Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-05-01211/USCOURTS-ca8-05-01211-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 555
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Prison Condition
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 05-1211

___________

Mosheh Malik Louis, also known *

as Harry James Starks; Dearle *

Alexander, Jr.; David Allen; Billy *

Billups; Dennis S. Black; Donald L. *

Boggess; Rickey E. Bringus; Manuel J. *

Cabrera; George E. Carter; Vincent A. *

Carter; Trentelle A. Clifton; William *

Ray Cole; Anthony W. Coleman; *

Gerry D. Crawford; Carey G. *

Creelman; Eric L. Crudup; Ricky R. *

Davenport; Jaron Dean; Nuha Refid; *

Michael Fonville; Ronald N. Fort; *

Jerome J. Gilmore; Lester L. Glantz; * Appeal from the United States

Andre M. Gomez; David A. Graves; * District Court for the

Larry D. Hardin; Marc Herrera, also * District of Nebraska.

known as Anthony Herrera; Larry D. *

James; Marvel Jones; Vincent *

Jones, Jr.; Elijah Jones; Leonard *

Jordan; John L. Lewis, also known as *

Rod Frazier; Reko Mitchell; Elezar *

Moreno; Charles Overguard; Robert W. *

 Parker; Donald Patz, also known as *

Donald Scott; Leroy Parmer; Stanley A. *

Poe; Corey J. Prater; Kenneth N. *

Rhodes; Samuel L. Sanders; Larry B. *

Scott; Lord Shabazz; Tyrus T. Shelly; *

John D. Shemat; Larcell L. Starks; *

Robert Venable; Robert Dean Wiese; *

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Fred White; Martize A. Williams; *

Harvey Cass, *

*

Appellants, *

*

v. *

*

Department of Correctional Services *

of Nebraska; Harold W. Clarke; Frank *

Hopkins; Mike Kenny; Teresa *

Predmore; Dallen E. Johnson; Pamela *

Hillman; Susan Phinney; Kelly *

Wubbels; Mark Danner; Matthew *

Hinrichs; Scott Marshall; Michelle *

Rose-Seeman; Brad Exstrom; Randy *

Crosby; Joseph Posposol; Scott *

Isherwood; Todd Haussler; Ronald *

Bailey; Douglas Diltz; Karen Foster; *

Michael Edison; George Green; *

Claude R. Rinke; James Pierce; Brad *

Hausen; Robert Treptow; Daniel T. *

Higgins; Larry Stroud; Linda Leonard; *

Matthew Galvin; Robert Madsen; *

Daniel Schumaucher; Richard *

Brittenham; Melvin Rouf; Barry W. *

Loock; Diane Sabatka; Dennis Colyer; *

Ronald L. Petersen; Unknown Cockrell, *

in their individual and official * 

capacities, *

*

Appellees. *

___________

Submitted: November 14, 2005

Filed: February 3, 2006

___________

Before ARNOLD, BEAM, and RILEY, Circuit Judges.

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The Honorable Richard G. Kopf, United States District Judge for the District

of Nebraska.

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ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.

Inmates and former inmates of the Nebraska Department of Correctional

Services (DCS) appeal the judgment of the district court1

 denying their claim that

DCS's method of collecting and testing urine samples for drug use violated their

constitutional right to procedural due process. We affirm.

I.

This suit arises out of a program to eradicate drug use in the Nebraska State

Penitentiary (NSP). The program requires inmates to provide urine samples to be

tested for drug use. The samples are collected by correctional officers or case

workers and submitted to a laboratory adjacent to the NSP hospital. The collector

takes a sealed cup, shows it to the inmate, breaks the seal, and labels the cup with the

inmate's correct name and number. The inmate then urinates in the cup in the

presence of the collector and returns the cup to the collector. After the sample has

been tested for specific gravity, the collector places a form reflecting receipt of the

urine sample in an evidence box and takes the sample cup and its corresponding

evidence card, which is used to record the chain of custody, to the NSP hospital,

where the sample is refrigerated pending lab testing.

Trained laboratory technicians then test the urine using the fluorescence

polarization immunoassay (FPIA) method. According to Dr. David Black, an expert

witness testifying for the defendants, the FPIA test is approximately ninety-five

percent accurate. If FPIA testing indicates that an inmate's sample contains drug

metabolites, the technician reruns it. If a second such test confirms the presence of

drugs and the inmate's medical records do not reflect the use of prescribed

medications that could provide a false-positive result, the technician sends the

specimen report and the evidence card to the prison disciplinary board. Nebraska law

allows an inmate to request an independent test of his urine sample. That test is

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performed in a private laboratory using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry

(GC/MS). GC/MS testing is more accurate and more expensive than the FPIA

method and typically costs $30, although it can cost as much as $90, depending on

the drug at issue. The inmate pays the cost of confirmatory GC/MS testing if the

sample tests positive for drug metabolites. If a disciplinary complaint is filed against

an inmate, a hearing before the disciplinary committee follows. While the inmate

may call witnesses at this hearing, he may not call the laboratory technician who

carried out the FPIA test. Instead, the technician provides a written statement of the

procedures used in the lab.

The plaintiffs filed a complaint against NSP and prison officials under

42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming that the drug-testing procedures followed at NSP violate

their right to procedural due process because they impose a risk that inmates will be

wrongfully deprived of good-time credits or placed in disciplinary segregation. We

agree with the district court that NSP's procedures adequately protect the inmates' due

process rights. 

II.

We assess the constitutionality of the procedures used to collect and analyze

the inmates' urine samples by balancing the competing interests in play: "the private

interest that will be affected by the official action; ... the risk of an erroneous

deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if

any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and finally, the Government's

interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that

the additional or substitute procedural requirement would entail." Mathews v.

Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 334-35 (1976).

The inmates possess a protected liberty interest in not being arbitrarily deprived

of their good-time credits, and thus NSP must observe due process when the credits

are in issue. See Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 556-58 (1974). Although due

process rights are limited in the prison disciplinary context, they require, inter alia,

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that good-time credits may be revoked only if the revocation is supported by "some

evidence in the record." But due process requirements "are flexible and depend on a

balancing of the interests affected by the relevant government action."

Superintendent v. Hill, 472 U.S. 445, 454 (1985). Here, the prison has an interest in

reducing drug use by inmates, but there are practical limits on how much money it

can spend.

The plaintiffs first maintain that due process requires that the collection

procedures be altered to allow the inmate himself to sign and seal the specimen after

the prison collects it. The plaintiffs, however, offered no evidence that the current

training and collection protocols have resulted in erroneous deprivations of good-time

credits. The alterations in collection procedures that the plaintiffs request are small

and would contribute only marginally to the accuracy of the test results, and the

prison would incur costs for retraining if it changed the protocol. While the

collection procedures may not be maximally drawn to eliminate mislabeled samples,

they conform to practices used in private-sector workplace testing and are adequate

to ensure reasonably reliable results. The Supreme Court has said that "federal courts

ought to afford appropriate deference and flexibility to state [prison] officials trying

to manage a volatile environment." Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 482 (1995).

NSP officials have chosen to collect urine samples for drug testing in a particular

manner, and absent evidence that this decision resulted in an unreasonable risk of

inmates being deprived of good-time credits, we defer to their choice.

The inmates also argue that due process requires that the state conduct a

GC/MS test on samples that test positive for drugs if the inmate does not admit to

drug use when confronted. The contention is that NSP's refusal to fund confirmatory

GC/MS testing after FPIA testing yields a positive result and the inmate denies using

illicit drugs violates due process because GC/MS testing is not burdensome and

unwarranted and would minimize errors. We have previously held that "[s]tates need

not implement all possible procedural safeguards against erroneous deprivation of

liberty when utilizing results of scientific testing devices in accusatory proceedings."

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Spence v. Farrier, 807 F.2d 753, 756 (8th Cir. 1986). In Spence, we rejected a due

process challenge to a regime that allowed test results into evidence at prison

disciplinary proceedings after urine samples were twice tested using a method that

was ninety-five percent accurate. Id. at 754-57; see also Harmon v. Auger, 768 F.2d

270, 276 (8th Cir. 1985). The inmates in Spence, 807 F.2d at 754, were not permitted

to have confirmatory testing done by another method or to call expert witnesses at the

disciplinary hearing. The FPIA test used here is ninety-five percent accurate, and a

sample registering drug metabolites is subjected to a second FPIA test for

confirmation before it is definitively considered to have registered positive for illicit

drug use. And, as we have said, under the Nebraska system inmates may obtain

confirmatory testing at an independent laboratory, see Neb. Rev. Stat. § 83-4,114.02,

and are required to pay for the GC/MS test only in the event that this test yields a

positive result for drug metabolites. The Nebraska regime thus provides more

procedural safeguards than the one that we approved in Spence. We therefore discern

no constitutional infirmity in the arrangement challenged here.

Plaintiffs' final constitutional argument is that due process requires the

admission at inmate disciplinary hearings of testimony from the technician who tested

a urine sample, or test-specific documentation on how the technician processed the

particular sample, before an inmate can be found guilty of a drug infraction. But we

believe that NSP's refusal to permit inmates to call lab technicians as witnesses is

justified by the need to manage the environment of a prison and to maximize the

productivity of the lab technicians in its employ. We have upheld the admission of

urinalysis laboratory reports at a parole hearing, finding that the reports bore

"substantial indicia of reliability" and that the confrontation clause did not require the

out-of-state chemist who performed the test to appear. See United States v. Bell,

785 F.2d 640, 643 (8th Cir. 1986). Here the unsworn statements provided to inmates

subject to a disciplinary hearing for drug use outline the procedures used at the testing

facility and the qualifications of the laboratory supervisor. Since we have previously

held that prison disciplinary hearings that did not include expert testimony did not

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violate due process, see Spence, 807 F.2d at 756, we uphold NSP's restriction on

evidentiary material in its disciplinary hearings. 

II.

The plaintiffs also contend that the district court abused its discretion by not

prohibiting the defendants from using certain exhibits at trial. The defendants stated

that they did not produce the exhibits in question, a collection of revised rules

regulating the urine-sample collection and analysis protocols, until a few days before

trial because defense counsel took maternity leave and had a busy schedule when she

returned. The plaintiffs moved to exclude the exhibits from evidence, but the district

judge instead ruled that if the evidence adduced at trial indicated that the exhibits

were withheld for tactical reasons, the fact-finder could draw an adverse inference

from the tardy production. At trial, the district court found that while the reasons that

the defendants proffered for the untimely production of the new rules did not furnish

a complete excuse, there was no evidence that the exhibits were withheld in bad faith;

in addition, the court concluded that the plaintiffs were not prejudiced by the delay

in production. We do not believe that the district court abused its discretion by

imposing a conditional sanction or by ultimately admitting the exhibits.

III.

For the reasons indicated, we affirm.

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