In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________

No. 02-4317

JAMES O. PAIGE, SR.,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

SHEILA HUDSON, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

____________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Indiana, Fort Wayne Division.

No. 01-CV-332—William C. Lee, Judge.

____________

SUBMITTED JULY 23, 2003—DECIDED AUGUST 28, 2003

____________

Before CUDAHY, POSNER, and RIPPLE, Circuit Judges.

POSNER, Circuit Judge. As a condition of probation, Indiana offender James Paige was required by the sentencing

court to spend six months in a “home detention” program

run by Allen County Community Corrections, a public

body. The ACCC requires participants in the program

to obtain full-time employment unless (so far as bears on

this case) they are mentally disabled. Paige did not obtain

full-time employment, claiming to be mentally disabled.

Unpersuaded by the evidence of mental disability that he

produced, the ACCC terminated Paige from the program

and so advised Paige’s probation officer, who in turn petitioned the court to revoke his probation and obtained

an arrest warrant pursuant to which Paige was arrested and
2 No. 02-4317

spent three days in jail before posting bond. At the probation revocation hearing that followed, Paige presented

additional evidence of mental disability. The court was

convinced, declined to revoke his probation, and ordered

him reinstated in the home-detention program with credit

for the days he had missed when the ACCC had terminated

him. Paige then brought this suit against officials of the

ACCC under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, contending that the due

process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment required the

ACCC before terminating him from its program to give him

a hearing that satisfied the requirements of due process of

law, which, he claimed, the ACCC had not done. The

district court granted summary judgment for the defendants.

There is an initial question whether being removed from

a home-detention program into jail is a sufficiently large incremental reduction in freedom to be classified as a deprivation of liberty under the Sandin doctrine, Sandin v. Conner,

515 U.S. 472, 483-84 (1995); Thielman v. Leean, 282 F.3d 478,

482 (7th Cir. 2002); Mitchell v. Horn, 318 F.3d 523, 531-32 (3d

Cir. 2003), since, if not, Paige has no right to due process of

law. We think it is a sufficient reduction, while acknowledging that it is less than the reduction of liberty that comes

about when someone on parole or equivalent status is

reincarcerated, as in Young v. Harper, 520 U.S. 143, 147-48

(1997); Holcomb v. Lykens, 337 F.3d 217, 221-23 (2d Cir. 2003);

Friedl v. City of New York, 210 F.3d 79, 82 (2d Cir. 2000), and

Benny v. United States Parole Comm’n, 295 F.3d 977, 984-85

(9th Cir. 2002). The difference between being confined in a

jail and being confined to one’s home is much greater than

the difference between being a member of the general prison

population and an inmate of a prison’s segregation wing,

the sort of difference that Sandin refused to characterize as

the difference between having liberty and being deprived of

it.
No. 02-4317 3

But there is a separate question whether ACCC deprived

Paige of his liberty. Unlike the parole officials in the cases

cited above, ACCC has no power to order a participant in

its home-detention program jailed. Only the court can do

that. All ACCC can do is inform the participant’s probation

officer of a probable violation of a condition of probation.

It is up to the probation officer and the court to decide

whether to proceed further. The probation officer must decide whether to arrest the participant and seek revocation of

his probation, and the court must decide, if revocation

is sought, whether to grant it. The ACCC has no power over

these decisions. It is not suggested that the ACCC was

acting in bad faith or recklessly in concluding that Paige

might be violating the terms of his probation, and so there

is no basis for supposing that it violated section 1983 by improperly procuring his arrest. Neiman v. Keane, 232 F.3d 577,

579-80 (7th Cir. 2000); Vakilian v. Shaw, 335 F.3d 509, 517 (6th

Cir. 2003); Loria v. Gorman, 306 F.3d 1271, 1289 (2d Cir.

2002). Hence it had no more obligation to give him a

hearing than anyone else does who merely informs the

authorities of a probable violation of law. Not it, but the

probation officer, and the state court that issued the warrant

at the officer’s request, deprived Paige of liberty.

AFFIRMED.

A true Copy:

Teste:

 _____________________________

Clerk of the United States Court of 

Appeals for the Seventh Circuit 

USCA-02-C-0072—8-28-03