Opinion ID: 6938671
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Pre-Hearing Confinement.

Text: At the close of the plaintiffs case, the district court found that New York prison regulations do not require that a prisoner who is awaiting disciplinary proceedings be afforded a hearing prior to being placed in a Special Housing Unit. The court therefore held that Frazier had no protected liberty interest in remaining free from confinement in the SHU, and dismissed Frazier’s claim that he was deprived of procedural due process. In looking to state regulations, the district court apparently applied the standard established in Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U.S. 460, 470-71, 103 S.Ct. 864, 870-71, 74 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983), for determining whether a prisoner has a protected liberty interest. Subsequent to the district court’s decision, the Supreme Court abandoned the framework established in Hewitt for analyzing whether a prisoner who is subjected to disciplinary confinement has been deprived of a liberty interest. Sandin v. Conner, — U.S. -, -, 115 S.Ct. 2293, 2300, 132 L.Ed.2d 418 (1995); see also Samuels v. Mockry, 77 F.3d 34, 36-38 (2d Cir.1996) (discussing Hewitt and Sandin) (per curiam); Rodriguez v. Phillips, 66 F.3d 470, 480 (2d Cir.1995) (same). Hewitt looked to state law and regulations to determine the parameters of a prisoner’s protected liberty interests. The Supreme Court in Sandin recognizefd] that States may under certain circumstances create liberty interests which are protected by the Due Process Clause. But these interests will be generally limited to freedom from restraint which, while not exceeding the sentence in such an unexpected manner as to give rise to protection by the Due Process Clause of its own force, nonetheless imposes atypical and significant hardship on the inmate in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life. — U.S. at -, 115 S.Ct. at 2300 (citations omitted). Sandin held that the respondent’s confinement in a segregated housing unit for thirty days, “though coneededly punitive, does not present a dramatic departure from the basic conditions of [his] indeterminate sentence.” Id. at -, 115 S.Ct. at 2301. Sandin applies retroactively to this case. See Harper v. Virginia Dep’t of Taxation, 509 U.S. 86, 95-97, 113 S.Ct. 2510, 2517, 125 L.Ed.2d 74 (1993) (a rule of federal law “must be given full retroactive effect”). As we recently recognized, “Sandin may be read as calling into question the continuing viability of our cases holding that New York regulations afford inmates a liberty interest in remaining free from administrative segregation.” Rodriguez, 66 F.3d at 480. And nothing in Sandin suggests that a protected liberty interest arises in the absence of a particular state regulation or statute that (under Hewitt) would create one. 5 To prevail, Frazier must establish both that the confinement or restraint creates an “atypical and significant hardship” under Sandin, and that the state has granted its inmates, by regulation or by statute, a protected liberty interest in remaining free from that confinement or restraint. The extensive fact-finding of the district court permits us to measure Frazier’s SHU claim by the standard of Sandin. Under that standard, Frazier has failed to demonstrate a significant deprivation of a liberty interest because he has not shown that the conditions of. his confinement in the SHU were dramatically different from the “basic conditions of [his] indeterminate sentence.” Sandin, — U.S. at -, 115 S.Ct. at 2301. Frazier was confined in the SHU for approximately twelve days while awaiting the disposition of disciplinary proceedings. While in the SHU, Frazier was denied certain privileges that prisoners in the general population enjoy. But, as in Sandin, the conditions of that confinement fell “within the expected parameters of the sentence imposed by a court of law.” Id. And the extensive proof adduced at trial concerning the conditions of Frazier’s confinement in the SHU demonstrate that such confinement did not amount to the “type of atypical, significant deprivation in which [New York] might conceivably create a liberty interest.” Id. Furthermore, Frazier points to no proof that might establish that “the State’s action will inevitably affect the duration of his sentence.” Id. at -, 115 S.Ct. at 2302. Thus, Frazier cannot establish a protected liberty interest in remaining in the general prison population, and dismissal of his procedural due process claim was proper.