Sellers v. State, 19528
| Decision Date | 05 December 1972 |
| Docket Number | No. 19528,19528 |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | Carl SELLERS et al., Appellants-Respondents, v. STATE of South Carolina, Respondent-Appellant. |
Francis T. Draine and Cravens Ravenel, Columbia, for appellants-respondents.
Atty. Gen. Daniel R. McLeod and Asst. Attys. Gen. Emmet H. Clair and Robert M. Ariail, Columbia, for respondent-appellant.
Appellants are inmates of the Central Corrections Institution, located in Columbia, South Carolina, and were disciplined by the prison officials for alleged assault and 'rape' of other inmates. The punishment imposed by the prison authorities for such misconduct was: (1) loss of good conduct credit (Section 55--8, 1962 Code of Laws), and (2) indefinite segregation in the maximum security section of the Central Correctional Institution. Thereafter, appellants instituted this action seeking to have the disciplinary action taken against them set aside upon the ground that the procedures under which the foregoing penalties were imposed failed to meet the standards of due process.
After an evidentiary hearing, the lower court held that the action of the prison authorities in depriving appellants of good time credit was taken without according them procedural due process, but that the procedural protection afforded was sufficient to sustain the imposition of the penalty of administrative segregation in the exercise of the powers of the prison officials to maintain order, discipline and security among the prison population. The imposition of the penalty of loss of good time credit was accordingly set aside and that of administrative segregation upheld.
Appeal by the State (respondent) from so much of the order of the lower court as restores appellants' good time credit has been abandoned. We are here concerned only with appellants' challenge of that portion of the order upholding the imposition of the penalty of administrative segregation.
The disciplinary action against appellants arose out of complaints made by several prisoners that they had been beaten and sexually assaulted by other inmates. As the result of these complaints, the Warden, with the help of other prison officers, made an investigation and secured statements from some of the alleged victims implicating the appellants. The inmates who gave statements feared for their lives if their identity was disclosed and the Warden, agreeing that their fears were well founded, promised that the names of those giving information would be kept secret. The names of these inmates were accordingly never disclosed to appella...
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Pearson v. Townsend
...view was recently expressed by the South Carolina Supreme Court in a case practically identical to the instant actions. In Sellers v. State, 193 S.E.2d 513 (S.C. 1972), several inmates of the Central Correctional Institution who had been sentenced by the Adjustment Committee to loss of good......
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Pruitt v. State
...adherence to the traditional "hands off" doctrine regarding judicial involvement in prison disciplinary procedures. Sellers v. State, 259 S.C. 564, 193 S.E.2d 513 (1972); see 60 Am.Jur.2d, Penal and Correctional Institutions, § 45. The view that internal discipline for inmate infractions is......
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Crowe v. Leeke, 21073
...review. It is void of proof that they acted arbitrarily, capriciously or from personal bias or prejudice. See Sellers v. State, 259 S.C. 564, 193 S.E.2d 513 (1972); Swinton v. State, 261 S.C. 372, 200 S.E.2d 77 (1973). On the contrary, the respondent's determinations concerned routine admin......