Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ared-5_06-cv-00136/USCOURTS-ared-5_06-cv-00136-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 555
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Prison Condition
Cause of Action: 42:1983 Prisoner Civil Rights

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF ARKANSAS

PINE BLUFF DIVISION

CHARLES WHITED, 

ADC #123645 PLAINTIFF

v. 5:06CV00136 SWW/HDY

KEITH WADDLE, et al. DEFENDANTS

ORDER

The Court has received proposed findings and recommendations from Magistrate Judge H.

David Young. After a review of those proposed findings and recommendations, and the timely

objections received thereto, as well as a de novo review of the record, the Court adopts them in their

entirety.

Plaintiff states he was charged with missing work and disobeying an order. According to

plaintiff, he is on “heat sensitive” medication and because of that medication, he cannot be assigned

to work outside. He states that at his disciplinary hearing, he explained to defendant Waddle that

he refused to report for the hoe squad because of his medication. Plaintiff complains that Waddle

should and could have checked out his defense but instead, Waddle ignored the explanation, found

plaintiff guilty, and sentenced him to serve fifteen days in punitive isolation. On the hearing action

form, Waddle stated he relied on the disciplinary report for his decision. Plaintiff appealed and the

disciplinary was reversed but not until after plaintiff had served his time in punitive. In his

objections, plaintiff complains his rights to due process were violated because the disciplinary

hearing was not conducted in an impartial manner and because he did not receive a written statement

of the evidence upon which the disciplinary decision was made. The Court agrees with the

magistrate judge that any due process violations that may have occurred in connection with the

disciplinary hearing were cured by the reversal of plaintiff’s disciplinary conviction. See Wycoff v.

Nichols, 94 F.3d 1187, 1189 (8th Cir. 1996). 

Plaintiff also asserts the magistrate judge erred in applying Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472

Case 5:06-cv-00136-SWW Document 7 Filed 06/19/06 Page 1 of 3
(1995) to his case. Conner, a prisoner, was sentenced to 30 days in disciplinary segregation for a

“high misconduct” charge. Nine months later, the charge was reversed and Conner’s disciplinary

record expunged. The Supreme Court held that Conner’s segregated confinement did not

present the type of atypical, significant deprivation in which a State might

conceivably create a liberty interest. The record shows that, at the time of Conner’s

punishment, disciplinary segregation, with insignificant exceptions, mirrored those

conditions imposed upon inmates in administrative segregation and protective

custody. . . . Based on a comparison between inmates inside and outside disciplinary

segregation, the State’s action in placing him there for 30 days did not work a major

disruption in his environment. 

Id. at 486.

In Wycoff v. Nichols, 94 F.3d 1187 (8th Cir. 1996), a prisoner, who was serving a life

sentence, was found guilty of a rule violation and sentenced to ten days restriction in a maximum

security cell. The disciplinary committee also invoked a suspended sentence from a previous

infraction which included restriction in a maximum security cell for ninety days. The Eighth Circuit

held that an inmate does not have “a protected liberty interest in remaining in the general prison

population; his only liberty interest is in not being subjected to ‘atypical’ conditions of

confinement.” Id. at 1190.

Plaintiff argues that unlike in Sandin, inmates in punitive or disciplinary isolation, are

deprived of a variety of privileges that inmates in general population, protective custody, and

administrative segregation enjoy. He claims inmates in punitive or disciplinary isolation may not

have personal property such as books, magazines, radios, commissary items; they are awakened at

6:00 a.m. and their mattresses are taken until 7:00 p.m; their cells are searched and they are stripsearched at 6:00 a.m.; they are allowed three five-minutes showers per week and cannot use

shampoo or shave; and their only time for yard call is at 5:00 a.m. These conditions, plaintiff

argues, constitute a major disruption in his environment and are atypical of the conditions for other,

Case 5:06-cv-00136-SWW Document 7 Filed 06/19/06 Page 2 of 3
non-disciplined inmates at the Cummins Unit, which is mostly open barracks.

As described by plaintiff, his confinement in punitive or disciplinary segregation did not

“mirror” that of the general population in open barracks at the Cummins Unit, and resulted in the

loss of privileges. However, the Court finds what while plaintiff’s time in punitive may have been

a significant deprivation, it was “not atypical of what inmates have to endure in daily prison life.”

Callender v. Sioux City Residential Treatment Facility, 88 F.3d 666, 669 (8th Cir. 1996). In

Callender, a prisoner challenged the revocation of his work release and return to prison. The court

found that at the time of the termination of his work release status, the program was more analogous

to institutional life than parole or probation and thus revocation was not an atypical or significant

deprivation. See also Moorman v. Thalacker, 83 F.3d 970 (8th Cir. 1996) (transfer from minimumto medium-security prison, 15 days of highest-level disciplinary detention, and 107 days of lessrestrictive disciplinary detention not disruption exceeding ordinary incidents of prison life).

Therefore, the Court agrees with the magistrate judge’s recommendation that plaintiff’s complaint

should be dismissed.

IT IS, THEREFORE ORDERED that plaintiff’s complaint against defendants is

DISMISSED with prejudice and that this dismissal is considered a “strike” within the meaning of

28 U.S.C. § 1915(g).

IT IS SO ORDERED this 19th day of June 2006.

/s/Susan Webber Wright

 UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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