Dallas v. Arave
| Decision Date | 30 January 1997 |
| Docket Number | No. 22327,22327 |
| Citation | 933 P.2d 108,129 Idaho 819 |
| Parties | Claude Lafayette DALLAS, Jr., Petitioner-Respondent-Cross Appellant, v. Arvon ARAVE, Warden, Idaho State Correctional Institution, Richard Vernon, Director and Idaho Department of Corrections, Defendants-Appellants-Cross Respondents. |
| Court | Idaho Court of Appeals |
Alan G. Lance, Attorney General, Timothy R. McNeese, Deputy Attorney General (argued), Boise, for appellants.
Nevin, Kofoed & Herzfeld, Boise, for respondent. Dennis A. Benjamin, argued.
This is an appeal from an order by a district court that partially reversed a magistrate's order dismissing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The petition was dismissed by the magistrate because it failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. On an intermediate appeal, the district court upheld the magistrate's conclusion that the petitioner-inmate was not denied due process when the respondent, the Idaho Department of Corrections, determined that 365 days of the inmate's accumulated goodtime credits should be forfeited for the prison disciplinary offense of escape. However, the district court also held that the inmate's right to remain silent was violated during the prison disciplinary hearing, and concluded that the magistrate therefore erred in dismissing the petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The Department has appealed from the district court's order, and the inmate has cross-appealed. We reverse the district court's ruling on the second issue and affirm the magistrate's order in its entirety.
In 1983, Claude Lafayette Dallas, Jr., was convicted of two counts of voluntary manslaughter, two counts of use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, and a misdemeanor charge of concealment of evidence. The district court sentenced Dallas to the custody of the State Board of Correction for an indeterminate ten-year term on each of the manslaughter convictions, and ordered that the sentences be served consecutively. The court then enhanced Dallas's sentence with an additional consecutive ten-year term for the use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. Dallas also received a six-month term in jail for the concealment conviction. The judgments of conviction and sentences were affirmed on appeal by the Idaho Supreme Court in State v. Dallas, 109 Idaho 670, 710 P.2d 580 (1985); and an unsuccessful challenge to the legality of the sentences was also upheld in State v. Dallas, 126 Idaho 273, 882 P.2d 440 (Ct.App.1994). 1
On March 30, 1986, Dallas escaped from the Idaho State Correctional Institution (ISCI). After a nationwide search, he was captured approximately one year later, outside of the state of Idaho, by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Upon return to the ISCI, the Department charged Dallas with the prison disciplinary offenses of escape and destruction of state property. Concurrent with the filing of the disciplinary offenses, Dallas was also prosecuted for the criminal offense of escape, I.C. § 18-2505. After an administrative hearing held by the Department, Dallas was found guilty of the disciplinary offenses. He received 60 days of disciplinary detention and was assessed approximately $160 for damages to state property which allegedly occurred during the escape. In addition, 365 days of his accumulated goodtime credits were forfeited. Dallas was then tried before a jury on the felony escape charge. During the trial, Dallas asserted the defense of escape by necessity. The jury acquitted Dallas of the escape charge.
After the acquittal, Dallas filed an amended petition for a writ of habeas corpus in September of 1987. In response, the Department filed a motion to dismiss, which was granted. On appeal, the district court reversed the magistrate's order and remanded the case for further proceedings. A briefing schedule was set by the magistrate, but no briefs were subsequently filed and the case became inactive. On July 5, 1990, the Department filed a second motion to dismiss for failure to prosecute pursuant to I.R.C.P. 40(c). The motion was granted in August of 1990.
On October 13, 1993, Dallas filed the amended petition for the writ of habeas corpus at issue in this case. In the petition, Dallas alleged that the Department violated his rights to remain silent and to due process under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and under Art. I, Section 13 of the Idaho Constitution, by holding the disciplinary hearing before the criminal prosecution was completed and by using Dallas's silence against him during the disciplinary hearing. Dallas asserted that because of these violations, the Department erred in imposing the disciplinary detention, in charging him for damages and in depriving him of his accumulated goodtime credits. Dallas further alleged that the Department's sanctions constituted cruel and unusual punishment because he was subsequently acquitted of the felony escape charge. Dallas requested that the district court reverse the magistrate's ruling and order the return of his goodtime credits, order a refund of any damages that he had paid, and expunge all disciplinary adjudications and findings of guilt from his institutional files.
In response, the Department filed a motion to dismiss, which was granted by a magistrate on February 7, 1994. The magistrate who granted the motion later recused himself from the case. Dallas then filed a motion to reconsider. The magistrate next assigned to the case treated the motion to reconsider as an original petition, and considered the Department's motion to dismiss as if it had been filed for the first time. The magistrate granted the Department's motion to dismiss on the ground that the petition did not state a constitutional claim upon which relief could be granted. Dallas appealed to the district court requesting a reversal of the order dismissing the petition and asking that the case be remanded for an evidentiary hearing. The district court reversed the magistrate's order in part, concluding that the magistrate erred in upholding forfeiture of Dallas's goodtime credits because the magistrate had improperly applied Baxter v. Palmigiano, 425 U.S. 308, 96 S.Ct. 1551, 47 L.Ed.2d 810 (1976). The district court remanded the case to the magistrate for further proceedings. Both the Department and Dallas appeal from the district court's order.
The Department asserts that the magistrate correctly held that neither Dallas's federal and state constitutional right to remain silent nor his right to due process were violated when Dallas's silence was used against him at the disciplinary hearing.
On cross-appeal, Dallas argues that because he had been subsequently acquitted of the felony escape charge, the magistrate erred in holding that the Department could forfeit 365 days of his accumulated goodtime credits for the alleged prison escape violation.
When reviewing an appellate decision of the district court, we examine the record of the proceedings before the magistrate independently while giving due consideration to the analysis of the district court. Application of Henry, 127 Idaho 349, 350, 900 P.2d 1360, 1361 (1995); Brandt v. State, 126 Idaho 101, 103, 878 P.2d 800, 802 (Ct.App.1994) . A dismissal of a petition for habeas corpus is reviewed for an abuse of discretion. Johnson v. State, 85 Idaho 123, 127, 376 P.2d 704, 706 (1962); Brandt, supra. When we review an exercise of discretion in a habeas corpus proceeding, we conduct a three-tiered inquiry to determine whether the lower court rightly perceived the issue as one of discretion, acted within the boundaries of such discretion, and reached its decision by an exercise of reason. Application of Henry, supra; Brennan v. State, 122 Idaho 911, 914, 841 P.2d 441, 444 (Ct.App.1992). If a petitioner is not entitled to relief on an application for a writ of habeas corpus, the decision by the petitioned court to dismiss the application is not an abuse of discretion. Brennan, 122 Idaho at 917, 841 P.2d at 447.
In its Memorandum Decision and Order, filed on June 27, 1994, the magistrate noted that differing burdens of proof exist between a prosecution for the crime of escape ("beyond a reasonable doubt") and an administrative proceeding on escape as a disciplinary question ("some evidence"), One Lot Emerald Cut Stones v. United States, 409 U.S. 232, 93 S.Ct. 489, 34 L.Ed.2d 438 (1972); Rusher v. Arnold, 550 F.2d 896 (3rd. Cir.1977), and that in Idaho the burden of proof in a disciplinary proceeding is that of "some evidence", Cootz v. State, 117 Idaho 38, 40, 785 P.2d 163, 165 (1989). The magistrate held that the Department met its burden by unquestionably showing that Dallas left the prison facility. Relying on Rusher and the authority cited therein, including Baxter, supra, the magistrate also held that the drawing of an adverse inference from Dallas's silence at the disciplinary hearing did not, in and of itself, offend his right to due process under the state and federal constitutions. The magistrate dismissed the petition, concluding that Dallas had not stated a constitutional claim upon which relief could be granted.
The Department asserts that the petition was properly dismissed. The Department submits that the magistrate correctly applied Baxter, allowing prison officials to use Dallas's silence against him at the disciplinary proceeding.
Dallas counters that, by holding the disciplinary proceeding prior to conducting the criminal trial, he was forced into a dilemma involving his constitutional rights. His argument takes the following track. If Dallas testified during the disciplinary proceeding, anything h...
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Hyde v. Fisher
...briefs to the district court prior to the original appeal was insufficient to afford him due process. See Dallas v. Arave, 129 Idaho 819, 825, 933 P.2d 108, 114 (Ct.App.1997) ("Although the nature and scope of the due process rights afforded to inmates is necessarily limited, procedural due......