Gomes v. Travisono

• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (1st Circuit)
• Writing for the Court: Before COFFIN, Chief Judge, McENTEE and CAMPBELL; PER CURIAM
• Citation: 510 F.2d 537
• Decision Date: 20 December 1974
• Parties: Douglas GOMES et al., Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. Anthony P. TRAVISONO, etc., et al., Defendants, Appellants (two cases).

Page 537

510 F.2d 537 Douglas GOMES et al., Plaintiffs, Appellees,
v.
Anthony P. TRAVISONO, etc., et al., Defendants, Appellants
(two cases). United States Court of Appeals,
First Circuit. Submitted Dec. 4, 1974.
Decided Dec. 20, 1974.

Page 538

Richard J. Israel, Atty. Gen., with whom W. Slater Allen, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Providence, R.I., was on brief, for Anthony P. Travisono, etc., and others.

Max D. Stern, Boston, Mass., with whom Stern & Shapiro, Boston, Mass., Cary J. Coen, Providence, R.I., Jack Greenberg and Stanley A. Bass, New York City, were on brief, for Douglas Gomes, and others.

ON RECONSIDERATION AFTER REMAND

Before COFFIN, Chief Judge, McENTEE and CAMPBELL, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM.

Pursuant to the mandate of the Supreme Court in Gomes v. Travisono, 490 F.2d 1209 (1973), vacated and remanded, 418 U.S. 908, 94 S.Ct. 3200, 41 L.Ed.2d 1155 (1974), we reconsider, with the assistance of memoranda from the parties our decision in Gomes, in light of Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974).

The issue before us is the extent of the impact of the rulings and

Page 539

rationale of Wolff, dealing with the procedural safeguards constitutionally mandated for prison proceedings which can result in loss of credit for 'good time', on our opinion in Gomes, which dealt with the procedural safeguards which should attend proceedings looking to the transfer of a prisoner to a prison in another state. Two preliminary propositions appear clear without extended analysis. The first is our recognition in Gomes, strengthened if anything by the thrust of Wolff in stressing consideration of the pressures on prison authorities, that emergency situations may require postponement of whatever procedures are prescribed. The second is the principle, reaffirmed in Wolff, that prisoners suffering the prospect of serious deprivations are entitled to some process. Since the calculus of disadvantage to the prisoner, relevant to identifying the process which may be 'due', is not necessarily the same in a case involving loss of good time as that in an interstate transfer case, we proceed to look at the impact of such a transfer.

There were specific findings made by the district court as to the treatment of the transferees seeking relief in this case. The court found that the transferred inmates were segregated in the receiving prisons for two to six weeks, were placed in work assignments inconsistent with their prior experience, were precluded from rehabilitative and educational programs, saw few of their friends and family, and none of them saw their attorneys. Finally, the court found that parole opportunities were affected. 490 F.2d at 1213. We concluded that, beyond these specific findings, transfer inherently involves discontinuity of program, difficulty of communication, administrative isolation pending integration into the new prison community, and the possibility of a 'troublemaker' status which might occasion an unfavorable parole decision. It suffices here to say that the presence of privations which are either identical to or comparable to punishments meted out for disciplinary infractions calls for some due process safeguards in interstate transfer cases. See Wolff, supra, 418 U.S. at 571, 94 S.Ct. at 2982 n. 19.

In our prior opinion, we answered the question of how much process is due for transfers acknowledged to be for disciplinary purposes by noting that in Rhode Island a working system of rules governing disciplinary hearings within a prison had been devised under a consent decree issued in Morris v. Travisono, 310 F.Supp. 857, 871--874 (D.R.I.1970), and adopted as law by the state. Gomes, supra, 490 F.2d at 1215. We thought it would be 'anomalous, indeed, 'both from a due process and an equal protection point of view, if the prison authorities could accomplish by transfer a procedure-free punishment which they could not accomplish within their own walls." Id. ¹

We now are confident in saying that the deprivations inherent in an interstate transfer of a prisoner are sufficient to trigger the minimal due process safeguards identified in Wolff: written notice of charges, opportunity to prepare a defense, hearing, and a written statement of the evidence relied on and reasons for the decision. In disciplinary transfer cases, because the premise of finding an infraction and the consequence of...