Opinion ID: 164295
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Contention 7: Equal Protection

Text: -7- Plaintiff alleges that his equal-protection rights are being violated because he is not treated the same as other prisoners. “[A]bsent an allegation of a suspect classification, our review of prison officials’ differing treatment of various inmates is quite deferential: in order to withstand an equal-protection challenge, those classifications must be reasonably related to a legitimate penological purpose.” Gwinn, 2004 WL 49840 at . Plaintiff’s treatment differs from that of other inmates because he has refused to participate in the SATP. Prison officials determined that Plaintiff (as opposed to some other prisoners) should participate in the program because he had committed sex offenses. As we held in Gwinn, a requirement that a sex offender participate in a treatment program bears a rational relationship to rehabilitative objectives. Id. Accordingly, we reject Plaintiff’s equal-protection claim. C. Contentions (8), (11), and (12): Privilege Against Selfincrimination To the extent that Plaintiff continues to allege a violation of his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, we conclude that the district court properly dismissed his claim. In McCune the Supreme Court held that the Kansas SATP—the same program involved in this case—did not violate the plaintiff’s right against self-incrimination. See McCune, 536 U.S. at 48-49 (O’Connor, J., concurring). The circumstances addressed in that case are virtually identical to those faced by Plaintiff, with the only notable distinction being that -8- Plaintiff, unlike the plaintiff in McCune, alleged that he had been denied goodtime credits (resulting in ineligibility for parole) as a result of his refusal to admit guilt. See R. Doc. No. 5 at 3; McCune, 536 U.S. at 38 (“In the present case, respondent’s decision not to participate in the Kansas SATP did not extend his term of incarceration. Nor did his decision affect his eligibility for good-time credits or parole.”). But any attempt by Plaintiff to distinguish his situation from that involved in McKune on this basis must fail in light of our decision in Searcy v. Simmons, 299 F.3d 1220, 1226-27 (10th Cir. 2002), which held that the plaintiff’s privilege against self-incrimination was not violated even though his refusal to make the admissions required for participation in a sexual-abusetreatment program caused him to lose good-time credits. Moreover, in Gwinn, 2004 WL at , in the course of rejecting a similar argument, we noted that “parole decisions are . . . discretionary,” and held that Mr. Gwinn’s “choice between the opportunity to earn [good-time] credits . . . and retain favorable parole status or declining that opportunity by refusing to participate in the treatment program . . . did not rise to a level where it [was] likely to compel a person to be a witness against himself.” See also Payne v. Kan. Parole Bd., 887 P.2d 147, 151 (Kan. Ct. App. 1994) (“The [Kansas Parole Board] has sole authority to grant or deny parole and is vested with broad discretion in how it -9- determines if inmates will be paroled.”). Accordingly, we conclude that the district court correctly dismissed Plaintiff’s Fifth Amendment claim. D. Contention 9: Retroactive Application of IMPP 11-101 Plaintiff’s crimes occurred on November 18, 1990. The incentive-level system of which he complains was implemented by IMPP 11-101, which took effect in 1996. See Vinson v. McKune, 960 P.2d 222, 223 (Kan. 1998). Plaintiff consequently contends that the application of IMPP 11-101 to him amounts to a violation of the Ex Post Facto Clause. The Kansas Supreme Court has considered this issue. It concluded that although IMPP 11-101 “may affect the conditions upon which the inmate’s sentence is served,” its provisions “do not increase punishment beyond what was prescribed when the crime was consummated,” and therefore do not violate the Ex Post Facto Clause. Vinson, 960 P.2d at 224-25. We agree. “[T]he ex post facto prohibition . . . forbids the imposition of punishment more severe than the punishment assigned by law when the act to be punished occurred.” Weaver v. Graham, 450 U.S. 24, 30 (1981). The incentive-level system simply provides a mechanism by which the Department of Corrections may effectively manage prisoners. Its application to Plaintiff has not resulted in an increase in the penalty for the offenses of which he was convicted. Plaintiff has therefore not stated a claim for an ex post facto violation. -10- E. Contention 15: District Court’s Refusal to Allow Plaintiff to Amend his Complaint Plaintiff asserts that the district court should have considered supplemental issues that he raised in his response to the show-cause order. The court’s ruling was correct, however, because the supplemental issues lacked merit. The sole new issue raised was the claim that he was subjected to double jeopardy when the Parole Board considered the serious nature of the crime of which he was convicted. We disagree. “The Double Jeopardy Clause protects defendants against (1) a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal, (2) a second prosecution for the same offense after conviction, and (3) multiple punishments for the same offense.” Anderson v. Mullin, 327 F.3d 1148, 1153 (10th Cir. 2003) (internal quotation marks omitted). “Because the denial of parole does not change the length of a prisoner’s sentence, it is not the imposition of more than one punishment for the same offense as prohibited by the double jeopardy clause.” Mahn v. Gunter, 978 F.2d 599, 602, n.7 (10th Cir. 1992) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Kell v. United States Parole Comm’n, 26 F.3d 1016, 1020 (10th Cir. 1994) (“Parole determinations are not viewed as criminal punishment subject to the Double Jeopardy Clause.”) Plaintiff has consequently not been subjected to double jeopardy. He has not been prosecuted a second time, and the Parole Board’s decision to deny him parole does not constitute an additional punishment -11- for the same offense. Therefore, Plaintiff’s response to the show-cause order does not state a claim for a double jeopardy violation.