Opinion ID: 743601
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Deprivation of Liberty Interest without Due Process Claim

Text: 28 Thibodeaux, 3 Monroe and Rodriguez argue that prisoners have a protected liberty interest in the restoration of good time credits and that they were deprived of their protected liberty interest without due process, as required by the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause. 29 This argument fails as the appellants lack the liberty interest that they assert. Since 1977, Texas law has provided that good conduct time credits are a privilege and not a right. Tex. Civ. Stat. art. 6181-1, § 4 (West 1988). Since 1977 and up until the 1993 directive, Texas prison authorities possessed the discretion to restore or not to restore forfeited good conduct time credits. Tex. Civ. Stat. art. 6181-1, § 4 (West 1988) (The director may, however, in his discretion, restore good conduct time forfeited under such circumstances subject to rules and policies to be promulgated by the department.). 30 Because the state statutes have, since at least 1977, vested complete discretion with the state correctional authorities on the issue of restoration of good time credits forfeited for disciplinary infractions, there is no protected liberty interest in the restoration of good time credits and this argument fails. See Greenholtz v. Inmates of Neb. Penal and Correctional Complex, 442 U.S. 1, 11, 99 S.Ct. 2100, 2105, 60 L.Ed.2d 668 (1979) (a statute which provides no more than a mere hope that the benefit will be obtained ... is not protected by due process); Hamill v. Wright, 870 F.2d 1032, 1036-37 (5th Cir.1989) (no liberty interest in award of good conduct time credits where state authorities possessed complete discretion concerning the award of such credits); Ex parte Montgomery, 894 S.W.2d 324, 328-29 (Tex.Crim.App.1995) (policy of discretionary restoration of forfeited good time credits did not create a protected liberty interest); see also Board of Pardons v. Allen, 482 U.S. 369, 378 n. 10, 107 S.Ct. 2415, 2421 n. 10, 96 L.Ed.2d 303 (1987) (statutes or regulations that provide that a parole board 'may' release an inmate on parole do not give rise to a protected liberty interest); Allison v. Kyle, 66 F.3d 71, 74 (5th Cir.1995) (Texas parole statutes do not create a protected liberty interest due to discretionary nature).