Sealey v. Giltner
| Decision Date | 31 August 1999 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. 98-2311 |
| Citation | 197 F.3d 578 |
| Parties | (2nd Cir. 1999) EMMETH SEALEY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. T.H. GILTNER, Defendant-Appellee. August Term 1999 Argued: |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Appeal from the March 13, 1998, judgment of the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York (David N. Hurd, Magistrate Judge), entering judgment as a matter of law for Defendant-Appellee Giltner after jury awarded Plaintiff-Appellant nominal damages. Plaintiff-Appellant challenges administrative confinement in segregated housing unit as denial of liberty interest without procedural due process.
Affirmed.
[Copyrighted Material Omitted] Lisa A. Peebles, Foody & Peebles, Central Square, N.Y., for plaintiff-appellant.
Martin A. Hotvet, Asst. Atty. Gen., Albany, N.Y. (Eliot Spitzer, N.Y. State Atty Gen., Peter H. Schiff, Deputy Solicitor Gen., Nancy A. Spiegel, Asst. Atty. Gen., Albany, N.Y., on the brief), for defendant-appellee.
Before: NEWMAN, CARDAMONE, and JACOBS, Circuit Judges.
The issue on this appeal is whether placement of a prison inmate in administrative segregation in a Special Housing Unit (SHU) at the Auburn (N.Y.) Correctional Facility ("Auburn") for an aggregate interval that reached 101 days impairs a liberty interest for which procedural due process must be provided. The appeal also illustrates problems that can arise when liberty interest issues are litigated in a jury trial. Emmeth Sealey appeals from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York (David N. Hurd, Magistrate Judge), that gave judgment as a matter of law to Defendant-Appellee Lt. T.H. Giltner, an Auburn corrections officer, after a jury awarded Sealey $1 nominal damages. Applying the teaching of Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472 (1995), we conclude that the evidence was insufficient to support a finding that the 101-day confinement in the Auburn SHU impaired a protected liberty interest, and we therefore affirm.
Sealey's confinement in the SHU. Sealey has been an inmate in the New York state prison system since 1973. At all relevant times he was incarcerated at Auburn. On March 29, 1990, an Auburn inmate was slashed on his face and neck. Sealey was identified as having been involved in the incident. The next day, he was placed in administrative segregation within the Auburn SHU pending a disciplinary hearing on charges of violating rules against fighting, possession of a weapon, and assault. At a disciplinary hearing that concluded on April 9 (all dates are in 1990, unless otherwise noted), Sealey was found not guilty. The next day, while still in the SHU, he was served with an Administrative Segregation Recommendation, which stated:
Based on both confidential and other inf[ormation] on file in the DSS [Deputy Superintendent for Security] Office, it is felt that your continued presence in general population could seriously jeopardize the safety and security of this facility. The inf[ormation] on file indicates that you are involved in extortion and strong arm and you are being recommended for placement in Admin[istrative] Segregation.
A hearing on this Recommendation, required by prison regulations, see N.Y. Comp. Codes R. & Regs. tit. 7, 301.4(a) (1999), was held on April 16. Defendant-Appellee Lt. T.H. Giltner conducted the hearing. He denied Sealey's request for access to the confidential information on which the Recommendation had been made and refused Sealey's request to call witnesses. Giltner upheld the Recommendation that Sealey remain in administrative segregation because his "presence in general population would pose a threat to the safety and security of the facility." Id. 301.4(b).
On June 18, in an administrative appeal, Defendant Donald Selsky, acting director of special housing and inmate discipline, reversed Giltner's decision, on the ground that Giltner had failed to independently verify the confidential information and should have allowed Sealey to call witnesses.
On July 8, Defendant Lt. R. Brimmer conducted another hearing. Brimmer denied Sealey's request to call witnesses and determined, based on confidential information and Sealey's history of uncooperative behavior, that Sealey should remain in administrative segregation. Sealey's confinement in the SHU ended on August 29, when he was transferred to the Shawangunk Correctional Facility ("Shawangunk"), where he was released into general population. Thereafter, on September 7, in an administrative appeal, Selsky upheld Brimmer's decision, but on January 23, 1991, reversed Brimmer's decision.
Thus, Sealey was kept in the Auburn SHU for a period of 153 days, comprising five intervals: 11 days (March 30-April 9) prior to the end of the disciplinary hearing, 7 days (April 10-April 16) prior to the first administrative segregation hearing, 63 days (April 17-June 18) prior to the reversal of the first administrative segregation decision, 20 days (June 19-July 8) prior to the second administrative segregation hearing, and 52 days (July 9-August 29) from the second hearing to the transfer to Shawangunk.
Conditions in the SHU. Sealey and another witness testified at trial as to the conditions of confinement in the SHU. An inmate is confined to his cell 23 hours per day, can take no more than three showers per week, has limited library privileges and no telephone privileges. 1. There was no quiet bell in the SHU, so it was noisy most of the time. On occasion, inmates threw feces at other inmates.
The pending litigation. On January 10, 1992, Sealey commenced this action, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1983, asserting a violation of his procedural due process rights. By agreement, the case was assigned to Magistrate Judge Hurd. He initially granted all four defendants' motions for summary judgment. On appeal to this Court, we affirmed the dismissal as to Defendant Coughlin for lack of personal involvement, and reversed and remanded with respect to Giltner, Brimmer, and Selsky in order to permit development of the facts as to whether the conditions of Sealey's confinement in the SHU were "atypical" within the meaning of Sandin. See Sealey v. Giltner, 116 F.3d 47, 49 (2d Cir. 1997) ("Sealey I").
The trial. Magistrate Judge Hurd tried the case with a jury in November 1997. At the close of Sealey's evidence, the Defendants moved for judgment as a matter of law. Magistrate Judge Hurd reserved decision on their claim that the evidence did not show a deprivation significant enough to constitute a liberty interest, denied their claim that the evidence did not show lack of procedural due process, and dismissed Sealey's claim against Selsky for lack of a showing that any act by Selsky caused harm to Sealey (Selsky's affirmance of Brimmer's decision to continue Sealey's confinement did not occur until after Sealey was transferred).
After the close of all the evidence, the remaining Defendants, Giltner and Brimmer, renewed their motions to dismiss. The Court responded:
With regard to the motion to dismiss on the basis that the plaintiff was not deprived of a liberty interest, the liberty interest question is a matter of law which will be decided by me. If this was a bench trial, the Court would be inclined to make that decision now and perhaps rule that plaintiff does not have a liberty interest and proceed to dismiss the case in its entirety. However, we do have a jury and the plaintiff has raised some issues to demonstrate that his confinement in SHU was [] atypical. He was confined for 145 days.2 The confinement was indefinite duration, which could have lasted much longer and was only ended because he was transferred to another facility. He has testified about feces being thrown, about the excess noise, and the other matters concerning his SHU confinement. Therefore, the question is not clear-cut that he did not have a liberty interest.
The Magistrate Judge added that he was reserving the issue and putting the question to the jury so that there would be both a jury verdict and his decision on the liberty interest to review on appeal. The Court dismissed as a matter of law Sealey's claim for confinement for the intervals while he was awaiting the disciplinary hearing and awaiting the first administrative hearing.
Magistrate Judge Hurd instructed the jury that it was to consider only the SHU confinement between April 16, 1990, the date of the first administrative hearing, and Sealey's transfer to another facility. He also provided the jury with a verdict form that asked several questions. Recognizing Sealey's claim that the SHU confinement, though labeled administrative, was in reality disciplinary, the Court instructed the jury on the difference between the two types of confinement and explained the due process procedural requirements of each type.
Though the Magistrate Judge had said that the facts concerning the deprivation of a liberty interest were not "clear-cut," and that it would be helpful on review to have a jury verdict on the issue in the event that this Court disagreed with any ruling of law he might make, he did not instruct the jury on what constitutes a liberty interest in the prison context, nor frame a jury question asking whether Sealey had been denied a liberty interest. However, the Court alluded to the liberty interest issue in its instruction on actual damages, stating that, in determining the amount of any actual damages, the jury "may take into consideration the [effect] that Mr. Sealey's confinement in SHU as opposed to the general prison population had on his ability to enjoy life" and that the amount of any actual damages awarded "would be the difference, if any, between [SHU] confinement and the general prison population as it affects the plaintiff." Sealey's counsel expressed only "a general objection" to the charge, explicitly declining to make any specific objections.
The jury determined that...
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