Collazo-Leon v. U.S. Bureau of Prisons

• Citation: 51 F.3d 315
• Decision Date: 10 February 1995
• Docket Number: COLLAZO-LEO,P,No. 94-2061,94-2061
• Parties: Vladimirlaintiff-Appellee, v. UNITED STATES BUREAU OF PRISONS, et al., Defendants-Appellants. . Heard
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 315

51 F.3d 315

Vladimir COLLAZO-LEON, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. UNITED STATES BUREAU OF PRISONS, et al., Defendants-Appellants.

No. 94-2061.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard Feb. 10, 1995.

Decided April 7, 1995.

Sean Connelly, U.S. Dept. of Justice, with whom Guillermo Gil, U.S. Atty., Washington, DC, Maria Hortensia Rios-Gandara, Asst. U.S. Atty., Hato Rey, PR, and Paul W. Layer, U.S. Bureau of Prisons, Washington, DC, were on brief, for appellants.

Marcia G. Shein, with whom Law Office of Miller & Shein, Atlanta, GA, was on brief, for appellee.

Before SELYA and BOUDIN, Circuit Judges, and CARTER, ^* District Judge.

GENE CARTER, Chief District Judge.

Appellee Vladimir Collazo-Leon, a pretrial detainee at the Metropolitan Detention Center at Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, brought a habeas corpus action alleging that he had been denied both substantive and procedural due process by the United States Bureau of Prisons (BOP) when he was placed in disciplinary segregation for ninety days and had his telephone and visitation privileges taken away for six months as punishment for misconduct. After being placed in segregation, Collazo-Leon applied for a writ of habeas corpus which the magistrate judge recommended that the court deny. The district court disagreed and granted the petition finding that the practice violated substantive due process of law. The BOP appeals the district court's grant of a writ of habeas corpus to Collazo-Leon.

FACTS

Collazo-Leon was named in eleven counts of a thirteen-count indictment, returned in the District of Puerto Rico, charging conspiracy to import and distribute cocaine. On April 7, 1994, while being held in pretrial detention, Collazo-Leon appeared before a disciplinary hearing officer (DHO), was informed of disciplinary charges against him, and, based upon an affidavit, was found to have attempted escape and to have offered a bribe to a prison guard to induce his assistance in Defendant's escape attempt. The charges for both acts arise out of the same set of facts: Collazo-Leon offered a prison guard one million dollars to get him "to the avenue." The sanction imposed by the DHO for the attempted escape was sixty days of segregation and the loss of visiting privileges for six months. The sanction imposed by the DHO for the offer of a bribe was thirty days segregation and the loss of telephone privileges for six months. ¹

Collazo-Leon was placed in segregation and applied for a writ of habeas corpus, charging a denial of both substantive and procedural due process. 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2255. The magistrate judge found that Collazo-Leon had been afforded procedural due process and that the practice of placing a pretrial detainee in disciplinary segregation, and taking away his telephone and visitation privileges as punishment for misconduct, was permissible under the circumstances. Accordingly, the magistrate judge recommended that the district court deny the writ of habeas corpus. Despite this recommendation, the district court granted the writ, permitting Collazo-Leon's return to the general prison population before the end of his ninety-day segregation.

The district court did not address the magistrate judge's finding on Collazo- Leon's claim for denial of procedural due process. Instead, the court directed all its attention to the substantive violation finding that the express

intent of the prison regulation authorizing segregation was "punishment," 28 C.F.R. Sec. 541.20(a), ² and that "less drastic resources were not considered" as alternatives to the segregation and loss of privileges. The court concluded that the disciplinary action taken amounted to impermissible punishment and served no legitimate regulatory purpose in the effective management of the correctional institution. Thereafter, the district court denied the BOP's motion for reconsideration. The BOP now appeals the district court's decision.

DISCUSSION

The BOP argues that the district court expanded the principle established by the Supreme Court in Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979), and created a rule that the Constitution prohibits the discipline of pretrial detainees. Collazo-Leon responds that the district court correctly found that the Constitution prohibits disciplining pretrial detainees who violate prison rules in the manner imposed here because doing so amounts to impermissible punishment. ³ To a great extent, both parties' arguments are built on semantics: labeling the action as either permissible discipline or impermissible punishment. This Court, however, does not find that there is any meaningful distinction between the terms "punishment" and "discipline" in this case.

In Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 99 S.Ct. 1861, the Supreme Court examined some aspects of the constitutional rights of pretrial detainees. Bell teaches that punishment cannot be inflicted upon pretrial detainees prior to an adjudication of guilt in accordance with due process of law. The inquiry, however, does not end with the designation of a condition of confinement as "punishment." To distinguish between impermissible and permissible measures, the Bell Court stated:

A court must decide whether the disability is imposed for the purpose of punishment or whether it is but an incident of some other legitimate governmental purpose. See Flemming v. Nestor, [363 U.S. 603,] at 613-617[, 80 S.Ct. 1367, 1373-76, 4 L.Ed.2d 1435].... [I]f a particular condition or restriction of pretrial detention is reasonably related to a legitimate governmental objective, it does not, without more, amount to "punishment." Conversely, if a restriction or condition is not reasonably related to a legitimate goal--if it is arbitrary or purposeless--a court permissibly may infer that the purpose of the governmental action is punishment that may not constitutionally be inflicted upon detainees qua detainees.

Id. at 538-39, 99 S.Ct. at 1873-74 (footnotes omitted).

Bell was a class action seeking injunctive relief and challenging various general conditions, practices, and policies to which all pretrial detainees were subjected, including double-bunking, strip-searches, and various other security measures. The conditions imposed on the pretrial detainees in Bell involved no direct or individualized disciplinary or deterrent purpose. Here, by contrast, the segregation and loss of privileges are directly related to the exercise of the prison staff's disciplinary authority by both punishing Collazo-Leon for his institutional misconduct and deterring him from engaging in it in the future. In Bell, the Court was not faced with the situation where discrete sanctions were imposed on individual pretrial detainees as discipline for specific in-house violations. Although factually distinguishable, the theoretical constitutional premises of Bell 's analysis provides some rational guidance in this case.

On the authority of Bell, it may be divined that even if a restriction or condition may be viewed as having a punitive effect on the pretrial detainee, it is nonetheless constitutional if it also furthers some legitimate governmental objective such as addressing a specific institutional violation and is not excessive in light of the seriousness of the violation. Bell, 441 U.S. at 538-39, 99 S.Ct. at 1873-74; Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U.S. 307, 320, 102 S.Ct. 2452, 2460, 73 L.Ed.2d 28 (1982) (requiring that restrictions on the liberty of an involuntarily confined mental patient be reasonably related to legitimate government...