Lavine v. Wright

• Decision Date: 29 September 1976
• Docket Number: No. C 75-221.,C 75-221.
• Parties: Virginia LAVINE et al., Plaintiffs, v. Ernest D. WRIGHT, Individually and in his capacity as Director of the Division of Corrections of the State of Utah, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Utah

423 F. Supp. 357

Virginia LAVINE et al., Plaintiffs, v. Ernest D. WRIGHT, Individually and in his capacity as Director of the Division of Corrections of the State of Utah, et al., Defendants.

No. C 75-221.

United States District Court, D. Utah, C. D.

September 29, 1976.

James T. Massey, Kathryn Collard, Salt Lake City, Utah, for plaintiffs.

Vernon B. Romney, Atty. Gen., Earl F. Dorius, Asst. Atty. Gen., Salt Lake City, Utah, for defendants.

ORDER AND FINAL JUDGMENT GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING INJUNCTIVE AND DECLARATORY RELIEF.

ALDON J. ANDERSON, District Judge.

Plaintiffs, individually and as a class, seek a declaratory judgment pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 2201, 2202 (1970) that the inmate classification procedures formulated and implemented by the Utah State Prison administration deprive plaintiffs of liberty without due process of law, that the plaintiffs' confinement in isolation and maximum security facilities after reclassification constituted cruel and unusual punishment, that requiring prisoners to submit to a polygraph examination as a condition for a reclassification determination deprives prisoners of their constitutional privilege against self-incrimination, and that the prison administration's use of chronological notes ("c-notes") on the prisoners' behavior deprives the inmates of due process of law and of equal protection. Plaintiffs seek to enjoin the prison administration's continued reliance on what they contend are unconstitutional classification procedures and to require the prison administration to implement immediately classification procedures which pass constitutional muster.¹ The court has been thoroughly advised by both parties at trial and in supplemental trial briefs of the facts and the law involved in resolving the present controversy and is prepared to enter judgment.

Pursuant to Utah Code Ann. § 64-9-25 (1968),² the Board of Corrections formulated and adopted specific procedures for classifying inmates within the minimum, medium, and maximum security facilities of the state prison. Although the Board of Corrections retained broad discretion to formulate the substantive standards and guidelines to be implemented for such classification proceedings, the Board established specific procedures to inform the inmates of how classification decisions would be made. The classification procedures entitle an inmate to advance oral notification of the time and purpose of a classification hearing with his Treatment Team. At the classification hearing, the inmate is entitled to be present, is confronted with the reasons for and evidence supporting the proposed change, which he may challenge, and receives verbal notification of the Treatment Team's decision. Following the hearing, the inmate is entitled to oral notification of the Treatment Team's decision including the reasons therefor.

The Treatment Team's decision is then referred to the Executive Classification Committee ("ECC") which meets regularly to finalize the Treatment Team's recommended classification changes. The inmate is not entitled to be present at the ECC hearing. The ECC may modify the Treatment Team's classification recommendation, but the inmate is notified in writing of such a modification and the reasons therefor. The inmate may appeal from the ECC's classification decision to the Treatment Team only when the ECC's classification differs from the recommended classification.

To deal with emergency situations, and for the safety of the inmates and the institution, an additional classification procedure, known as "Administrative Segregation," is available to prison administrators. Administrative segregation entitles the inmate to the same procedural protections as provided in the Treatment Team classification hearing, but in light of the exigent circumstances giving rise to administrative segregation, these procedures are implemented after the segregation. The senior officer of the particular prison facility must approve the administrative segregation. Continued segregation beyond twelve hours requires the senior officer's or the warden's final approval. The inmate segregated by administrative action is entitled to a hearing before the disciplinary committee or the Treatment Team within fifteen days if he has been segregated in isolation, or within thirty days if he has been segregated in maximum security.

Although the plaintiffs do not challenge the constitutional sufficiency of the disciplinary procedures, they urge that the classification and disciplinary procedures should be substantively similar. The disciplinary procedures differ significantly for major and minor violations. The major violations are enumerated³ and the minor violations are defined as all non-enumerated violations. To conform to the due process requirements for prison disciplinary proceedings set forth in Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 563-72, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974), the state prison administration provides that inmates in major disciplinary hearings are entitled to a disciplinary hearing at which they may be present, advance written notice of that hearing, a right to counsel, a limited right to call witnesses and present evidence, a limited right of cross-examination, and written notification of the decision and the reasons therefor. The major disciplinary committee has a broad range of sanctions to impose for major violations. The procedural protections for minor violations are more limited and the range of sanctions available is narrower than in major disciplinary action. A minor violation is not sufficient grounds, standing alone, to justify a transfer to isolation or between security facilities.

Due Process Claim

A comparison of the classification and disciplinary procedures reveals that a transfer between the minimum, medium, maximum, and isolation facilities is allowed under the prison rules and regulations for either classification or disciplinary proceedings and that an inmate's behavior may be the foundation for such transfer in either case. Since an inmate's behavior may be grounds for reclassification in either disciplinary or classification proceedings, and since the prison administration may circumvent the procedural rigors of disciplinary proceedings by merely conducting the more procedurally limited classification proceedings, the plaintiffs argue that both types of proceedings should equally protect those liberty interests of the inmate which a transfer between varying security facilities may affect. In light of Montanye v. Haymes, 427 U.S. 236, 96 S.Ct. 2543, 49 L.Ed.2d 466 (1976), Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 96 S.Ct. 2532, 49 L.Ed.2d 451 (1976), and Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974), plaintiffs' argument is untenable.

The Montanye and Meachum decisions held that the due process clause does not require a hearing prior to a prisoner's transfer by prison authorities absent some foundation in state law establishing such a right. The Court in Montanye set forth the narrow limits of the Meachum holding:

We held in Meachum v. Fano, that no Due Process Clause liberty interest of a duly convicted prison inmate is infringed when he is transferred from one prison to another within the State, whether with or without a hearing, absent some right or justifiable expectation rooted in state law that he will not be transferred except for misbehavior or upon the occurrence of other specified events.

at 242, 96 S.Ct. at 2547. The court rejects defendants' contention that Montanye and Meachum directly support unlimited discretion in state prison officials to classify inmates. Although the state prison administrators have been statutorily authorized, and have undertaken to promulgate rules and regulations which create state protected prisoners' rights, thereby fostering the prisoners' justifiable expectations in a specific classification procedure, the inmates cannot be deprived of these state created rights arbitrarily and capriciously.

While the court recognizes that the prison administration's promulgation of rules and regulations pursuant to statutory authority has created "some right or justifiable expectation rooted in state law," the court rejects the plaintiffs' contention that the Utah statute implicitly requires the full panopoly of procedural due process guarantees and substantive guidelines for classification proceedings that have been adopted for disciplinary proceedings. The state has authorized, and the state prison administration has formulated and adopted, rules and regulations that retain a significant residuum of administrative discretion in state prison officials to classify inmates within the state prison system. The due process clause does not require greater procedural guarantees and substantive guidelines in classification proceedings, absent a more extensive state created liberty interest in a prison inmate to remain in a particular security facility, which would require a pretransfer hearing before deprivation thereof.

Insofar as the state has created a liberty interest in procedural due process protections prior to transfer between various security facilities,⁴ the state cannot arbitrarily deprive an inmate of those state created rights unless due process notice and hearing are provided. The court has decided that the Treatment Team, Executive Classification Committee, and Administrative Segregation procedures described hereinabove represent state created rights which give prisoners a justifiable expectation that specific procedures will be followed in classification decisions. The court, therefore, agrees with plaintiffs' contention that this case falls within Wolff v. McDonnell, supra, but disagrees that Wolff mandates that the disciplinary and classification procedures be substantively similar.

Wolff held that certain procedural due process protections, particularly written advance notice and a written decision explaining the evidence and the...