Opinion ID: 196519
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Applying Sandin

Text: C. Applying Sandin Defendants argue that Sandin requires this court to affirm the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's due process claim. They agree with the lower court that the language of the regulations and Agreement was insufficient to create a liberty interest in any event, but argue that removal from work release and return to regular confinement did not meet Sandin's new threshold criterion of an atypical and significant hardship . . . in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life. Id. at 2300. If solitary confinement for thirty days did not, in Sandin, rise to the level of an atypical, significant hardship, then surely removal from work release does not do so, defendants say. Plaintiff replies that Sandin is unclear about the extent to which the standard for recognizing liberty interests has changed. He argues that the Due Process Clause still protects inmates against important deprivations, and that removal from work release and transfer to a higher security prison constitute an atypical and significant hardship. -10- We have some sympathy for plaintiff's complaint. His removal from a work release program in which he was apparently functioning well, and his transfer to a medium security facility, may well, from his perspective, seem unjust. But the federal courts are not authorized by law to second-guess the policies of prison administrators in a general sense. The question assigned to us is whether plaintiff had a liberty interest in remaining in work release status, such that under the Fourteenth Amendment he was entitled to due process of law before that privilege could be revoked. We are constrained to agree with defendants that the new threshold test articulated in Sandin precludes our finding a liberty interest and bars relief.6 As in Sandin, the state's action here did not in any way affect the duration of Dominique's state sentence. See id. at 2301-2302. Additionally, his transfer to a more secure facility subjected him to conditions no different from those ordinarily experienced by large numbers of other inmates serving their sentences in customary fashion. In Sandin, the Supreme Court observed that conditions in the segregated confinement at issue mirrored those conditions imposed upon inmates in administrative segregation and protective 6. Sandin applies retroactively to the present case, the Supreme Court having applied the rule announced in Sandin to the parties in that case. See Rivers v. Roadway Express, Inc., 114 S. Ct. 1510, 1519 (1994); Harper v. Virginia Dep't of Taxation, 113 S. Ct. 2510, 2517 (1993). -11- custody. Id. at 2301 (footnote omitted). The Court found support in this similarity for the proposition that [b]ased on a comparison between inmates inside and outside disciplinary segregation, the State's actions in placing him there for 30 days did not work a major disruption in his environment. Id. (footnote omitted). Similarly here, any hardship was not atypical in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life. It is true that there is a considerable difference between the freedoms Dominique enjoyed when he was in work release status and the conditions of incarceration at a medium security facility. To return from the quasi-freedom of work release to the regimentation of life within four walls may be said, relatively speaking, to have been a significant deprivation. Nonetheless, confinement within four walls of the type plaintiff now endures is an ordinary incident of prison life. It is not atypical. The Court has noted that an inmate's subjective expectations are not dispositive of the liberty-interest analysis. See id., 115 S.Ct. at 2301 n.9. If Dominique's contrary argument were to prevail, we would open the door to finding an atypical...restraint whenever an inmate is moved from one situation to a significantly harsher one that is, nonetheless, a commonplace aspect of prison existence. For example, a liberty interest -12- could be claimed if an inmate were moved into less agreeable surroundings than his initial placement. Similarly, a liberty interest might be claimed whenever authorities or the state legislature decided to eliminate or cut back work release programs or furloughs. Such changes, painful to those affected, could be regarded under plaintiff's argument as implicating liberty interests even though the prisoner was never placed in conditions going beyond the customary rigors of prison life. Such an outcome, we believe, would directly conflict with Sandin's teachings. Sandin's new standard was expressly adopted by a majority of the Supreme Court to afford appropriate deference and flexibility to state officials trying to manage a volatile environment. Id. at 2299. The Court plainly intended to eliminate the basis for federal due process claims stemming from internal transfers and status changes that do not result in atypical hardship, i.e., hardship beyond the norms of ordinary prison life. Hence the state's removal of Dominique's measure of freedom, replacing it with confinement of a sort commonly associated with ordinary prison life, did not violate anything that can be termed a liberty interest. See Klos v. Haskell, 48 F.3d 81 (2d Cir. 1995) (a pre-Sandin case denying relief on strikingly similar facts, cited with apparent approval in Sandin, 115 S. Ct. at 2299-2300). -13- Plaintiff urges that execution of the Agreement shows that a matter sufficiently important to give rise to a liberty interest is at stake. Prison officials, it is said, do not enter into agreements with inmates concerning the ordinary incidents of prison life. As the district court found, however, the Agreement preserved broad decisionmaking authority of state officials and the regulations did not impose any duty to retain plaintiff in the work release program. And, that analysis aside, withdrawal of work release privileges did not meet Sandin's threshold test of working a significant and atypical hardship in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life. While we may regret the disappointment and frustration inherent in such withdrawal, the hardship was not atypical. Cf. Bulger v. United States Bureau of Prisons, 65 F.3d 48, 49-50 (5th Cir. 1995) (inmate terminated from a prison job permitting the automatic accrual of good-time credits lacked a protected liberty interest, despite apparent violation of a state regulation); see also Mitchell v. Dupnik, 67 F.3d 216, 221 (9th Cir. 1995) (inmate lacked a protected liberty interest, despite corrections officer's violation of prison regulations); Orellana v. Kyle, 65 F.3d 29, 32 (5th Cir.) (the ambit of [prisoners'] potential Fourteenth Amendment due process liberty claims has been dramatically narrowed by -14- Sandin), petition for cert. filed, (U.S. Sep. 15, 1995) (No. 95-6743). Under the standard announced in Sandin, we hold that plaintiff's loss of work release privileges did not affect any state-created liberty interest of his, hence did not violate the Due Process Clause.7