Opinion ID: 373420
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Excessive and Inequitable Punishment

Text: 36 Rhodes's third and final objection to the misconduct proceedings concerns the punishment received. The facts underlying this claim are undisputed. Rhodes's misconduct was to engage in a heated argument with another inmate, Peter Melnyozenko, during the course of which he threatened to kill Melnyozenko. For this conduct, he was placed in Administrative Custody Maximum, which is confinement segregated from the rest of the prison population, and dismissed from his job in the prison law library. The hearing committee also recommended that Rhodes be transferred to another prison. Rhodes was released from administrative custody after about a month. He complains that his punishment was excessive and greater than the punishment received by other prisoners for similar offenses. 37 Punishment is unconstitutional only if it violates the eighth amendment's standard of cruel and unusual punishment. We previously have relied upon Mr. Justice Brennan's cumulative test for applying the cruel and unusual standard: 38 If a punishment is unusually severe, if there is a strong probability that it is inflicted arbitrarily, if it is substantially rejected by contemporary society, and if there is no reason to believe that it serves any penal purpose more effectively than some less severe punishment . . . . 39 Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 282, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 2748, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972) (Brennan, J., concurring), Cited in Hodges v. Klein, 562 F.2d 276, 278 (3d Cir. 1977) (per curiam). Considering the seriousness of a threat to kill and the problems that this type of conduct can cause for prison order and security, the punishment that Rhodes received is not excessive to the severe degree contemplated in this reading of the eighth amendment. 40 In support of his charge of inequity, Rhodes offers one other case of inmate misconduct: his adversary Melnyozenko and an inmate named McCool were charged with fistfighting. A hearing board found that McCool started the fight, placed him in administrative custody for thirty days, and dismissed the charges against Melnyozenko. Because the punishment handed down in any case of prisoner misconduct is determined on the basis of the facts of the particular case, the equal protection clause cannot require exact uniformity in degrees of punishment. However, we need not consider what particular constraints equal protection might place on prisoner discipline. At the very least, the prisoner challenging punishment as inequitable must demonstrate disparities in punishment that are not reasonably related to legitimate state interests. See Hodges v. Klein, 562 F.2d 276, 278 (3d Cir. 1977) (per curiam). The prison administration could reasonably conclude that a threat to kill poses a greater danger to the maintenance of order and security than does a fistfight. Thus, the disparity in this case is not a constitutional violation. 41 The district court correctly found that defendants were entitled to judgment as a matter of law.