Steffey v. Orman

• Citation: 461 F.3d 1218
• Decision Date: 30 August 2006
• Docket Number: No. 05-7064.,05-7064.
• Parties: George W. STEFFEY, Jr., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. David ORMAN, Mike Mullin, K. Wingo, Melody Bryant, Gary Gibson, Ron Ward, Melinda Guilfoyle., in their individual and official capacities, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (10th Circuit)

461 F.3d 1218

George W. STEFFEY, Jr., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. David ORMAN, Mike Mullin, K. Wingo, Melody Bryant, Gary Gibson, Ron Ward, Melinda Guilfoyle., in their individual and official capacities, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 05-7064.

United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.

August 30, 2006.

Submitted on the briefs:^* George W. Steffey, Jr., pro se.

Gregory Thomas Metcalfe, Assistant Attorney General, Oklahoma Attorney General's Office, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for Defendants-Appellees.

Before PORFILIO, BALDOCK, and EBEL, Circuit Judges.

EBEL, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff George W. Steffey, an Oklahoma state prisoner appearing pro se, filed a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 civil rights complaint against prison officials alleging that they deprived him of his property in violation of his constitutional due process rights when they confiscated a money order sent to him. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of defendants. We affirm.

BACKGROUND

The following is undisputed. Mr. Steffey was incarcerated at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary (OSP) at all times relevant to this appeal. OSP prison rules prohibit an inmate from receiving money from family members of any other inmate, and permit OSP to confiscate any monies sent to an inmate in violation of these rules.¹ Pam Grubb, the mother of an Oklahoma Department of Corrections (ODOC) inmate, sent Mr. Steffey a fifty-dollar money order at OSP. OSP prison officials immediately notified Mr. Steffey that Ms. Grubb's name appeared on a prison list of ODOC family members, that the money order therefore violated OSP-120230-02, and, as a result, had been confiscated as contraband. The funds were never deposited into Mr. Steffey's inmate trust account, nor were they returned to Ms. Grubb.

Mr. Steffey used the OSP prison grievance process to challenge the confiscation. After exhausting his administrative remedies, Mr. Steffey filed his § 1983 civil rights complaint alleging that the confiscation of these funds deprived him of his property in violation of his due process rights. The district court dismissed the complaint against the ODOC and the individual defendants in their official capacities because these defendants are immune from suit under the Eleventh Amendment. It also dismissed the claims against numerous defendants based on a lack of personal participation in the alleged violations. Mr. Steffey does not appeal these rulings.

The only remaining defendant² was David Orman, the OSP official who confiscated the funds. The district court ruled that Mr. Orman was entitled to qualified immunity because his actions did not violate Mr. Steffey's constitutional rights. The court ruled it was undisputed that the money order violated OSP-120230-02, because Mr. Steffey admitted during his administrative grievance proceedings that Ms. Grubb was the mother of an ODOC inmate. It ruled the money order was, therefore, contraband upon receipt at the prison, that Mr. Steffey never acquired any property interest in the contraband money order and, thus, had no right to any predeprivation due process hearing with respect to the confiscation of those funds. Mr. Steffey appeals this ruling.

ANALYSIS

"We review the grant of summary judgment de novo, applying the same standard the district court should apply under Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c)." Camuglia v. City of Albuquerque, 448 F.3d 1214, 1218 (10th Cir.2006) (quotation omitted). Because Mr. Orman asserted a qualified immunity defense, however, the summary judgment standards are subject to a somewhat different analysis from other summary judgment rulings. See Lighton v. Univ. of Utah, 209 F.3d 1213, 1221 (10th Cir.2000). "Qualified immunity is designed to shield public officials from liability and ensure that erroneous suits do not even go to trial." Albright v. Rodriguez, 51 F.3d 1531, 1534 (10th Cir.1995) (quotation omitted). When a defendant bases a motion for summary judgment on the defense of qualified immunity, the plaintiff must show that the defendant's actions violated a specific statutory or constitutional right, and that "the constitutional or statutory rights the defendant allegedly violated were clearly established at the time of the conduct at issue." Id.

Due Process Claim

A due process claim under the Fourteenth Amendment can only be maintained where there exists a constitutionally cognizable liberty or property interest with which the state has interfered. See Bd. of Regents of State Colls. v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 569, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972) ("The requirements of procedural due process apply only to the deprivation of interests encompassed by the Fourteenth Amendment's protection of liberty and property."). The district court analyzed Mr. Steffey's property interest claim under the analytical framework set forth in Gillihan v. Shillinger, 872 F.2d 935 (10th Cir.1989) (per curiam). There, this court held that, absent compelling reasons to the contrary, prisoners are entitled to a predeprivation hearing before a prison can deprive the inmate of property pursuant to an affirmatively established policy. Id. at 939-40. The district court distinguished Gillihan and its predeprivation-hearing requirement on the basis that Mr. Steffey had no property interest in the money order because it was contraband.

The requirement in Gillihan of a predeprivation hearing is relevant only if an inmate first demonstrates that he has a protected property interest, id. at 938, and here we conclude that Mr. Steffey had no property right protected by the Fourteenth Amendment to receive a contraband money order while in prison. In Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 115 S.Ct. 2293, 132 L.Ed.2d 418 (1995), decided after Gillihan, the Supreme Court held that a deprivation occasioned by prison conditions or a prison regulation does not reach protected liberty interest status and require procedural due process protection unless it imposes an "atypical and significant hardship on the inmate in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life." Sandin, 515 U.S. at 484, 115 S.Ct. 2293. This court has ruled that property interest claims by prisoners are also to be reviewed under Sandin's atypical-and-significant-deprivation analysis. Cosco v. Uphoff, 195 F.3d 1221, 1224 (10th Cir.1999); see also Murdock v. Washington, 193 F.3d 510, 513 (7th Cir.1999) (suggesting but not expressly holding that Sandin applies to property interest claims brought by prisoners); Abdul-Wadood v. Nathan, 91 F.3d 1023, 1025 (7th Cir.1996) (same).³ We ruled in Cosco that, "[t]he Supreme Court mandate since Sandin is that henceforth we are to review property and liberty interest claims arising from prison conditions by asking whether the prison condition complained of presents `the type of atypical, significant deprivation in which a State might conceivably create a liberty [or property] interest.'" Id. at 1224 (alteration in original, quoting Sandin, 515 U.S. at 486, 115 S.Ct. 2293).

"[L]awful incarceration brings about the necessary withdrawal or limitation of many privileges and rights, a retraction justified by the considerations underlying our penal system." Sandin, 515 U.S. at 485, 115 S.Ct. 2293 (citation and quotation omitted). The Supreme Court has long recognized that an inmate's right to receive mail and other packages may be limited by prison regulations that are reasonably related to legitimate penological interests. See Thornburgh v. Abbott, 490 U.S. 401, 416, 109 S.Ct. 1874, 104 L.Ed.2d 459 (1989) (holding that prison authorities have broad discretion in regulating the entry of material into a prison); Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 91-92, 107 S.Ct. 2254, 96 L.Ed.2d 64 (1987) (upholding prison restrictions on mail as reasonably related to legitimate security concerns); Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 550, 555, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979) (upholding ban on inmate receipt of certain hardback books and packages containing personal property and food in order to counter risk of smuggled contraband).

Prison officials at OSP have a legitimate interest in controlling both the amount and source of funds received by inmates. OSP presented evidence that OSP-120230-02 serves its legitimate penological interest in preventing inmates from using their family members to pay off their drug, gambling or other debts to fellow inmates, or from extorting money from an inmate's family with threats of harm. Substantial deference is given to the professional judgment of prison administrators because they have "significant responsibility for defining the legitimate goals of [the prison] and for determining the most appropriate means to accomplish them." Overton v. Bazzetta, 539 U.S. 126, 132, 123 S.Ct. 2162, 156 L.Ed.2d 162 (2003). Mr. Steffey asserts no legal or evidentiary challenge to the validity of OSP-120230-02. Overton, 539 U.S. at 132, 123 S.Ct. 2162 (holding that burden is not on the state to prove the validity of the prison regulation, but on the prisoner to disprove it). We therefore conclude that OSP-120230-02 is reasonably related to a legitimate penological interest and is a valid restriction on Mr. Steffey's right to receive money from certain outside sources. See Overton, 539 U.S. at 132, 123 S.Ct. 2162.

Likewise, Mr. Steffey has presented no evidence or authority for the proposition that the deprivation here was an "atypical and significant hardship" that subjected him to conditions much different from those ordinarily experienced by inmates serving their sentences in the customary fashion. As noted above, it is well-established that prisons have broad discretion in regulating the entry of materials into prison. More specifically, the Supreme Court long ago characterized the receipt of money as one type of contraband that prison officials could legitimately ban. See Bell, 441 U.S. at 551, 559, 99 S.Ct. 1861 (upholding prison regulatory ban on inmate receipt of packages because "[s]muggling of money, drugs, weapons, and other contraband is all...