Yah'Torah v. N.J. Dep't of Corr.
| Decision Date | 25 October 2019 |
| Docket Number | DOCKET NO. A-5490-17T1 |
| Parties | ZION'ELIYAH YAH'TORAH, Appellant, v. NEW JERSEY DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Respondent. |
| Court | New Jersey Superior Court — Appellate Division |
NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION
This opinion shall not "constitute precedent or be binding upon any court." Although it is posted on the internet, this opinion is binding only on the parties in the case and its use in other cases is limited. R. 1:36-3.
Before Judges Sumners and Natali.
On appeal from the New Jersey Department of Corrections.
Zion'Eliyah Yah'Torah, appellant pro se.
Gurbir S. Grewal, Attorney General, attorney for respondent (Jane C. Schuster, Assistant Attorney General, of counsel; Francis A. Raso, Deputy Attorney General, on the brief).
Appellant Zion'Eliyah Yah'Torah appeals from a May 21, 2018 final agency decision of the New Jersey Department of Corrections (NJDOC) that continued his designation as a high risk inmate. After considering the parties' arguments in light of the record on appeal and the applicable legal principles, we vacate and remand for further proceedings.
Appellant is currently incarcerated at the New Jersey State Prison (NJSP) in Trenton and is serving a fifty-year sentence with a twenty-five year mandatory minimum term for carjacking, escape, assault against a law enforcement officer, burglary, conspiracy, and robbery. Many of these charges relate to appellant's escape attempt while detained in the Monmouth County Jail in 1999. During that incident, appellant scaled a fence, climbed over a wall, and stole a vehicle. When he was subsequently apprehended at his girlfriend's home, he resisted arrest on the roof of the house, where he choked a police officer and attempted to gain control of his service revolver.
After appellant entered a guilty plea, he was transferred to the custody of the NJDOC in November 2001. In light of his attempted escape and efforts to resist arrest and capture, the NJSP High Risk Inmate Designation Committee (HRIDC) concluded that appellant required increased security precautions and accordingly designated his custody status as "maximum" and classified him as a "high risk" inmate. For a number of years, appellant has unsuccessfully challenged both his high risk status as well as the NJDOC's maximum custody classification in order to effectuate a transfer to a less restrictive facility.
For example, on August 4, 2016, appellant expressed a desire to work as a teacher's assistant or in a position in the "[c]ookhouse" and sought a transfer to another facility if his request was denied. In response, on August 20, 2016, the NJDOC informed appellant that he was required to submit a job request form in writing to the housing unit officer. Nothing in the record establishes that appellant ever submitted the requested form.
On November 8, 2016, appellant sought "to be granted gang min[imum]" classification, which is a less restrictive classification than maximum custody.1 Appellant challenged the NJDOC's determination that his escape history disqualified him from gang minimum status, claiming that he should "no longer be san[c]tioned for a[n] [eighteen] year old escape." The NJDOC notified appellant that the NJSP does not house gang minimum inmates, and that "[a]ll inmates in general population are [maximum] or [medium] [c]ustody [s]tatus." Appellant did not appeal the NJDOC's November 8, 2016 decision.
The following year, on November 21, 2017, appellant again requested that the NJDOC change his custody status to "gang minimum." Appellant argued that his high risk designation was "holding [him] back" from a transfer to a facility that accepted inmates with a gang minimum custody designation. Appellant further argued that the NJDOC custody designation was inconsistent with N.J.A.C. 10A:9-4.6(o), which provides that "[i]nmates who have escaped . . . from a . . . county jail . . . shall be eligible [for gang or full minimum custody status] when five years have elapsed from the date of apprehension of the escape . . . ." Three days later, the NJDOC notified appellant that his case would be referred for review at the next committee meeting and that appellant had a "K- 7" override "based on the circumstances of [his] committing [the] offense."2 Appellant did not file an appeal challenging the decision.
The next month, on December 27, 2017, appellant wrote a letter to the NJDOC Deputy Commissioner, alleging that the NJDOC was improperly continuing his high risk designation in order to prevent his transfer to another facility, and that it "failed to consider all of the [N.J.A.C. 10A:9-3.3(a)] factors pertinent to his status in making its decision . . . ." The same day, appellant sent two more inquiries about "the current reason" for his continued high risk designation and requested to be transferred to "Mid[-]State Prison." The NJDOC responded to appellant on January 3, 2018 and informed him that Mid-State Prison is a "treatment institution," and that he did not meet the criteria for a transfer which required a classification of medium custody and a prison term of fewer than ten years. Appellant did not appeal the decision.
On January 9, 2018, appellant sent another letter to the Deputy Commissioner, and on January 13, 2018, he sent a separate inquiry to the NJDOC, seeking removal of his high risk designation, requesting a transfer to another correctional institution, and asking for "the how, when[,] and why" he was classified a high risk inmate, as well as "a reason why [NJSP] . . . [was] using th[e] [h]igh [r]isk designation as an automatic preclusion or prevention against [him] from being transferred to another facility and why he [was] perpetually kept on a [K]-7 override."
On January 18, 2018, the NJDOC responded that appellant was "[h]igh [r]isk, as well as an [e]scape [r]isk[,] due to [his] documented escape [from] the Monmouth County Jail." On January 24, 2018, appellant asked if his K-7 override was "because of the [h]igh [r]isk." On February 5, 2018, the NJDOC informed appellant that his override "was due to [his] documented escape out of the Monmouth County Jail." Appellant appealed neither the January 18, 2018, nor the February 5, 2018 decision.
On April 16, 2018, appellant filed a grievance, demanding that his high risk designation be removed and that he receive "back pay for the work credits [he] would have earned on gang min[imum,] in the amount of [three thousand dollars] or something in that ball park." A month later, on May 21, 2018, the NJDOC informed appellant that his status had been reviewed in January 2018, and that the high risk designation was not removed. This appeal followed from the NJDOC's May 21, 2018 final agency decision.
Appellant raises four primary arguments on appeal. First, he argues that his continued designation as a high risk inmate is arbitrary and capricious as it is contrary to the relevant administrative regulations, and the designation is made without the benefit of a hearing where he can attend and present evidence. Second, he maintains that the NJDOC improperly refused to transfer him to a less secure prison based on his high risk classification, and that his classification has negatively affected his ability to earn good-time credits and employment, contrary to his liberty interests as defined by the United States Supreme Court in Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472 (1995). Finally, appellant maintains that his high risk designation constitutes improper rulemaking, contrary to the New Jersey Administrative Procedure Act, N.J.S.A. 52:14B-1 to -31, and the record fails to contain substantial evidence to support the NJDOC's finding. We reject all of these arguments with the exception of appellant's claim that the NJDOC's decision was not supported by substantial evidence in the record and remand the matter for the NJDOC to explain and amplify its bases for maintaining appellant's high risk designation.
The scope of our review of an agency decision is limited. In re Taylor, 158 N.J. 644, 656 (1999). "An appellate court ordinarily will reverse the decision of an administrative agency only when the agency's decision is 'arbitrary, capricious or unreasonable or . . . is not supported by substantial credible evidence in the record as a whole.'" Ramirez v. Dep't of Corr., 382 N.J. Super. 18, 23 (App. Div. 2005) (quoting Henry v. Rahway State Prison, 81 N.J. 571, 579-80 (1980)). "'Substantial evidence' means 'such evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion.'" Figueroa v. N.J. Dep't of Corr., 414 N.J. Super. 186, 192 (App. Div. 2010) (quoting In re Pub. Serv. Elec. & Gas Co., 35 N.J. 358, 376 (1961)).
In accordance with administrative regulations, the NJDOC makes decisions on various matters, including "[a]ssignment of inmates to work, educational, vocational[,] and treatment programs[,] . . . [r]eview of inmate applications for change in custody status[,] . . . [and] [r]eview of inmate requests for transfer to other facilities" through the ICC, who apply specified criteria enumerated in N.J.A.C. 10A:9-3.3(a). N.J.A.C. 10A:9-3.1(a).
Generally, when deciding on an inmate's "transfers and assignments to housing; work, educational, vocational or treatment programs; custody status; and residential community programs," the ICC considers the twenty-three enumerated factors in N.J.A.C. 10A:9-3.3(a). However, where the ICC reviews an inmate's request for a reduced custody status specifically, it considers the enumerated factors in N.J.A.C. 10A:9-4.5(a). One such factor is an "objective classification score," which is calculated by employing a reclassification instrument that assigns point values to objective criteria such as "[e]scape history during the previous five years of incarceration . . . ." N.J.A.C. 10A:9-2.6(b)(4).3 The aggregate value of the criteria as applied to the inmate determines the ICC's custody status recommendation. N.J.A.C. 10A:9-2.6(a)(1)...
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