Opinion ID: 2634701
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Larson's Claims in S-10431

Text: Larson argues in S-10431 that the superior court erroneously granted summary judgment to Superintendent Cooper and Officer Davis. In arguing error, he advances seven contentions: (1) Davis's order to Larson that he release his wife's hand was illegal and violated Larson's constitutional right to free exercise of religion; (2) Davis had no legitimate reason to demand that Larson release his wife's hand; (3) Larson has a liberty interest, apparently originating in the First Amendment, in having contact visitation with his wife; (4) Larson has a state-created liberty interest, originating in Alaska Constitution article I, section 12, in contact visitation; (5) DOC violated Larson's due process rights by failing to give him fair notice that hand-holding was not permissible; (6) Davis's order to Larson violated the prison standard operating procedure, thereby violating Larson's constitutional right to free exercise of religion and due process; and (7) Larson was entitled to an administrative hearing concerning his right to contact visitation. Larson provides no meaningful substantive discussion of these theories. Larson's first contention, that Davis and Cooper violated his right to free exercise of religion, is resolved by our discussion of his appeal in S-10327. Because the rules Davis and Cooper enforced did not themselves violate the right to free exercise of religion, enforcing those rules did not violate the free exercise clauses, either. [46] The rest of Larson's contentions in S-10431 turn on whether under the circumstances of this dispute he has a protectable federal or state liberty interest in contact visitation. We conclude that he does not. The United States Supreme Court has explained that under the federal constitution's Fourteenth Amendment, `[a]s long as the conditions or degree of confinement to which the prisoner is subjected is within the sentence imposed upon him and is not otherwise violative of the Constitution, the Due Process Clause does not in itself subject an inmate's treatment by prison authorities to judicial oversight.' [47] The Court has explained that the guarantee of due process does not provide a right to parole, [48] freedom from transfer to higher-security facilities, [49] or a right to avoid segregation from the general prison population. [50] We conclude that if the federal due process clause does not guarantee these benefits, it necessarily must not provide a lesser right to contact visitation. We next consider whether Alaska law has created a liberty interest that is protected by the federal constitution's Fourteenth Amendment. The United States Supreme Court explained in Sandin v. Conner that in the prison context, state-created liberty interests protected by the Fourteenth Amendment 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. [51] In Sandin, the Court ruled that discipline in segregated confinement did not present the type of atypical, significant deprivation in which a State might conceivably create a liberty interest. [52] The Court reasoned that placing a prisoner in solitary confinement for thirty days did not work a major disruption in his environment. [53] Larson was denied contact visitation for seventy-three days but was allowed secure visitation throughout that period. Whether or not the temporary suspension of all visitation might implicate a liberty interest, we agree with the defendants that temporarily suspending contact visitation, while continuing to allow secure visitation, is not so atypical and significant a hardship beyond ordinary prison life that it implicates a protected liberty interest. [54] Finally, we consider Larson's contention that the Alaska Constitution creates a protectable liberty interest in contact visitation. Larson argues that defendants Cooper and Davis deprived him of a liberty interest he claims was established by the reformation clause of article I, section 12 of the Alaska Constitution. That clause states in part, [c]riminal administration shall be based upon the following: the need for protecting the public, community condemnation of the offender, the rights of victims of crimes, restitution from the offender, and the principle of reformation. In Brandon v. State, Department of Corrections we considered article I, section 12 of the Alaska Constitution in the context of the transfer of a prisoner out of state, potentially preventing the prisoner's relatives from visiting him. [55] We recognized that visitation was a component of the constitutional right to rehabilitation. [56] But we declined to define the scope of visitation privileges protected by the constitution and any limits on the exercise of those privileges; instead, we explained that [s]uch definitions will have to be achieved in future adjudications. [57] Today we hold that a temporary suspension of contact visitation is a permissible limitation on visitation. In Matson v. Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission, we explained that [f]or the due process clause to apply, there must be `the deprivation of an individual interest of sufficient importance to warrant constitutional protection.' [58] Although visitation implicates the constitutional right to reformation, Cooper and Davis did not deprive Larson of visitation. They temporarily deprived Larson of contact visitation as a form of prison discipline. As the United States Supreme Court noted in Overton v. Bazzetta , many states us[e] withdrawal of visitation privileges for a limited period as a regular means of effecting prison discipline. This is not a dramatic departure from accepted standards for conditions of confinement. [59] But as the Court recognized, [i]f the withdrawal of all visitation privileges were permanent or for a much longer period, or if it were applied in an arbitrary manner to a particular inmate, the case would present different considerations. [60] In this case, the temporary interference with Larson's contact visitation privileges as a means of effecting prison discipline was not so severe that it implicated a constitutionally protected liberty interest.