Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-88-01023/USCOURTS-ca10-88-01023-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Bobby L. Boone
Appellee
Lee Mann
Appellee
Gary Maynard
Appellee
Mike Pruitt
Appellee
James L. Saffle
Appellee
Darrin R. Teague
Appellant

Document Text:

FI LED 

United Stat1>11 Court of Appeals 'tenth Cirruit 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

AUG 14 1989 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

DARRIN R. TEAGUE, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

GARY MAYNARD; JAMES L. SAFFLE, 

Deputy Warden; BOBBY L. BOONE, Major; 

MIKE PRUITT, Unit Manager; LEE MANN, 

Case Manager, 

Defendants-Appellees. 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) No. 88-1023 

) (D.C. No. 87-227-C) 

) (E.D. Okla.) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

Before McKAY and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges, and BROWN, District 

Judge.** 

**The Honorable Wesley E. Brown, District Judge, United States 

District Court for the District of Kansas, sitting by designation. 

After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel 

has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially 

assist the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 

34(a); 10th Cir. R. 34.1.9. 

submitted without oral argument. 

The cause is therefore ordered 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, 

except for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of 

the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 

36.3. 

Appellate Case: 88-1023 Document: 01019975694 Date Filed: 08/14/1989 Page: 1 
The order of the United States District Court for the Eastern 

District of Oklahoma entered on December 15, 1987, is AFFIRMED for 

substantially the reasons stated therein. 

The mandate shall issue forthwith. 

ENTERED FOR THE COURT 

PER CURIAM 

2 

Appellate Case: 88-1023 Document: 01019975694 Date Filed: 08/14/1989 Page: 2 
No. 88-1023 - DARRIN R. TEAGUE v. GARY MAYNARD, et al. 

McKAY, Circuit Judge, dissenting: 

The plaintiff is a prisoner incarcerated at the Oklahoma 

State Penitentiary, located at McAlester, Oklahoma. The plaintiff, acting prose, commenced this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 civil rights 

action on May 19, 1987. The defendants submitted, pursuant to a 

court order, a Martinez (Martinez v. Aaron, 570 F.2d 317 (10th 

Cir. 1978)) report concerning the claims made by the plaintiff in 

his original complaint. This report was incorporated into the 

district court's order of dismissal entered on December 15, 1987. 

The court dismissed the lawsuit as frivolous under 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1915(d). To the extent the trial court resolved disputed 

allegations of fact based on the report, its decision cannot stand 

under our ruling in El'Amin v. Pearce, 750 F.2d 829, 832 (10th 

Cir. 1984). Even if we accepted the Martinez report as true, I 

cannot agree with the district court that the plaintiff's action 

is frivolous and conclude that the district court's order of dismissal should be reversed. 

Liberally construed, the plaintiff's complaint, amended complaint, and traverse allege, among other things, that the 

defendants' placement and retention of the plaintiff in 

administrative segregation has violated the plaintiff's fourteenth 

amendment right to procedural due process in that the defendants 

failed to follow their own regulations governing the placement of 

inmates in administrative segregation. 

Appellate Case: 88-1023 Document: 01019975694 Date Filed: 08/14/1989 Page: 3 
The plaintiff alleges that he was being held on "prehearing 

detention" status when he was first placed in administrative segregation on April 10, 1987, and that his first hearing was thirteen days later. The Martinez report does not contradict these 

allegations. Prison regulations require that a hearing be held 

within ninety-six hours for a prisoner held on "prehearing detention" status. Section VII, Special Procedures for Inmates Requiring Administrative Segregation provides in express mandatory language: 

C. An inmate shall not be placed in administrative 

segregation without the opportunity for a hearing 

before placement. The Facility Classification 

Committee shall hear testimony, including the inmate's testimony, or testimony from the inmate's 

witnesses. If it is necessary to restrict the 

inmate prior to approval for placement in administrative segregation, the inmate may be placed in 

restrictive housing for "Detention During an Investigation" until a decision is made. 

Oklahoma State Prison Regulation Number OP-060204, issued 

September 12, 1986, at 6. 

The regulations further provide that for prisoners held in 

prehearing detention the "Authorized Length of Confinement" is "up 

to 96 hours excluding weekends and holiday." Utilization of 

Restrictive Housing. Exhibit "D" attached to plaintiff's complaint. 

Plaintiff cites' Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539 (1974), and 

Hughes v. Rowe, 449 U.S. 5 (1980), in support of his claim that he 

was denied procedural due process. Even though limited, Wolff 

makes clear that prisoners retain some due process rights. The 

Court in Hughes also made clear that "[s]egregation of a prisoner 

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Appellate Case: 88-1023 Document: 01019975694 Date Filed: 08/14/1989 Page: 4 
without a prior hearing may violate due process if the postponement of procedural protections is not justified by apprehended 

emergency conditions." Id. at 11. It is clear that the emergency 

rule of prehearing segregation in the Hughes case permits emergency action and implies that post-segregation hearings must be 

very prompt even when an emergency overrides the prisoner's due 

process interest in a ~-segregation hearing. Whatever those 

standards in general may be, when the state has promulgated regulations in "explicitly mandatory language," along with "specific 

substantive predicates," it has thereby created a protected liberty interest in the prison context. Kentucky Dep't of Corrections v. Thompson, slip op. No. 87-1815 (May 15, 1989). 1 Here, 

the language is mandatory and the predicates are specific. Since 

he has specifically alleged that these provisions were violated, 

it cannot be said that his complaint is frivolous. The recent 

Supreme Court case, Neitzke v. Williams, 57 U.S.L.W. 4493 (No. 87-

1882, decided May 1, 1989) unequivocally states: 

1 The Supreme Court, as noted in Kentucky Dep't of Corrections, 

has previously held: 

that state law may create enforceable liberty interests 

in the prison setting ..•• [C]ertain regulations 

granted inmates a protected interest in parole, Board of 

Pardons v. Allen, 482 U.S. 369 (1987); Greenholtz v. 

Nebraska Penal Inmates, 442 U.S. 1 (1979), in good-time 

credits, Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S., at 556-572, in 

freedom from involuntary transfer to a mental hospital, 

Vitek v. Jones, 445 U.S., at 487-494, and in freedom 

from more restrictive forms of confinement within the 

prison, Hewitt v. Helms, ••• 

Stated simply, "a State creates a protected liberty 

interest by placing substantive limitations on official 

discretion." Olim v. Wakinekona, 461 U.S., at 249. 

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Appellate Case: 88-1023 Document: 01019975694 Date Filed: 08/14/1989 Page: 5 
The frivolousness standard, authorizing sua sponte dismissal of an informa pauperis complaint "only if the 

petitioner cannot make any rational argument in law or 

fact which would entitled him or her to relief," is a 

"more lenient'' standard than that of Rule 12(b)(6), 

•••• Unless there is "'indisputably absen t any factual or legal basis "' for the wrong asserted in the 

complaint, the trial court, ''(i)n a close case," should 

permit the claim to proceed at least to the point where 

responsive pleadings are required. (Citation omitted). 

I would remand for reinstatement of the complaint and further 

proceedings. 

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Appellate Case: 88-1023 Document: 01019975694 Date Filed: 08/14/1989 Page: 6