Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-97-07162/USCOURTS-caDC-97-07162-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 550
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Civil Rights (U.S. defendant)
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 9, 1998 Decided December 29, 1998

No. 97-7162

Robert Franklin, et al.,

Appellees

v.

District of Columbia,

Appellant

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(94cv00511)

James C. McKay, Jr., Assistant Corporation Counsel, argued the cause for appellant. With him on the briefs were

John M. Ferren, Corporation Counsel, and Charles L. Reischel, Deputy Corporation Counsel.

Kenneth W. Brothers argued the cause for appellees. With

him on the brief was Jonathan M. Smith. John J. Rosenthal

entered an appearance.

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Before: Silberman, Henderson, and Randolph, Circuit

Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge Randolph.

Randolph, Circuit Judge: Spanish-speaking prisoners incarcerated in the District of Columbia's eight correctional

institutions brought a class action claiming violations of the

First, Fifth, and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution,

federal statutes (42 U.S.C. s 2000bb; 42 U.S.C. s 2000(d)),

and local law. They alleged that some class members were

deficient in the English language and that the District had

failed to provide qualified interpreters to these inmates when

they appeared at parole and disciplinary hearings and when

they sought medical care. The district court ruled in favor of

the prisoners on their Fifth and Eighth Amendment claims,

and the District brought this appeal.

I

There are 9,000 inmates in the prisons of the District of

Columbia. The inmates speak dozens of languages; members of the prison staff are fluent in a total of forty-seven

languages. Of the 188 Spanish-speaking prisoners within the

plaintiff class,1 150 had only a limited proficiency in English.

To meet the needs of these and other prisoners who had

difficulty communicating or understanding English, the District hired Laura Colon in November 1991 as the "Limited

English-Proficient Program" coordinator. Under her aegis,

the Program provided comprehensive orientation, diagnostic,

mental health, vocational and language training for "Limited

English-Proficient" prisoners. At the time of trial, the District required such prisoners to attend "English as a Second

Language" classes and offered twenty-seven other programs

either conducted in Spanish or specifically tailored for the

plaintiff class. The prison system also employed seventy-two

Spanish-speaking employees, including two case managers,

__________

1 The district court certified a class consisting of "all inmates of

Hispanic origin who are now or who will later be incarcerated in the

D.C. Department of Corrections institutions." Order of Dec. 13,

1995, at 19.

two psychologists, and one psychiatrist. If bilingual staff or

interpreters were unavailable, District officials could use the

AT&T "Language Line," a service providing certified translators in 140 languages.

After a bench trial, the district court--on April 16, 1997--

dismissed most of the prisoners' claims but held that the

District was violating the Fifth and Eighth Amendments.

Three months later, on July 8, 1997, the court issued a

sixteen-page injunctive order mandating sweeping changes in

the way the District operates its prisons. The District then

filed a motion to alter or amend the judgment and for a new

trial. The court denied the motion and this appeal followed.

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II

The first question concerns our appellate jurisdiction. On

April 17, 1997, one day after the district court rendered its

decision on liability, the clerk of the court entered the judgment. The prisoners think this opened the thirty-day window

for the District to file a notice of appeal, see Fed. R. App. P.

4(a)(1). The District missed the deadline and, so the prisoners claim, we cannot hear the appeal insofar as it attacks the

April decision finding the District in violation of the Fifth and

Eighth Amendments.

Our appellate jurisdiction extends to "final decisions" of

district courts. 28 U.S.C. s 1291. A final decision is one that

"ends the litigation on the merits and leaves nothing for the

court to do but execute the judgment." Catlin v. United

States, 324 U.S. 229, 233 (1945). In damage and injunction

actions, a final judgment in a plaintiff's favor declares not

only liability but also the consequences of liability--what, if

anything, the defendants must do as a result. See Liberty

Mut. Ins. Co. v. Wetzel, 424 U.S. 737, 742 (1976); see also

Gilda Marx, Inc. v. Wildwood Exercise, Inc., 85 F.3d 675, 677

(D.C. Cir. 1996).

The order entered on April 17 established the District's

liability, but it granted no relief, it imposed no obligations on

the District, it did not say, as final decisions in such cases

must, "who is entitled to what from whom." Horn v. Transcon Lines, Inc., 898 F.2d 589, 591 (7th Cir. 1990). It therefore was not a final judgment subject to appeal. An order

like the one entered in April, "adjudging liability but leaving

the quantum of relief still to be determined has been a classic

example of non-finality and non-appealability from the time of

Chief Justice Marshall to our own." Taylor v. Board of

Educ., 288 F.2d 600, 602 (2d Cir. 1961) (Friendly, J.).

The antitrust case of Brown Shoe Co. v. United States, 370

U.S. 294 (1962), does not, as the prisoners suppose, alter this

analysis. The district court in Brown Shoe disposed of the

entire complaint, passed on every prayer for relief, ordered

full divestiture, and permanently enjoined the defendants

from acquiring any interest in each other. See Brown Shoe

Co., 370 U.S. at 308. The Supreme Court said: "The single

provision of that judgment by which its finality may be

questioned is the one requiring appellant to propose in the

immediate future a plan for carrying into effect the court's

order of divestiture." Id. That lone provision did not render

the order nonfinal, the Court held, because the judgment had

decided the consequences of liability--namely, full divestiture.

See id. Here, by contrast, the April judgment did not

address the consequences of the District's liability. In this

respect it resembled the order in Liberty Mutual Insurance

Co., an employment discrimination case in which plaintiffs

received a favorable ruling on the issue of liability, but

received none of the relief expressly sought in their complaint. See 424 U.S. at 742. "They requested an injunction,

but did not get one; they requested damages, but were not

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awarded any; they requested attorneys' fees, but received

none." Id. Because--as in this case--the district court had

not yet finally disposed of any of plaintiffs' prayers for relief,

the Supreme Court held that the district court's order was

not a final decision. See id.

The general rule is that a party is entitled to a single

appeal, to be deferred until final disposition of the case. See

McLish v. Roff, 141 U.S. 661, 665-66 (1891); see also Catlin,

324 U.S. at 234; Luxton v. North River Bridge Co., 147 U.S.

337, 341 (1893); Digital Equip. Corp. v. Desktop Direct, Inc.,

511 U.S. 863, 868 (1994). To hold that defendants in injunction actions must immediately appeal orders finding only that

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they are liable would further erode the long-standing policy

against piecemeal litigation. The final judgment rule is already riddled with exceptions: orders granting or denying

preliminary injunctions may be taken up immediately; some

collateral orders may be appealed; rulings on controlling

issues of law may be certified for appeal; orders adjudicating

the claims of fewer than all the parties may be appealable, if

the district court acts pursuant to Rule 54(b), Fed. R. Civ. P.;

and Congress has given the Supreme Court rulemaking authority to allow other interlocutory appeals, 28 U.S.C.

s 1292(e). There are good reasons why none of the recognized "exceptions" fits the district court's April order. As

here, courts often resolve questions of liability first and

questions of relief later. To allow an initial appeal challenging the finding of liability followed by a second appeal challenging the relief would frequently transform one appellate

case into two. Delays at the trial level would become common, as district courts awaited appellate decisions on liability.

For their part, the courts of appeals would often need to

master the same record twice, and render two opinions

instead of one. See 15A Charles Alan Wright et al., Federal

Practice and Procedure s 3907 (1992). Furthermore, if

defendants had to wait until the remedy came down, they

might decide not to appeal despite the earlier decisions

holding them liable. The relief ordered may turn out to be

nominal. The parties may settle. In these events, and

others, forcing an appeal at the liability stage without waiting

for the consequences of liability to become final would lead to

unnecessary appellate litigation. For all these reasons, the

April 17 order was not an appealable final decision of the

district court.

Still, the prisoners insist that the April order must be

considered final and appealable because the district court

issued it separately and the clerk of the court entered it on

the docket, as Rules 58 and 79(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil

Procedure required. While a properly entered separate judgment is an indicia of finality, see Diamond v. McKenzie, 770

F.2d 225, 229 n.9 (D.C. Cir. 1985), it is not conclusive. The

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district court in Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. described its

liability order as a "final judgment," 424 U.S. at 741, yet the

Supreme Court treated it as a non-appealable interlocutory

order. When appellate jurisdiction is at stake, what matters

is the appellate court's assessment of finality, not the district

court's or the clerk's. A non-final order cannot be appealed

even if the district court designates it a "final judgment" and

the clerk of the court enters it as such on the civil docket.

For purposes of our appellate jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.

s 1291, the final decision of the district court came down on

July 8, 1997, not April 17. Only in the July 8 order did the

district court set forth the terms of the injunction and thereby instruct the District what steps to take. Within ten

business days of July 8, the District moved to alter or amend

the judgment or for a new trial. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 52(b), 59.

This had the effect of tolling the time for filing a notice of

appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(4); Derrington-Bey v.

District of Columbia Dep't of Corrections, 39 F.3d 1224, 1225

(D.C. Cir. 1994); United States v. Haynes, 158 F.3d 1327,

1329-31 (D.C. Cir. 1998). On August 27, 1997, the district

court denied the motion. Because the District noted its

appeal 29 days later (on September 25), within the 30 days

provided in Rule 4(a)(1), Fed. R. App. P., its appeal was timely

and we have appellate jurisdiction to review not only the

injunction but also the judgment finding the District liable for

violating the Constitution.2 When "an appeal is taken from a

truly final judgment that ends the litigation, earlier rulings

generally can be reviewed." 15A Wright et al., supra,

s 3905.1.

The District's July 22 motion properly sought relief from

the July 8 injunctive order. Rule 7(b)(1) requires that motions state with particularity the grounds therefore and the

__________

2 The outcome would not change if we viewed the July 8 order as

not in compliance with the "separate document" requirement of

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 58. See Pack v. Burns Int'l Sec.

Serv., 130 F.3d 1071, 1072 (D.C. Cir. 1997); Haynes, 158 F.3d at

1329-31.

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relief sought. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 7(b)(1). The prisoners

argue that the District's July 22 motion for a new trial or to

amend the judgment "was devoted solely to attacking the

April 16 judgment" and, for this reason, could not have tolled

the time for noting an appeal from the July 8 injunction

order. There are three mistakes embodied in the prisoners'

argument. First, they are wrong that the District's motion

attacking the court's liability decision did not attack the

injunction. The motion necessarily had that effect. Without

liability there would be no basis for injunctive relief. Second,

the prisoners neglect to mention that the District's motion

expressly challenged the terms of the July 8 order. See July

22 Motion at 1, 2. The motion took issue with specific

findings contained only in the July 8 order. The District's

30-page memorandum, filed with its motion, amplified the

District's concerns about the nature of the injunction. The

motions in Riley v. Northwestern Bell Tel. Co., 1 F.3d 725

(8th Cir. 1993); and Martinez v. Trainor, 556 F.2d 818 (7th

Cir. 1977), which the prisoners cite, were of a different sort.

In both of those cases, appellants filed curt, one paragraph

motions, which clearly failed to comply with Rule 7(b)(1).

Third, even if the District's motion had attacked only the

April liability finding, its motion still would have tolled the

time for appealing from the final judgment--the judgment,

that is, rendered on July 8. Under Rule 59(b) and (e), Fed.

R. Civ. P., motions for new trials and motions to alter or

amend the judgment "shall be filed no later than 10 days

after entry of the judgment." The term "judgment" means

an order or a decree "from which an appeal lies." Fed. R.

Civ. P. 54(a); see Derrington-Bey, 39 F.3d at 1226. The

District properly filed its Rule 59 motion after the final

judgment came down. And when that judgment came down

on July 8, the District could attack--indeed, could limit its

attack--to the earlier non-final ruling of liability on which the

injunction rested. A motion so limited, like a Rule 59 motion

directed only at the nature of the relief, tolls the time for

noting an appeal from the final judgment. See DerringtonBey, 39 F.3d at 1225-26.

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III

On the merits,3 we will start with the portion of the district

court's decision adjudging the District liable for violating the

prisoners' Fifth Amendment due process rights. These violations are said to occur at hearings in which the District fails

to provide official interpreters to Spanish-speaking prisoners

who have limited ability in English.

The Fifth Amendment states that no "person shall ... be

deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of

law...." When neither life nor property is involved,

courts--speaking in a sort of shorthand--talk of the need to

find a "liberty interest" before considering what process is

due under the Fifth Amendment (or the Fourteenth Amendment). See, e.g., Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 556-58

(1974); see also Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 474 (1995).

This is another way of saying that unless an individual is

threatened with losing "liberty" within the Fifth Amendment's meaning, it is of no constitutional moment whether the

individual will receive "due process of law."

Prisoners, of course, have already lost liberty by virtue of

their confinement. For the Due Process Clause to govern

state action against an inmate, more than the usual constraints of prison itself must be in the offing. The Supreme

Court put it this way: for a liberty interest to exist, the state

must be subjecting the prisoner to a "restraint" that "imposes

__________

3 The District seeks a new trial on the basis that the district court

acted unreasonably and arbitrarily in limiting the District's trial

time. Trial courts possess considerable discretion in this area.

See, e.g., United States v. Tilghman, 134 F.3d 414, 416 (D.C. Cir.

1998); Duquesne Light Co. v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp., 66 F.3d

604, 609 (3d Cir. 1995). Although the court confined the District to

fifteen hours of trial time, the prisoners--who carried the burden of

proof--labored under the same constraint. Both sides received

advance notice of the conditions and both sides received ample

opportunity to submit evidence into the record before trial. We

could order a new trial if the District suffered a substantial injustice, Fed. R. Civ. P. 61, but this record will not sustain any such

claim.

atypical and significant hardship" as compared with "the

ordinary incidents of prison life." Sandin, 515 U.S. at 484.

Only then may it be said that a prisoner is threatened with a

loss of "liberty" within the Constitution's meaning. Sandin

discarded the method of analysis employed in Hewitt v.

Helms, 459 U.S. 460 (1983), which had made the existence of

a prisoner's liberty interest--at least with respect to matters

concerning the conditions of confinement and the management of the prison--turn on whether statutes and regulations

concerning the state's action contained mandatory or discretionary directives. Our opinion in Ellis v. District of Columbia, 84 F.3d 1413, 1417-20 (D.C. Cir. 1996), analyzed Sandin

and related Supreme Court decisions, not with regard to

prison management, but in the context of parole eligibility

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determinations. Ellis held that local Board of Parole regulations governing parole determinations for District prisoners

did not create a liberty interest. See 84 F.3d at 1420. Our

earlier decision in Price v. Barry, 53 F.3d 369 (D.C. Cir.

1995), held the same with respect to the local statute regarding parole. And the Supreme Court held in Greenholtz v.

Nebraska Penal Inmates, 442 U.S. 1, 9-11 (1979), that a

liberty interest in parole cannot be derived from the Constitution itself.

Without taking account of Ellis or Price, or of Greenholtz,

the district court determined that although plaintiffs "may

have no liberty interest in parole per se ... that is not to say

that inmates can be deprived of a fair hearing once the

District of Columbia determines that a hearing will be held."

And to the district court, a "fair hearing" meant the prisoners

must have official interpreters to help them understand the

proceedings. On this reasoning the court ordered the District's Board of Parole to coordinate with the Department of

Corrections, and implement a procedure for providing official

interpreters at parole hearings for all Spanish-speaking prisoners who are deficient in English.

Although the reasoning in the court's conclusions of law

dealt only with parole eligibility hearings, the injunction

issued several months later went considerably further. In a

sweeping decree, the court ordered the District to provide

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interpreters at "all stages of the disciplinary, classification,

housing, adjustment and parole hearing process," and to

"implement a procedure to ensure" translation into Spanish of

"documents ... related to due process hearings...." So far

as we can tell, the "adjustment" "hearing process" refers to

proceedings to decide whether discipline shall be imposed on

an inmate. See D.C. Mun. Regs. tit. 28, s 508; Sandin, 515

U.S. at 475. Exactly what the court had in mind by "classification" hearings is less clear. In its legal analysis of the

prisoners' due process claims, the court does not even mention "classification" hearings. The court's factual findings

discuss only a "preparole classification hearing." The injunction's coverage of "housing" decisions--which we take to

mean judgments by prison officials about where a prisoner

will be confined--also does not seem to flow from the court's

legal analysis. The court's conclusions of law nowhere even

mention the subject of prison housing.

As best we can determine, the court included matters other

than parole eligibility in its decree solely on the basis of its

reasoning--quoted above--that regardless whether a prisoner has a liberty interest, if the District decides to have a

hearing dealing with these subjects the Due Process Clause

governs the proceedings. We will discuss in a moment why

this reasoning is mistaken, but first we must address questions of mootness and standing.

A

Before we heard argument, a new law took effect, transferring to the United States Parole Commission "the jurisdiction

and authority of the Board of Parole of the District of

Columbia to grant and deny parole, and to impose conditions

upon an order of parole, in the case of any imprisoned felon

who is eligible for parole or reparole under the District of

Columbia Code." National Capital Revitalization and SelfGovernment Improvement Act of 1997, Pub. L. No. 105-33,

s 11231(a)(1), 111 Stat. 712, 745 (effective not later than one

year after date of enactment, Aug. 5, 1997) ("Revitalization

Act").

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Why neither of the parties, and why especially the District

of Columbia never alerted us to this statute is beyond comprehension. The Revitalization Act ends this case so far as

parole hearings for felons are concerned. It was the District,

through its Board of Parole, that was allegedly depriving

inmates of due process, and it was the District's responsibility, through the Board of Parole, to implement the court's

directive that "interpreters and translated documents are

provided at parole hearings." But according to the terms of

the Revitalization Act, after August 1998 the Board of Parole

no longer had jurisdiction to conduct parole eligibility hearings for the District's felon inmates. The United States

Parole Commission, which the Revitalization Act directed to

start performing this function, was not a party to this case;

there was no evidence about how it conducts proceedings;

there was no finding that it violates due process; it is not

subject to the injunction; and for all we know, its procedural

guidelines differ from the Board of Parole's. In short,

s 11231(a)(1) of the National Capital Revitalization and SelfGovernment Improvement Act renders moot plaintiffs' claims

concerning parole hearings before the local Board of Parole,

at least with respect to class members imprisoned for felonies. See, e.g., United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U.S.

36 (1950).

However, given the breadth of the certified class--"all

inmates of Hispanic origin who are now or who will later be

incarcerated in the D.C. Department of Corrections institutions," see supra note 1--it is possible that some members of

this class are or will be imprisoned for misdemeanors, that is,

for committing offenses punishable by imprisonment for one

year or less. See United States v. Budd, 23 F.3d 442, 447

(D.C. Cir. 1994); Stephens v. United States, 271 F.2d 832, 833

n.1 (D.C. Cir. 1959). This possibility raises two questions, one

dealing with mootness and the other with standing.

As to mootness, s 11231(a)(3) of the Revitalization Act

directs the Superior Court of the District of Columbia--not

the United States Parole Commission--to assume the "jurisdiction and authority of the Board of Parole of the District of

Columbia to grant, deny, and revoke parole, and to impose

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and modify conditions of parole, with respect to misdemeanants." It is not, however, apparent when this transfer of

jurisdiction is to occur. The Revitalization Act directs the

Superior Court to take over on the date when the District of

Columbia Offender Supervision, Defender, and Courts Services Agency ("Agency") "is established under section 11233."

Revitalization Act s 11231(a)(3). Section 11233 states that

this Agency "is established within the executive branch of the

Federal Government" and that it "shall assume[ ] its duties

not less than one year or more than three years after the

enactment of this Act" (August 5, 1997). Another provision of

the Revitalization Act abolishes the Board of Parole on the

date the Agency "is established under section 11233." Revitalization Act s 11231(b). Both events--transfer to the Superior Court and abolition of the Board of Parole--hold the

potential for mooting claims concerning parole hearings before the Board of Parole for members of the class who are

misdemeanants. But, it may be that neither event has yet

occurred.

The second question is, as we said, one of standing. In

Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 357 (1996), the Court held that

in order to establish standing, "named plaintiffs" in a class

action claiming inadequacies in a prison system must prove

that they have been personally injured; beyond the pleading

stage, it is not enough that some other, unidentified member

of the class suffered harm from the inadequacy. As this case

now stands, it is not enough that some unidentified class

members suffered or will suffer injuries stemming from the

manner in which the Board of Parole conducts parole hearings. If the Board of Parole is still functioning, its jurisdiction is restricted to parole for misdemeanants. In order for

plaintiffs to have constitutional standing to challenge how

those hearings are conducted, there must be proof that a

named member of the class: (1) was imprisoned for a misdemeanor; (2) could not speak or understand English; (3)

appeared before the Board of Parole seeking early release on

parole; and (4) suffered harm because of the Board's failure

to provide an interpreter. The district court made no findings with respect to whether plaintiffs had established these

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essential elements of standing.4 We have therefore reviewed

the trial record. See Humane Society v. Babbitt, 46 F.3d 93,

96 (D.C. Cir. 1995). Five inmates gave live testimony.

Franklin, 960 F. Supp. at 399. Of these, three were serving

time for committing felonies (Lazo, Bonilla, Nunez); the

remaining two (Sandoval, Mejia) offered no testimony about

parole hearings.5 The district court also considered the

depositions of ten other inmates who were members of the

class. Id. at 399-400 n.5. Of these, eight were incarcerated

for felonies (Ramos, Artola, Benavides, Grande, Maldanado,

Lugo, Suazo, Vilche); one (Gaviria) said nothing about parole;

and the remaining inmate (Redman) reads and writes both

English and Spanish and serves as a librarian in the prison

law library.6 Under Lewis, then, plaintiffs have not established actual injury. See 518 U.S. at 358 (quoting Lujan v.

Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 561 (1992)). They failed

to prove that a named member of the class was a misdemeanant who went before the Board of Parole and did not understand the proceedings because of lack of proficiency in English.

With respect to parole, therefore, the court's judgment

must be vacated, for mootness with respect to felons seeking

parole, and for lack of standing with respect to misdemeanants seeking parole.

__________

4 The district court gave only one concrete example of a member

of the plaintiff class who was allegedly harmed in the context of

parole because of his inability to speak English. Franklin v.

District of Columbia, 960 F. Supp. 394, 418-20 (D.D.C. 1997). The

individual--Jos Ramos--apparently had been released by the time

of the trial. Id. at 399-400 n.5. His deposition shows that he was

imprisoned for committing a felony, not a misdemeanor. In any

event his evidence dealt only with a "preparole" proceeding conducted by prison officials at "Modular." Id. at 418. Modular was

closed in November 1995, id. at 400 n.10; and the court found that

"each institution uses different procedures in determining who will

receive translation services." Id. at 420.

5 It is not clear whether these two prisoners were convicted for

felonies.

6 It is uncertain whether Gaviria and Redman were felons.

B

As to the remaining portion of the judgment dealing with

due process and hearings, we do not take issue with the

proposition that when liberty interests are at stake, the Due

Process Clause gives prisoners certain procedural rights,

including the right to obtain an understanding of the proceedings. See Wolff, 418 U.S. at 570; Henry J. Friendly, Some

Kind of Hearing, 123 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1267, 1280-83 (1975).

But are liberty interests at stake in housing determinations,

in classification hearings, and in disciplinary proceedings?

The district court never directly addressed the subject. If it

had, the court would have learned from Sandin that, at least

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with respect to discipline, the answer depends on the nature

of the discipline to which the prisoner may be subjected, and

the sentence the prisoner is serving. See 515 U.S. at 485-87.

For instance, the 30-day disciplinary segregation imposed on

prisoner Conner, although "punitive," did not "present a

dramatic departure from the basic conditions" of his particular sentence, and hence did not confer a liberty interest

entitling him to the "procedural protections set forth in Wolff

[, 418 U.S. at 566]." 515 U.S. at 485, 487. It follows from

Sandin that treating all disciplinary hearings alike, as the

district court did here, is improper. To repeat, whether a

prisoner's "liberty" is threatened--that is, whether the Due

Process Clause applies--depends on the discipline involved

and nature of the prisoner's term of incarceration.

As we have said, the district court seemed to think that

although the Constitution did not necessarily require the

District to hold disciplinary hearings, if the District does so,

the Due Process Clause governs the proceedings. This is the

equivalent of saying that District rules, regulations and guidelines, which contemplate hearings, create a due process liberty interest. Sandin firmly rejected that methodology. See

515 U.S. at 480-84; see also Ellis, 84 F.3d at 1417-18. After

Sandin, there must be a prisoner- and discipline-specific

inquiry. Yet nowhere in the district court's legal analysis or

in its factual findings is there any indication that the court

considered what sentences the plaintiffs were serving or what

discipline they were facing. The court therefore could not

have compared the severity of the disciplinary sanctions to

which these plaintiffs were subjected with the "ordinary

incidents" of any particular plaintiff's confinement. Sandin,

515 U.S. at 484. In fact, a reading of the district court's

liability opinion reveals not a single incident of a due process

violation, let alone "widespread" violations warranting the

sort of "systemwide relief" the court ordered. Lewis, 518

U.S. at 359.7 Because the court's injunction required official

interpreters and translations to be provided to all English

deficient Spanish-speaking prisoners at all disciplinary and

adjustment board hearings, it cannot stand.

Much of what we have just written applies equally to the

other nonparole hearings encompassed within the court's

injunction. Housing determinations and classification decisions8 do not give rise to liberty interests merely because the

__________

7 In its findings of fact the court discussed adjustment board

hearings in which the inmates' attorney, who was fluent in Spanish

and English, served as an interpreter for them; and a "preparole

classification hearing" in which one inmate acted as an interpreter

for another. The court seemed to suggest, although it did not

outright say so, that the District violated the Due Process Clause

because someone other than an official interpreter acted for these

Spanish-speaking prisoners. This conclusion could be reached only

if a liberty interest were at stake, an unwarranted assumption for

the reasons we have given in the text. In addition, Wolff indicates

that the practices the district court criticized are entirely consistent

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with due process. The Supreme Court stated that, to comport with

due process, the state should allow an "illiterate" prisoner faced

with a disciplinary hearing "to seek the aid of a fellow inmate" or

"to have adequate substitute aid in the form of help from the staff

or from a sufficiently competent inmate designated by the staff."

418 U.S. at 570.

8 As discussed in the text, housing determinations are judgments

by prison officials about where a prisoner will be confined or

whether to place a prisoner in protective custody or administrative

segregation. See D.C. Mun. Regs. tit. 28, ss 520, 522. Classification decisions involve judgments by prison officials concerning the

custodial, program, treatment, and special needs of individual inmates. See District of Columbia Department of Corrections Case

Management Manual at II-A-3.

District has afforded inmates some kind of hearing. Decisions about where a prisoner should be confined, at what level

of custody9 (maximum, close, medium, minimum, or community) he should be classified, when he should be transferred and

so forth are commonplace judgments in the "day-to-day management of prisons." Sandin, 515 U.S. at 482. Unless the

prisoner is subjected to some extraordinary treatment, such

as transfer to a mental hospital, see Vitek v. Jones, 445 U.S.

480 (1980), the effect of those judgments on prisoners--that

is, the restriction on their liberty--is the ordinary consequence of confinement for committing a crime. The district

court did not, and on this record, could not determine that

Spanish-speaking prisoners are routinely subjected to greater

restraints than other prisoners as a result of housing or

classification proceedings. Indeed, the court identified no

Spanish-speaking prisoner who even arguably could claim

that he had, under the Sandin test, been deprived of his

liberty as a result of such proceedings. No legal reasoning

backs up the district court's order that the District must

provide all Spanish-speaking prisoners who do not understand English with an official interpreter at all stages of the

housing and classification "process." And so we also must set

aside this portion of the court's injunction.

It is worth repeating that broad decrees rendered in the

name of the Due Process Clause, decrees mandating what

must occur no matter what the circumstances, represent the

sort of judicial legislating we have rejected in the past. See

Ellis, 84 F.3d at 1424. If the district court detected a due

process violation in a particular hearing or hearings, the court

should have identified the proceeding and provided the District with an opportunity to rectify the deficiency. See Lewis,

518 U.S. at 356, 362-63; see also Inmates of Occoquan v.

Barry, 844 F.2d 828, 843 (D.C. Cir. 1988). The District

already has a policy in place to provide interpreters at

housing, adjustment and classification hearings; if it follows

the policy it is hard to see how there ever could be a due

__________

9 See District of Columbia Department of Corrections Department Order No. 5010.7, at 3 (July 30, 1986).

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process infraction of the sort the district court identified. See

Ellis, 84 F.3d at 1424. The District also possesses other

means likely sufficient to prevent a denial of due process in a

particular hearing. Just as "jailhouse-lawyers" can provide

constitutionally-sufficient access to the courts, see Lewis, 518

U.S. at 360 n.7, bilingual lawyers, bilingual parole board

members, and bilingual housing and adjustment board members (there was one) can translate for Spanish-speaking prisoners so that they understand the proceedings. See supra

note 7. That is in fact what often happened in the District's

prisons when official interpreters were not available. At any

rate, only if prison officials had abdicated their constitutional

responsibilities could the kind of sweeping injunctive relief

ordered by the district court be considered. See Inmates of

Occoquan, 844 F.2d at 842. The moment has not arrived.

IV

The district court also ruled that the District had inflicted

cruel and unusual punishment on the plaintiff class by failing

to provide them with interpreters when they sought medical

care.

To establish a violation of the Eighth Amendment's cruel

and unusual punishments clause, the prisoners had to prove

"deliberate indifference" on the part of the prison authorities.

See Scott v. District of Columbia, 139 F.3d 940, 942 (D.C. Cir.

1998) (citing Helling v. McKinney, 509 U.S. 25, 35 (1993)).

That is, they had to show that the officials were "knowingly

and unreasonably disregarding an objectively intolerable risk

of harm" to the prisoners' health or safety. See id. at 943

(quoting Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 846 (1994)). The

officials had to be "aware of facts from which the inference

could be drawn that a substantial risk of serious harm exists,

and ... must also draw the inference." See id. (quoting

Farmer, 511 U.S. at 837).

In a memorandum setting forth the procedures for obtaining interpreters for Limited English-Proficient inmates, the

District stated that it was "essential" that such inmates

receive interpreter assistance during medical consultations.

In order to provide prompt and reasonable access to interpreters, the District designated a bilingual coordinator for

each facility, compiled a bilingual staff roster, and required

that the roster be widely disseminated to the prison staff.

The district court seemed to think that the District's failure

to implement fully its policy concerning interpreters amounted to "deliberate indifference." But we have said before that

"it is hard to see how imperfect enforcement of a ... policy

can, alone, satisfy Helling's subjective element. That the

District even had such a policy militates against a finding of

deliberate indifference." Scott, 139 F.3d at 944. For another

thing, the prisoners here never established the requisite

subjective state of mind for deliberate indifference. There

was no proof that senior policymakers or other District

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officials intentionally deprived prisoners of access to medical

care, see Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 105 (1976), or

willfully violated their duty of care, see Murphy v. United

States, 653 F.2d 637, 644 (D.C. Cir. 1981), or that any

particular member of the class suffered serious harm from

inadequate medical care because of the prisoner's inability to

communicate in English. At oral argument, when asked

which District official displayed deliberate indifference to

members of the plaintiff class, prisoners' counsel named

Laura Colon.10 There is no legal basis for treating a program

coordinator like Colon as the kind of senior policymaker

whose state of mind can be taken as the District's. See

Triplett v. District of Columbia, 108 F.3d 1450, 1453 (D.C.

Cir. 1997). And the factual basis for the prisoners' accusation--that Colon refused to distribute some signs and pamphlets written in Spanish--borders on the frivolous. A tireless advocate on behalf of the prisoners, Colon led efforts to

expand the resources the District made available to Spanishspeaking inmates.

Nor did the evidence establish that the District had acted

with the "obduracy" and "wantonness" that mark deliberate

indifference. See Scott, 139 F.3d at 944 (quoting Whitley v.

__________

10 The prisoners also named a case manager but failed to provide

specifics.

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Albers, 475 U.S. 312, 319 (1986)). The District operated

twenty-seven different non-medical programs to assist

Spanish-speaking inmates. It required Limited EnglishProficient prisoners to attend "English as a Second Language" classes six hours per day, five days per week. When

deficits depleted the District's budget, the District shielded

the Limited English-Proficient Program and the two bilingual case managers from cutbacks. Shortly before trial, the

District compiled a list of all Hispanic inmates, revised its

master roster of bilingual employees, trained bilingual coordinators, appointed health and mental health service coordinators, designed and administered the language assessment

test, and color coded medical charts regarding Hispanic inmates' language proficiency. Such efforts--stretching over

the course of years--do not resemble cruel and unusual

punishment.11

The court's finding of Eighth Amendment violations--despite this evidence of the District's good faith--is flawed in

still other respects. The court said the District lacked adequate bilingual staff. Yet the bilingual staffing in the District's prisons exceeded that of comparable prisons. The

court found the District's resources for Spanish-speaking

inmates to be "meager" and "deficient." Yet the court itself

determined that "when compared to the percentage of Hispanics in the prison population, the [District] apportions a

greater pro rata percentage of its resources ... for LEP

[Limited English-Proficient] Hispanic inmates than it does

__________

11 Contrast Williams v. Vincent, 508 F.2d 541 (2d Cir. 1974) (cited

in Estelle, 429 U.S. at 104 n.10), in which a doctor chose the "easier

and less efficacious treatment" of throwing away the prisoner's ear

and stitching the stump and which may be attributable to "deliberate indifference ... rather than an exercise of professional judgment." Or Thomas v. Pate, 493 F.2d 151 (7th Cir. 1974), in which a

nurse injected a prisoner with penicillin knowing that the prisoner

was allergic and then the doctor refused to treat the prisoner's

allergic reaction. Or Martinez v. Mancusi, 443 F.2d 921 (2d Cir.

1970), a case in which a prison physician refused to administer a

prescribed pain killer and performed unsuccessful leg surgery,

requiring the prisoner to stand despite a surgeon's contrary instructions.

for other inmates." The court relied heavily on the testimony

of non-medical staff. Yet the court essentially ignored the

District's non-medical programs evincing a lack of indifference.

Because the prisoners failed to establish deliberate indifference, we reverse the district court's decision insofar as it held

that the Eighth Amendment compelled the District to provide

interpreters whenever members of the plaintiff class seek

medical care.

V

In a few lines of its liability opinion, the district court ruled

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that the District had violated the "prisoners' right to medical

confidentiality." The court thought it "unjustified" for the

District not to employ medical personnel who could translate

because, without them, Spanish-speaking prisoners would

have to disclose their medical conditions to correctional officials or other inmates who could interpret for them. To

enforce this ruling, the court ordered, in part, the District to

hire bilingual mental health care providers, to furnish bilingual medical and dental health care providers or translations

by a bilingual member of the health care staff "certified as

fluent in the Spanish language," and not to use the AT&T

Language Line absent a prisoner's knowing and voluntary

waiver.

The district court presumed that prisoners possess a limited constitutional right to medical confidentiality, a "right to

privacy" that may not be infringed without some "valid

penological justification." Exactly where in the Constitution

this right is located the court did not say.12 One place might

be the Fourth Amendment. But the Supreme Court has held

that the expectation of privacy of those incarcerated is se-

__________

12 "Courts do not"--should not--"adjudicate generalized claims of

unconstitutionality, but rather resolve constitutional questions by

applying these settled doctrines to specific constitutional claims

asserted under specific constitutional clauses." Association of Bituminous Contractors, Inc. v. Apfel, 156 F.3d 1246, 1253 (D.C. Cir.

1998).

verely diminished, so much so that a "right of privacy in

traditional Fourth Amendment terms is fundamentally incompatible with the close and continual surveillance of inmates

and their cells required to ensure institutional security and

internal order." Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 527-28

(1984). Besides, we cannot understand how a prisoner's

telling another, bilingual prisoner about his symptoms could

amount to an unreasonable search or seizure by the District.

Rather than the Fourth Amendment, the district court may

have had the Eighth Amendment in mind. The court cited

Anderson v. Romero, 72 F.3d 518, 523 (7th Cir. 1995), a case

in which the Seventh Circuit could not "find any appellate

holding that prisoners have a constitutional right to the

confidentiality of their medical records," but stating in dictum

that the Eighth Amendment might protect against a state's

dissemination of "humiliating but penologically irrelevant details of a prisoner's medical history." Id. Anderson's dictum

has nothing to do with this case. Here we have other

inmates or correctional staff helping Hispanic prisoners receive medical treatment by translating for them. That is a

far cry from "deliberate indifference" to the inmates' health

or safety, a necessary element of an Eighth Amendment

violation.

When we look beyond the Fourth or Eighth Amendments,

we still cannot see how a prisoner's right to medical confidentiality can be derived from the Constitution. The prisoners,

in their amended complaint, cited the Due Process Clause of

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the Fifth Amendment as the basis for this particular claim,

although their brief on this subject mentions only the Eighth

Amendment. See Appellees' Brief at 24. Focusing on the

Fifth Amendment, one might contend that a prisoner retains

"liberty" not to disclose his medical condition to correctional

employees. For obvious reasons, plaintiffs make no such

claim. Prisoners cannot obtain treatment except by revealing

their medical history and symptoms to government employees. Indeed, the injunction issued here requires the District

to hire more medical employees versed in Spanish and English in order to facilitate the receipt of medical information

from these plaintiffs. And so the alleged due process "right"

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must be reformulated to fit plaintiffs' complaint, and when it

is, its lack of foundation is exposed. It is a constitutional

violation, according to the plaintiffs, if a Spanish-speaking

prisoner has to seek help from a fellow inmate to translate his

statements into English for the prison doctor. What plaintiffs actually advocate, therefore, is the creation of a constitutional right for non-English speaking prisoners to disclose

their medical condition only to certain government employees. This is an odd formulation: when recognized in the past,

the constitutional right of privacy has protected against disclosure to the state.13 See, e.g., Whalen v. Roe, 429 U.S. 589,

599, 602 (1977). Suppose plaintiffs prevailed, suppose members of their class had a due process right to be treated by

prison medical personnel who speak their native tongue. Such

a constitutional right could hardly be reserved only for

Spanish-speaking prisoners. Prisoners who spoke or understood only Arabic, or only Mandarin or Italian or any other of

the world's languages would presumably have the same constitutional right when they sought medical treatment. Implementing such a system would inevitably entail considerable

disruption and expense, and might well prove to be impossible

given the difficulty the District has experienced in recruiting

medical staff. Would prison officials have to hire bilingual

doctors even if their translating skills could be used for only a

handful of prisoners? When the mix of languages among the

prisoner population changed from time to time, would the

Constitution require adjustments in the prison's medical staffing? Would prison officials have to pass over more qualified

physicians in the interest of hiring those who spoke several

languages? Would bilingual medical staff have to be maintained around the clock? These and many other questions

__________

13 Odd though it may be, one district court summarily endorsed

the concept: "Unless the person interpreting for purposes of medical care is bound to maintain the confidentiality of the information

being exchanged, the inmate/patient's constitutional privacy right is

violated." Clarkson v. Coughlin, 898 F. Supp. 1019, 1049 (S.D.N.Y.

1995). This elevates the evidentiary doctor-patient privilege and

the ethical obligations of physicians to a constitutionally-required

status. But see Whalen, 429 U.S. at 602.

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would draw the federal courts into the day-to-day management of prisons in a way the Supreme Court and our court

have strongly set ourselves against. The District has a

strong penological interest, indeed it has an obligation, to

furnish adequate medical care to those confined under its

authority. See Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 89 (1987).

Hiring more bilingual medical personnel might, or might not,

enhance the provision of medical care in the District's prisons.

Like all governments, the District has a limited budget;

expenditures for one purpose diminish the resources available

for others. The District believes that its current combination

of bilingual coordinators, medical staff and the AT&T Language Line satisfies its obligations to these prisoners in

bridging the language barrier. In a disciplinary hearing in

which an illiterate prisoner is threatened with a loss of his

constitutional "liberty," the Supreme Court has said that the

state fulfills its due process obligation when it allows another

inmate or a member of the prison staff to assist the prisoner.

Wolff, 418 U.S. at 570. We believe the same is true when the

assistance relates to medical treatment rather than proceedings of a legal nature. To put the matter in Sandin's terms,

for inmates lacking proficiency in English, having other inmates or correctional employees translate for them when they

seek medical care is "one of the ordinary incidents of prison

life," 515 U.S. at 484; indeed, outside of prison it is doubtless

an ordinary incident of everyday life for non-English speaking

persons to receive help from others in order to communicate

with their doctors.14 For these reasons, we hold that

Spanish-speaking prisoners with limited proficiency in English do not have a privacy right, derived from the Constitution, to force the District to hire bilingual medical personnel

__________

14 As a general matter, "disclosures of private medical information

to doctors, to hospital personnel, to insurance companies, and to

public health agencies are often an essential part of modern medical

practice even when the disclosure may reflect unfavorably on the

character of the patient." Whalen, 429 U.S. at 602.

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so that the prisoners may communicate their medical information only to such employees.

* * *

Insofar as the judgment of the district court relates to

parole hearings, the judgment is vacated as moot to the

extent it concerns felons and vacated for lack of standing to

the extent it concerns misdemeanants. The remaining portion of the district court's order of July 8, 1997, is vacated and

the court's liability judgment is reversed.

So ordered.

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