Opinion ID: 556616
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Alleged Due Process Violations

Text: 9 The overarching authority is Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 555-56, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 2974-75, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974), in which the Supreme Court held that, while prisoners retain certain basic constitutional rights, including the protections of the due process clause, prison disciplinary hearings are not part of criminal prosecution, and inmates' rights at such hearings may be curtailed by the demands and realities of the prison environment. Wolff, also holds, however, that a prisoner has a constitutionally protected liberty interest in good time credit, and it enumerates what due process requires when a prison disciplinary hearing may result in loss of such credit. Id. at 556-57, 94 S.Ct. at 2974-75. 10 First, a prisoner must receive written notice of claimed violations at least 24 hours in advance of the hearing and must be provided with a written summary of evidence relied upon by the fact-finder in reaching its disciplinary decision. Id. at 563-64, 94 S.Ct. at 2978-79. Second, an inmate facing disciplinary charges must have an opportunity to marshal the facts and prepare a defense. Giano v. Sullivan, 709 F.Supp. 1209, 1214 (S.D.N.Y.1989) (citing Wolff, 418 U.S. at 564, 94 S.Ct. at 2978, and Patterson v. Coughlin, 761 F.2d 886, 890 (2d Cir.1985), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 1100, 106 S.Ct. 879, 88 L.Ed.2d 916 (1986)). [T]he inmate facing disciplinary proceedings should be allowed to call witnesses and present documentary evidence in his defense when permitting him to do so will not be unduly hazardous to institutional safety or correctional goals. Ordinarily, the right to present evidence is basic to a fair hearing. ... Wolff, 418 U.S. at 566, 94 S.Ct. at 2979. 7 11 Under the caselaw, a prisoner's right to produce evidence in his or her defense is limited only by the demands of prisoner safety and institutional order, as determined by the sound discretion of the prison authorities. We note that the discretion to be accorded prison authorities in this area is quite broad. As stated by the Court in Wolff: 12 We should not be too ready to exercise oversight and put aside the judgment of prison administrators.... [W]e must balance the inmate's interest in avoiding loss of good time against the needs of the prison, and some amount of flexibility and accommodation is required. Prison officials must have the necessary discretion to keep the hearing within reasonable limits and to refuse to call witnesses that may create a risk of reprisal or undermine authority, as well as to limit access to other inmates to collect statements or to compile other documentary evidence. 13 418 U.S. at 566, 94 S.Ct. at 2979-80; see also Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 527, 547, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 1868, 1878, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979). However, the discretion afforded prison officials is not without limits. As we remarked in Woods v. Marks, 742 F.2d 770 (3d Cir.1984), a case involving a prisoner's right to call witnesses at a disciplinary hearing, [t]he policy of deference to the judgment of prison officials does not require ... that a reviewing court defer to the arbitrary denial of an inmate's limited right[s]. Id. at 773. 14 Based upon the factual allegations in Young's complaint, there do not appear to be any security reasons for denying Young's request to produce his letter. Nor has Kann proffered any such reasons. The security issues that concerned the Wolff Court were the risk of death or injury to inmate witnesses and informants identified at hearings or in produced documents, 8 as well as the potential for breakdown in authority, order and discipline inside the institution. 9 418 U.S. at 567-69, 94 S.Ct. at 2980-81. None of these concerns appear to be implicated in the instant case because no witnesses were involved and no informants would be revealed by the production of the letter that Young admits having written. 15 This court heretofore has not been called upon to apply the requirements of Wolff to determine the extent of a prisoner's right to produce and view documentary evidence at a disciplinary hearing. We are aided in our analysis by three district court decisions. In Giano v. Sullivan, 709 F.Supp. 1209, 1213 (S.D.N.Y.1989), a prison employee assigned to assist a prisoner failed to produce certain investigative reports requested by the prisoner. The hearing officer ignored the prisoner's requests for the production of these reports, saying that he did not have them with him, and continued with the hearing despite the prisoner's repeated protests that he was not prepared to proceed. Id. Not having the reports, the hearing officer relied instead upon the testimony of the investigating officer and a corrections officer. Id. at 1211. The court found that the reason proffered by the prison for withholding the reports from the inmate, the protection of witness identity, was not supported by the record. Id. at 1216. The court thus held that the prisoner was unconstitutionally denied his right to marshal evidence and present a defense to the disciplinary charges against him. Id. 10 16 Like the prisoner in Giano, Young claims that he twice attempted to convince Kann to delay or postpone the hearing so that his letter, which had been confiscated by the authorities, could be produced. Unlike the prisoner in Giano, however, Young was not allowed to be present during the testimony of the investigating officer, a fact which, if true, further deprived him of the ability to marshal a defense. 17 In Muhammad v. Butler, 655 F.Supp. 1470 (D.N.J.1987), a prison investigator was informed of an inmate's planned escape during a telephone call from the inmate's former lover. Id. at 1471. At a subsequent disciplinary hearing, the prisoner was not allowed to hear a tape recording or even to see a transcript of the call. Id. The court found that the security reasons proffered by the prison for denying the inmate's access to this evidence were unpersuasive. Id. The Muhammad court held that the contention made by the hearing officer--that so long as the alleged contents of the telephone conversation were conveyed to the prisoner, an actual transcript or recording of the call need not be presented to him--did not pass constitutional muster, and that the prisoner's right to present a defense was clearly abridged by his inability to review these statements. Id. at 1472. 18 Although the district court here concluded that [since] defendant Kann had a summary of Young's letter in the Incident Report and a statement from the reporting officer ... [t]here was no need for the letter to be produced at the first hearing, we agree with the Muhammad court that this approach does not satisfy the requirements of due process. 11 Furthermore, we disagree with the possible argument that, even if Young's due process rights were violated by Kann's refusal to order production of the letter, such a violation is without consequence since Young admits writing the letter, should have remembered its contents, and could thus effectively defend against the guard's testimony. Such an argument ignores Young's claims that he did not know the guard's specific testimony and that, without the document, he did all that he could to support his assertions: namely, deny the guard's claim that the letter contained threatening statements. 19 Finally, in McIntosh v. Carter, 578 F.Supp. 96 (W.D.Ky.1983), prison authorities were informed by another inmate of a note allegedly written by prisoner McIntosh asking the informer to help smuggle drugs into the prison. Id. at 97. After obtaining a handwriting sample from McIntosh's cell, a prison investigating officer concluded in his report that the drug smuggling note was written by McIntosh. Id. At McIntosh's disciplinary hearing, the committee apparently did not have the drug smuggling note, but instead relied solely on the investigator's report. Id. at 98. The prison authorities claimed that the note need not be produced at the hearing because only its contents and the handwriting comparison proving McIntosh's authorship were relevant to the charges against him, both of which were summarized in the investigator's report. Id. The court, however, held that the hearing officer had violated McIntosh's due process rights by refusing to allow him to see the note he allegedly had written. Id. at 99. Absent a valid security reason, the court maintained, McIntosh should be entitled to view the evidence against him. Id. 20 Although the prisoner in McIntosh had a greater need to view the evidence against him due to the potential for fabrication of incriminating evidence by hostile fellow inmates, we find the holding in that case to be directly applicable to Young's situation. Like the hearing officer in McIntosh, Kann appears to have relied upon the investigator's portrayal of the letter, denying Young the opportunity to prepare a defense based upon its actual contents. 21 We find these cases persuasive and elect to follow them. Assuming that Young's factual allegations are true and that Kann cannot demonstrate a valid security reason on remand, we believe that Kann's refusal to order production of Young's letter at the disciplinary hearing violated Young's due process rights. By denying Young the opportunity to refute the charges against him through the presentation of his own letter, confiscated by the authorities and then used to discipline him, Kann violated the due process rights accorded Young under Wolff to present documentary evidence and marshal the facts in his defense. 418 U.S. at 566, 564, 94 S.Ct. at 2979, 2978. The district court's contrary conclusion was erroneous. 22 Further, we think that Kann's alleged sole reliance upon the oral summary of the contents of the letter provided, outside of Young's presence, by the guard at the hearing may itself be a due process violation. 12 We have warned against hearing officers relying exclusively upon a prison employee's oral summary of information implicating the prisoner. In Helms v. Hewitt, 655 F.2d 487 (3d Cir.1981), rev'd on other grounds, 459 U.S. 460, 103 S.Ct. 864, 74 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983), on remand, 712 F.2d 48 (3d Cir.1983), the hearing officer relied solely upon an investigating officer's summary of what an unidentified informer had told him concerning the charges brought against the inmate. We held that: 23 A determination of guilt on such a record, with no primary evidence of guilt in the form of witness statements, oral or written, or any form of corroborative evidence, amounts to a determination on the blind acceptance of the prison officer's statement. Such a practice is unacceptable; it does not fulfill Wolff's perception of mutual accommodation between institutional needs and objections and constitutional requirements of due process. 24 Helms, 655 F.2d at 502. Although the danger in Helms related more to the risk of relying upon hearsay from an unidentified informer, we find our warning against dependence upon a prison official's account without any form of corroborative evidence to be instructive for our present purpose. See also Hensley v. Wilson, 850 F.2d 269, 276-77 (6th Cir.1988) (where only evidence to support disciplinary committee's decision was the statement of an unidentified informer, committee failed to satisfy due process by merely accepting investigatory officer's version of informant's statement and his conclusion that informer was reliable and more credible than prisoner). 25