Opinion ID: 166742
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The State's Arguments

Text: 30 In maintaining that Mr. Wilson's conviction did not implicate a liberty interest, the State advances several arguments. We find none of them persuasive. 31 First, the State notes that prison officials have discretion to change an inmate's classification status. It contends that prison officials could have used that discretion to change Mr. Wilson's classification at any time and that, as a result, the misconduct conviction did not inevitably affect his sentence. In our view, the State ignores the fact that Mr. Wilson's conviction resulted in a mandatory change in credit-earning status. In light of that mandatory effect, the fact that prison officials have discretion to change a prisoner's classification when considering other conduct is irrelevant. As Judge Easterbrook observed in Montgomery, states have been held to create liberty interests in the expectation of early release even where the statute at issue afforded plenty of discretion to prison administrators. Id.; see also Bd. of Pardons v. Allen, 482 U.S. 369, 375-76, 107 S.Ct. 2415, 96 L.Ed.2d 303 (1987) (explaining that an official has discretion if his duty is defined by standards that reasonable [people] can interpret in different ways and that the presence of official discretion in this sense is not incompatible with the existence of a liberty interest in parole release when release is required after the Board determines (in its broad discretion) that the necessary prerequisites exist) (quotation marks omitted) (alteration in original). 32 The State also directs us to a number of unpublished cases in this circuit that are somewhat similar to Mr. Wilson's case, although all but one pre-date Gamble. Those cases generally hold that a demotion in classification status does not necessarily implicate a liberty interest. Although we are not bound by these unpublished orders, we believe that they are distinguishable from the present case. 33 In Hudson v. Ward , the one post- Gamble case that the State cites, the classification demotion did not occur mandatorily as a result of a misconduct conviction but rather resulted from an ordinary exercise of prison officials' discretion. 124 Fed.Appx. 599, 601-02 (10th Cir. Feb. 14, 2005) (unpublished); see also Smith v. Okla. Dep't of Corr., 98 F.3d 1350 (10th Cir. Oct.8, 1996) (unpublished) (holding that a loss of job for unsatisfactory performance, which resulted in a demotion in credit-earning status, does not implicate a liberty interest); Brown v. Champion, 61 F.3d 915 (10th Cir. July 24, 1995) (unpublished) (stating that the reclassification that resulted from a misconduct conviction was entirely discretionary with prison officials). Davis v. Ward presents a situation that is much like Mr. Wilson's case, but Davis was a pre- Gamble decision that could not take into account the published opinion's decision to restore prisoners' former credit-earning statuses, nor did it consider the mandatory character of the prison regulation that removes discretion from prison officials. 1 92 Fed.Appx. 634, 635-36 (10th Cir. Feb. 9, 2004) (unpublished). 34 Finally, the State urges us to follow Templeman v. Gunter, 16 F.3d 367 (10th Cir.1994), a published case that the magistrate judge cited in her recommendation that Mr. Wilson did not suffer a liberty deprivation. Templeman analyzed Colorado law and held that when a prisoner was transferred to administrative segregation, he was not deprived of a liberty interest because the regulation governing such a transfer stated that transfer was within the sound exercise of discretion by the classification officer. Id. at 369. The prison regulation listed a few factors officials should consider prior to transfer, but specified that the list is not exhaustive and includes any other reasons of similar magnitude deemed sufficient. Id. (citation and quotation omitted). Again, because prison officials had the discretion to reclassify the prisoner into administrative segregation, and [o]nce there, Templeman did not meet the criteria for receiving earned time, the prisoner was not deprived of a liberty interest. Id. at 370. 35 Templeman is significantly different from the instant case in several respects. First, Templeman analyzed an entirely different set of regulations than those that Oklahoma prison officials use. Second, unlike in Colorado, where officials had nearly unbridled discretion to transfer the prisoner, Oklahoma's prison officials must follow statutory and regulatory criteria when deciding whether to reclassify a prisoner. Finally, this court in Templeman relied upon the fact that the Colorado officials reasonably concluded that inmates in administrative segregation do not meet ... the criteria for receiving earned time. Id. Certainly prison officials' exercises of discretion should generally be respected, as federal courts ought to afford appropriate deference and flexibility to state officials trying to manage a volatile environment. Sandin, 515 U.S. at 482, 115 S.Ct. 2293. Nonetheless, as we have repeatedly stressed, Mr. Wilson's reclassification did not occur because of an exercise of discretion, but rather was an automatic and mandatory sanction resulting from an erroneous misconduct conviction. 36 Accordingly, following Sandin, and for the reasons reviewed above, we hold that the Class X misconduct inevitably affected the duration of Mr. Wilson's sentence and therefore deprived him of a liberty interest. Because of this deprivation, we now examine whether the underlying misconduct conviction comported with due process