Blake v. Commissioner of Correction

• Decision Date: 06 December 1983
• Parties: Albert BLAKE et al. 1 v. COMMISSIONER OF CORRECTION et al. 2
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 281

457 N.E.2d 281

390 Mass. 537

Albert BLAKE et al. ¹ v. COMMISSIONER OF CORRECTION et al. ²

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts,

Suffolk.

Argued Nov. 7, 1983.

Decided Dec. 6, 1983.

William D. Luzier, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., for defendants.

Barry Barkow, Boston (Judith A. Stalus, Boston, with him), for plaintiffs.

Before HENNESSEY, C.J., and WILKINS, LIACOS, ABRAMS and O'CONNOR, JJ.

WILKINS, Justice.

We agree with the determination of a judge of the Superior Court that, under regulations of the Department of Correction (department), an inmate in a Massachusetts correctional institution may not lawfully be transferred to a Federal correctional institution in another State unless the department has first afforded the inmate the procedural rights set forth in the department's regulations concerning the reclassification of inmates to higher custody status. We, therefore, affirm the partial summary judgment that in effect ordered the Commissioner of Correction to return the "plaintiffs to Massachusetts Correctional Facilities forthwith." ³

The facts are not in dispute, although from the information in the record appendix we cannot determine precisely what facts were uncontested on the record before the motion judge. ⁴ The plaintiffs were serving sentences in Massachusetts prisons when, in the summer of 1980, they were transferred to Federal custody without first being afforded reclassification hearings. When the department is considering the transfer of an individual to a higher custody status, various procedures must be followed before the transfer may be made. 103 Code Mass.Regs. 420.13 (1978). For example, the inmate is given the right to attend classification board meetings and an opportunity to present his position. He is entitled to notice of the transfer decision, and the reasons for it, and he may object to the initial decision. 103 Code Mass.Regs. 420.13(2). Transfer to a "higher custody status" is defined to include "[a] transfer to another state." 103 Code Mass.Regs. 420.01(10).

The defendants acknowledge the department's obligation to comply with its own regulations (see Royce v. Commissioner of Correction, 390 Mass. 425, 427, 456 N.E.2d 1127 (1983)), but argue that the words "transfer to another state" apply only to the transfer of an inmate to a correctional facility operated by another State and not to a transfer to a Federal facility in another State. Literally and logically, the transfer of an inmate to a Federal prison in another State is a "transfer to another state." The defendants advance no reason, and we can think of no logical reason, why an inmate should have the procedural protections of the regulations when transfer to the custody of the correction department of another State is contemplated and should have no procedural protections when transfer to Federal custody in another State is contemplated. A transfer of an inmate out of the Commonwealth has the same disadvantages of distance whether the out-of-State facility is operated by a State or by the Federal government. Our interpretation of the regulation is consistent with the expressed "Goals and Objectives" of the classification system, one of which is that "the classification system provides for maximum involvement...