Opinion ID: 166742
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Sandin

Text: 20 Sandin involved an inmate from Hawaii's state prison who alleged that two misconduct convictions violated his due process rights. 515 U.S. at 475-76, 115 S.Ct. 2293. He was convicted of one high misconduct and one low moderate misconduct, and the high misconduct charge was later reversed and expunged from his record. Id. at 475-76, 487 n. 10, 115 S.Ct. 2293. The Court noted that the Hawaii parole board was not required to deny parole as a result of the misconduct charges: even though misconduct is by regulation a relevant consideration,... [t]he decision to release a prisoner rests on a myriad of considerations. Id. at 487, 115 S.Ct. 2293. Therefore, the Court reasoned, the misconduct conviction did not inevitably affect the duration of the prisoner's sentence: [t]he chance that a finding of misconduct will alter the balance is simply too attenuated to invoke the procedural guarantees of the Due Process Clause. Id. The Court implied that if the parole board had been required to take particular actions as a result of the misconduct charge, its decision might have been different: we note that Hawaii expunged [the inmate's] record with respect to the `high misconduct' charge, so he personally has no chance of receiving a delayed release as a direct result of that allegation. Id. at 487 n. 10, 115 S.Ct. 2293. 21 As the Fifth Circuit has noted, a host of administrative or disciplinary decisions made by prison authorities might somehow affect the timing of a prisoner's release. See Luken v. Scott, 71 F.3d 192, 193 (5th Cir.1995). However, many of these decisions do not trigger the protections of the due process clause. For example, applying Sandin, a number of courts have concluded that a decision that a particular prisoner is ineligible to participate in certain programs does not implicate a protected liberty interest, even though participation in those programs would have provided him with an opportunity to earn good time credits at a higher rate. In these courts' view, the effect of the challenged decisions on the length of the prisoner's sentence is too attenuated to implicate a liberty interest. See, e.g., Zimmerman v. Tribble, 226 F.3d 568, 571-72 (7th Cir.2000) (holding that a prisoner's transfer to a facility that did not offer vocational training and substance abuse programs did not implicate a liberty interest, even though the transfer resulting in the loss of an opportunity to earn good time credits); Higgason v. Farley, 83 F.3d 807, 809-10 (7th Cir.1996) (holding that a prisoner's placement in segregation, which resulted in the loss of access to educational programs and the resulting opportunity to earn good time credits did not implicate liberty interest, reasoning that even if [the prisoner] has been given the opportunity, it was not inevitable that he would complete an educational program and earn good time credits); Bulger v. U.S. Bureau of Prisons, 65 F.3d 48, 50 (5th Cir.1995) (holding that the loss of a prison job did not implicate a prisoner's liberty interest even though the prisoner lost the ability to automatically accrue good-time credits).