James v. State

• Decision Date: 20 December 1995
• Docket Number: No. 95-298,95-298
• Citation: 541 N.W.2d 864
• Parties: Kenneth JAMES, Appellant, v. STATE of Iowa, Appellee.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 864

541 N.W.2d 864

Kenneth JAMES, Appellant, v. STATE of Iowa, Appellee.

No. 95-298.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Dec. 20, 1995.

Philip B. Mears, Iowa City, for appellant.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Forrest Guddall and Layne M. Lindebak, Assistant Attorneys General, for appellee.

Considered by HARRIS, P.J., and CARTER, LAVORATO, SNELL, and ANDREASEN, JJ.

LAVORATO, Justice.

In this postconviction relief proceeding, the district court affirmed a prison disciplinary committee decision. The committee found that Kenneth James had violated a prison disciplinary rule prohibiting involvement in gang activity.

James' appeals to the warden and the Iowa department of corrections were denied. Following a hearing on James' postconviction relief application, the district court upheld the committee's decision. James appeals from the district court ruling on two grounds. The first ground concerns alleged procedural due process violations under guidelines established in Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974). The second ground is a challenge to the legal sufficiency of the evidence against him.

As to the procedural due process challenge, James contends that when prison officials charge inmates with disciplinary misconduct, the inmates have a fundamental right to a meaningful opportunity to be heard. The cornerstone of this right, James asserts, is an adequate opportunity to marshal facts and prepare a defense. James argues that prison officials disabled him from marshaling facts and preparing any kind of defense that was pertinent to the charge. They did this, he says, in three ways.

First, James contends the notice prison officials provided him was inadequate.

Second, he contends the rule he allegedly violated was unconstitutionally vague on its face and as applied to his conduct.

Third, he contends prison officials should provide inmates substitute counsel in complex cases--as he alleges this is--where the basis of the charge is supplied by confidential informants.

As to his sufficiency of the evidence challenge, James contends that under the "some evidence" standard, the record was insufficient to establish he violated the gang conduct rule.

We conclude the district court correctly found no reversible error occurred in the prison disciplinary proceeding. Accordingly, we affirm.

I. Background Facts.

James became an inmate at the Iowa Men's Reformatory (IMR) in Anamosa in October 1993. Before January 6, 1994, James' counselor informed James there were rumors at IMR that James was involved in gang activity. James then secured a meeting with corrections officer Sperfslage. Sperfslage is the officer in charge of investigating alleged gang activity at the Anamosa facility. James testified Sperfslage reassured James that Sperfslage did not believe James was involved in gang activity. On January 6 Sperfslage notified James of disciplinary charges stemming from his investigation of James' alleged participation in gang conduct.

II. Background Proceedings.

On January 13, 1994, James appeared before a prison disciplinary committee on this and other charges. The committee ultimately found him guilty of violating prison disciplinary rule 42. Rule 42 proscribes unauthorized group and gang conduct.

For James' violation of rule 42, the committee imposed (1) fifteen days of solitary confinement, (2) one hundred eighty days of level one disciplinary detention, and (3) loss of sixteen days good conduct time.

James' appeals to the warden and the Iowa department of corrections were denied. Following a hearing on James' postconviction relief application, the district court upheld the committee's decision.

It is from the adverse district court ruling that James appeals.

III. Manner of Review.

Before July 1, 1990, postconviction applicants and the State had a right of direct appeal from adverse prison disciplinary decisions. See Iowa Code § 663A.9 (1989). Because of an amendment effective July 1, 1990, inmates were required to proceed with a writ of certiorari when challenging such decisions. See 1990 Iowa Acts ch. 1043, § 1. In Shortridge v. State, 478 N.W.2d 613, 615 (Iowa 1991), we ruled the amendment unconstitutional on equal protection grounds because the amendment limited the inmate's appeal rights but not the State's. Our decision in Shortridge returned to inmates the right of direct appeal in postconviction disciplinary proceedings. See Giles v. State, 511 N.W.2d 622, 625 (Iowa 1994).

After Shortridge, the legislature passed legislation changing the manner of review from a right of direct appeal to petition for a writ of certiorari. 1992 Iowa Acts ch. 1212, § 38. This change was codified in section 822.9 of the 1993 Iowa Code. In Giles, we ruled this legislation unconstitutional because it violated the single subject and title requirement of Article III, Section 29 of the Iowa Constitution. We held the constitutional challenge was valid because it had come before the legislation was codified at section 822.9. Giles, 511 N.W.2d at 625-26 (applying State v. Mabry, 460 N.W.2d 472, 475 (Iowa 1990), which held that codification of challenged legislation cures constitutional defect in title or subject matter).

Shortly after Giles, we decided Bryson v. Iowa District Court, 515 N.W.2d 10 (Iowa 1994) (per curiam). In Bryson, the inmate challenged his prison discipline by direct appeal. Because the inmate had not raised a constitutional challenge to the 1992 legislation codified at section 822.9, we held there was no impediment to the legislation's application. So we decided the inmate's challenge should have been by a writ of certiorari rather than by direct appeal. However, we treated the inmate's challenge as a petition for a writ of certiorari and decided the merits. See Iowa R.App.P. 304; Bryson, 515 N.W.2d at 11.

In Tabor v. State, 519 N.W.2d 378 (Iowa 1994), we put the matter to rest by clarifying Giles and Mabry. In Tabor, the inmate appealed from an adverse ruling on his challenge to a prison disciplinary decision. We interpreted Giles as holding that "the language in section 822.9 restricting review of prison disciplinary proceedings to a certiorari procedure was indeed invalidated in [Giles ]." Tabor, 519 N.W.2d at 380. We went on to explain, however, that "it was [not] our intention in Giles to limit the legal effect of that conclusion to a single litigant." Id. We explained that under Mabry,

[t]he codification process only cuts off a right of constitutional challenge under Article III, Section 29 if no one has lodged such a challenge before codification is complete. If some litigant does lodge a constitutional challenge prior to codification of the flawed legislation and prevails, then the resulting invalidation of the statute inures to the benefit of other persons adversely affected by the legislation. As a direct consequence of the conclusions reached in Giles, the applicant's appeal from the judgment was properly taken as of right. A petition for certiorari was not required.

Id. (citation omitted).

Tabor makes it clear that section 822.9 is unconstitutional as far as all litigants are concerned. Now direct appeal rather than certiorari is the proper manner by which to challenge a district court ruling in a prison disciplinary proceeding. To the extent that Bryson holds otherwise, it is overruled. Here James appealed, and his case is therefore properly before us.

IV. Procedural Due Process in Disciplinary Proceedings.

Inmates retain certain basic constitutional rights, including the protections of the Due Process Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution. Wolff, 418 U.S. at 556, 94 S.Ct. at 2974, 41 L.Ed.2d at 951 ("Prisoners may also claim the protections of the Due Process Clause. They may not be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law."). However, prison disciplinary hearings are not part of a criminal prosecution and for that reason inmates' rights at such hearings may be curtailed by the demands and realities of the prison environment. Id. at 556, 94 S.Ct. at 2975, 41 L.Ed.2d at 951.

Inmates have a constitutionally protected liberty interest in good time credits. Id. at 558, 94 S.Ct. at 2975, 41 L.Ed.2d at 951-52. So before prison authorities may forfeit those credits, such authorities must observe minimum requirements of procedural due process. Id. at 558, 94 S.Ct. at 2976, 41 L.Ed.2d at 952.

Wolff enumerates what due process requires when a prison disciplinary hearing may result in loss of such credits. These minimum procedural due process requirements include the following: (1) advance written notice of the charges; (2) an opportunity to call witnesses and present documentary evidence, provided that doing so will not jeopardize institutional safety or correctional goals; and (3) a written statement by the factfinder of the evidence relied upon and the reasons for the disciplinary action taken. Id. at 563-67, 94 S.Ct. at 2978-80, 41 L.Ed.2d at 955-57.

Wolff also recognizes an additional procedural due process requirement in prison disciplinary proceedings. Inmates are entitled to the aid of "counsel substitute." Counsel substitute does not include retained or appointed counsel. Rather, it includes a prison staff member or a selected inmate who will assist the inmate who is charged. Id. at 570, 94 S.Ct. at 2981-82, 41 L.Ed.2d at 959. The counsel substitute requirement is triggered if the inmate lacks the ability to read or faces particularly complex issues. Id. at 570, 94 S.Ct. at 2982, 41 L.Ed.2d at 959. With these principles in mind, we turn to the procedural due process issues in this case.

V. The Procedural Due Process Issues.

Because James raises constitutional issues, we review them "in light of the totality of the circumstances and the record upon which the postconviction court's ruling was made." Giles, 511 N.W.2d at 627. This is the functional equivalent of de novo review. Hinkle v. State, ...