Young v. State, CR-90-1864

• Decision Date: 21 August 1992
• Docket Number: CR-90-1864
• Citation: 603 So.2d 1125
• Parties: Oliver YOUNG v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals

Page 1125

603 So.2d 1125

Oliver YOUNG v. STATE.

CR-90-1864.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama.

Aug. 21, 1992.

Oliver Young, pro se.

James H. Evans, Atty. Gen., and Harry A. Lyles, Ala. Dept. of Corrections.

MONTIEL, Judge.

Oliver Young filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus challenging his prison discipline for theft. At the disciplinary hearing, Officer Ashcraft stated that a reliable informant told him that the appellant had taken the keys to the prison kitchen and that he had later returned them to the lobby area. Officer Black testified that she believed that the appellant took the keys because she saw the appellant standing near the lobby around the time that the kitchen keys were missing and because a disciplinary charge had been filed against the appellant by the mess steward. The appellant was found guilty of theft and was sentenced to 30 days' disciplinary segregation and 30 days' loss of store and telephone privileges.

The appellant contends on appeal that he was denied due process because the hearing officer did not make an independent determination that the informant who told Officer Ashcraft that the appellant had taken the keys was reliable. We agree.

"In cases in which prisoner misconduct is found upon evidence consisting entirely, or even substantially, of the statement of an investigating officer that he has been told by confidential informants that the misconduct occurred, and that the investigator believes the informant to be reliable, there must be some independent determination by the committee of the informant's reliability. In such cases, unless the committee makes an independent determination about what the facts of the alleged misconduct are by deciding, minimally, that the hearsay information has been supplied by a reliable informant, it is merely recording the findings made by the investigating officer who has made a determination about the informant's reliability, without making any determination for itself about the informant's reliability or even the basis for the investigator's opinion that the informant is reliable. To proceed in that fashion is not fact finding. It is recordkeeping.

"In its best light, such a procedure is an unwarranted delegation to the investigator of a key aspect of the committee's adjudicative function; in its worst, it suggests a willful reluctance to probe the possibly flawed foundation of the charges against inmates. Reliance upon an investigating officer's statement that an informant is reliable is not necessarily a fatal procedural flaw, but if the committee does not discover, and assist, the investigating officers's basis for concluding that the informant is reliable, it cannot be said that the committee has made reasoned choices about the truth of the information provided to it, as minimum due process requires it to do. While the Due Process Clause does not, in prison discipline cases, require the appearance of the confidential informant before the adjudicating committee, or that the informant's identity be disclosed to the accused, or even to the disciplinary committee members, it requires at the very least that the committee have some evidentiary basis, even hearsay, upon which to determine for itself that the informant's story is probably credible."

Hensley v. Wilson, 850 F.2d 269, 276-77 (6th Cir.1988). In Kyle v. Hanberry, 677 F.2d 1386, 1390 (11th Cir.1982), the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that when a disciplinary committee's decision is

"based upon hearsay information derived...