Case ID: f-appx_373/html/0637-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Billy SCALES, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Marva DAVIS, Special Administrator, individually and in official capacity; Randy Manus, Assistant Warden, Pine Bluff Unit, ADC, individually and in official capacity; Mark Taylor, Supervisor of Work Release Program, Pine Bluff Unit, ADC, individually and in official capacity; Marvin Evans, Warden, Pine Bluff Unit, in official capacity, Defendants-Appellees.
    No. 09-3237.
    United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.
    Submitted: April 16, 2010.
    Filed: May 3, 2010.
    Before WOLLMAN, MURPHY, and SHEPHERD, Circuit Judges.
   PER CURIAM.

Billy Seales filed this action against officials of the Arkansas Department of Correction pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, charging them with violating his constitutional right to due process by removing him from a work release program without a hearing and then transferring him to another prison unit after he filed a grievance about the incident. The district court granted summary judgment to the officials.

After careful de novo review, see Carraher v. Target Corp., 503 F.3d 714, 716 (8th Cir.2007), we agree in all respects with the well reasoned opinion of the magistrate judge. Scales had no constitutionally cognizable liberty interest in remaining in the work release program, for he was incarcerated at the time and his removal did not amount to an atypical condition of confinement or lengthen his imprisonment. See Callender v. Sioux City Residential Treatment Facility, 88 F.3d 666, 668-69 (8th Cir.1996). Nor could he assert a protectable liberty interest in having the ADC officials follow their own regulations or policies. See Phillips v. Norris, 320 F.3d 844, 847 (8th Cir.2003). Furthermore, since Scales has produced no evidence identifying any official responsible for his transfer, his retaliation claim fails as a matter of law. See Atkinson v. Bohn, 91 F.3d 1127, 1129 (8th Cir.1996).

Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is affirmed. See 8th Cir. R. 47B. 
      
      . The Honorable Henry L. Jones, Jr., United States Magistrate Judge for the Eastern District of Arkansas, presiding.