Case ID: ny-2d_69/html/0689-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Meyer, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The People of the State of New York ex rel. Earvin Dawson, Appellant, v Harold J. Smith, as Superintendent of Attica Correctional Facility, et al., Respondents.
    Argued November 18, 1986;
    decided December 19, 1986
    
      APPEARANCES OF COUNSEL
    
      Leigh E. Anderson and Norman P. Effman for appellant.
    
      Robert Abrams, Attorney-General (Martin A. Hotvet, O. Peter Sherwood and Peter H. Schiff of counsel), for respondents.
   OPINION OF THE COURT

Memorandum.

The order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed, without costs.

Petitioner, an inmate at Attica Correctional Facility, commenced a habeas corpus proceeding, contending that respondent had illegally ordered his confinement for a period of 24 months in the special housing unit following a Tier III disciplinary hearing in which petitioner had been found guilty of violating various institutional rules prohibiting murder, assault and violent conduct. In his petition he asserted that the determination was invalid because the regulations had not been filed as required by New York State Constitution and the Executive Law (NY Const, art IV, § 8; Executive Law § 102) (see, Matter of Jones v Smith, 64 NY2d 1003). We agree with the Appellate Division that a writ of habeas corpus is not the correct vehicle for reviewing the legality of a prisoner’s confinement following a superintendent’s proceeding. Accordingly, the Appellate Division properly reversed Special Term, converted the habeas corpus to an article 78 proceeding (see, People ex rel. Corcoran v Smith, 105 AD2d 1142, 1143, mod on other grounds 66 NY2d 130) and dismissed the proceeding as time-barred (CPLR 217; see, People ex rel. Jelich v Smith, 105 AD2d 1125, 1126, lv denied 64 NY2d 606).

People ex rel. Brown v Johnston (9 NY2d 482), relied on by petitioner, is not to the contrary. There, we held that the writ of habeas corpus was properly employed by petitioner, an Attica inmate, in seeking his release from an allegedly illegal confinement in Dannemora State Hospital, an institution for custody of prisoners who are declared insane. The confinement in People ex rel. Brown v Johnston (supra) was in an institution separate and different in nature from the correctional facility to which petitioner had been committed pursuant to the sentence of the court, and was not within the specific authorization conferred on the Department of Correctional Services by that sentence. Here, by contrast, petitioner does not seek his release from custody in the facility, but only from confinement in the special housing unit, a particular type of confinement within the facility which the Department of Correctional Services is expressly authorized to impose on lawfully sentenced prisoners committed to its custody (Correction Law § 137 [2], [5], [6]; 7 NYCRR 251-1.7; 254.7 [3], [4]; 304.1 [d]; 304.2 [c]; see, Hewitt v Helms, 459 US 460, 468; People ex rel. France v Coughlin, 99 AD2d 599). Such disciplinary confinement and the proceedings leading to it must comply with applicable statutes and regulations which, of course, must meet due process standards (see, Matter of Jones v Smith, supra, p 1005), and the proper procedure for review is under CPLR article 78.

Meyer, J.

(dissenting). Respectfully I dissent. I cannot accept the majority’s distinction between this case and People ex rel. Brown v Johnston (9 NY2d 482). Defendant was committed to a correctional institution for incarceration in the normal prison setting, except as his conduct, proscribed by valid regulations, permits his confinement in more restricted detention (Correction Law § 137 [6]; see, 7 NYCRR 254.7 [3]). To permit solitary confinement on the basis of invalid regulations is to confine defendant in a manner "different in nature and separate from the correctional facility to which” he was committed, just as it was in Brown. Habeas corpus, therefore, lies.

Chief Judge Wachtler and Judges Simons, Kaye, Alexander and Hancock, Jr., concur; Judge Meyer dissents and votes to reverse in an opinion in which Judge Titone concurs.

Order affirmed, without costs, in a memorandum. 
      
      Although the petition, in addition to seeking release from confinement, seeks expungement of the offense from petitioner’s record, the habeas corpus proceeding is technically moot since petitioner is no longer in confinement in the special housing unit. Nevertheless, we address the issue presented because it is a question of public importance and one which is likely to reoccur and to evade review (see, Matter of Jones v Berman, 37 NY2d 42, 57).
     
      
      By definition, inmates placed in a special housing unit (SHU) are not permitted to "commingle with the general inmate population” (7 NYCRR 300.2 [b]) and inmates, such as relator, whose SHU confinement was part of a segregation unit, are not permitted to "commingle with each other” (7 NYCRR 300.2 [c]). The State does not dispute, moreover, the statements in relator’s brief that he was confined to a solitary cell for 23 hours per day, that he was permitted to exercise daily for one hour in a single, empty cell (see, 7 NYCRR 301.5 [b]) and to shower once each week (see, 7 NYCRR 301.5 [a]) and that his visitation privileges were subject to restrictions (see, 7 NYCRR 301.6).