Croom v. Manson

• Decision Date: 14 November 1973
• Docket Number: Civ. No. H-163.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut
• Parties: John P. CROOM v. John MANSON, Commissioner, Department of Corrections, and Joseph Zizzamia.

367 F. Supp. 586

John P. CROOM v. John MANSON, Commissioner, Department of Corrections, and Joseph Zizzamia.

Civ. No. H-163.

United States District Court, D. Connecticut.

November 14, 1973.

Richard Cramer, Legal Assistance to Prisoners, Hartford, Conn., for plaintiff.

Robert K. Killian, Atty. Gen., Stephen J. O'Neill, Asst. Atty. Gen., Hartford, Conn., for defendant.

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION

BLUMENFELD, Chief Judge.

This is an action for declaratory and injunctive relief brought by a prisoner at the Connecticut Correctional Institution at Somers (hereinafter "Somers") pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1343(3) and 2201 and 42 U.S.C. § 1983.¹ Defendant Manson is the Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Correction. Defendant Zizzamia is the supervisor of interstate transfer of prisoners for the Department of Correction. The defendants propose to transfer plaintiff from Somers to the Federal Correctional Institution at Marion, Illinois (hereinafter "Marion"). Plaintiff resists such transfer, claiming primarily that he has not been afforded the procedural due process constitutionally required before such transfer may be effected, and asserting that he may not be transferred until he has been afforded the process which he alleges is due.

I. FACTS

John Croom is presently serving lengthy sentences at Somers following convictions for several major felonies, but his record of behavior "on the street" is far eclipsed by a history of violent behavior during incarceration that is as unsavory as it is notorious. In September, 1969, he stabbed five guards while undergoing an inspection at the Correctional Center in Bridgeport, critically injuring one of them. He was subsequently convicted of Escape with Violence and Assault with Intent to Kill. On October 21, 1971, he attempted to escape from Somers. On December 7, 1971, while in segregation at Somers, he splashed a correctional officer with a sulfur compound, burning the man's scalp and hair. When other officers attempted to restrain the plaintiff, he confronted them with a knife fashioned from a comb and a razor blade. On May 22, 1972, he attacked three officers with a baseball bat, seriously injuring two of them. For his part in this incident, he was again convicted of assault, and this time sentenced to imprisonment of not less than ten nor more than twenty years. He has also been guilty of numerous administrative violations while incarcerated at Somers, including spitting at correctional officers and possession of contraband. He has been in administrative segregation since the "baseball bat incident" on May 22, 1972.

Subsequent to the May 22 incident, defendant Zizzamia wrote to prison authorities in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, seeking to transfer plaintiff to a correctional institution in one of those states. Due to already-existing overcrowding at some of the institutions, unrest among inmates at others, and the plaintiff's history of violent behavior, none of the states would accept plaintiff for transfer.²

Defendant Zizzamia testified at the hearing that he talked to plaintiff about transfer to a federal prison on September 5, 1973. When plaintiff inquired as to the specific prison, Zizzamia said, "I don't know." According to Zizzamia, plaintiff then said, "What difference does it make where I serve my time."

Arrangements were subsequently made to transfer plaintiff to Marion, pursuant to Conn.Gen.Stats. § 18-91.³ On September 10, 1973, plaintiff was brought to a hearing room at Somers and told that he was being given a hearing on his nonvoluntary transfer to Marion. He was told that the transfer was scheduled for Thursday, September 13. He was offered the counsel of a lay advocate, but he refused the offer and asked for an attorney. This request was denied. He did not ask for more time to prepare a statement or to contest the transfer. He vigorously asserted that his constitutional rights were being violated and that he was being deprived of access to his family and his attorney. He was told that the transfer was in his best interests inasmuch as it was the only way in which he could be released from administrative segregation and put into a general prison population. Following the hearing, plaintiff contacted his present counsel and sought declaratory and injunctive relief in this Court.

II. PROCEDURAL DUE PROCESS

The minimum procedural requirements of the Due Process Clause were recently discussed in Hill Construction Company v. State of Connecticut, 737 F.Supp. 366 (D.Conn.1973):

"The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides procedural safeguards for the protection of certain interests. Thus due process requires notice and a hearing before persons are deprived of certain property interests, Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp., 395 U.S. 337, 89 S.Ct. 1820, 23 L.Ed.2d 349 (1969); Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U.S. 67, 92 S.Ct. 1983, 32 L.Ed.2d 556 (1972), and in particular circumstances where interests `"more precious . . . than property rights"' are in issue, Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 651, 92 S.Ct. 1208, 31 L.Ed.2d 551 (1972); Constantinou v. Wisconsin, 400 U.S. 433, 91 S.Ct. 507, 27 L.Ed.2d 515 (1971); Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254, 90 S.Ct. 1011, 25 L.Ed.2d 287 (1970).

"The Due Process Clause, however, does not require specific procedures every time private interests are alleged to be in jeopardy. `"Due process" is an elusive concept. Its exact boundaries are undefinable, and its content varies according to specific factual contexts.' Hannah v. Larche, 363 U.S. 420, 442, 80 S.Ct. 1502, 1514, 4 L.Ed.2d 1307 (1960). Due process `does not require a trial-type hearing in every conceivable case of government impairment of private interest. . . . The very nature of due process negates any concept of inflexible procedures universally applicable to every imaginable situation.' Cafeteria & Restaurant Workers Union, Local 473, AFL-CIO v. McElroy, 367 U. S. 886, 894-895, 81 S.Ct. 1743, 1748, 6 L.Ed.2d 1230 (1961)."

It is clear that an individual's status as a prisoner does not remove him from the protections of the Constitution. As Judge (now Mr. Justice) Blackmun wrote in Jackson v. Bishop, 404 F.2d 571, 576 (8th Cir. 1968):

"A prisoner of the state does not lose all his civil rights during and because of his incarceration. In particular, he continues to be protected by the due process and equal protection clauses which follow him through the prison doors. Cooper v. Pate, 378 U.S. 546, 84 S.Ct. 1733, 12 L.Ed.2d 1030 (1964); Ex parte Hull, 312 U.S. 546, 61 S.Ct. 640, 85 L.Ed. 1034 (1941)."

Thus the initial inquiry is "whether due process requirements apply in the first place," Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 570-571, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 L. Ed.2d 548 (1972), i. e., whether the prisoner has been deprived of "liberty" or "property" protected by the Due Process Clause. Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 481, 92 S.Ct. 2593, 33 L.Ed.2d 484 (1972). The key to this determination is the definition of the ". . . precise nature of the government function involved as well as of the private interest that has been affected by governmental action." Cafeteria & Restaurant Workers Union, Local 473, AFL-CIO v. McElroy, supra, 367 U.S. at 895, 81 S. Ct. at 1748. If it is concluded that due process requirements apply, then the interests of the government and of the individual must be balanced in order to determine what process is due. Board of Regents v. Roth, supra, 408 U.S. at 570, 92 S.Ct. 2701.

With respect to the transfer of prisoners, the government has three interests at stake: effective administration of the prison, "effect that the introduction of procedural safeguards may have on legitimate prison functions," Landman v. Royster, 333 F.Supp. 621, 652 (E.D.Va.1971), and, most important, rehabilitation of the prisoner. The first two of these interests might not argue strongly for affording prisoners procedural rights. The prison might conceivably be operated and maintained by administrative directive, but it seems likely that more would be lost in inmate resistance and resentment than would be gained in economy of time and resources. Similarly, the government might argue that requirements of notice and hearing have an unreasonably disruptive effect on prison operations, but that argument is undercut by the fact that, as in this case, notice and a hearing are presently given to prisoners prior to transfer.⁴ On the issue of rehabilitation, however, the conclusion is clear: denying prisoners procedural protections, no less than denying them substantive rights, will engender resentment and hostility which will substantially interfere with their rehabilitation. As Chief Judge Pettine noted in Gomes v. Travisono, supra, 353 F.Supp. at 468:

"While it appears that the state has, absent special circumstances, no interest in the summary transfer of inmates to prisons outside of Rhode Island, it does appear that the state has an interest in affording due process protections. See Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 92 S.Ct. 2593, 33 L.Ed.2d 484 (1972). The state has an interest in rehabilitating its prisoners so that, among other reasons, its citizens are spared the costs of further crime from these individuals. Certainly, the resentment felt by inmates who feel they have been transferred unjustly or without reason interferes with their rehabilitation. Involving the inmate in the decision to transfer will not decrease the discretion of prison officials, but will minimize the inmate's sense of resentment and will produce more appropriate, individualized results. In view of the detrimental effects transfer frequently has on an inmate's rehabilitative program, the state has an interest in assuring that the decision to transfer is correct. Finally, the state has an interest in determining that transfers are not made as punishment for the valid exercise of the constitutional rights or statutory rights of that class of its

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