Pletka v. Nix, s. 90-2191S

• Decision Date: 28 February 1992
• Docket Number: 90-2192SI,Nos. 90-2191S,s. 90-2191S
• Citation: 957 F.2d 1480
• Parties: Fred Louis PLETKA, Appellant, v. Crispus C. NIX, John Emmett, and other state employees unknown at this time, Appellees. Fred Louis PLETKA, Appellee, v. Crispus C. NIX and John Emmett, Appellants, and other state employees unknown at this time.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 1480

957 F.2d 1480

Fred Louis PLETKA, Appellant, v. Crispus C. NIX, John Emmett, and other state employees

unknown at this time, Appellees.

Fred Louis PLETKA, Appellee, v. Crispus C. NIX and John Emmett, Appellants, and other state employees unknown at this time.

Nos. 90-2191SI, 90-2192SI.

United States Court of Appeals,

Eighth Circuit.

Submitted Jan. 6, 1992.

Decided Feb. 28, 1992.

Martha McMinn, Sioux City, Iowa, argued, for appellant.

William A. Hill, Des Moines, Iowa, argued (Thomas J. Miller and Gordon E. Allen, on brief), for appellees.

Before LAY, Chief Judge, ^* McMILLIAN, ARNOLD, ^** JOHN R. GIBSON, FAGG, BOWMAN, WOLLMAN, MAGILL, BEAM, LOKEN, and HANSEN, Circuit Judges, en banc.

ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.

This is an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 brought by Fred L. Pletka, an inmate at the Iowa State Penitentiary, against two prison officials. In 1986, Pletka was in disciplinary confinement. No one denies that he was accorded due process before being punished in this way. Late that year, Iowa transferred him to the Texas prison system under the Interstate Corrections Compact, see Iowa Code Ann. § 247.2 (West Supp.1991). Shortly after Pletka arrived in Texas, the Texas prison authorities placed him in the general population. When he returned to Iowa, he was put back in disciplinary confinement without a new hearing. Pletka contends that these events deprived him of liberty, his right to be in the general prison population, without due process of law.

The District Court agreed, holding that the Texas prison system's action completely satisfied the disciplinary "sentence" that Pletka had previously received in Iowa. Pletka could not be returned to disciplinary confinement, therefore, the Court held, without some sort of new process. The Court issued an injunction commanding the defendants to change their records to show that Pletka had fully served his disciplinary time, and to return him to the general population. It declined to award any money damages, however, on the ground that the defendants were entitled to qualified immunity. On appeal, a panel of this Court, one judge dissenting, affirmed in part and reversed in part. Pletka v. Nix, 943 F.2d 916 (8th Cir.1991). The panel agreed with the District Court that Pletka's due-process rights had been violated, but did not believe that the defendants were protected against an award of damages by the defense of qualified immunity. The dissenting judge took the position that none of Pletka's rights had been violated. We granted the defendants' suggestion for rehearing en banc, thus vacating the panel opinion and the judgment entered in accordance with it.

I.

The District Court ruled on cross-motions for summary judgment. The facts are simple and undisputed. In 1986, Fred L. Pletka, an Iowa inmate serving a life sentence, was in disciplinary segregation for infractions he had committed since 1981. No one contends that the process leading to plaintiff's initial placement in disciplinary confinement was legally defective in any way. On December 20, 1986, plaintiff was transferred to Texas under the Interstate Corrections Compact. At that time, he had accumulated disciplinary "sentences" that would have lasted until March of 1989. On January 5, 1987, Texas prison authorities released Pletka into the general prison population. In September of 1987, Pletka was returned to Iowa. There, prison authorities returned him to disciplinary confinement. He was not given a new hearing. Defendants' action was based on their belief that Pletka was "required to serve the remainder of [his] time when [he] ... return[ed] to the sending state." Affidavit of John Emmett, Correctional Security Director at the Iowa State Penitentiary, p 9, Appellant's Appendix 12.

This is all we know about the case of any consequence. Plaintiff was unable to suggest what kind of hearing could or should have been held upon his return to Iowa. He takes the position, instead, and the panel opinion essentially agreed, that Pletka's release into the general prison population in Texas was a complete exoneration of his Iowa disciplinary sanctions. Accordingly, he could not be returned to disciplinary confinement in Iowa at all, unless he committed a new infraction, which no one suggests. We do not know why Texas took Pletka out of disciplinary confinement and placed him in its own general prison population. We do not know what form of words, oral or written, if any, was used to describe this action in Texas, or to explain it to Pletka. We do not know whether the Texas authorities told Iowa what they had done. We do not even know whether Texas was aware that Pletka had been in punitive status in Iowa.

Plaintiff's main reliance is on our opinion in Hayes v. Lockhart, 754 F.2d 281 (8th Cir.1985). In Hayes, an Arkansas prisoner held in administrative segregation was transferred to Florida, where he was released into the general population. Upon his return to Arkansas, he was immediately returned to administrative segregation. This Court held that the inmate was entitled to due process before Arkansas could return him to administrative confinement. In the particular case, the inmate did not prevail, because we held that a hearing given him 15 days after he was returned to administrative segregation was sufficient to satisfy the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The case is cited for two propositions relevant here: (1) that the inmate, upon his return to the sending state, could not be returned to a special confinement status without a new hearing; and (2) that under the Interstate Corrections Compact, the receiving state, Florida, acted as agent for the sending state, Arkansas, and Florida's release of the inmate into the general population was therefore the legal equivalent of a release into the general prison population in Arkansas. Hayes, 754 F.2d at 283 n. 1.

On this reasoning, Pletka claims that Texas acted as Iowa's agent when it released the plaintiff into the general prison population. The legal effect of this release was exactly the same as if it had occurred in Iowa. We agree with plaintiff that Hayes stands for these propositions. But there is a crucial difference between Hayes and the present case. Hayes was not being punished. He was not in disciplinary confinement on account of past bad acts. He was in "administrative segregation," a term which, under the Arkansas prison regulations, carried no punitive implications. It meant only that, for reasons of administrative convenience, protection of the inmate or others, or the like, prison authorities considered it appropriate to impose upon the inmate conditions of confinement more restrictive than those applying to the general population. These sorts of conditions typically change from time to time. A threat to an inmate may disappear, for example, when the prisoner who is the source of the threat is released or transferred to another institution. The passage of time, therefore, makes it entirely appropriate for circumstances to be carefully re-examined, and any changes in conditions assessed, before a prisoner who has been absent for a considerable period is returned to the special conditions of confinement to which he was subject when he left the sending state. Pletka's situation is quite different. He was in special confinement, to use a generic term, because of past rules infractions. A hearing determining his guilt and punishment had already been held. There was nothing for a new hearing to address. He simply had to serve out his time.

The panel opinion, 943 F.2d at 919 n. 6, suggests that there were purposes that a new hearing could have served. Pletka could at least have been told why his detention was being reinstated, it is argued. Furthermore, review hearings could have been held to determine whether punitive sanctions should have been lifted before their stated term expired. Pletka might have been able to show, for example, that while in the general population in Texas he had behaved well. This demonstration of rehabilitation, it is argued, might have persuaded the Iowa authorities, if they had given Pletka a hearing, not to return him to punitive confinement. The suggestions are ingenious, but we think they have nothing to do with the present case. In the first place, Pletka does not claim that he was in the dark as to the reasons for Iowa's returning him to punitive confinement upon his return from Texas. It was quite clear, and Pletka knew, that the Iowa authorities thought he still had time to serve on the previously imposed disciplinary sanctions. Secondly, Pletka has never claimed, either in the District Court or in this Court, that he had a right to the kind of "review hearing" referred to by the panel. His position is simpler: his release into the general prison population in Texas extinguished the Iowa disciplinary sanctions, and he could not be returned to punitive confinement in Iowa in the absence of a new infraction.

We turn, then, to this key question. What was the legal effect of the Texas action? Was it a sort of pardon, a complete forgiveness and exoneration of the punishment imposed for Pletka's multiple offenses while at the Iowa State Penitentiary? The panel opinion answered this question in the affirmative. We do not. Plaintiff cites no law, either statute, regulation, or prison practice, to support such a result. The panel opinion, 943 F.2d at 918 n. 5, argues that the District Court found as a fact that Pletka's release into the general population was "a completion and exoneration of his disciplinary sentence." We disagree. First, there is no evidence in this record to support such a finding. There is not even any evidence of what the Texas authorities thought the effect of their action might be on the Iowa sanctions, or even that they knew that there had been any Iowa sanctions. Second, and more fundamentally, the proposition in question is not a finding of fact. The legal effect of...