Source: https://casetext.com/case/garza-v-miller
Timestamp: 2019-03-22 04:44:06
Document Index: 657339201

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1331', '§ 4122', '§ 4122', '§ 744', '§ 1', '§ 4122', 'art, 620', '§ 4081']

Garza v. Miller, 688 F.2d 480 | Casetext
Garza v. Miller
688 F.2d 480 (7th Cir. 1982)
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Garzav.Miller
United States Court of Appeals, Seventh CircuitSep 10, 1982
No. 81-2681.
Argued June 9, 1982.
Edna S. Epstein, Sidley Austin, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff-appellant.
Richard H. Lloyd, Asst. U.S. Atty., James R. Burgess, Jr., U.S. Atty., East St. Louis, Ill., for defendant-appellee.
Before PELL and BAUER, Circuit Judges, and DECKER, Senior District Judge.
Bernard M. Decker, Senior District Judge for the Northern District of Illinois, is sitting by designation.
In this originally pro se action under 28 U.S.C. § 1331(a) (1976), the appellant Albert Garza claims that a purported "lockdown" in effect at the Marion, Illinois, federal penitentiary (Marion) violates his due process and equal protection rights. He also claims that his security level classification is arbitrary and capricious and that he was denied equal protection when his request to transfer to another prison was denied. Garza seeks declaratory and injunctive relief to require the Warden of Marion to provide him with prison industry employment and living conditions equivalent to those prior to the "lockdown." Alternatively, Garza seeks transfer from Marion to another federal facility. After a hearing before a federal magistrate, the magistrate in an oral opinion found against Garza on all issues. This appeal followed.
On appeal the appellant is represented by counsel.
On September 15, 1980, the inmates at Marion staged a work strike. It was the third such strike that year. Also within the prior eighteen months, two inmates had been murdered and an associate warden had been stabbed, although no correlation with the work strike was established. On September 15, Garza was confined in the "H-Unit," a maximum security unit, of the penitentiary due to an escape attempt in 1979 and an assault upon a sheriff during the escape for which he was convicted of assault. It is uncontested that Garza did not participate in the work strike and was at all times willing to work. On September 17, 1980, Garza was released into the general population of the prison.
Garza, a member of the Jewish faith, raised objections concerning the availability of Jewish services and programs. Both before and after the strike, no rabbi made regular visits or performed services because there were no such requests from the Jewish inmates and there were too few Jewish inmates to constitute a minyan. Similarly, no Jewish religious holidays were observed due to the absence of requests. Visits from a Jewish layman are available upon request and Kosher meals are provided.
A minyan is the quorum necessary for public worship, consisting of not less than ten males above the age of thirteen.
An associate warden testified before the magistrate that, although the increased security at Marion was initiated in response to the September 15 work strike and prior incidents of violence, its continuation was predicated on the demonstrated inclination of Marion's population toward violence and escape attempts, combined with a lack of cooperation on the part of prisoners with the prison staff which we assume in part refers to the disinclination of the prisoners to return to work.
II. The Magistrate's Opinion
III. Constitutional and Statutory Claims
A. Decreased Availability of Prison Jobs, Recreation, and Educational Programs
Garza's claim that the prison officials violated his rights by limiting jobs within the prison has both a statutory and constitutional basis. For his statutory claim of entitlement to a job, Garza relies upon the first clause of 18 U.S.C. § 4122(b) (1976): "Its [the Federal Prison Industries'] board of directors shall provide employment for all physically fit inmates in the United States penal and correctional institutions . . . ." Garza asserts that this provision grants all physically fit inmates in federal prisons a statutory right to employment in federal prison industries. Concomitantly, he argues that this statutory right creates a property or liberty interest in employment triggering the substantive and procedural protections of the Fifth Amendment. The respondent, however, has countered that section 4122(b) is qualified by 18 U.S.C. § 4122(a) (1976), which provides that the operation of prison industries is fully within the discretion of the Federal Prison Industries Board:
Section 4123 of 18 U.S.C. upon which Garza also relies, is addressed only to the establishment of new industries.
The only reported decision to address whether section 4122 provides a right to prison employment concludes without analysis that, so long as the Federal Prison Industries and its board of directors do not administer the authority conferred by section 4122 in an arbitrary or capricious manner, the courts may not interfere with their performance of their delegated functions. Mercer v. United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners, 312 F. Supp. 1077, 1079 (W.D.Mo. 1970). The Mercer court based its perception of its review function on general principles of administrative law rather than on any constitutional or statutory basis. Id.
18 U.S.C. § 744a (1940) (emphasis added). This section, and the provision of the enactment upon which it was based, Act of May 27, 1930, ch. 340 § 1, 46 Stat. 391 (1930), imposed only a duty to provide employment in such diversified form as to minimize competition with private industry and free labor. There was no unqualified duty to provide employment to all physically fit inmates. When the Criminal Code was revised in 1948, this section 744a was consolidated with part of section 744k of the 1940 edition to form section 4122(b) in its current form. The consolidated part of section 744k also dealt with diversification of prison industries and provided the second clause of what is now section 4122(b). When these two sections were consolidated in 1948 with only "such changes of phraseology as were necessary to effect the consolidation," see the Reviser's Notes to 18 U.S.C. § 4122(b)(1976), the qualification on the board's duty to provide employment in section 744a was omitted. Apparently, therefore, there was never any intent on the part of Congress to create a duty to provide employment for all physically fit inmates. Section 4122(b) in its present from represents nothing more than an inartful consolidation of former sections 744a and 744k.
This court has previously held that there is no constitutional mandate to provide educational, rehabilitative, or vocational programs, in the absence of conditions that rise to a violation of the Eighth Amendment. Madyun v. Thompson, 657 F.2d 868, 874 (7th Cir. 1981); Bono v. Saxbe, 450 F. Supp. 934, 947 (E.D.Ill. 1978), aff'd in part and remanded in part, 620 F.2d 609 (7th Cir. 1980). Applying Shango, we also find that Garza had no protectible liberty or property interest in prison employment by virtue of section 4122(b). The statutory provisions of section 4122 vest discretion in the Federal Prison Industries' board of directors to determine the extent to which prison employment shall be provided. The exercise of such discretion "`preclude[s] the implication of a liberty interest deserving of due process protection.'" Shango v. Jurich, at 1100 (quoting Anthony v. Wilkinson, 637 F.2d 1130, 1141 (7th Cir. 1980), vacated on other grounds mem. sub nom., Hawaii v. Mererios, 453 U.S. 902, 101 S.Ct. 3135, 69 L.Ed.2d 989 (1981)). Any expectation that Garza might have had of keeping his prison job does not amount to a property or liberty interest. Gibson v. McEvers, 631 F.2d 95, 98 (7th Cir. 1980). "Congress has given federal prison officials full discretion to control these conditions of confinement, 18 U.S.C. § 4081, and petitioner has no legitimate statutory or constitutional entitlement to invoke due process." Moody v. Daggett, 429 U.S. 78, 88 n. 9, 97 S.Ct. 274, 279 n. 9, 50 L.Ed.2d 236 (1976).
The appellant also argues that the decrease in prison jobs adversely affects his opportunity to earn good time credits. Every state action carrying adverse consequences for prison inmates does not automatically activate a due process right, as Moody v. Daggett, supra, points out. To establish a protectible due process interest, Garza had to demonstrate a substantive restriction on the officials' discretion, Shango v. Jurich, at 1100, and this he has simply failed to do.
B. Right to Religious Services and Programs
We do not suggest, of course, that every religious sect or group within a prison — however few in number — must have identical facilities or personnel. A special chapel or place of worship need not be provided for every faith regardless of size; nor must a chaplain, priest, or minister be provided without regard to the extent of the demand. But reasonable opportunities must be afforded to all prisoners to exercise the religious freedom guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments without fear of penalty.
Cruz v. Beto, 405 U.S. 319, 322 n. 2, 92 S.Ct. 1079, 1081 n. 2, 31 L.Ed.2d 263 (1972). The record does not in any sense indicate that the Marion prison officials have denied Garza a reasonable opportunity to practice his religion. Given the small number of Jewish inmates and the security level of the prison, it was certainly within the officials' discretion to provide a rabbi, services, and other requisites of the Jewish faith only upon request. The absence of religious programs and observances is attributable to the lack of requests, not to any affirmative refusals by the prison officials to provide them.
C. Right to Access to the Courts
Continuation of the security measures in Marion after the work strike was predicated on Marion's security classification and the propensity of Marion's population toward violence and escape. Although thirty to forty percent of Marion's population has been transferred since the work strike, there is no indication in the record that Marion's security classification and the inmates ordinarily confined in the institution do not now warrant the security precautions taken by the officials. Our judicial function is not to "second-guess" the decisions of the prison administration. Such decisions require expertise and comprehensive planning which counsels deference by the federal courts to these discretionary decisions by the appropriate prison authorities. "[C]ourts . . . cannot assume that . . . prison officials are insensitive to the requirements of the Constitution or to the perplexing sociological problems of how best to achieve the goals of the penal function in the criminal justice system: to punish justly, to deter future crime, and to return imprisoned persons to society with an improved chance of being useful, lawabiding citizens." Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U.S. 337, 352, 101 S.Ct. 2392, 2401, 69 L.Ed.2d 59 (1981).