from the single District Court Judge jurisdiction which could then be exercised federally only by a District Court of three judges, 28 U.S.C. § 2281, and that court was ultimately organized after the hearings were suspended by consent.

As recounted in the unpublished opinion of Judge Barlow for that three judge court (filed November 3, 1972) During the time that the proceedings were thus suspended, five of the Rahway transferees--two of them plaintiffs in this matter--escaped from Yardville. The State of New Jersey, understandably concerned with the possibility of further escapes, immediately withdrew its voluntary deferment of the disciplinary proceedings. Proceedings were promptly held. As a result of the hearings, all or most of the plaintiffs here were found guilty of disciplinary infractions, were removed from Yardville to maximum security prisons in the state, and placed in administrative segregation at such institutions.

subsequent developments were such as to alter this posture of the case:

(footnote omitted)

Another case in the Federal Court, Austell v. Yeager, Civil Action No. 44--72, had been consolidated with Avant v. Cahill, the facts in the Austell case described by Judge Barlow as being much simpler. Four plaintiffs, inmates of the New Jersey State Prison, were accused of instigating a work-stoppage; as a result they were placed in administrative segregation, without a hearing. Those plaintiffs alleged unconstitutional imposition upon them of punitive discipline. Their case being consolidated with Avant v. Cahill, the State voluntarily returned them to the general prison population pending determination of the Federal litigation.

Noting that plaintiffs challenged the State regulations on the basis of New Jersey law, including the alleged absence of sufficient statutory standards for delegation of authority to the Commissioner and other defects suggested therein, the Federal Court abstained until such matters could be passed upon by the New Jersey courts. It referred to the language of the United States Supreme Court in Reetz v. Bozanich, 397 U.S. 82, 90 S.Ct. 788, 25 L.Ed.2d 68 (1970), restating that Court's holding in City of Meridian v. Southern Bell Tel. & Tel. Co., 358 U.S. 639, 79 S.Ct. 455, 3 L.Ed.2d 562 (1959) as follows:

'Proper exercise of federal jurisdiction requires that controversies involving unsettled questions of state law be decided in the state tribunals preliminary to a federal court's consideration of the underlying Relief in the federal courts thus being withheld, the plaintiffs next brought an action by way of an appeal to our Appellate Division pursuant to R. 2:2--3(a)(2). ⁹ On February 27, 1973, defendants-respondents filed a 'Statement of Items Comprising the Record on Appeal' which included, Inter alia, a copy of the Standards of the Division of Correction and Parole of the New Jersey Department of Institutions and Agencies (then extant, being effective January 24, 1972) governing the Discipline Program area, the New Jersey State Prision Inmate Rule Book as revised in May, 1972, and a list of penalties which might be imposed by the institutional disciplinary committee.

federal constitutional questions. * * * That is especially desirable where the questions of state law are enmeshed with federal questions. * * * Here, the state law problems are delicate ones, the resolution of which is not without substantial difficulty--certainly for a federal court. * * * In such a case, when the state court's interpretation of the statute or evaluation of its validity under the state constitution may obviate any need to consider its validity under the Federal Constitution, the federal court should hold its hand, lest it render a constitutional decision unnecessarily.' (397 U.S. at 85, 90 S.Ct. at 789--90, 25 L.Ed.2d at 71)

On June 5, 1973, this Court ordered that this appeal be certified directly to it. R. 2:12--1. The case was first argued before this Court on September 25, 1973. There were changes in the membership of the Court in that year, and the case came on for reargument on November 21, 1973. In the course of that argument the Court requested counsel to provide it with information as to procedures in other state and federal prison systems, specifically as to whether confrontation and cross-examination of witnesses to a disciplinary infraction were permitted and their impact upon the operation of such systems. The result of such inquiry was embodied in a On June 26, 1974, the United States Supreme Court issued its significant opinion in Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974), enumerating the procedural due process rights of state prison inmates in prison disciplinary proceedings. Consequently on July 3, 1974, plaintiffs sought reargument, and the Court scheduled such argument for its Fall session. ¹⁰ Meanwhile, on July 16, 1974, the Attorney General, on behalf of defendants-respondents, advised the Clerk of the Court of...