Court Opinion

ID: 9489309
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:11:30.807516+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:27.035241
License: Public Domain

*435RIPPLE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
We ought to decide the appropriate interpretation of Sandin v. Conner, — U.S. -, 115 S.Ct. 2293, 132 L.Ed.2d 418 (1995), before returning this case to the district court. I do not believe that there is, as a practical matter, a judicial economy in returning this case to the district court without our first deciding the appropriate legal standard that must govern further proceedings. The Indiana Reformatory is classified as a maximum security institution for male felons. Indiana Dep’t of Correction v. Indiana Civil Rights Comm’n, 486 N.E.2d 612, 614 (Ind.Ct.App.1985). Before we ask the district court to go behind this label of “maximum security” and to compare minutely the conditions at the Indiana Reformatory with those of other institutions that bear the same classification, we ought to determine whether such a judicial inquiry was contemplated by the Supreme Court. It does not seem at all practical to expect a federal judge to make a determination as to which state prison is the “most secure” in Indiana.