Title: Nash v. Coxon

State: vermont

Issuer: Vermont Supreme Court

Document:

NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under V.R.A.P. 40
as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont Reports.
Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Vermont Supreme
Court, 111 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05602 of any errors in order
that corrections may be made before this opinion goes to press.


                                No. 88-115



Douglas A. Nash                              Supreme Court

     v.                                      On Appeal from
                                             Windsor Superior Court
Michael Coxon, Superintendent,
Windsor Correctional Facility                September Term, 1990


Alan W. Cheever, J.

Michael Rose, St. Albans, for plaintiff-appellant

Jeffrey L. Amestoy, Attorney General, Montpelier, and Thomas J. Rushford,
   Assistant Attorney General, Waterbury, for defendant-appellee


PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Peck, Gibson and Dooley, JJ.



     GIBSON, J.   Plaintiff, an inmate at the Windsor Correctional Facility,
appeals from a trial court decision affirming a denial by the Department of
Corrections of plaintiff's request to pay the cost of a correspondence
course in paralegal education.  We affirm.
     In February 1987, plaintiff requested that the Department of
Corrections assist him in pursuing the course, and late in that month
defendant Michael Coxon, the superintendent at the Windsor Correctional
Facility,  denied the request.  Plaintiff subsequently filed a grievance
with the Commissioner of Corrections, who upheld defendant Coxon's decision.
After making additional requests for similar help in August 1987, plaintiff
filed the instant petition for review of governmental action in the Windsor
Superior Court; after the filing, defendant Coxon once more advised plain-
tiff that he could not approve the request.
     The trial court found that plaintiff had not enrolled in courses
offered by the Windsor Correctional Facility, but had "participated in
creative writing" at the facility.  The court found that plaintiff did not
enroll in the facility's psychology course because he believed that his own
independent studies in that field placed him beyond the level of the course.
The court considered and rejected plaintiff's argument that he was denied
funding for the correspondence course because of other legal actions he had
undertaken through the court system.
     The court made findings on the educational opportunities at Windsor.
It found that the Department offered courses of study that met the require-
ments of 28 V.S.A. { 1(b), (FN1) and that defendant Coxon and the Department had
"made available to the plaintiff industrial arts and college-level
courses."  The court specifically found:
               Although the plaintiff has obtained a GED and
               has improved his spelling, he has not used the
               industrial arts courses that are available nor
               has he attended the college-level courses that
               have been made available to inmates.

     The court found that defendant had acted within his discretion in
denying plaintiff's request.  The present appeal followed.
     Plaintiff concedes that "[b]road discretion must be granted to
correctional authorities to determine what mode of treatment will best
serve the individual inmate."  Wetmore v. Smith, 130 Vt. 618, 623, 298 A.2d 567, 570 (1972).  Plaintiff seizes on the phrase "individual inmate" and
concludes that the educational programs offered "must bear a relationship
to the individual needs of the inmates," citing Cooper v. Gwinn,