Smith v. McKinney

• Decision Date: 31 March 2020
• Docket Number: No. 18-3613,18-3613
• Citation: 954 F.3d 1075
• Parties: Craig Eugene SMITH Plaintiff Appellant v. James MCKINNEY; Kelly Holder; Leslie Wagers; Niki Whitacre; Jonathan Janssen Defendants Appellees
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

954 F.3d 1075

Craig Eugene SMITH Plaintiff Appellant

v.James MCKINNEY; Kelly Holder; Leslie Wagers; Niki Whitacre; Jonathan Janssen Defendants Appellees

No. 18-3613

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: December 10, 2019

Filed: March 31, 2020

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied May 26, 2020

Counsel who presented argument on behalf of the appellant and appeared on the brief was Brandon D. Harper, of New York, NY. The following attorney(s) also appeared on the appellant brief; Anton Metlitsky, of New York, NY.

Counsel who presented argument on behalf of the appellee and appeared on the brief was H. Loraine Wallace, AAG, of Des Moines, IA.

Before SMITH, Chief Judge, LOKEN and GRASZ, Circuit Judges.

SMITH, Chief Judge.

Craig Eugene Smith brought suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against prison officials with the Iowa Department of Corrections (IDC),¹ alleging violation of his due process rights in connection with discipline imposed on him. The prison officials moved for summary judgment, and the district court² granted the motion. The district court determined that "no reasonable juror could conclude Smith suffered an atypical and significant deprivation in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life"; as a result, Smith could not "show he had a liberty interest at stake that required due process protections." Smith v. McKinney , No. 4:16-CV-00646-RP-HCA, 2018 WL 10483966, at *4 (S.D. Iowa Sept. 26, 2018). We affirm.

I. Background

In 1994, Smith was convicted of first-degree murder in Iowa state court and sentenced to life imprisonment. From April 4, 1995, to December 3, 2012, Smith was incarcerated at the ISP, a maximum security facility. Smith was transferred to the FDCF, a medium security facility, on December 4, 2012.

In May 2014, FDCF Captain Kelly Holder received a complaint from confidential sources against Smith brought under the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA).³ Holder notified Smith that he would be placed in administrative segregation pending the investigation into Smith’s alleged inappropriate sexual contact with other inmates.

Holder conducted an investigation into the complaint from May 28, 2014, through June 4, 2014. On June 4, 2014, Holder wrote Smith a disciplinary notice for the alleged conduct. FDCF Correctional Officer Leslie Wagers approved the notice, and FDCF Correctional Officer Jonathan Janssen served Smith with the notice on June 12, 2014. Janssen also investigated the allegations set forth in the disciplinary notice. The notice was based on confidential information from several sources.

Smith requested to speak with Correctional Counselor Stacy Mooney. On June 13, 2014, Smith spoke with Mooney and denied the allegations. He also told Mooney that "he would be willing to hurt an innocent person." Defs.’ App. to Mot. for Summ. J. at 75, Smith v. McKinney , No. 4:16-cv-646-RP-HCA (S.D. Iowa Oct. 10, 2017), ECF No. 20-3.

On June 18, 2014, IDC ALJ Niki Whitacre conducted a hearing on the disciplinary notice. During the hearing, Smith again denied the allegations. He wanted to see the confidential information against him. Whitacre denied his request. Smith responded angrily. Whitacre found Smith guilty of several rule violations. In support of her findings, Whitacre cited the "[d]isciplinary notice dated 06/14/2014 written by Holder; confidential statements/investigation; ICON [Iowa Corrections Offender Network] evidence; and statements by Offender." Id. at 76. She imposed a 365 days’ loss of earned time, imposed a year of disciplinary detention with credit for 27 days served, and recommended that the prison classification committee transfer Smith back to the ISP for a more secure environment to protect other inmates and staff.

On July 11, 2014, consistent with the ALJ’s order, IDC Offender Services transferred Smith back to the ISP for security reasons. On arrival, he was placed in segregation (otherwise known as "disciplinary detention" or the "hole") to serve the remainder of his disciplinary detention. The "Request Comments" in the "Offender Transfer to Institution" form set forth the "[r]eason for transfer" as being "[b]ased on the nature of the recent violations and Offender SMITH’s concerning threats of harming others (see generic note dated 06/13/2014 [entered by Mooney] )." Id. at 79. The form also set forth Smith’s lengthy disciplinary history. Upon Smith’s arrival to the ISP, he lost his job, wages, security classification, security points, and inmate tier status. Smith appealed the decision.

On July 30, 2014, then-FDCF Warden James McKinney denied Smith’s appeal. In the "Disciplinary Appeal Response," McKinney stated that he had read the confidential information, visited with some of the confidential informants, and found the confidential informants credible. McKinney declined to reduce Smith’s sanctions, stating, in part, "[Y]ou were granted an opportunity to move to a medium custody facility. You were immediately moved to the highest level at [FDCF] due to your past history at your previous facility." Id. at 81. On September 14, 2014, then-ISP Warden Nick Ludwick denied Smith’s supplemental appeal.

On October 9, 2014, Smith filed an action for postconviction relief in the Iowa District Court for Lee County, challenging the PREA adjudication. The state court granted Smith’s request for relief. The court explained that when evidence is based on confidential information, the ALJ must prepare a contemporaneous summary of the confidential information for the ICON. But the only summary from Whitacre that the state court received was dated two years after Smith’s disciplinary hearing. Whitacre represented that she did not have the summary of confidential information. According to Whitacre, she did not keep case information for more than two years and had just purged her files. The state court found:

The record before the court is that the ALJ did not prepare any type of independent documentation concerning the confidential information she relied upon until she was requested to do so in connection with this postconviction relief trial. The procedure requiring an ALJ to make a summary of confidential information used by the ALJ contemporaneously to his or her decision-making did not take place in this case.

Id. at 92. Whitacre’s failure to comply with the procedures resulted in the state court striking the confidential information from the record. "Without that confidential information," the court explained, "there is not even ‘some evidence’ to support the disciplinary allegations against [Smith]." Id. at 92–93. The state court granted Smith’s application for postconviction relief, ordered that Smith’s discipline records "reflect that he was not found to have violated the rules as identified in the disciplinary notice," and assessed the costs of the matter to the State of Iowa. Id. at 93. Because Smith "ha[d] already served the disciplinary detention," the court could not order removal of the sanction. Id.

Pursuant to the state court’s ruling, the IDC restored Smith’s 365 days of earned time and expunged the report from his disciplinary record. But the IDC did not transfer Smith back to the FDCF, a medium security facility. Instead, he remains at the ISP, and his former security classification, security points, and tier status have not been restored. Smith also does not have a job or earn wages as he had previously in FDCF.

Smith brought suit under § 1983 against the IDC prison officials, alleging that the prison officials violated his due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment by moving him indefinitely from the FDCF, a medium security facility, to the ISP, a maximum security facility, based on a now-expunged disciplinary report. The prison officials moved for summary judgment, and the district court granted the motion. The district court determined that "no reasonable juror could conclude Smith suffered an atypical and significant deprivation in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life"; as a result, Smith could not "show he had a liberty interest at stake that required due process protections." Smith , 2018 WL 10483966, at *4.

II. Discussion

On appeal, Smith argues that the district court erroneously granted summary judgment to the prison officials on his due process claim. He asserts that he has a liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in avoiding prison conditions that are restrictive or extreme in comparison to conditions at other prisons. According to Smith, he suffered an atypical and significant hardship upon his transfer to the ISP. In support, he cites (1) the indefinite duration of his confinement at the ISP, a maximum security facility; and (2) the deprivation of his employment, wages, security classification, security points, and inmate tier status upon his transfer to the ISP. In addition, he maintains that his 365-day term in disciplinary detention subjected him to conditions "substantially worse than [his] previous environment." Appellant’s Br. at 12. He asserts that "[a] reasonable jury could have found on these facts that Smith’s disciplinary detention and transfer to the [ISP] imposed a deprivation that was an atypical and significant hardship in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life." Id. According to Smith, "the decision to commit [him] to disciplinary detention and transfer him in the first instance was based on a disciplinary allegation and report that has since been expunged because a court held that there was not even ‘some evidence’ that [he] violated the prison rules." Id .

We review de novo a district court’s grant of summary judgment. Atkinson v. City of Mountain View , 709 F.3d 1201, 1207 (8th Cir. 2013).

The Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause protects persons against deprivations of life, liberty, or property; and those who seek to invoke its procedural protection must establish that one of these interests is at stake. A liberty interest may arise from the Constitution

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