Hechavarria v. Quick, Civ. A. No. 86-593 L.

• Citation: 670 F. Supp. 456
• Decision Date: 29 September 1987
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 86-593 L.
• Parties: Eliconis HECHAVARRIA v. Stafford S. QUICK, et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Rhode Island

670 F. Supp. 456

Eliconis HECHAVARRIA v. Stafford S. QUICK, et al.

Civ. A. No. 86-593 L.

United States District Court, D. Rhode Island, First Division.

September 29, 1987.

Eliconis Hechavarria, pro se.

Anthony Cipriano, Legal Counsel, Dept. of Corrections, Cranston, R.I., for defendant.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

LAGUEUX, District Judge.

This matter concerns the issue of whether certain notice and classification provisions of the Morris Rules, in effect in the Rhode Island Department of Corrections, endow prisoners with a right to liberty under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The sequence of events culminating in this issue is as follows.

Some time prior to October of 1983, Eliconis Hechavarria was sentenced to serve a ten year prison term by a Judge of the Rhode Island Superior Court. Then, in October of that year, Hechavarria was transferred from the Rhode Island Adult Correctional Institution (A.C.I.) to the Connecticut State Prison at Somers to serve his sentence in accordance with the New England Inter-State Compact. Hechavarria stayed at the Somers prison until January 25, 1985, when he alleges his job officer called him from his work assignment and gave him a pass to go to the Captain's Office.

Upon entering the "Captian's Offices," Hechavarria claims the "Captian" informed him that he was being returned to the Rhode Island Department of Corrections. Plaintiff contends that the Captian, at no time, stated why "he was being transferred back to Rhode Island" or lodged any charges against plaintiff. Hechavarria, then, states that he was placed into a segregation unit at Somers for three to four hours until Rhode Island marshals picked him up and returned him to the A.C.I.

Upon his return to the Rhode Island prison, Hechavarria alleges he was placed in the "back room of the Hospital at High Security, for two weeks." During this time, he claims that he "was not afforded any outside exercise or sunlight and that, as a result, he became disoriented as to the time of day."

After spending approximately two weeks in the Hospital, plaintiff states he was "transferred to F-Module, a segregation unit." Then, some time in February a week to one and one-half weeks later, plaintiff was taken before a Classification Board. Plaintiff alleges that the only person present that he could identify at this hearing was Maggie Picot, Counselor. Ms. Picot, plaintiff claims, explained to him "that he was being downgraded to `C' status for suspicion of being involved in drugs at Somers, Connecticut." In addition, plaintiff alleges, Ms. Picot told him that his alleged involvement with drugs was also "the reason why plaintiff was being returned to the State of Rhode Island Department of Corrections."

As a result of these alleged occurrences, Hechavarria filed a complaint in this Court pro se. Defendant, Stafford S. Quick, former Associate Director of the High Security Center at the A.C.I. moved to dismiss plaintiff's complaint pursuant to Fed.R. Civ.P. 12(b)(6).

The matter was subsequently referred to the Magistrate who recommended to the Court that dismissal be granted. The Magistrate's reasoning was twofold. First, that Hechavarria's segregation after his retransfer to the Rhode Island prison system was not of such nature as to trigger application of the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Secondly, prison officials did not violate plaintiff's procedural due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment when they downgraded him to C status because plaintiff did not have a constitutional right to a particular classification.

Plaintiff objected to the Magistrate's Report and Recommendation, insisting that the Department of Corrections' own guidelines—the Morris Rules—bestow upon inmates a substantive liberty interest under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In addition to this objection, plaintiff moved the Court to appoint counsel to represent him under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(d).

The Court fully agrees with the Magistrate's Report and Recommendation on the two issues specifically raised by plaintiff's complaint. It is uniformly agreed that inmates do not have a liberty interest in a particular classification directly under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Parenti v. Ponte, 727 F.2d 21, 23 (1st Cir.1984). Moreover, it is also clear that the two weeks of "isolation type confinement" incurred in this case was not in and of itself sufficient to raise Eighth Amendment concerns. See Jackson v. Meachum, 699 F.2d 578, 582 (1st Cir.1983), where solitary confinement for nine months did not violate the cruel and unusual punishment clause. These claims alleged by plaintiff, therefore, cannot form the basis for a cause of action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

There is, however, a third basis for a cause of action under § 1983 which might be applicable here. While not apparent from the face of the complaint, plaintiff's Objection to the Magistrate's Report and Recommendation makes clear that he protests the Department of Corrections' alleged violation of Morris Rules B and C(3) of the section entitled "Classification Procedures." Morris v. Travisono, 499 F.Supp. 149, 166-67 (D.R.I.1980); see also Morris v. Travisono, 310 F.Supp. 857, 870 (D.R.I.1970). Under the "less stringent standards" to be accorded pro se complaints upon motions to dismiss, Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520-21, 92 S.Ct. 594, 595-97, 30 L.Ed.2d 652, reh'g denied, 405 U.S. 948, 92 S.Ct. 963, 30 L.Ed.2d 819 (1972), the Court is required to examine the legal foundation for these allegations as well.

Rhode Island's rules governing the regulation of the ACI (the Morris Rules) were adopted in settlement of civil rights litigation brought in this Court in the early 1970's. The section of these rules entitled "Classification Procedures" contains the following two subsections pertinent to this litigation:

B. Notice

In cases where any downgrading of classification grade is to be considered, an inmate shall receive timely written notice.

C. The Classification Meeting

3. No misconduct shall be considered by the Classification Board unless the Disciplinary Board has made a finding unfavorable to the inmate.

Plaintiff contends that these two regulations invest him with a substantive liberty interest under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. A review of the case law in this area leads to the conclusion that plaintiff is in error.

In the case of Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U.S. 460, 103 S.Ct. 864, 74 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983), the United States Supreme Court set the standard for determining whether state-made prison guidelines were embraced by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In Hewitt, plaintiff filed an action in the Middle District of Pennsylvania alleging that an administrative segregation pursuant to Title 37 Pa.Code § 95.104(b)(1) and (3) violated his due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. Id. at 462, 103 S.Ct. at 866-67.

Sub-section (b)(1) provided that an inmate could be placed in Close or Administrative Custody upon the approval of the officer in charge "not routinely, but based upon his assessment of the situation and the need for control." Hewitt, 459 U.S. at 470 n. 6, 103 S.Ct. at 871 n. 6. Subsection (b)(3) provided that an inmate could be temporarily confined to "Close or Maximum Administrative Custody in an investigative status" where it has been determined that there is a "threat of a serious disturbance," or "serious threat to the individual or others." Id. at 470-71, 103 S.Ct. at 870-71. Finally, subsection (b)(3) required that the inmate "shall be notified" in writing as soon as possible that he is under investigation and that he "will receive" a hearing if any disciplinary action is being considered after the investigation is completed. Id.

In deciding whether the plaintiff possessed a constitutionally protected interest, the Court stated that the mere fact that Pennsylvania created a "careful procedural structure regulating administrative segregation" does not necessarily indicate the existence of a protected liberty interest.

The creation of procedural guidelines to channel the decision-making of prison officials is, in the view of many experts in the field, a salutary development. It would be ironic to hold that when a State embarks on such desirable experimentation, it thereby opens the door to scrutiny by the federal courts, while States that choose not to adopt such procedural provisions entirely avoid the strictures of the Due Process Clause. The adoption of such procedural guidelines, without more, suggests that it is these restrictions alone and not those federal courts might also impose under the Fourteenth Amendment, that the State chose to require.

Id. at 471, 103 S.Ct. at 871.

Despite this declaration, the Court went on to hold that the Pennsylvania statute did create a protected liberty interest under the United States Constitution. This conclusion, the Court reasoned, was demanded by the presence of two indicia: (1) "the Administrative segregation will not occur absent specified substantive predicates ____ vis., `the need for control' or `the threat of serious disturbance.'" (2) use of language of an unmistakably mandatory character requiring certain procedures "shall," "will" or "must" be employed. Id. at 471-72, 103 S.Ct. at 871.

Application of these two indicia to the Morris Rules does not require a similar result. While the Morris rules in question do use mandatory language (the word "shall") in connection with their procedural strictures, they do not contain any specific substantive predicates which indicate that Rhode Island has endowed inmates with a liberty right to a particular classification.

Rule B provides that an inmate shall receive timely written notice of the subject and purpose of a classification meeting. This rule is purely procedural in...