Gilbert v. Frazier
| Decision Date | 18 July 1991 |
| Docket Number | No. 89-1180,89-1180 |
| Citation | 931 F.2d 1581 |
| Parties | Tiny Tim GILBERT, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Ralph FRAZIER, Larry W. Mizell, Melvin L. Bradford, David M. Baker, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
T. Tim Gilbert, pro se.
Karen S. Rosenwinkel, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tanya Solov, Crim. Appeals Div., Chicago, Ill., for defendants-appellees.
Before POSNER, COFFEY, and KANNE, Circuit Judges.
This is an appeal by a state prisoner in a civil rights case. All but one issue we decide in an unpublished order released today. The issue we think worthy of decision by a published opinion is whether the regulations of the Illinois prison system governing minor disciplinary infractions (punishable by confinement in segregation for no more than seven days) confer a right classifiable as a form of "liberty" within the meaning of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. If so, the deprivation of this right is permissible only if the prisoner has received procedural safeguards designed to ensure (so far as is possible and reasonable) that he is not deprived of the right through error.
The regulations in question, 20 Ill.Admin.Code Secs. 504.10 to 504.150, specify a list of offenses including "intimidation" and "insolence," and grade punishment by the severity of the offense in the particular case. Before a prisoner may be punished, the authorities must make a finding that he is guilty of one of the offenses listed in the regulations.
A statute, regulation, or other legislative-type enactment that establishes a definite standard to guide the decision whether to (further) restrain a prisoner's freedom of action, rather than confiding the decision to the discretion of the administering authorities, is deemed to create a constitutionally enforceable entitlement to be free from that restraint unless the standard is applied to the prisoner in accordance with procedures that satisfy the requirements of due process of law. Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U.S. 460, 469-72, 103 S.Ct. 864, 870-72, 74 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983). That is what Illinois has done here. It has established a definite, unqualified, nondiscretionary standard for determining when its prison officials may as a disciplinary measure take away a prisoner's right to the relatively greater liberty of ordinary confinement, compared to the approximation to solitary confinement that is segregation. Kentucky Dept. of Corrections v. Thompson, 490 U.S. 454, 462-63, 109 S.Ct. 1904, 1909-10, 104 L.Ed.2d 506 (1989). The case is unlike Russ v. Young, 895 F.2d 1149, 1153-54 (7th Cir.1990), where the decision whether to place a prisoner in temporary lock-up was confided to the subjective judgment of the prison officials, regardless of whether objective criteria had been met. Gilbert could not be placed in disciplinary confinement without a finding that he...
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...This court specifically notes the Seventh Circuit decisions in Smith v. Shettle, 946 F.2d 1250 (7th Cir.1991) and Gilbert v. Frazier, 931 F.2d 1581 (7th Cir.1991). Both opinions were authored by Judge Posner and deal specifically with the requisite considerations and ramifications of both a......
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...of Illinois law in the panel opinion comports in all respects with the great body of precedent on this subject. See Gilbert v. Frazier, 931 F.2d 1581 (7th Cir.1991); Solomon v. Zant, 888 F.2d 1579 (11th Cir.1989); Rust v. Grammer, 858 F.2d 411 (8th Cir.1988); Matiyn v. Henderson, 841 F.2d 3......
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