McGinnis v. Stevens
| Decision Date | 01 December 1975 |
| Docket Number | 2312,Nos. 2255,s. 2255 |
| Citation | 543 P.2d 1221 |
| Parties | Frederick P. Mc,GINNIS, Commissioner of the Department of Health and Social Services, and Charles G. Adams, Jr., Director of the Division of Corrections, Department of Health and Social Services, Appellants, v. H. C. R. STEVENS, and all other persons presently imprisoned, in custody, or in any manner detained under the authority of the commissioner of the Department of Health and Social Services, Appellees. H. C. R. STEVENS, and all other persons presently imprisoned, in custody, or in any manner detained under the authority of the Commissioner of the Department of Health and Social Services, Cross-Appellants, v. Frederick P. McGINNIS, Commissioner of the Department of Health and Social Services, and Charles G. Adams, Jr., Director of the Division of Corrections, Department of Health and Social Services, Cross-Appellees. |
| Court | Alaska Supreme Court |
Ivan Lawner and Gerald O. Williams, Asst. Attys. Gen., Avrum M. Gross, Atty. Gen., Juneau, for appellant and cross-appellees.
Robert H. Wagstaff, of Wagstaff & Middleton, Anchorage, for appellees and cross-appellants.
Before RABINOWITZ, C. J. and CONNOR, ERWIN, BOOCHEVER, and BURKE, JJ.
First impression issues relating to constitutional and statutory rights of Alaskan prisoners are presented by this appeal.
Among the multiplicity of deprivations asserted by appellees in their superior court complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief is that inmates under the jurisdiction of the Department of Health and Social Services of the State of Alaska are denied due process of law, as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 7 of the Alaska Constitution. 1 Due process infringements were alleged to have resulted from appellants' arbitrary removal of inmates' statutory good time; 2 from appellants' arbitrary administration of internal prison discipline, in particular punitive segregation procedures; and from appellants' arbitrary administrative decisions relating to inmate institutional placements and participation in work release and education programs.
At the root of this litigation lie questions of the contours and substance of the due process rights to which a prisoner is entitled in prison disciplinary hearings under the federal and Alaska constitutions. Appellees' due process claims in relation to inmate disciplinary hearings are grounded upon contentions that inmates are, as a matter of constitutional due process, entitled: to the assistance of counsel; to present witnesses in their behalf; to confront and cross-examine witnesses; to the application of a guilt beyond a reasonable doubt standard; to a hearing before an impartial tribunal; to notice affording adequate time to prepare for the hearing, and; to automatic appeal to the court system from adverse institutional disciplinary decisions.
After a nonjury trial, the superior court held that the classification and disciplinary procedures employed by appellants governing Alaskan prisoners under their jurisdiction do not satisfy constitutionally mandated standards of due process. Declaring numerous aspects of Alaska's prison procedures constitutionally infirm the superior court permanently enjoined appellants from continuation of these impermissible procedures and proceeded to fashion a detailed and comprehensive decree governing institutional discipline and security. 3
Shortly after the superior court entered its decree in the case at bar, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down the seminal opinion of Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974). The issues in Wolff, which involved federal due process disciplinary claim by inmates of the nebraska prison system, were substantially similar to the disciplinary issues presented in the instant case. Reaffirming that an inmate is a 'person' for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court in Wolff held that forfeiture of statutory good time and placement in 'solitary' confinement each constitutes deprivation of 'liberty' under the Fourteenth Amendment. 4 Mr. Justice White, writing for the majority in Wolff, took pains to emphasize:
. . . that prisoners retain rights under the Due Process Clause in no way implies that these rights are not subject to restrictions imposed by the nature of the regime to which they have been lawfully committed. Prison disciplinary proceedings are not part of a criminal prosecution, and the full panoply of rights due a defendant in such proceedings does not apply. 5
Short of the full panoply of rights accorded an accused in criminal proceedings, the Supreme Court in Wolff held that when major prison disciplinary proceedings are instituted against a state inmate, the following proceedural safeguards are mandated by the Due Process Clause: 6 at least twenty-four hours advance written notice of the alleged violation; 7 a written statement by the factfinders as to the evidence relied on and reasons for the disciplinary action; 8 permitting the inmate facing disciplinary action to call witnesses and to present documentary evidence in his defense when to do so will not be unduly hazardous to institutional safety or correctional goals; 9 and allowing an illiterate inmate, or an inmate facing a complex issue, as to which it is unlikely that he will be able to collect and present evidence necessary for an adequate comprehension of the case, to seek the aid of a fellow inmate, '. . . or if that is forbidden, to have adequate substitute aid in the form of help from the staff or from a sufficiently competent inmate designated by the staff.' 10
The state, undoubtedly cognizant of the binding impact of Wolff under the Supremacy Clause, does not appeal from those portions of the superior court's decree which parallel Wolff standards. However, in its final judgment, the superior court went significantly beyond Wolff in ruling that inmates of Alaska prisons must be allowed the unqualified right of confrontation and cross-examination in both disciplinary and classification proceedings; in requiring that the hearing officers in displinary proceedings be drawn from sources outside of the Division of Corrections; by requiring a verbatim record of the disciplinary and classification proceedings; by providing that the inmate has the right of an automatic appeal from disciplinary or classification decisions to the superior court; and holding that inmates faced with major infraction charges be granted assistance of counsel (or appointed counsel if unable to afford an attorney). It is from these facets of the superior court's judgment that this appeal has been brought.
Analysis of the six subject areas in which the superior court's decree is broader in scope than Wolff leads us to the conclusion that they can be grouped under two major headings, more particularly: procedures furthering the goal of attaining a fair hearing and decision, and procedures which guaranty an adequate review of the procedures employed and decisions reached by the hearing officers. Turning initially to the 'fair-hearing/fair-decision' aspects of the superior court's decree, it is necessary to ascertain the nature of inmate disciplinary proceedings. As to this question, we are in agreement with Wolff that a disciplinary hearing is not a criminal trial. The inmate is not charged with a violation of criminal statute, nor is the inmate's liberty as a free citizen threatened by potential curtailment. Thus, in accord with Wolff, we hold that an inmate in a major disciplinary proceeding is not entitled to the full panoply of rights due an accused in a criminal proceeding. 11 Our conclusion is grounded in the belief that to a significant degree disciplinary proceedings must be structured by prison authorities. The relevant background for constitutional adjudication in prison disciplinary proceedings is skillfully illuminated by Mr. Justice White, in Wolff, where he writes:
The reality is that disciplinary hearings and the imposition of disagreeable sanctions necessarily involve confrontations between inmates and authority and between inmates who are being disciplined and those who would charge or furnish evidence against them. Retaliation is much more than a theoretical possibility; and the basic and unavoidable task of providing reasonable personal safety for guards and inmates may be at stake, to say nothing of the impact of disciplinary confrontations and the resulting escalation of personal antagonisms on the important aims of the correctional process.
Indeed, it is present upon us that the proceedings to ascertain and sanction misconduct themselves play a major role in furthering the institutional goal of modifying the behavior and value systems of prison inmates sufficiently to permit them to live within the law when they are released. Inevitably there is a great range of personality and character among those who have transgressed the criminal law. Some are more amenable to suggestion and persuasion than others. Some may be incorrigible and would merely disrupt and exploit the disciplinary process for their own ends. With some, rehabilitation may be best achieved by simulating procedures of a free society to the maximum possible extent; but with others, it may be essential that discipline be swift and sure. In any event, it is argued, there would be great unwisdom in encasing the disciplinary procedures in an inflexible constitutional straitjacket that would necessarily call for adversary proceedings typical of the criminal trial, very likely raise the level of confrontation between staff and inmate, and make more difficult the utilization of the disciplinary process as a tool to advance the rehabilitative goals of the institution. 12
It is against this setting that we must determine whether the holdings of Wolff delineate the full extent of due process rights which must be accorded...
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