Parenti v. Ponte

• Decision Date: 17 June 1983
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 82-1448-G.
• Citation: 565 F. Supp. 987
• Parties: Michael P. PARENTI, Plaintiff, v. Joseph J. PONTE et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

565 F. Supp. 987

Michael P. PARENTI, Plaintiff, v. Joseph J. PONTE et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 82-1448-G.

United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.

June 17, 1983.

Martin E. Levin, Asst. Atty. Gen., Boston, Mass., for defendants.

Thomas E. McDonald, Warner & Stackpole, Boston, Mass., for plaintiff.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER ALLOWING DEFENDANTS' MOTION TO DISMISS

GARRITY, District Judge.

Plaintiff is a prisoner at Walpole State Prison. He claims a denial of due process because he was transferred to a "Departmental Segregation Unit" (DSU) within the prison by a tribunal that allegedly was not impartial. This allegation of administrative partiality is predicated on the participation of a particular corrections officer. Timothy Hall, both as a member of the panel that decided to transfer plaintiff to the DSU, and as a witness against the plaintiff at a prior related disciplinary hearing.¹ Defendants, employees and officials of the Massachusetts Department of Correction, have filed a motion to dismiss on the grounds that plaintiff has failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted because his transfer did not affect a constitutionally protected liberty interest.

The Constitution requires due process of law only when governmental action compromises a liberty or property interest. Plaintiff has asserted no property interest, but contends that inmates have a liberty interest to remain within the general prison population. The Supreme Court has held that the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment independently creates no such interest, but that state statute and regulations may create liberty interests triggering constitutional protection. See, e.g., Hewitt v. Helms, ___ U.S. ___, ___-___, 103 S.Ct. 864, 869-71, 74 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983), Olim v. Wakinekona, ___ U.S. ___, 103 S.Ct. 1741, 75 L.Ed.2d 813 (1983).

The critical question posed by defendants' motion for summary judgment, therefore, is whether Massachusetts, by its statutes and regulations, has created a protected interest in not being transferred from the general prison population for nonpunitive reasons. This issue has been considered by the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, which decided that the relevant Massachusetts statute, M.G.L. c. 127, § 39, does not restrict official discretion in transferring inmates to a DSU, and therefore does not create a liberty interest requiring the protection of due process. See Four Certain Unnamed Inmates v. Hall, 1 Cir.1977, 550 F.2d 1291, 1292. The First Circuit also has held that the relevant regulation, because "it does not attempt to set out a precise standard against which one might measure an inmate and conclude that he was outside the purpose of the DSU," fails to trigger a constitutionally protected right.² Daigle v. Hall, 1 Cir.1977, 564 F.2d 884, 885-6.

Defendants' motion to dismiss would have presented this court with the simple task of following directly applicable First Circuit decisions had the Supreme Court not recently decided Hewitt v. Helms, supra. In Hewitt, the Court ruled that Pennsylvania's statutory provisions governing intra-prison transfers to nonpunitive segregation units, by employing "explicitly mandatory language in connection with specific substantive predicates," did create a liberty interest triggering the due process guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment. ___ U.S. at ___, 103 S.Ct. at 871. The Massachusetts regulations appear to be similar to the Pennsylvania provisions in several significant respects.³ Nevertheless, although the rationale of Hewitt may bring into question the analysis in Daigle, it is not for this court to reconsider an issue already decided by the First Circuit. Daigle must remain the law of the circuit until the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court indicates otherwise.⁴

The court finds, therefore, that plaintiff's complaint fails to establish the requisite liberty interest to invoke the procedural guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment. Because plaintiff has not stated a federal claim, the court declines to exercise its discretionary jurisdiction over plaintiff's pendent state claim. United Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 1966, 383 U.S. 715, 726, 86 S.Ct. 1130, 1139, 16 L.Ed.2d 218.

Defendants' motion to dismiss is allowed.

1 Transfer to the DSU is intended to be independent of disciplinary considerations. See 103 C.M.R. § 421.07(2) and note 3, below. Plaintiff did receive separate disciplinary sanctions for the underlying infraction about which Hall was a witness. The disciplinary tribunal that determined plaintiff's guilt and imposed the sanctions was constituted pursuant to statutes and regulations not at issue in this case. See note 4, below.

2 The relevant regulations considered in Daigle as D.O. 4450.1 remain substantively unchanged, but are now codified at 103 C.M.R. § 421.07.

3 The Massachusetts regulations governing transfers to a DSU, 103 C.M.R. § 421.07, provide as follows:

(1) A resident may be transferred to a departmental segregation unit after a finding by the...