Duran v. Morris

• Decision Date: 21 July 1981
• Docket Number: No. 16871,16871
• Citation: 635 P.2d 43
• Parties: Leo DURAN, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Lawrence MORRIS, Warden, Utah State Prison, Defendant and Respondent.
• Court: Utah Supreme Court

Page 43

635 P.2d 43

Leo DURAN, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Lawrence MORRIS, Warden, Utah State Prison, Defendant and Respondent.

No. 16871.

Supreme Court of Utah.

July 21, 1981.

Doug Wahlquist, Salt Lake City, for plaintiff and appellant.

David L. Wilkinson, Robert N. Parrish, Salt Lake City, for defendant and respondent.

OAKS, Justice:

Appellant, an inmate in the Utah State Prison, petitioned the district court for a writ of habeas corpus, claiming that prison officials violated his constitutional rights by temporarily placing him in administrative segregation. We hold that appellant's petition is now moot.

On June 27, 1979, appellant was administratively segregated and transferred from Medium Security to Maximum Security pending an investigation of his alleged involvement in a stabbing incident. On September 18, 1979, nearly twelve weeks after his segregation, the prison authorities finally held a disciplinary hearing, at which appellant was found guilty of participation in the stabbing incident and his classification was reduced to Maximum Security. On December 19, 1979, the district court denied appellant's petition for a writ of habeas corpus, and this appeal was taken from that action.

Prisoners are not "wholly stripped" of their constitutional rights even in their incarcerated state. Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 555, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 2974, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974). See, e. g., Cruz v. Beto, 405 U.S. 319, 92 S.Ct. 1079, 31 L.Ed.2d 263 (1972); Lee v. Washington, 390 U.S. 333, 88 S.Ct. 994, 19 L.Ed.2d 1212 (1968). In particular, the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects prisoners against the deprivation of liberty without due process of law. Wolff v. McDonnell, supra. Appellant claims a liberty interest in the protections of certain prison regulations, and contends that prison officials' violation of those regulations deprived him of that liberty without due process of law. He argues in his brief that he "should be immediately released from maximum security and returned to his former custody." However, it appears from the briefs filed in this Court that appellant was in fact returned to Medium Security on March 17, 1980. We are thus presented at the threshold with the question of the mootness of this appeal.

If the requested judicial relief cannot affect the rights of the litigants, the case is moot and a court will normally refrain from adjudicating it on the merits. Hoyle v. Monson, Utah, 606 P.2d 240 (1980); Johnson v. Ricketts, 233 Ga. 438, 211 S.E.2d 732, 733 (1975); Yates v. Easley, 110 R.I. 425, 293 A.2d 511 (1972). See also, University of Utah v. Industrial Commission, 64 Utah 273, 276, 229 P. 1103, 1104 (1924). Recent federal precedents have carefully delineated the mootness principle. Although based on a constitutional provision not directly applicable to the states, ¹ these precedents are nevertheless valuable in analyzing an issue of mootness.

While it was once held that an attempted review of a criminal conviction by a writ of habeas corpus became moot when the petitioner was released from custody, Parker v. Ellis, 362 U.S. 574, 80 S.Ct. 909, 4 L.Ed.2d 963 (1960), it is now clearly established that "a criminal case is moot only if it is shown that there is no possibility that any collateral legal consequences will be imposed on the basis of the challenged conviction." Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40, 57, 88 S.Ct. 1889, 1899, 20 L.Ed.2d 917 (1968). Such collateral legal consequences may include the use of the conviction to impeach the petitioner's character or as a factor in determining a sentence in a future trial, as well as the petitioner's inability to vote, engage in certain businesses, or serve on a jury. Sibron v. New York, supra; Carafas v. LaVallee, 391 U.S. 234, 88 S.Ct. 1556, 20 L.Ed.2d 554 (1968). Conversely, where it can be shown that no adverse collateral consequences will follow a failure to rule on a habeas corpus challenge to a sentence now served, the case may be dismissed as moot. North Carolina v. Rice, 404 U.S. 244, 92 S.Ct. 402, 30 L.Ed.2d 413 (1971).

Intraprison administrative decisions such as the one before us entail no collateral legal consequences of the kind that result from a criminal conviction. For example, in a case where the habeas corpus petitioner was "not attacking the validity of his conviction," but merely the administrative treatment he had received during a confinement from which he had already been released, a federal court dismissed the appeal as moot, declaring: "He has no substantial stake in the judgment which would bring this action within the purview of the Carafas and Sibron cases." Ayers v. Ciccone, 431 F.2d 724, 726 (8th Cir. 1970). This principle was likewise applied to a transfer from one penal facility to another in Harper v. Ciccone, 434 F.2d 247 (8th Cir. 1970), where the court dismissed an appeal in a habeas corpus case, holding that petitioner's claim "has been mooted because he is now where he claims he should have been during his period of confinement in the Federal Medical Center." Id. at 248. See also, Anderson v....