Opinion ID: 590886
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Substantive Analysis

Text: 13 Liberty interests may arise from two sources--the Due Process Clause itself and the laws of the States. Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U.S. 460, 466, 103 S.Ct. 864, 869, 74 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983); Colon v. Schneider, 899 F.2d 660, 666 (7th Cir.1990). We shall look to each to determine whether Mr. Felce can claim a liberty interest in mandatory release parole without unwanted administration of antipsychotic drugs. 14
15 In Washington v. Harper, 494 U.S. 210, 110 S.Ct. 1028, 108 L.Ed.2d 178 (1990), the Supreme Court addressed the nature and scope of a Washington state prisoner's liberty interest in avoiding the unwanted administration of antipsychotic drugs. As the district court correctly noted, the Harper court focused upon the liberty interest that Washington had created through its own statutes and regulations. Under those regulations, a prisoner had the right to refuse antipsychotic drugs unless the state established that he (1) suffers from a 'mental disorder' and (2) is 'gravely disabled' or poses a 'likelihood of serious harm' to himself, others, or their property, as those terms are defined by state law. Id. at 215, 110 S.Ct. at 1033. While the Court's analysis in Harper focused upon this state-created liberty interest, the Court also stated that, in the absence of such a state statute, a prisoner could rely directly upon the Due Process Clause for an analogous liberty interest: 16 We have no doubt that, in addition to the liberty interest created by the State's Policy, respondent possesses a significant liberty interest in avoiding the unwanted administration of antipsychotic drugs under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Upon full consideration of the state administrative scheme, however, we find that the Due Process Clause confers upon respondent no greater right than that recognized under state law. 17 Id. at 221-22, 110 S.Ct. at 1036-37 (citations omitted). Thus, the Harper Court noted that a prisoner has a liberty interest in avoiding the unwanted administration of antipsychotic drugs which stems directly from the Due Process Clause. The contours of that liberty interest were not precisely delineated, although they are no greater than the interest recognized by Washington law. 18 More recently, in Riggins v. Nevada, --- U.S. ----, ----, 112 S.Ct. 1810, 1815, 118 L.Ed.2d 479 (1992), the Supreme Court reiterated that the Due Process Clause guarantees a person in criminal custody the right to be free from antipsychotic drugs absent a finding of overriding justification and a determination of medical appropriateness. Notably, the dissenting Justice also wrote: I do not mean in any way to undervalue the importance of a person's liberty interest in avoiding forced medication or to suggest that States may drug detainees at their whim. Under Harper, detainees have an interest in avoiding unwanted medication that the States must respect. Id. --- U.S. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 1826 (Thomas, J., dissenting). 19
20 In Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 92 S.Ct. 2593, 33 L.Ed.2d 484 (1972), the Court addressed the due process implications of revoking discretionary parole. The Court held that, once an inmate is granted parole, he acquires a conditional liberty interest in parole that is protectible under the Due Process Clause. In discussing the status of a parolee, the court noted in passing that the state justifiably can condition parole on adherence to certain restrictions: 21 To accomplish the purpose of parole, those who are allowed to leave prison early are subjected to specified conditions for the duration of their terms. These conditions restrict their activities substantially beyond the ordinary restrictions imposed by law upon an individual citizen. Typically, parolees are forbidden to use liquor or to have associations or correspondence with certain categories of undesirable persons. Typically, also they must seek permission from their parole officers before engaging in specified activities, such as changing employment or living quarters, marrying, acquiring or operating a motor vehicle, traveling outside the community, and incurring substantial indebtedness. 22 Id. at 478, 92 S.Ct. at 2598 (emphasis supplied). The Court thus noted that a parolee's liberty interest is conditional rather than absolute: Revocation deprives an individual, not of the absolute liberty to which every citizen is entitled, but only of the conditional liberty properly dependent on observance of special parole restrictions. Id. at 480, 92 S.Ct. at 2600. The Court further noted that the justification for these restrictions stems in part from the parolee's conviction and in part from the need to protect society: 23 The State has found the parolee guilty of a crime against the people. That finding justifies imposing extensive restrictions on the individual's liberty. Release of the parolee before the end of his prison sentence is made with the recognition that with many prisoners there is a risk that they will not be able to live in society without committing additional anti-social acts. 24 Id. at 483, 92 S.Ct. at 2601. Despite the state's interest in restrictions, the Court concluded that, once parole is granted, a parolee has a liberty interest that requires some orderly process, however informal, before parole is revoked. 1 25 Also relevant is Greenholtz v. Inmates of the Nebraska Penal and Correctional Complex, 442 U.S. 1, 99 S.Ct. 2100, 60 L.Ed.2d 668 (1978), in which the Supreme Court addressed a prisoner's liberty interest in discretionary parole. The prisoner plaintiffs claimed that the State of Nebraska did not afford them sufficient procedural protection before deciding whether to grant them discretionary parole. The Court began its analysis by looking directly to the Due Process Clause as a potential source of a liberty interest. The Court determined that, because prisoners are not entitled to discretionary parole, but merely desire or expect it, the Due Process Clause standing alone provides no protectible interest: 26 There is no constitutional or inherent right of a convicted person to be conditionally released before the expiration of a valid sentence. The natural desire of an individual to be released is indistinguishable from the initial resistance to being confined. But the conviction, with all its procedural safeguards, has extinguished that liberty right: [G]iven a valid conviction, the criminal defendant has been constitutionally deprived of his liberty. Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 224 [96 S.Ct. 2532, 2538, 49 L.Ed.2d 451] (1976). 27 Greenholtz, 442 U.S. at 7, 99 S.Ct. at 2104. The Court distinguished Morrissey on the ground that [t]here is a crucial distinction between being deprived of a liberty one has, as in parole, and being denied a conditional liberty that one desires. Id. at 9, 99 S.Ct. at 2105. Nevertheless, the Court looked to the language of the Nebraska statute and determined that the mandatory language and structure of the statute created an expectancy of release which, once created by state law, was protectible under the Due Process Clause. Id. at 12, 99 S.Ct. at 2106. Again, in Board of Pardons v. Allen, 482 U.S. 369, 107 S.Ct. 2415, 96 L.Ed.2d 303 (1987), the Supreme Court held that a state may choose to create a protectible interest in parole by the use of mandatory language and substantive predicates to cabin the discretion of authorities. 28 In sum, Morrissey, Greenholtz, and Allen establish that, while the Due Process Clause standing alone, creates no cognizable liberty interest in being granted parole, a state may create such an interest by state law. These cases also recognize that the liberty interest created by the grant of parole is, by its nature, a conditional liberty interest that may be circumscribed to accomplish the purpose of parole. Morrissey, 408 U.S. at 478, 92 S.Ct. at 2598. 29
30 We now turn to an assessment of the case before us and determine the nature of the liberty interest (if any) possessed by Mr. Felce. 31
32 As we already have noted, in Greenholtz and Allen, the Supreme Court made clear that a state may create a liberty interest in parole by using mandatory language (e.g., shall) to create a presumption that parole will be granted when objective criteria are met. Wisconsin's mandatory release statute clearly creates such an interest. Wis.Stat.Ann. § 302.11, leaves no room for uncertainty: all state inmates are entitled to mandatory release on parole when they have completed two-thirds of their sentence, unless they have violated prison regulations so as to extend the date of their mandatory release. 2 Unlike the discretionary parole statutes at issue in Greenholtz and Allen, 3 which involve a parole board's weighing factors to determine whether or not to release an inmate on parole, the Wisconsin statute leaves no room for discretion in mandatory release; when an inmate has served two-thirds of his sentence (adjusted for time served in administrative segregation or for rules violations), the inmate is entitled to be released. 33 A mandatory release parolee is a prisoner released pursuant to [the predecessor to § 302.11] when he has served his sentence less credits for good time granted and not forfeited. He is referred to as a mandatory release parolee because the department has no discretion to deny his release unless the prisoner waives his good time. The mandatory release parolee is distinguished from the discretionary parolee. The latter is released at the discretion of the department under [the predecessor to § 304.06] when he or she has served a minimum portion of the sentence. 34 State ex rel. Bieser v. Percy, 97 Wis.2d 702, 295 N.W.2d 179, 181 (Wis.Ct.App.1980) (citation omitted). Thus, for the reasons articulated by the Court in Greenholtz and Allen, we agree with Mr. Felce that Wisconsin's mandatory release statute creates a protectible liberty interest. 35
36 As noted, in Harper the Supreme Court reviewed a Washington regulation, Policy 600.30, which provided state inmates substantive and procedural protections from involuntary treatment with antipsychotic drugs. The Court noted that, [a]s a matter of state law, the Policy itself undoubtedly confers upon respondent a right to be free from the arbitrary administration of antipsychotic medication. Harper, 494 U.S. at 221, 110 S.Ct. at 1036. More specifically, the Court found: 37 By permitting a psychiatrist to treat an inmate with antipsychotic drugs against his wishes only if he is found to be (1) mentally ill and (2) gravely disabled or dangerous, the Policy creates a justifiable expectation on the part of the inmate that the drugs will not be administered unless those conditions exist. 38 Id. Under Wisconsin law, Wis.Admin.Code § DOC 314.08, prison officials cannot force a Wisconsin inmate to take antipsychotic drugs unless the inmate has been formally committed to a state mental health facility, either on an inpatient or outpatient basis. 4 The involuntary commitment statute, Wis.Stat.Ann. § 51.20, provides extensive procedural guarantees, most of which are the same both for state inmates and for ordinary citizens. 5 Through these statutes and regulations, Wisconsin has created for prisoners a protectible liberty interest in avoiding unwanted antipsychotic drug treatment. 39
40 If Mr. Felce has a liberty interest in being free from antipsychotic drugs while in a mandatory parole status, that liberty interest must be found, as we have previously noted, in either state law or in the Due Process Clause itself. See Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U.S. at 466, 103 S.Ct. at 868-69. When we turn to state law, we find an unexplainable void in an otherwise comprehensive state regulation of involuntary treatment with antipsychotic drugs. Even a casual reading of the applicable Wisconsin statutes and administrative code sections makes it clear that Wisconsin, as a matter of public policy, has approached the issue of the involuntary use of these mind-altering drugs with great caution. While the Wisconsin Attorney General suggests that this void indicates legislative-administrative acquiescence in giving corrections authorities very broad discretion in the parole situation, that bare assertion has a hollow ring when made against the backdrop of Wisconsin's policy choices in every other situation. Indeed, we note that, in its prison regulations, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, which also administers the parole system, pointedly notes that the department considers involuntary treatment for mental illness of adult inmates to be the form of treatment of last resort. Wis.Admin.Code § DOC 314.01. 41 We are skeptical of the assertion that Wisconsin has given its corrections authorities a free hand with respect to antipsychotic drug therapy as a condition of parole while having restricted it drastically with respect to inmates. Nonetheless, the absence of state law and regulation with respect to parole makes it impossible for us to agree with Mr. Felce that Wisconsin has given mandatory parolees a liberty interest in avoiding antipsychotic drug therapy. While Wisconsin authorities may fill this gaping hole in its regulatory structure, we must, absent such action by the state, rest our decision on the strictures of the Due Process Clause, as recognized by the Supreme Court in Harper and Riggins. 42 We believe that Harper and Riggins make it clear that there is a liberty interest in not being subjected involuntarily to the administration of such drugs except when there is an overriding justification for their use and a determination of medical appropriateness. Riggins, --- U.S. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 1815. Therefore, we conclude that a parolee has a liberty interest in being free from the involuntary use of such drugs, although, as we shall detail below, that is not an unqualified one. 43
44 We turn to the second stage of the substantive analysis: the identification of the conditions under which Wisconsin considers its own interests to outweigh an individual parolee's relevant liberty interest, and the reasonableness of those conditions. See Harper, 494 U.S. at 220, 110 S.Ct. at 1035-36. The state argues that it has a greater interest in using antipsychotic drugs to control the behavior of a parolee than to control the behavior of a prisoner. In prison, the walls, guards, and other measures which are less intrusive than antipsychotic drugs can be used to protect society, other prisoners, and the inmate himself from his antisocial behavior while behind bars. Once released on parole, however, the state loses the ability to utilize these less restrictive means, and thus must have a freer hand in utilizing other forms of behavior control, such as antipsychotic drugs in order to protect the public from the parolee's potential for violent or antisocial behavior. For this reason, the state suggests, the set of conditions that it can impose on a parolee is a different set from, rather than a subset of, the conditions it can place on a prisoner. Furthermore, the state argues that the liberty interest against forced administration of antipsychotic drugs in prison does not overlap the liberty interest in mandatory release parole because, unlike a prisoner forced to take the drug, a parolee can choose to avoid the drugs by foregoing parole and serving the remainder of his sentence in prison. 45 As the defendants point out, in Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 89, 107 S.Ct. 2254, 2261, 96 L.Ed.2d 64 (1987), the Supreme Court held that when a prison regulation impinges on inmates' constitutional rights, the regulation is valid if it is reasonably related to legitimate penological interests. Indeed, in Harper, the Court confirmed that this standard applies whenever constitutional rights and prison administration collide: 46 Our earlier determination to adopt this standard of review was based upon the need to reconcile our longstanding adherence to the principle that inmates retain at least some constitutional rights despite incarceration with the recognition that prison authorities are best equipped to make difficult decisions regarding prison administration. These two principles apply in all cases in which a prisoner asserts that a prison regulation violates the Constitution, not just those in which the prisoner invokes the First Amendment. We made quite clear that the standard of review we adopted in Turner applies to all circumstances in which the needs of prison administration implicate constitutional rights. 47 Harper, 494 U.S. at 223-24, 110 S.Ct. at 1038 (citations omitted). We have no reason to doubt that this basic analysis is just as applicable to parole as to prison situations. 48 In Harper, the Supreme Court concluded that the Turner considerations, 6 when properly applied, supported the use of antipsychotic drugs in the prison setting, at least where the inmate has a serious mental illness, is dangerous to himself or others, and the treatment is in the inmate's medical best interests. Harper, 494 U.S. at 227, 110 S.Ct. at 1039; accord Riggins, --- U.S. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 1815. We believe that these same Turner considerations can justify the use of antipsychotic drugs during a period of parole. In the Wisconsin scheme, parole is an extension of the prison walls, Hauser v. Carballo, 82 Wis.2d 51, 261 N.W.2d 133, 135 (1978), and the basic responsibility of the Department of Corrections toward the inmate is no less during that period than during incarceration. Moreover, as the Supreme Court noted [w]here an inmate's mental disability is the root cause of the threat he poses to the inmate population, the State's interest in decreasing the danger to others necessarily encompasses an interest in providing him with medical treatment for his illness. Harper, 494 U.S. at 225-26, 110 S.Ct. at 1039. When a parolee is permitted significant unsupervised contact with the community, the responsibility of the Department not only continues but, in a very real sense, heightens. In the parole setting, the state arguably loses a significant number of the alternate methods it has at its disposal in the prison setting to deal with the prisoner's illness and the resultant behavior. This factor may, in the judgment of competent medical authority, increase the necessity of resort to these medications in some situations. On the other hand, the state's responsibility to the parolee includes the obligation to prepare him for even more complete reintegration into society. This factor again must be weighed with the advice of competent medical authority in determining the appropriateness of continued medication. 49 As noted earlier, Wisconsin does not have a specific regulation governing the determination of when antipsychotic drug treatment can be imposed as a condition of parole. The general regulation governing parole supervision allows parole staff to establish probation conditions designed to achieve the goals and objectives of parole. Wis.Admin.Code § DOC 328.04(3)(1). The same regulation states that the goals and objectives of parole are: to help the client be successfully reassimilated into the community, help the client adjust to and cope with community living, reduce crime, and protect the public. Wis.Admin.Code § DOC 328.04(1). These general regulations hardly embody the premise of Harper and Riggins that the use of antipsychotic drugs be justified on medical grounds for the treatment of the mentally ill parolee. Therefore, to the extent the State relies upon these general regulations as providing sufficient guidance for imposing parole conditions, its reliance is misplaced. Under the mandatory parole statute, Mr. Felce had a right to parole subject to conditions that both achieved the state's legitimate goals for the parole period and conformed to constitutional standards. 50 In short, we believe that the liberty interest against involuntary use of antipsychotic drugs guaranteed by the Due Process Clause for parolees is essentially the same as that recognized for those incarcerated in an institutional setting. While the weight given particular circumstances in the application of the Turner reasonableness analysis may be somewhat different in the parole situation than in the prison situation, the basic responsibility of the state to the inmate and those around him remains constant despite the change in the degree of physical custody. Accordingly, we believe that Mr. Felce has a conditional liberty interest in being free from the involuntary use of antipsychotic drugs during his period of mandatory parole. Before the use of such drugs can be made a condition of his continued parole, the state must demonstrate that such administration is medically indicated to accomplish the goals of the parole program of reintegrating Mr. Felce into the community. 51