Court Opinion

ID: 9631416
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:37:19.757752+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:53.597053
License: Public Domain

Larson, J.,
concurring: I concur in the result reached by the majority as well as much of the reasoning of its opinion. I write separately only because I do not believe we should, in a case involving administrative segregation, set down rules which would govern and apply to disciplinary segregation as well.
I would not reach or make the analysis herein that the majority has made of Davis v. Finney, 21 Kan. App. 2d 547, 902 P.2d 498 (1995).
I view the holding in Davis, 21 Kan. App. 2d 547, Syl. ¶ 1, that
“Kansas courts will not review an inmate’s claim that he or she was placed in either administrative or disciplinary segregation in violation of due process of law unless: (1) the state law and regulation structuring the authority of prison officials contain language of an unmistakably mandatory character requiring certain procedures to be employed and the punishment will not occur absent specified substantive predicates, and (2) the discipline imposed represents a significant and atypical hardship on the prisoner which is not contemplated within the realm of conditions of the original sentence,”
as representing a continuation of the Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U.S. 460, 468, 74 L. Ed. 2d 675, 103 S. Ct. 864 (1983), test and adding thereto the Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 132 L. Ed. 2d 418, 115 S. Ct. 2293 (1995), “atypical and significant hardship” test.
I read Sandin as abolishing the test of Hewitt stated in Syl. ¶ 1 of Davis, which the majority has continued herein. In a disciplinary segregation case, I believe our analysis must follow the direction of the Sandin majority opinion, which stated:
“In light of the above discussion, we believe that the search for a negative implication from mandatoiy language in prisoner regulations has strayed from the real concerns undergirding the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause. The time has come to return to the due process principles we believe were correctly established and applied in Wolff and Meachum. Following Wolff, we recognize that States may under certain circumstances create liberty interests which are protected by the Due Process Clause. See also Board of Pardons v. Allen, 482 *668U.S. 369[, 96 L. Ed. 2d 303, 107 S. Ct. 2415] (1987). But these interests will generally be limited to freedom from restraint which, while not exceeding the sentence in such an unexpected manner as to give rise to protection by the Due Process Clause of its own force, see, e.g., Vitek, 445 U.S., at 493[, 63 L. Ed. 2d 552, 100 S. Ct. 1254] (transfer to mental hospital), and Washington, 494 U.S., at 221-222[, 108 L. Ed. 2d 178, 110 S. Ct. 1028] (involuntary administration of psychotropic drugs), nonetheless imposes atypical and significant hardship on the inmate in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life.” 515 U.S. at 483-84.
We have not carefully reviewed and applied Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 49 L. Ed. 2d 451, 96 S. Ct. 2532 (1976) or Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 41 L. Ed. 2d 935, 94 S. Ct. 2963 (1974), which should be the guideposts in a determination of whether a Kansas inmate has a liberty interest in being free from disciplinary segregation. Although I agree a Kansas inmate has no liberty interest in remaining free of administrative segregation, I believe the differences in administrative and disciplinary segregation mandate that our holding in this case should be limited to administrative segregation.
I would not approve of the dual and conjunctive tests of Davis, as the majority has done, and would reach issues involving disciplinary segregation only when properly raised and briefed in a case involving the invocation of disciplinary segregation in Kansas.
Six, J., joins in the foregoing concurring opinion.