Opinion ID: 184384
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Did Brown's Placement in Administrative Segregation Violate the Due Process Clause?

Text: 17 Brown's placement in administrative segregation violated the Due Process Clause only if two conditions are met: Brown had a liberty interest in avoiding that term of segregation, and Brown did not receive the process he was due. The first of these questions raises difficult issues of constitutional law; the second, only narrow questions of fact. We therefore discuss the first question only to the extent necessary to explain why we do not decide it, and focus on the second. 18
19 In Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 115 S.Ct. 2293, 132 L.Ed.2d 418 (1995), the Supreme Court reworked the framework for analyzing whether a prisoner has a state-created liberty interest in avoiding a particular deprivation. Before Sandin, this question was answered in much the same way as were questions about the existence of other liberty or property interests: if state laws or regulations contained language constraining the discretion of state officials, a liberty interest existed. See, e.g., Hewitt, 459 U.S. at 471-72, 103 S.Ct. at 871-72. The Sandin Court found that this approach had given states disincentives to ... codify prison management procedures and led to the inappropriate involvement of federal courts in the day-to-day management of prisons. 515 U.S. at 482, 115 S.Ct. at 2299. It therefore found that, although States may under certain circumstances create liberty interests which are protected by the Due Process Clause, these interests will generally be limited to freedom from restraint which ... imposes atypical and significant hardship on the inmate in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life. Id. at 484, 115 S.Ct. at 2300. 20 Applying Sandin to this case presents a number of difficulties. First, although Sandin clearly dictates that we compare the hardship experienced by the inmate to the ordinary incidents of prison life, it is not clear which prison or part of a prison is to provide the standard of comparison. At various points in Sandin, the Court compared the prisoner's conditions in disciplinary segregation in Hawaii's Halawa Correctional Facility to administrative segregation and protective custody in that prison, to the general population of that prison, and to an undefined range of confinement to be normally expected for one serving an indeterminate term of 30 years to life. See Sandin, 515 U.S. at 486-87, 115 S.Ct. at 2301-02. 21 The District suggests that, because the Attorney General has authority to transfer persons convicted in the District to any other prison nationwide, the appropriate baseline for our analysis is in fact the most rigorous prison in the nation. 6 The parties have not addressed, however, what may be a prerequisite to such an argument: evidence that such transfers are totally discretionary, a point the Sandin Court found important in determining that it was appropriate to use conditions in administrative segregation and protective custody at Halawa as a baseline for comparison. See 515 U.S. at 486, 115 S.Ct. at 2301. At least one court has accepted a variant of this argument: the Seventh Circuit has found that, because inmates may be transferred within the Indiana prison system, the test of whether a deprivation is atypical and significant turns on a comparison with conditions in the state's most rigorous prison. Wagner v. Hanks, 128 F.3d 1173 (7th Cir.1997). 7 The Wagner court also noted that, [327 U.S.App.D.C. 320] because Indiana can transfer its prisoners out of state, the proper standard of comparison may in fact be the most rigorous prison in the nation; it declined, however, to decide whether logic should be pressed so far, and remanded the case for further fact-finding. Id. at 1176. 22 Even were we to reject the District's transfer argument, we would still face a number of unsettled questions about how to apply Sandin to this case. Caselaw from the Second and Ninth Circuits suggests that whether a term in segregation amounts to an atypical and significant deprivation turns on its length and on a comparison of conditions in segregation and in the prison's general population. See, e.g., Brooks v. DiFasi, 112 F.3d 46, 48-49 (2d Cir.1997); Keenan v. Hall, 83 F.3d 1083, 1089 (9th Cir.1996). Other courts have not adopted so structured an analysis; for instance, the Fifth Circuit has concluded that a term in administrative segregation was not atypical and significant without discussing conditions in the segregation unit or the length of the segregation at all. See Luken v. Scott, 71 F.3d 192, 193 (5th Cir.1995), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 1690, 134 L.Ed.2d 791 (1996). Were we to follow the approach of the Second and Ninth Circuits, we would then need to decide whether the length and severity of the deprivation Brown experienced sufficed to render that deprivation atypical and significant, a close and difficult question. Compare Sealey v. Giltner, 116 F.3d 47, 51-52 (2d Cir.1997) (remanding for specific findings on conditions of confinement in the case of an inmate held in administrative segregation for six months) with Mackey v. Dyke, 111 F.3d 460, 463 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 118 S.Ct. 136, --- L.Ed.2d ---- (1997) (finding that a six-month term in administrative segregation was not atypical and significant, with no discussion of conditions in segregation). And, finally, we would need to decide whether Sandin's atypical and significant test merely supplements Hewitt's test for the existence of a liberty interest, or supersedes it altogether. See The Supreme Court, 1994 Term--Leading Cases, 109 HARV. L.REV. 111, 147-50 (1995) (discussing this question). We do not think it necessary or even useful to resolve so many complex and fact-specific issues in the context of this case which it may be possible to decide on far narrower grounds. 23
24 By contrast to the liberty-interest question, whether Brown received the process he was due turns on a few simple questions of fact. The decision to place an inmate who has a liberty interest in administrative segregation is subject to limited procedural safeguards. An inmate must merely receive some notice of the charges against him and an opportunity to present his views to the prison official charged with deciding whether to transfer him to administrative segregation.... So long as this occurs, and the decisionmaker reviews the charges and the then-available evidence against the prisoner, the Due Process Clause is satisfied. Hewitt, 459 U.S. at 476, 103 S.Ct. at 874. This process may be conducted a reasonable time after the transfer, and may be done either orally or in writing; periodic reviews are required after the initial transfer. See id. at 476-77 & n. 9, 103 S.Ct. at 873-74 & n. 9. 25 Brown contends that, because his placement in administrative confinement was based on an express finding that he had assaulted a correctional officer, it was essentially disciplinary in nature, so that he is entitled to the more extensive procedural protections applied to disciplinary hearings in Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 563-71, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974). Although Wolff itself involved both discipline and the loss of good time, we have applied Wolff in cases in which only discipline was at issue. See Crosby-Bey v. District of Columbia, 786 F.2d 1182, 1185 (D.C.Cir.1986) (per curiam). But Brown has not established that his treatment was disciplinary in nature. Prison officials may appropriately place an inmate in administrative segregation if she represents a threat to the institution's security. Hewitt, 459 U.S. at 474, 103 S.Ct. at 872-73. The fact that prison officials have made a finding that the inmate has committed an assault, [327 U.S.App.D.C. 321] rather than operating on the charge or suspicion that she has done so or will do so, does not trigger Wolff. 8 26 We therefore conclude that only the procedures required in Hewitt--some notice, and an opportunity for the inmate to present his views, 459 U.S. at 476, 103 S.Ct. at 873-74--apply to this case. 9 Hewitt 's requirements are not elaborate, but they are real, and must be strictly complied with. The present record raises two questions as to whether Brown had fair notice of the purpose and implications of the Housing Board hearing. 27 Brown was initially told that he would receive a disciplinary hearing on October 16 on charges of Threatening Conduct and Possession of Major Contraband. Then, on October 15, he was brought before the Housing Board. It is not clear whether Brown was told that this hearing would be his only opportunity to respond to the charges against him. With certain exceptions, D.C. regulations prohibit inmates from being held in administrative segregation for more than three days without a hearing before the Housing Board. D.C. Mun. Regs. tit. 28, §§ 521.7, 531.10 (1987). Brown might thus have assumed that the Housing Board hearing was only intended to consider his temporary placement in administrative segregation pending the Adjustment Board's decision, and that he would have an opportunity to defend himself on any charges at the Adjustment Board hearing on the following day. On remand, the district court should determine whether Brown made this mistaken assumption, and if so whether it was reasonable for him to do so in light of what he was told about the purpose of the Housing Board hearing. 28 It is also not clear whether Brown knew that the Housing Board hearing was intended to address charges that he had assaulted a correctional officer. Brown had only been notified of an Adjustment Board hearing on charges of Threatening Conduct and Possession of Major Contraband. He had previously received a disciplinary report charging him with Bodily Injury; the fact that this charge was apparently not to be addressed at the Adjustment Board hearing could have reasonably led him to conclude that it had been dropped. 10 Nor does the Housing Board Action Sheet that appears in the record provide any evidence as to whether Brown was told at the hearing that the Board would consider whether he had committed an assault. It records Brown only as saying that he does not fear for his safety and that he wants to have access to a law library, words that might suggest Brown thought that the hearing was about whether he himself was threatened and wished to be placed in voluntary protective custody. 11 29 [327 U.S.App.D.C. 322] If Brown was not provided an accurate picture of what was at stake in the hearing, then he was not given his due process. See Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306, 314-15, 70 S.Ct. 652, 657-58, 94 L.Ed. 865 (1950); Memphis Light, Gas & Water Division v. Craft, 436 U.S. 1, 14-15, 98 S.Ct. 1554, 1562-63, 56 L.Ed.2d 30 (1978). On the other hand, if he was advised of the charges that would be considered against him and given an opportunity to present his views, then he was given all the process he was due. Hewitt, 459 U.S. at 476, 103 S.Ct. at 874. Because there is no record as to what occurred at the Housing Board hearing, we find it necessary to remand to the district court for further development of the facts surrounding this hearing.