Court Opinion

ID: 9527728
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:33:29.482662+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:09.314223
License: Public Domain

SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, J.
(dissenting). I would affirm the decision of the circuit court and the court of appeals vacating the decision of the adjustment committee. Because the record before this court is incomplete, the decision of the adjustment committee must be vacated.
The adjustment committee based its decision first on the informant’s confidential statement, which the committee said was freely given, sworn to, and notarized. *153Yet the informant’s sworn and notarized confidential statement is not in the record. The record before the circuit court, court of appeals, and this court contains only a summary of the informant’s confidential statement. The summary was not prepared by the informant.
Furthermore, there are discrepancies between the summary of the informant’s confidential statement and other documents in the record. Significantly, the summary of the statement in no way indicates that the informant ever actually saw Hoover breaking the glass of the bathroom. An officer’s conduct report, however, specifically states that “Hoover cut a screen out and was observed smashing a window out in A wing bathroom of housing unit 4.”
HSS 303.76 provides in part that “[t]he hearing officer or adjustment committee may question the inmate and otherwise investigate the case and shall decide the guilt or innocence of the inmate and the ‘punishment to be imposed.” (Emphasis added.) Thus, although the majority concludes that Hoover waived his right to a formal hearing, it is clear that Hoover did not plead guilty and that under the rules he was entitled to a decision based on facts in the record by which the institution established his guilt. HSS 303.75 (4), 303.78 (2).
As the majority correctly sets forth, “In reviewing the committee’s order on certiorari the reviewing court is limited to determining: (1) Whether the committee kept within its jurisdiction; (2) whether it acted according to law; (3) whether its action was arbitrary, oppressive or unreasonable; and (4) whether the evidence was such that it might reasonably make the order or determination in question.” P. 140 (citing State ex rel. Staples v. DHSS, 115 Wis. 2d 363, 369, 370, 340 N.W2.d 194 (1983)).
Given that the informant’s confidential statement played a major part in the adjustment committee’s decision, that report should have been a part of the record *154on appeal. Without it, and in light of the contradictions between the summary of the statement and the other documents in the record, no reviewing court can determine whether the committee acted according to law or acted arbitrarily or whether the evidence was such that the committee might reasonably make the decision in question.
Although the evidence apart from the informant’s statement is adequate to support the adjustment committee’s decision, I cannot affirm the committee’s decision which rests substantially on a document not before the court.