Drayton v. Commission of Correction

• Decision Date: 08 March 2001
• Docket Number: P-0734
• Citation: 52 Mass. App. Ct. 135,751 N.E.2d 916
• Parties: (Mass.App.Ct. 2001) JOSEPH DRAYTON vs. COMMISSIONER OF CORRECTION & others. <A HREF="#fr1-1" name="fn1-1">1 99-Appeals Court
• Court: Appeals Court of Massachusetts

751 N.E.2d 916 (Mass.App.Ct. 2001)

JOSEPH DRAYTON vs. COMMISSIONER OF CORRECTION & others.¹

99-P-0734 Appeals Court

March 8, 2001

July 26, 2001

County: Suffolk.

Present: Porada, Lenk, & Gelinas, JJ.

Commissioner of Correction. Practice, Civil, Action in nature of certiorari. Administrative Law, Prison disciplinary proceeding, Regulations. Due Process of Law, Prison disciplinary proceedings, Prison regulation.

Civil action commenced in the Superior Court Department on December 24, 1996.

The case was heard by Diane M. Kottmyer, J., on motions for summary judgment.

Joseph Drayton, pro se.

Thomas E. Abruzzese for the defendants.

PORADA, J.

The plaintiff, a pro se inmate, filed an action against the defendants in the nature of certiorari under G. L. c. 249, § 4,² claiming that procedural irregularities in a disciplinary proceeding violated his right to due process under both the Federal and State Constitutions and the regulations of the Department of Correction (department). The plaintiff filed a motion for partial summary judgment³ and the defendants filed a motion for summary judgment. Although the motion judge stated that it appeared that the plaintiff had been denied the right to present material evidence and to cross-examine witnesses possessing relevant information, she denied the plaintiff's motion and allowed the defendants' motion on the ground that the sanctions imposed upon the plaintiff did not implicate a liberty interest protected by the due process clause of the Federal and State Constitutions. The plaintiff appeals from the allowance of the defendants' motion for summary judgment.⁴

We summarize the uncontroverted facts pertinent to this decision. On September 6, 1996, the plaintiff was housed at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Shirley (MCI-Shirley). On that date, he received a visit from his sister, Janet Drayton. Following her visit he was strip-searched before he was returned to his cell. Apparently, no contraband was discovered. As a result of an internal investigation, on September 11, 1996, the plaintiff received a disciplinary report from Officer Brian McDonald charging him with bringing heroin into the facility through his visit with his sister and obtaining heroin for two inmates, Bruce Dabrieo and Joseph Thomas. The disciplinary report was based on information received from two informants and the recovery of heroin from Dabrieo. Prior to the hearing, the plaintiff requested that he be allowed to call among his witnesses his sister, Janet Drayton, and Sergeant Daigle, who was the officer on duty in the visitor's room at the time of the plaintiff's visit with his sister. The plaintiff also requested that certain documents be produced at the hearing, including the logs of plaintiff's entrances and exit from his block or any other area within MCI-Shirley on September 6 and September 7 and logs for the months of August and September showing entrances and exits of inmates into the yard and gym area. Sergeant Spadafora denied his request to call Daigle and Janet Drayton as witnesses because he did not consider their testimony relevant. Likewise, he denied the plaintiff's request for the production of the logs on the ground that the plaintiff had failed to show why those documents were relevant. A hearing was held on November 5, 1996. At the outset of the hearing, the plaintiff requested that the hearing officer, Karen Collins, recuse herself because she had been the hearing officer who had presided over the disciplinary charges against Dabrieo. Collins denied the request. At the hearing, Collins refused to allow the plaintiff to question the reporting officer McDonald about the source of the informant's information about the plaintiff. She also denied the plaintiff's request to call witnesses and introduce in evidence the logs previously requested by the plaintiff on the same grounds that Spadafora had refused those requests prior to the hearing. Based on the information furnished by the two informants and evidence of Dabrieo's possession of heroin after September 6, Collins found the plaintiff guilty of introducing heroin into MCI-Shirley and conspiring with others to do so. She imposed sanctions of thirty days in isolation, loss of visitation privileges for one year, and reclassification to a higher security facility. The plaintiff appealed the guilty finding to the superintendent, who denied the appeal.

On appeal to this court, the plaintiff claims that the defendants violated his right to procedural due process under the Federal and State Constitutions and the department's regulations by refusing his request to call several witnesses; by not allowing him to introduce as evidence the prison logs requested by him; by denying his right to cross-examine the reporting officer about the reliability of the information received from the informants; by denying his request for the recusal of the hearing officer; by admitting as evidence the information received from two informants; by finding him guilty on insufficient evidence; and by the superintendent's denial of his appeal. We address the plaintiff's claims.

1. Due process requirements. An inmate is entitled to the protection of procedural due process under the Federal and State Constitutions only if there is an existing liberty or property interest at stake. Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 484 (1995). Torres v. Commissioner of Correction, 427 Mass. 611, 617, cert. denied, 525 U.S. 1017 (1998). Under the Fourteenth Amendment, a liberty interest is "generally limited to freedom from restraint which . . . imposes atypical and significant hardship on an inmate in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life." Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. at 484. Here, the motion judge determined that the sanctions imposed upon the defendant did not create a liberty interest and, thus, the defendant was not deprived of the protections of due process to which he was entitled under both the Federal and State Constitutions.

The sanctions in this case consisted of thirty days in isolation,⁵ loss of visitation privileges for one year, and transfer to a higher security prison. The plaintiff's due process claims under the Federal constitution are foreclosed by the decisions in Kentucky Dept. of Corrections v. Thompson, 490 U.S. 454, 460 (1989) (the Federal due process clause does not give a prisoner the right to unfettered visitation); Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. at 486 (disciplining a prisoner for thirty days in segregated confinement did not present the type of atypical, significant deprivation in which a State might conceivably create a liberty interest); and Dominique v. Weld, 73 F.3d 1156, 1160-ll61 (1st Cir. 1996) (transfer of a prisoner to a more secure prison did not constitute an atypical, significant deprivation giving rise to a liberty interest protected by the due process clause).

While it is not clear whether the Sandin v. Conner analysis applies for purposes of determining State due process requirements, Hudson v. Commissioner of Correction, 431 Mass. 1, 7 & n.9 (2000), the sanctions imposed here did not create a liberty interest protected by our State constitution. Although the...