Cameron v. Mills

• Decision Date: 15 September 1986
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 86-229-E.
• Parties: Everett CAMERON, Plaintiff, v. Richard MILLS, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Iowa

645 F. Supp. 1119

Everett CAMERON, Plaintiff, v. Richard MILLS, et al., Defendants.

Civ. No. 86-229-E.

United States District Court, S.D. Iowa, C.D.

September 15, 1986.

Steven Wycoff, Jailhouse Lawyer, Fort Madison, Iowa, for plaintiff.

John Parmeter, Asst. Atty. Gen., Des Moines, Iowa, for defendants.

ORDER

DONALD E. O'BRIEN, Chief Judge.

This matter is before the Court on plaintiff's resisted motion for a preliminary injunction. After hearing the parties' arguments and having carefully considered the briefs filed in this matter, the Court grants plaintiff's motion, based on the strong language contained in the Iowa Interstate Corrections Compact and the agreement between Iowa and Kansas.¹

I. Facts.

Plaintiff is presently incarcerated at the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison. He was originally convicted and sentenced in Kansas, but was transferred to Iowa pursuant to the provisions of the Interstate Corrections Compact, Iowa Code Supp. Chap. 247 (1985) (formerly Chapter 218B), and § 76-3001 et seq., of the Kansas statute. These statutes provide for interstate prisoner transfers in order to "serve the best interests of such offenders and of society and effecting economies in capital expenditures and operational costs." Iowa Code § 247.2. Iowa and Kansas entered into a contract to implement these statutes on May 8, 1985.

Plaintiff was involved in a prison uprising at the Iowa State Penitentiary (ISP) in January of 1986. ISP officials found plaintiff guilty of rule violations in disciplinary proceedings conducted pursuant to Iowa Department of Corrections regulations. Plaintiff alleges violation of his Fourteenth Amendment due process rights in the disciplinary proceedings, stating that the Interstate Compact statutes and the contract between Iowa and Kansas mandate that the disciplinary procedures and rules of the sending state (Kansas) should have been followed instead of Iowa rules. Plaintiff has requested this Court to enter a preliminary injunction requiring Iowa officials to afford him a hearing under the Kansas Department of Corrections regulations and to award him damages for unlawful disciplinary sanctions.

II. Jurisdiction.

Defendants have raised the threshold question of whether this Court has jurisdiction to enjoin ISP officials. Therefore, the Court must decide this issue before determining the merits of plaintiff's preliminary injunction request.

Defendants contend that this Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction to enjoin state officials on the basis of state law, citing Pennhurst State School & Hospital v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 104 S.Ct. 900, 79 L.Ed.2d 67 (1984). In Pennhurst, the district court awarded injunctive relief based in part on a state statute which it held provided a right of mental patients to adequate habilitation.² The plaintiffs had alleged that conditions at the hospital violated the state act as well as plaintiff's constitutional rights under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. Id. at 92-93, 104 S.Ct. at 903-04. The Court of Appeals affirmed on the basis of a federal statute, and the Supreme Court reversed, holding that the federal statute did not create any substantive rights. Pennhurst State School & Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U.S. 1, 101 S.Ct. 1531, 67 L.Ed.2d 694 (1981). On remand, the Court of Appeals affirmed its prior judgment, but instead of relying on a federal statute or the Constitution, based its decision solely on a state law which required the state to adopt the least restrictive environment approach for the care of the mentally retarded. Pennhurst, 465 U.S. at 95, 104 S.Ct. at 905. The Supreme Court reversed again, holding that the Eleventh Amendment deprives a federal court of jurisdiction to enjoin state officials on the basis of state law. Id. at 106, 104 S.Ct. at 911.

In the instant case, defendants argue that plaintiff is requesting this Court to enjoin state officials on the basis of the Iowa and Kansas Interstate Compact statutes. The Court disagrees with defendants' characterization of the relief requested here. Certainly, the Iowa Interstate Compact statute is implicated in plaintiff's request for relief. However, it is not the sole, nor even the main, basis upon which plaintiff bases his request for injunctive relief. Plaintiff's main contention here is that by failing to abide by the Iowa statute, ISP officials have violated his Fourteenth Amendment due process rights. That is quite different from requesting injunctive relief merely because state officials are not following a state court's interpretation of state law, which was what the Court of Appeals attempted to do in Pennhurst. See, Pennhurst, 673 F.2d at 651.

Nothing in the Supreme Court's Pennhurst opinion precludes this Court from requiring state officials to abide by the Constitution. Indeed, Justice Powell specifically noted that the Court of Appeals did not consider the constitutional issues. Pennhurst, 465 U.S. at 94, 104 S.Ct. at 904. It is clear that the Eleventh Amendment does not bar a federal court from granting injunctive relief against state officials on the basis of federal claims. Ex Parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714 (1908). That case held that a suit challenging the constitutionality of a state official's action is not one against the state and that, therefore, such a suit is not barred by the Eleventh Amendment. Id. at 160, 28 S.Ct. at 454. Therefore, the Court concludes that it does not lack subject matter jurisdiction and rejects that portion of defendants' argument.

III. Preliminary Injunction.

Plaintiff has requested that this Court enter an order (1) mandating the application of Kansas regulations to plaintiff's disciplinary hearings at ISP, (2) prohibiting Defendant Harper from rendering final decisions in disciplinary hearings, and (3) removing plaintiff from disciplinary and administrative segregation until such status is issued in accordance with the laws of Kansas.

The Eighth Circuit has enunciated a fourpart standard of review in determining whether a preliminary injunction should issue:

in such, whether a preliminary injunction should issue involves a consideration of (1) the threat of irreparable harm to the plaintiff, (2) the state of balance between this harm and the injury that granting the injunction will inflict on the other parties litigant, (3) the probability that the plaintiff will succeed on the merits, and (4) the public interest.

Dataphase Systems, Inc. v. C L Systems, Inc., 640 F.2d 109, 113 (8th Cir.1981). Therefore, the Court will proceed to analyze plaintiff's motion under this standard.

A. Irreparable Harm.

Plaintiff argues that he may suffer irreparable harm if the injunction is not granted. He states that the Kansas parole board will review his prison disciplinary record and that his ISP disciplinary reports and the three years administrative segregation he received for the January 1986 disturbance will be used against him. It is probable that the ISP reports would be used by Kansas officials in determining whether to reduce plaintiff's sentence. Defendants argue that unlawful or unconstitutional placement in administrative segregation is compensable by monetary damages and that therefore plaintiff's injury is not irreparable. Plaintiff counters, stating that he concedes the validity of defendants' qualified immunity defense, and that even if wrongful placement in administrative segregation is compensable monetarily, he will not be able to obtain such relief because of the qualified immunity defense.

Apart from the above argument, the Court discerns a more important reason why money damages are not available here. In Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 94 S.Ct. 1347, 39 L.Ed.2d 662 (1974), the Supreme Court held that the Eleventh Amendment bars retroactive monetary relief in suits against state officials. Id. at 664-65, 94 S.Ct. at 1356. The Court reasoned that even though the Court of Appeals characterized the award as "equitable restitution", the award would ultimately be payable from the state treasury. Id. at 665-66, 94 S.Ct. at 1356-57. Therefore, even were this Court convinced plaintiff merited monetary damages for the time already spent in administrative segregation, it would be powerless to enter such an award due to Edelman.³ Therefore, the Court finds that there is a threat of irreparable harm to the plaintiff.

B. Injury to Defendants v. Harm to Plaintiff.

Defendants argue that the balance of harm tips in favor of the state officials if the Court grants the injunction. They contend that it would require ISP officials to utilize unfamiliar disciplinary regulations, with the accompanying heightened possibility of errors due to the unfamiliarity. Defendants also point out that as of April 1, 1986, ISP is currently housing 54 inmates from fifteen other states. They argue that an injunction would require them to either hire extra personnel to implement these procedures or create an additional work load for current staff. Defendants also state that forcing them to apply Kansas rules would create confusion and disruption in the disciplinary process at ISP and preclude them from disciplining plaintiff for violations of ISP rules. Finally, defendants claim that any harm to plaintiff is minimal, because Kansas regulations provide for placement in disciplinary segregation for rule violations and in administrative segregation if the inmate's conduct poses a threat to institutional security and order. Defendants conclude that even if Kansas rules apply, plaintiff would likely be placed in administrative segregation anyway, due to his conduct at the disturbance in January 1986.

The Court is unpersuaded by defendants' administrative efficiency and economic arguments, and does not believe they are sufficient to override due process considerations. If the Court issues the injunction, it would merely be requiring ISP officials to follow procedures they were supposed to be following all along....