Morris v. Travisono

• Decision Date: 06 February 1975
• Docket Number: No. 74--1127,74--1127
• Citation: 509 F.2d 1358
• Parties: Joseph MORRIS et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Anthony TRAVISONO, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 1358

509 F.2d 1358

Joseph MORRIS et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Anthony TRAVISONO, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 74--1127.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Argued Jan. 7, 1975.

Decided Feb. 6, 1975.

W. Slater Allen, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., with whom Richard J. Israel, Atty. Gen., was on brief, for appellant.

Cary J. Coen, Providence, R.I., with whom Winograd, Shine & Zacks, John M. Roney, Providence, R.I., Ralph J. Gonnella and Stanley A. Bass, New York City, were on brief, for appellees.

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

LEVIN H. CAMPBELL, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal from an order of the district court ¹ enjoining Rhode Island officials from suspending Regulations Governing Disciplinary and Classification Procedures at the Adult Correctional Institutions (Morris Rules), which had been incorporated in a judgment entered by the district court on April 20, 1972.

The Morris Rules were the outgrowth of proceedings in the district court brought by inmates of the Adult Correctional Institutions (ACI) against Rhode Island prison authorities in a class action instituted on October 11, 1969, for alleged violations of the eighth and fourteenth amendments of the Constitution. As a result of negotiations, overseen by the court, the parties agreed to a detailed set of procedures for disciplining and classifying prisoners. The court approved the procedures and incorporated them in an interim consent decree, retaining jurisdiction for eighteen months to allow the parties to establish a final working scheme of enforcement of the procedures. Morris v. Travisono, 310 F.Supp. 857, 862 (D.R.I.1970). The parties did reach an agreement, and on April 20, 1972, the district court entered a judgment as a final consent decree establishing the Morris Rules as 'those minimum procedural safeguards' to which the plaintiff class was entitled. The judgment further declared that defendant officials agreed to promulgate the rules pursuant to the Rhode Island Administrative Procedures Act, R.I.Gen. Laws § 42--35--1 et seq., within ninety days of the judgment. No injunctive relief was added to the declaration in the final decree.

The Morris Rules were duly promulgated under state law on October 10, 1972, but had a short life. On June 22, 1973, after a corrections officer at ACI was killed by an inmate, the Rhode Island Director of Public Welfare directed the Secretary of State to suspend the Morris Rules until further notice. During the preceding eleven weeks a number of events had occurred, including an extensive riot on April 2, the appointment of a new warden, the stabbing to death of an inmate, the discovery of an escape plot, and assaults on inmates and guards. Shortly after suspension of the Morris Rules seventeen inmates, previously suspected of involvement in the disturbances and escape plan, were moved from normal status to segregated confinement in the Behavioral Correction Unit in the maximum security area without notice or a hearing. A majority of those inmates were still in confinement on December 10, 1973, at which time the district court heard plaintiffs' motion for an injunction. The Morris Rules remained suspended then, and at no time previously had defendants filed any motion with the district court to modify or vacate the court's judgment of April 20, 1972. ²

The district court, in granting a permanent injunction against suspension of the Morris Rules, found that defendants had deliberately not reinstituted the Morris Rules or provided inmates with due process rights after July 5, 1973, when a state of emergency no longer existed at ACI. 373 F.Supp. 177, 180 (D.R.I.1974). The court noted that the warden, in justifying the suspension of the Morris Rules, had testified that he was advised that hearings might prejudice the criminal cases being nvestigated against the inmates charged with serious violations; that hearings were 'unworkable', leading to fights among guards, inmates, and witnesses; that the emergency provisions of the Morris Rules were unacceptable because the temporary reassignment of an inmate would have to be reviewed eventually; ³ and generally that compliance with the Morris Rules was a 'hassle all the way'. Though the ACI remained understaffed, tense, and in physical disrepair, the court found that order and safety had been restored by July 5, 1974, so that the procedural safeguards under the Morris Rules could have been provided. In light of these circumstances, the court concluded that defendants' statements that due process protections were currently being provided were insufficient assurance against repetition of the wrongful suspension of rights. The court made clear, however, that it is open to consideration of proposed modifications to the Morris Rules that are consistent with constitutional requirements.

It is important to note, first of all, that the warden's responsibility and authority to take immediate steps thought necessary to maintain prison safety and order were not questioned by the district court. The district court recognized that exigent circumstances could justify the temporary suspension, prior to disciplinary action, of due process hearing procedures. 373 F.Supp. at 181. See Gomes v. Travisono, 490 F.2d 1209, 1215 & nn. 9--10 (1st Cir. 1973), vacated and remanded, 418 U.S. 909, 94 S.Ct. 3200, 41 L.Ed.2d 1155 (1974), aff'd in pertinent part, 510 F.2d 537 (1st Cir. 1974); Hoitt v. Vitek, 497 F.2d 598 (1st Cir. 1974). However, after an emergency has ended, due process safeguards must be provided as soon as possible. This court has stated:

"(E)mergencies . . . cease to be emergencies when they continue indefinitely and inmates cannot be kept confined to their cells indefinitely in alleged violation of their constitutional rights merely on the assertion of the Warden that prison security requires it.' The unreviewable discretion of prison authorities in what they deem to be an emergency is not open-ended or time unlimited.'

Hoitt v. Vitek, supra at 600. In the present case, there is clear evidence that state authorities went well beyond an emergency suspension of Morris procedures dictated by exigent circumstances. Rather they simply determined, on their own initiative, to scrap the Rules and, in effect, to disregard the obligations imposed by the consent decree. Moreover, from the failure of state authorities to seek relief from the consent decree through legal channels, the court was entitled to conclude that the state's approach was so unpredictable as to require issuance of a injunction.

Under the 'Emergency or Temporary Provisions' of the Morris Rules inmate rights may be postponed for a week at most. See note 1 supra. As the situation developed in Rhode Island, a week might well have been too little. Certainly we do not suggest that in a situation of escalating violence, prison authorities were required to follow unworkable procedures. But the Morris Rules were totally suspended for about five months--until a motion was brought by plaintiffs in the district court. During this time defendants sought no modification ⁴ of the district court's judgment of April 20, 1972. We find no clear error in the district court's view that a state of emergency no longer existed after July 5, 1973--two weeks after suspension of the Morris Rules. By that...