Davis, In re, Cr. 20252

• Decision Date: 20 September 1979
• Docket Number: Cr. 20252
• Citation: 25 Cal.3d 384,158 Cal.Rptr. 384,599 P.2d 690
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 599 P.2d 690 In re Ivory Joe DAVIS et al. on Habeas Corpus.

Page 384

158 Cal.Rptr. 384

25 Cal.3d 384, 599 P.2d 690

In re Ivory Joe DAVIS et al. on Habeas Corpus.

Cr. 20252.

Supreme Court of California, In Bank.

Sept. 20, 1979.

Michael Satris, San Quentin, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for petitioners.

Evelle J. Younger, Atty. Gen., Jack R. Winkler, Chief Asst. Atty. Gen., Edward P. O'Brien, Asst. Atty. Gen., John T. Murphy and Jean M. Bordon, Deputy Attys. Gen., for respondent.

NEWMAN, Justice.

Petitioners Davis, Massingale, Anderson, Macchiano, Brown, Shubin, and Acosta, through a habeas corpus petition filed by their counsel, complain that their due process rights are violated by lengthy segregation pending disciplinary proceedings at San Quentin Prison.

A writ of habeas corpus may be sought to obtain a declaration and enforcement of a prisoner's rights in confinement. (In re Harrell (1970) 2 Cal.3d 675, 87 Cal.Rptr. 504, 470 P.2d 640 and cases cited.) Five of petitioners sought and were denied relief in superior court and then in the Court of Appeal; they and two others then petitioned this court and we issued an order to show cause.

Each petitioner was held in segregation from 33 to 83 days before his disciplinary hearing was convened. Two were found by prison officials to be guilty of infractions but did not serve disciplinary segregation sentences because their time in prehearing segregation exceeded the sentences. (The Department of Corrections rules limit disciplinary segregation sentences to 10 days maximum.) The other five inmates were found not guilty of infractions. Petitioners' complaints concern their segregation in maximum security housing during those delays in the disciplinary process.

The case involves two distinct administrative proceedings: (1) Classification hearing, to determine an inmate's placement in the institution and the degree of control and supervision required (see rule 3370 of the Rules of the Director of the Department of Corrections, Cal.Admin.Code, tit. 15, hereafter cited as Rules); (2) Disciplinary hearing, to determine whether an inmate is guilty of a serious rule violation and to impose sanctions if he is guilty (see Rule 3315).

The housing at issue here is in the Security Housing Unit (SHU), to which prisoners are assigned by one of two administrative actions: (1) Administrative segregation, i. e., segregation from the general inmate population for nonpunitive reasons (Rule 3330(a)); (2) Isolation or Disciplinary segregation, imposed as punishment after an inmate is found guilty of a serious Rule violation (Rule 3315(b)(4)(B); Rule 3330(b) (now Rule 3330(o)(3))).

Conditions inside the SHU at San Quentin have been described as follows by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California:

"Prisoners in the maximum security units are confined in cells approximately five feet wide by eight feet long. The cells are without fresh air or daylight, both ventilation and lighting being poor. The lights in some cells are controlled by guards. It is difficult for prisoners to get needed medical attention. They must eat in their cells or not at all. They are allowed very limited exercise and virtually no contact with other prisoners. They cannot participate in vocational programs. They are denied those entertainment privileges provided for the general prison population. Parole is usually denied to them until after release from maximum security segregation.4 " (Wright v. Enomoto (N.D.Cal.1976) 462 F.Supp. 397, affd. Enomoto v. Wright (1978) 434 U.S. 1052, 98 S.Ct. 1223, 55 L.Ed.2d 756.)

Petitioners' own description, uncontradicted by respondent, is similar to the federal court's. Further they note that restricted visiting is another incident of segregation: the number of visits is greatly reduced; visits occur only behind glass and via a telephone; the inmate is chained throughout the visit. Petitioners characterize the SHUs as "gruesome places, teeming with tension and hostility."

The return sets forth the facts of one disciplinary proceeding for each of the seven petitioners. Details vary, but the proceedings, occurring at different times over a seven-month period, are similar. Each inmate was charged with a "serious disciplinary offense" for which a maximum 10 days of segregation or other punishment could be imposed after a hearing. (Rule 3315(b)(4)(B).) ¹ After being charged each was immediately taken to the prison's SHU and waited there for his hearing. They spent 33 to 83 days there before their hearings were convened. During that time each appeared at least once before a classification committee for review of his placement in the SHU.

Grounds for nonpunitive, administrative segregation were protection of the inmate's own safety, the safety of others, and the security of the institution. (Rule 3330(a), which has since been amended to include also "the integrity of an investigation.") The Rules did not explicitly require that all inmates charged with disciplinary offenses be placed in segregation. Yet pursuant to Rule 3317(c) (now Rule 3330(i)), in each classification hearing the nature of the charges was considered and the information leading to the charges was assumed to be true; and on that basis the committee determined that each inmate should be retained in the SHU pending determination on the charges. Five were found not guilty; the two found guilty were sentenced by disciplinary committees to the maximum 10 days and given credit for time served.

We deal first with some procedural arguments of respondents. They argue that petitioners Shubin and Acosta should be severed from this proceeding because, unlike the other five petitioners, they did not first seek relief in a lower court. We decline to exercise our discretion to sever (In re Hillery (1962) 202 Cal.App.2d 293, 294, 20 Cal.Rptr. 759), since all petitioners raise the same issues of law and there are no material factual issues.

Respondents point out that none of the petitioners is now in administrative segregation because of disciplinary charges pending at the time of their petition. It is argued that the action also is rendered moot by the new procedures for administrative segregation adopted after the order in Wright v. Enomoto, supra. However, all prison inmates in California remain subject to respondents' rules and procedures for placing them in segregation on the basis of disciplinary charges. The alleged constitutional deficiencies of those rules and procedures are not affected by the amendments and revisions. We therefore exercise our discretion to resolve the issue even though petitioners' subsequent release from segregation "normally would render the matter moot." (In re William M. (1970) 3 Cal.3d 16, 23-24, 89 Cal.Rptr. 33, 37, 473 P.2d 737, 741; In re Fluery (1967) 67 Cal.2d 600, 601, 63 Cal.Rptr. 298, 432 P.2d 986; see also In re Harrell (1970) 2 Cal.3d 675, 87 Cal.Rptr. 504, 470 P.2d 640.)

We reject respondent's contentions concerning (1) the fact that this petition is signed and verified by petitioners' attorney on their behalf, rather than by petitioners themselves (see Pen.Code, § 1474), and (2) alleged failures to exhaust so-called administrative remedies.

Right to a Hearing

Wolff v. McDonnell (1974) 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 held that the Fourteenth Amendment requires minimum due process in prison disciplinary proceedings when the state has created a right to good-time credits and has permitted forfeiture only for serious misconduct. The court stated that the same requirement should apply when solitary confinement might be imposed. (Id. at pp. 571-572, fn. 19, 94 S.Ct. 2963.)

Meachum v. Fano (1976) 427 U.S. 215, 96 S.Ct. 2532, 49 L.Ed.2d 451 held that, in the absence of a state-created limitation on inmate transfers, no hearing was required when a prisoner was transferred from one institution to another even if conditions in the second were substantially more burdensome. The court rejected the proposition that "Any substantial deprivation imposed by prison authorities triggers the procedural protections of the Due Process Clause . . . ." (Id., at p. 225, 96 S.Ct. at 2538, italics in original.)

In Montanye v. Haymes (1976) 427 U.S. 236, 96 S.Ct. 2543, 49 L.Ed.2d 466 the court of appeals had distinguished administrative transfers from disciplinary transfers and had held that, when the latter have substantial adverse impact, hearings are required. The Supreme Court reversed, applying Meachum because the state had imposed no conditions on the discretionary power to transfer. (Accord, Moody v. Daggett (1976) 429 U.S. 78, 88, fn. 9, 97 S.Ct. 274, 50 L.Ed.2d 236.)

Wolff, even in light of Meachum and Montanye, still requires a hearing for disciplinary segregation in San Quentin. California has created a liberty interest by the Rules that on a statewide basis condition disciplinary segregation on a finding of serious misconduct (Rule 3315(b)) and also require a hearing. (Id.)

Similarly the Rules articulate specific circumstances under which administrative segregation may be imposed. Rule 3330(a), in the version applicable at the time of this petition, states in part: "When an inmate's presence within an institution's general inmate population presents an immediate threat to the inmate's own safety, the safety of others, or to the security of the institution, the inmate will be removed immediately from the general inmate population . . . ." Therefore the inmate has a protected interest in not being confined in administrative segregation except for those reasons.

The United States Supreme Court has affirmed a holding to this effect in Wright v. Enomoto, supra, where the three-judge district court extended Wolff 's minimum procedural protection to administrative segregation in California prisons. It was held that confinement of an inmate in maximum security constitutes a "severe impairment of the residuum of liberty which he retains as a prisoner an impairment which triggers the...