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

Heading: Close Supervision Unit Confinement.

Text: Frazier next contends that the district court erred in holding that he had no liberty interest under Hewitt in remaining free from confinement in the CSU. Although we examine this issue in light of Sandin, we arrive at the same result as the district court. It is true that Frazier remained in the CSU for eleven months before being assigned to the general prison population at Shawangunk. But inmates in the CSU are confined to their cells for the same amount of time per day as inmates in the general prison population. Moreover, it was undisputed at trial that the only substantive differences between confinement in the CSU and in the general prison population are (i) that prisoners in the CSU are ineligible for certain prison jobs, and (ii) that additional corrections officers may be assigned to the CSU. Frazier’s contention that, while confined in the CSU, he was constitutionally deprived of a job in the prison’s laundry is without merit, since in New York a prisoner has no protected liberty interest in a particular job assignment. See Cooper v. Smith, 99 A.D.2d 644, 471 N.Y.S.2d 932, 933 (4th Dep’t), aff'd, 63 N.Y.2d 615, 479 N.Y.S.2d 519, 468 N.E.2d 701 (1984). In any event, testimony adduced at trial indicated that Frazier was ineligible to work in the laundry because of previous infractions of prison rules. As to the assignment of additional corrections officers, there is no claim here that New York confers upon inmates a protected liberty interest in controlling the number and deployment of corrections personnel at various places in the prison. Thus, the evidence at trial establishes that Frazier’s confinement to the CSU imposed on him no “atypical and significant hardship ... in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life.” Sandin, — U.S. at -, 115 S.Ct. at 2300. Frazier also contends that the hearing conducted by the CSU Screening Committee lacked necessary procedural protections, and that he was not provided with advance notice of the hearing. However, since Frazier failed to establish that he had a protected liberty interest in remaining free from confinement in the CSU under Sandin, he cannot assert a claim that he was denied due process in the procedures that confined him there.