Opinion ID: 2631220
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Community Protection Act

Text: Liberty interests worthy of protection can arise from state laws. Cashaw, 123 Wash.2d at 144, 866 P.2d 8. But such a liberty interest is narrowly circumscribed. In Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 115 S.Ct. 2293, 132 L.Ed.2d 418 (1995), the United States Supreme Court wrote the search for a negative implication from mandatory language in prisoner regulations has strayed from the real concerns undergirding the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause. Id. at 483, 115 S.Ct. 2293. In Sandin, the Court wanted statutory due process liberty interests to 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. Id. at 484, 115 S.Ct. 2293. Thus, Sandin precludes prisoners from claiming a statutory or regulatory due process liberty interest with respect to a variety of relatively minor matters in the institutional setting. [3] United States Supreme Court cases discerning the existence of a protected liberty interest are generally restricted to the prisoners' rights context. See, e.g., Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 557, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974) (prisoners' rights to good time credits); Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 224, 96 S.Ct. 2532, 49 L.Ed.2d 451 (1976) (prisoners' interest in preventing transfer to prison in another state); Kentucky Dep't of Corrections v. Thompson, 490 U.S. 454, 463, 109 S.Ct. 1904, 104 L.Ed.2d 506 (1989) (state law may create enforceable liberty interests in the prison setting); Board of Pardons v. Allen, 482 U.S. 369, 107 S.Ct. 2415, 96 L.Ed.2d 303 (1987) (prisoners' interest in parole); Greenholtz v. Inmates of Neb. Penal & Correctional Complex, 442 U.S. 1, 99 S.Ct. 2100, 60 L.Ed.2d 668 (1979) (prisoners' interest in good time credits); Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U.S. 460, 103 S.Ct. 864, 74 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983) (prisoners' interest in avoiding extra punishment in prison). No petitioner has cited a decision applying this statutory liberty interest analysis outside the context of a prisoner's regulatory right to sentence reduction. Washington law is consistent with this narrow view of a liberty interest. See, e.g., In Matter of Personal Restraint of Derek E. Gronquist, 138 Wash.2d 388, 397, 978 P.2d 1083 (1999) (prisoners' interest in good time credits); Cashaw, 123 Wash.2d at 144, 866 P.2d 8 (prisoners' interest in parole); Matter of the Personal Restraint Petition of Powell, 117 Wash.2d 175, 203, 814 P.2d 635 (1991) (prisoners' interest in the setting of a minimum sentence); In Personal Restraint Petitions of Johnston, 109 Wash.2d 493, 497, 745 P.2d 864 (1987) (prisoners' right to good time credits); In the Personal Restraint Petition of Ayers, 105 Wash.2d 161, 164, 713 P.2d 88 (1986) (prisoners' interest in the potential of parole); In re Piercy, 101 Wash.2d 490, 495, 681 P.2d 223 (1984) (prisoners' interest in good time credits); In the Matter of the Personal Restraint Petition of Dennis Sinka, 92 Wash.2d 555, 565, 599 P.2d 1275 (1979) (prisoners' liberty interest in the setting of minimum terms). The seminal Washington case discussing a liberty interest arising from state statutes is Cashaw. There, we said of such a liberty interest: For a state law to create a liberty interest, it must contain substantive predicates to the exercise of discretion and specific directives to the decisionmaker that if the regulations' substantive predicates are present, a particular outcome must follow. Kentucky Dep't of Corrections v. Thompson, 490 U.S. 454, 463, 109 S.Ct. 1904, 1910, 104 L.Ed.2d 506 (1989); Swenson v. Trickey, 995 F.2d 132, 134 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, [510 U.S. 999, 114 S.Ct. 568, 126 L.Ed.2d 468] (1993). Thus, laws that dictate particular decisions given particular facts can create liberty interests, but laws granting a significant degree of discretion cannot. Cashaw, 123 Wash.2d at 144, 866 P.2d 8. The petitioners argue RCW 72.09.345 and RCW 4.24.550, when read as construed in Ward, contain[ ] substantive restrictions on official discretion. Opening Br. at 13. The ESRC can classify as Level III only those offenders whose risk assessments indicate a high risk of reoffense within the community. RCW 72.09.345(5). Although the local law enforcement agency is free to ignore this assessment and classify an offender higher or lower than the ESRC, RCW 4.24.550 puts what can be interpreted as substantive limits on the agency's discretion by requiring the scope of any public disclosure of relevant and necessary information... [to] be rationally related to the level of risk, the offender's geographic location, and the needs of the community. RCW 4.24.550(2) (emphasis added). The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently dealt with that question and concluded, [t]he collection and dissemination of information under the Washington law does not violate any protected privacy interest, and does not amount to a deprivation of liberty or property without due process. Russell v. Gregoire, 124 F.3d 1079, 1094 (9th Cir.1997), cert. denied, 523 U.S. 1007, 118 S.Ct. 1191, 140 L.Ed.2d 321 (1998). The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit recently rejected a due process challenge to a single-tier notification scheme. Cutshall v. Sundquist, 193 F.3d 466 (6th Cir.1999) (finding no liberty or property interest at stake in the release of information about the offender's identity and criminal conduct). In the final analysis, however, we disagree with the petitioners' view that the registration and disclosure statutes create substantive interests. In Ward, we determined these statutes were not punitive and did not create either an affirmative disability or restraint on sex offenders. See also Doe v. Pataki, 120 F.3d 1263 (2d Cir.1997). In fact, in Cashaw, we declined to find a liberty interest for prisoners subject to parolability hearings by the Board of Prison Terms and Paroles when the Board allegedly failed to follow its own procedures. We found no liberty interest could arise from procedural laws. Parolability involved subjective appraisals with the Board assessing a myriad of imponderables. The risk level classifications here are not significantly different. The sex offender registration and disclosure statutes are essentially procedural statutes; no liberty interest arises from them.