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Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1983', '§ 5003', '§ 4002', '§ 353', '§ 33', '§ 11189', '§ 11190']

Olim Vs Wakinekona - Citation 105488 - Court Judgment | LegalCrystal
Olim Vs. Wakinekona - Court Judgment
LegalCrystal Citation legalcrystal.com/105488
Case Number 461 U.S. 238
Appellant Olim
Respondent Wakinekona
olim v. wakinekona - 461 u.s. 238 (1983) u.s. supreme court olim v. wakinekona, 461 u.s. 238 (1983) olim v. wakinekona no. 81-1581 argued january 19, 1983 decided april 26, 1983 461 u.s. 238 certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the ninth circuit syllabus petitioner members of a prison "program committee," after investigating a breakdown in discipline and the failure of certain programs within the maximum control unit of the hawaii state prison outside honolulu, singled out respondent and another inmate as troublemakers. after a hearing -- respondent having been notified thereof and having retained counsel to represent him -- the same committee recommended that respondent's classification as a maximum.....
U.S. Supreme Court Olim v. Wakinekona, 461 U.S. 238 (1983)
1. An interstate prison transfer does not deprive an inmate of any liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause in and of itself. Just as an inmate has no justifiable expectation that he will be incarcerated in any particular prison within a State so as to implicate the Due Process Clause directly when an intrastate prison transfer is made, Meachum v. Fano, 427 U. S. 215 ; Montanye v. Haymes, 427 U. S. 236 , he has no justifiable expectation that he will be incarcerated in any particular State. Statutes and interstate agreements recognize that, from time to time, it is necessary to transfer inmates to prisons in other States. Confinement in another State is within the normal limits or range of custody which the conviction has authorized the transferring State to impose. Even when, as here, the transfer involves long distances and an ocean crossing, the confinement remains within constitutional limits. Pp. 461 U. S. 214 -18.
2. Nor do Hawaii's prison regulations create a constitutionally protected liberty interest. Although a State creates a protected liberty interest
by placing substantive limitations on official discretion, Hawaii's prison regulations place no substantive limitations on the prison administrator's discretion to transfer an inmate. For that matter, the regulations prescribe no substantive standards to guide the Program Committee whose task is to advise the administrator. Thus, no significance attaches to the fact that the prison regulations require a particular kind of hearing before the administrator can exercise his unfettered discretion. Pp. 461 U. S. 248 -251.
BLACKMUN, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BURGER, C.J., and WHITE, POWELL, REHNQUIST, and O'CONNOR, JJ., joined. MARSHALL, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which BRENNAN, J., joined, and in Part I of which STEVENS, J., joined, post, p. 461 U. S. 251 .
Rule IV of the Supplementary Rules and Regulations of the Corrections Division, Department of Social Services and Housing, State of Hawaii, approved in June, 1976, recites that the inmate classification process is not concerned with punishment. Rather, it is intended to promote the best interests
of the inmate, the State, and the prison community. [ Footnote 1 ] Paragraph 3 of Rule IV requires a hearing prior to a prison transfer involving "a grievous loss to the inmate," which the Rule defines "generally" as "a serious loss to a reasonable man." App. 21. [ Footnote 2 ] The Administrator, under Ś 2 of the Rule, is required to establish "an impartial Program Committee" to conduct such a hearing, the Committee to be "composed of at least three members who were not actively involved in the process by which the inmate . . . was brought before the Committee." App. 20. Under Ś 3, the Committee must give the inmate written notice of the hearing, permit him, with certain stated exceptions, to confront and cross-examine witnesses, afford him an opportunity to be heard, and apprise him of the Committee's findings. App. 21-24. [ Footnote 3 ]
Rule IV, Ś 3d(3), App. 24. The regulations contain no standards governing the Administrator's exercise of his discretion. See Lono v. Ariyoshi, 63 Haw. 138, 144-145, 621 P.2d 976, 980-981 (1981).
Respondent filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against petitioners as the state officials who caused his transfer. He alleged that he had been denied procedural due process because the Committee that recommended his transfer consisted of the same persons who had initiated the hearing, this being in specific violation of Rule IV, Ś 2, and because the Committee was biased against him. The United States District Court for the District of Hawaii dismissed the complaint, holding that the Hawaii regulations governing prison transfers do not create a substantive liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause. 459 F.Supp. 473 (1978). [ Footnote 4 ]
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, by a divided vote, reversed. 664 F.2d 708 (1981). It held that Hawaii had created a constitutionally protected liberty interest by promulgating Rule IV. In so doing, the court declined to follow cases from other Courts of Appeals holding that certain procedures mandated by prison transfer regulations do not create a liberty interest. See, e.g., Cofone v. Manson, 594 F.2d 934 (CA2 1979); Lombardo v. Meachum, 548 F.2d 13 (CA1 1977). The court reasoned that Rule IV gives Hawaii prisoners a justifiable expectation that they will not be transferred to the mainland absent a hearing, before an impartial committee, concerning the facts alleged in the
prehearing notice. [ Footnote 5 ] Because the Court of Appeals' decision created a conflict among the Circuits, and because the case presents the further question whether the Due Process Clause in and of itself protects against interstate prison transfers, we granted certiorari. 456 U.S. 1005 (1982).
Id. at 224-225 (emphasis in original). The Court observed that, although prisoners retain a residuum of liberty, see Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539 , 418 U. S. 555 -556 (1974), a holding that
" any substantial deprivation imposed by prison authorities triggers the procedural protections of the Due Process Clause would subject to judicial review a wide spectrum of discretionary actions that traditionally have been the business of prison administrators, rather than of the federal courts."
Applying the Meachum and Montanye principles in Vitek v. Jones, 445 U. S. 480 (1980), this Court held that the transfer of an inmate from a prison to a mental hospital did implicate a liberty interest. Placement in the mental hospital was "not within the range of conditions of confinement to which a prison sentence subjects an individual," because it brought about "consequences . . . qualitatively different from the punishment characteristically suffered by a person convicted of crime." Id. at 445 U. S. 493 . Respondent argues that the same is true of confinement of a Hawaii prisoner on the mainland, and that Vitek therefore controls.
We do not agree. Just as an inmate has no justifiable expectation that he will be incarcerated in any particular prison within a State, he has no justifiable expectation that he will be incarcerated in any particular State. [ Footnote 6 ] Often, confinement
Statutes and interstate agreements recognize that, from time to time, it is necessary to transfer inmates to prisons in other States. On the federal level, 18 U.S.C. § 5003(a) authorizes the Attorney General to contract with a State for the transfer of a state prisoner to a federal prison, whether in that State or another. See Howe v. Smith, 452 U. S. 473 (1981). [ Footnote 7 ] Title 18 U.S.C. § 4002 (1976 ed. and Supp. V) permits the Attorney General to contract with any State for the placement of a federal prisoner in state custody for up to three years. Neither statute requires that the prisoner remain in the State in which he was convicted and sentenced.
On the state level, many States have statutes providing for the transfer of a state prisoner to a federal prison, e.g., Haw. Rev.Stat. § 353-18 (1976), or another State's prison, e.g., Alaska Stat.Ann. § 33.30.100 (1982). Corrections compacts between States, implemented by statutes, authorize incarceration of a prisoner of one State in another State's prison. See, e.g., Cal.Penal Code Ann. § 11189 (West 1382) (codifying Interstate Corrections Compact); § 11190 (codifying Western Interstate Corrections Compact); Conn.Gen.Stat.
In short, it is neither unreasonable nor unusual for an inmate to serve practically his entire sentence in a State other than the one in which he was convicted and sentenced, or to be transferred to an out-of-state prison after serving a portion of his sentence in his home State. Confinement in another State, unlike confinement in a mental institution, is "within the normal limits or range of custody which the conviction has authorized the State to impose." Meachum, 427 U.S. at 427 U. S. 225 . [ Footnote 8 ] Even when, as here, the transfer involves long distances and an ocean crossing, the confinement remains within constitutional limits. The difference between such a transfer and an intrastate or interstate transfer of
shorter distance is a matter of degree, not of kind, [ Footnote 9 ] and Meachum instructs that "the determining factor is the nature of the interest involved, rather than its weight." 427 U.S. at 427 U. S. 224 . The reasoning of Meachum and Montanye compels the conclusion that an interstate prison transfer, including one from Hawaii to California, does not deprive an inmate of any liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause in and of itself.
427 U.S. at 427 U. S. 226 , and "ha[d] not represented that transfers [would] occur only on the occurrence of certain events," id. at 427 U. S. 228 . Because the State had retained "discretion to transfer [the prisoner] for whatever reason or for no reason at all," ibid., the Court found that the State had not created a constitutionally protected liberty interest. Similarly, because the state law at issue in Montanye "impose[d] no conditions on the discretionary power to transfer," 427 U.S. at 427 U. S. 243 , there was no basis for invoking the protections of the Due Process Clause.
These cases demonstrate that a State creates a protected liberty interest by placing substantive limitations on official discretion. An inmate must show "that particularized standards or criteria guide the State's decisionmakers." Connecticut Board of Pardons v. Dumschat, 452 U. S. 458 , 452 U. S. 467 (1981) (BRENNAN, J., concurring). If the decisionmaker is not "required to base its decisions on objective and defined criteria," but instead "can deny the requested relief for any constitutionally permissible reason or for no reason at all," ibid., the State has not created a constitutionally protected liberty interest. See id. at 452 U. S. 466 -467 (opinion of the Court); see also Vitek v. Jones, 445 U.S. at 445 U. S. 488 -491 (summarizing cases).
Hawaii's prison regulations place no substantive limitations on official discretion, and thus create no liberty interest entitled to protection under the Due Process Clause. As Rule IV itself makes clear, and as the Supreme Court of Hawaii has held in Lono v. Ariyoshi, 63 Haw. at 144-145, 621 P.2d at 980-981, the prison Administrator's discretion to transfer an inmate is completely unfettered. No standards govern or restrict the Administrator's determination. Because the Administrator is the only decisionmaker under Rule IV, we need not decide whether the introductory paragraph
of Rule IV, see n 1, supra, places any substantive limitations on the purely advisory Program Committee. [ Footnote 10 ]
The Court of Appeals thus erred in attributing significance to the fact that the prison regulations require a particular kind of hearing before the Administrator can exercise his unfettered discretion. [ Footnote 11 ] As the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently stated in Shango v. Jurich, 681 F.2d 1091, 1100-1101 (1982), "[a] liberty interest is of course a substantive interest of an individual; it cannot be the right to demand needless formality." [ Footnote 12 ] Process is not an end in itself. Its constitutional purpose is to protect a substantive interest to which the individual has a legitimate claim of entitlement. See generally Simon, Liberty and Property in the Supreme Court: A Defense of Roth and Perry, 71 Calif.L.Rev. 146, 186 (1983). If officials may transfer a prisoner "for whatever reason or for no reason at all," Meachum, 427 U.S. at 427 U. S. 228 , there is no such interest for process to protect. The State may choose to require procedures for reasons other than protection against deprivation of substantive
rights, of course, [ Footnote 13 ] but in making that choice, the State does not create an independent substantive right. See Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U. S. 460 , 459 U. S. 471 (1983).
In sum, we hold that the transfer of respondent from Hawaii to California did not implicate the Due Process Clause directly, and that Hawaii's prison regulations do not create a protected liberty interest. [ Footnote 14 ] Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Several months before the Court of Appeals handed down its decision, the Supreme Court of Hawaii had held that, because Hawaii's prison regulations do not limit the Administrator's discretion to transfer prisoners to the mainland, they do not create any liberty interest. Lono v. Ariyoshi, 63 Haw. 138, 621 P.2d 976 (1981). In a petition for rehearing in the present case, petitioners directed the Ninth Circuit's attention to the Lono decision. See 664 F.2d at 714. The Court of Appeals, however, concluded that the Hawaii court's interpretation of the regulations was not different from its own; the Hawaii court merely had reached a different result on the "federal question." The Court of Appeals thus adhered to its resolution of the case. Id. at 714-715.
445 U.S. at 445 U. S. 489 (emphasis added). The Court's other cases describing Meachum and Montanye also have eschewed the narrow reading respondent now proposes. See Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U. S. 460 , 459 U. S. 467 -468 (1983); Moody v. Daggett, 429 U. S. 78 , 429 U. S. 88 , n. 9 (1976).
After the decisions in Meachum and Montanye, courts almost uniformly have held that an inmate has no entitlement to remain in a prison in his home State. See Beshaw v. Fenton, 635 F.2d 239, 246-247 (CA3 1980), cert. denied, 453 U.S. 912 (1981); Cofone v. Manson, 594 F.2d 934, 937, n. 4 (CA2 1979); Sisbarro v. Warden, 592 F.2d 1, 3 (CA1), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 849 (1979); Fletcher v. Warden, 467 F.Supp. 777, 779-780 (Kan.1979); Curry-Bey v. Jackson, 422 F.Supp. 926, 931-933 (DC 1976); McDonnell v. United States Attorney General, 420 F.Supp. 217, 220 (ED Ill. 1976); Goodnow v. Perrin, 120 N.H. 669, 671, 421 A.2d 1008, 1010 (1980); Girouard v. Hogan, 135 Vt. 448, 449-450, 378 A.2d 105, 106-107 (1977); In re Young, 95 Wash.2d 216, 227-228, 622 P.2d 373, 379 (1980); cf. Fajeriak v. McGinnis, 493 F.2d 468 (CA9 1974) (pre- Meachum transfers from Alaska to other States); Hillen v. Director of Department of Social Services, 455 F.2d 510 (CA9), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 989 (1972) (pre- Meachum transfer from Hawaii to California). But see In re Young, 95 Wash.2d at 233, 622 P.2d at 382 (concurring opinion); State ex rel. Olson v. Maxwell, 259 N.W.2d 621 (N.D.1977); cf. Tai v. Thompson, 387 F.Supp. 912 (Haw.1975) (pre- Meachum transfer).
Respondent's argument to the contrary is unpersuasive. The Court in Montanye took note that among the hardships that may result from a prison transfer are separation of the inmate from home and family, separation from inmate friends, placement in a new and possibly hostile environment, difficulty in making contact with counsel, and interruption of educational and rehabilitative programs. 427 U.S. at 427 U. S. 241 , n. 4. These are the same hardships respondent faces as a result of his transfer from Hawaii to California.
In essence, respondent's banishment argument simply restates his claim that a transfer from Hawaii to the mainland is different in kind from other transfers. As has been shown in the text, however, respondent's transfer was authorized by his conviction. A conviction, whether in Hawaii, Alaska, or one of the contiguous 48 States, empowers the State to confine the inmate in any penal institution in any State unless there is state law to the contrary or the reason for confining the inmate in a particular institution is itself constitutionally impermissible. See Montanye, 427 U.S. at 427 U. S. 242 ; id. at 427 U. S. 244 (dissenting opinion); Cruz v. Beto, 405 U. S. 319 (1972); Fajeriak v. McGinnis, 193 F.2d at 470.
In Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U. S. 460 (1983), unlike this case, state law limited the decisionmakers' discretion. To the extent the dissent doubts that the Administrator's discretion under Rule IV is truly unfettered, post at 461 U. S. 258 , and n. 11, it doubts the ability or authority of the Hawaii Supreme Court to construe state law.
Other courts agree that an expectation of receiving process is not, without more, a liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause. See, e.g., United States v. Jiles, 658 F.2d 194, 200 (CA3 1981), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 923 (1982); Bills v. Henderson, 631 F.2d 1287, 1298-1299 (CA6 1980); Pugliese v. Nelson, 617 F.2d 916, 924-925 (CA2 1980); Cofone v. Manson, 594 F.2d at 938; Lombardo v. Meachum, 548 E.2d 13, 14-16 (CA1 1977); Adams v. Wainwright, 512 F.Supp. 948, 953 (ND Fla.1981); Lono v. Ariyoshi, 63 Haw. at 144-145, 621 P.2d at 980-981.
An inmate's liberty interest is not limited to whatever a State chooses to bestow upon him. An inmate retains a significant residuum of constitutionally protected liberty following his incarceration independent of any state law. As we stated in Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539 , 418 U. S. 555 -556 (1974):
In determining whether a change in the conditions of imprisonment implicates a prisoner's retained liberty interest, the relevant question is whether the change constitutes a sufficiently "grievous loss" to trigger the protection of due process. Vitek v. Jones, 445 U. S. 480 , 445 U. S. 488 (1980). See Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471 , 408 U. S. 481 (1972), citing Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. McGrath, 341 U. S. 123 , 341 U. S. 168 (1951) (Frankfurter, J., concurring). The answer depends in part on a comparison of "the treatment of the particular prisoner with the customary, habitual treatment of the population of the prison as a whole." Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U. S. 460 , 459 U. S. 486 (1983) (STEVENS, J., dissenting). This principle was established in our decision in Vitek, which held that the transfer of an inmate from a prison to a mental hospital implicated a liberty interest because it brought about "consequences . . . qualitatively different from the punishment characteristically suffered by a person convicted of crime." 445 U.S. at 445 U. S. 493 . Because a significant qualitative change in the conditions of confinement is not "within the range of conditions of confinement to which a prison sentence subjects an individual," ibid., such a change implicates a prisoner's protected liberty interest.
There can be little doubt that the transfer of Wakinekona from a Hawaii prison to a prison in California represents a substantial qualitative change in the conditions of his confinement. In addition to being incarcerated, which is the ordinary consequence of a criminal conviction and sentence, Wakinekona has in effect been banished from his home, a punishment historically considered to be "among the severest." [ Footnote 2/1 ] For an indeterminate period of time, possibly the
I cannot agree with the Court that Meachum v. Fano, 427 U. S. 215 (1976), and Motanye v. Haymes, 427 U. S. 236 , 427 U. S. 243 (1976), compel the conclusion that Wakinekona's transfer implicates no liberty interest. Ante at 461 U. S. 248 . Both cases involved transfers of prisoners between institutions located within the same State in which they were convicted, and the Court expressly phrased its holdings in terms of intra state transfers. [ Footnote 2/2 ] Both decisions rested on the premise that no liberty interest is implicated by an initial decision to place a prisoner in one institution in the State rather than another. See Meachum, supra, at 427 U. S. 224 ; Montanye, supra, at 427 U. S. 243 . On the basis of that premise, the Court concluded that the subsequent transfer of a prisoner to a different facility within the State likewise implicates no liberty interest. In this case, however, we cannot assume that a State's initial placement of an individual in a prison far removed from his family and residence would raise no due process questions. None of our
Actual experience simply does not bear out the Court's assumptions that interstate transfers are routine and that it is "not unusual" for a prisoner "to serve practically his entire sentence in a State other than the one in which he was convicted and sentenced." Ante at 461 U. S. 247 . In Hawaii, less than three percent of the state prisoners were transferred to prisons in other jurisdictions in 1979, and, on a nationwide basis, less than one percent of the prisoners held in state institutions were transferred to other jurisdictions. [ Footnote 2/3 ] Moreover, the vast majority of state prisoners are held in facilities located less than 250 miles from their homes. [ Footnote 2/4 ] Measured against these norms, Wakinekona's transfer to a California prison represents a punishment "qualitively different from the punishment characteristically suffered by a person convicted of crime." Vitek v. Jones, supra, at 445 U. S. 493 .
Nor can I agree with the majority's conclusion that Hawaii's prison regulations do not create a liberty interest. This Court's prior decisions establish that a liberty interest
may be "created" [ Footnote 2/5 ] by state laws, prison rules, regulations, or practices. State laws that impose substantive criteria which limit or guide the discretion of officials have been held to create a protected liberty interest. See, e.g., Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U. S. 460 (1983); Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539 (1974); Greenholtz v. Nebraska Penal Inmates, 442 U. S. 1 (1979); Wright v. Enomoto, 462 F.Supp. 397 (ND Cal.1976), summarily aff'd, 434 U. S. 1052 (1978). By contrast, a liberty interest is not created by a law which "imposes no conditions on [prison officials'] discretionary power," Montanye, supra, at 427 U. S. 243 , authorizes prison officials to act "for whatever reason or for no reason at all," Meachum, supra, at 427 U. S. 228 , or accords officials "unfettered discretion," Connecticut Board of Pardons v. Dumschat, 452 U. S. 458 , 452 U. S. 466 (1981).
The Court misapplies these principles in concluding that Hawaii's prison regulations leave prison officials with unfettered discretion to transfer inmates. Ante at 461 U. S. 249 -250. Rule IV establishes a scheme under which inmates are classified upon initial placement in an institution, and must subsequently be reclassified before they can be transferred to another institution. Under the Rule, the standard for classifying inmates is their "optimum placement within the Corrections Division" in light of the "best interests of the individual, the State, and the community." [ Footnote 2/6 ] In classifying inmates, the Program
Paragraph 3 of Rule IV establishes a detailed set of procedures applicable when, as in this case, the reclassification of a prisoner may lead to a transfer involving a "grievous loss," a phrase contained in the Rule itself. [ Footnote 2/7 ] The procedural rules are cast in mandatory language, and cover such matters as notice, access to information, hearing, confrontation and cross-examination, and the basis on which the Committee is to make its recommendation to the facility administrator.
The limitations imposed by Rule IV are at least as substantial as those found sufficient to create a liberty interest in Hewitt v. Helms, supra, decided earlier this Term. In Hewitt, an inmate contended that his confinement in administrative custody implicated an interest in liberty protected by the Due Process Clause. State law provided that a prison official could place inmates in administrative custody "upon his assessment of the situation and the need for control," or "where it has been determined that there is a threat of a serious disturbance, or a serious threat to the individual or others," and mandated certain procedures such as notice and a
hearing. [ Footnote 2/8 ] This Court construed the phrases " the need for control,' or `the threat of a serious disturbance,'" as "substantive predicates" which restricted official discretion. Id. at 459 U. S. 472 . These restrictions, in combination with the mandatory procedural safeguards, "deman[ded] a conclusion that the State has created a protected liberty interest." Ibid.
Rule IV is not distinguishable in any meaningful respect from the provisions at issue in Helms. The procedural requirements contained in Rule IV are, if anything, far more elaborate than those involved in Helms, and are likewise couched in "language of an unmistakably mandatory character." Id. at 459 U. S. 471 . Moreover, Rule IV, to no less an extent than the state law at issue in Helms, imposes substantive criteria restricting official discretion. In Helms, this Court held that a statutory phrase.such as "the need for control" constituted a limitation on the discretion of prison officials to place inmates in administrative custody. In my view, Rule IV, which states that transfers are intended to ensure an inmate's "optimum placement" in accordance with considerations which include "his changing needs [and] the resources and facilities available to the Corrections Division," also restricts official discretion in ordering transfers. [ Footnote 2/9 ]
The Court suggests that, even if the Program Committee does not have unlimited discretion in making recommendations for classifications and transfers, this cannot give rise to a state-created liberty interest, because the prison Administrator retains "completely unfettered" "discretion to transfer
an inmate," ante at 461 U. S. 249 . I disagree. Rule IV, Ś 3(d)(3), provides for review by the prison Administrator of recommendations forwarded to him by the Program Committee. [ Footnote 2/10 ] Even if this provision must be construed as authorizing the Administrator to transfer a prisoner for wholly arbitrary reasons, [ Footnote 2/11 ] that mere possibility does not defeat the protectible expectation otherwise created by Hawaii's reclassification and transfer scheme that transfers will take place only if required to ensure an inmate's optimum placement. In Helms, a prison regulation also left open the possibility that the Superintendent could decide, for any reason or no reason at all, whether an inmate should be confined in administrative custody. [ Footnote 2/12 ] This Court nevertheless held that the state scheme as a whole created an interest in liberty protected by the Due Process Clause. 459 U.S. at 459 U. S. 471 -472. Helms thus necessarily rejects the view that state laws which impose substantive
limitations and elaborate procedural requirements on official conduct create no liberty interest solely because there remains the possibility that an official will act in an arbitrary manner at the end of the process. [ Footnote 2/13 ]
J. Elliott, Debates on the Federal Constitution 555 (1836). Whether it is called banishment, exile, deportation, relegation, or transportation, compelling a person "to quit a city, place, or country, for a specified period of time, or for life," has long been considered a unique and severe deprivation, and was specifically outlawed by "[t]he twelfth section of the English Habeas Corpus Act, 31 Car. II, one of the three great muniments of English liberty." United State v. Ju Toy, 198 U. S. 253 , 198 U. S. 269 -270 (1905) (Brewer, J., dissenting).
Thus in Meachum , the Court stated that the State, by convicting the defendant, was "empower[ed] to confine him in any of its prisons," 427 U.S. at 427 U. S. 224 (emphasis deleted), that a "transfer from one institution to another within the state prison system" implicated no due process interest, id. at 427 U. S. 225 , and that "confinement in any of the State's institutions is within the normal limits or range of custody which the conviction has authorized the State to impose." Ibid. See also Montanye, 427 U.S. at 427 U. S. 242 ("We held in Meachum v. Fano that no Due Process Clause liberty interest of a duly convicted prison inmate is infringed when he is transferred from one prison to another within the State").
But see Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U. S. 460 , 459 U. S. 488 (1983) (STEVENS, J., dissenting) (Prison regulations "provide evidentiary support for the conclusion that the transfer affects a constitutionally protected interest in liberty," but they "do not create that interest" (emphasis in original)).
While the term "grievous loss" is not explicitly defined, the prison regulations treat a transfer to the mainland as a grievous loss entitling an inmate to the procedural rights established in Rule IV, Ś 3. This is readily inferred from Rule IV, Ś 3, which states that intrastate transfers do not involve a grievous loss, and Rule V, which permits inmates to retain counsel only in specified circumstances, one of which is a reclassification that may result in an interstate transfer. App. 25.
See 459 U.S. at 459 U. S. 470 -471, n. 6.
Rule IV, Ś 3(d)(3), provides:
Pennsylvania Bureau of Correction Administrative Directive BC-ADM 801, Rule III(H)(7). App. to Brief for Respondent in Hewitt v. Helms, O.T. 1982, No. 81-638, p. 12a. Because an inmate could be confined in administrative custody only if the Program Review Committee determined that such confinement is and continues to be "appropriate," id. at 18a, the Superintendent in Helms was the "decisionmaker," ante at 461 U. S. 249 -250, who determined whether inmates would be held in administrative custody.
This view was also implicitly rejected in Greenholtz v. Nebraska Penal Inmates, 442 U. S. 1 (1979). The Court held that the Nebraska statute governing the decision whether or not to grant parole created a "protectible entitlement," id. at 442 U. S. 12 , even though the statute, which listed a number of factors to be considered in the parole decision, also authorized the Parole Board to deny parole on the basis of "[a]ny other factors the board determines to be relevant." Id. at 442 U. S. 18 .
To the extent that Lono v. Ariyoshi, 63 Haw. 138, 144-145, 621 P.2d 976, 980-981 (1981), on which the majority relies, ante at 461 U. S. 249 , suggests that no liberty interest is created as state law has not entirely eliminated the possibility of arbitrary action, it is inconsistent with both Helms and Greenholtz.