Court Opinion

ID: 9477748
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:30:06.109593+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:01.449518
License: Public Domain

*690NATHANIEL R. JONES, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Because I believe that the state of the law in October 1983 was such that a responsible official in Lt. Edmonson’s position should have known that the incident report provided to Hudson was violative of Hudson’s due process rights, I respectfully dissent.
A.
My resolution of the qualified immunity issue first requires me to briefly address the merits of Hudson’s due process claim. In my view, the district court correctly concluded that the Adjustment Committee’s report issued to Hudson was insufficient as a matter of law to satisfy the due process standards enunciated in Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974). As the majority recognizes, one of the things Wolff requires is that prison officials disciplining a prisoner for serious misconduct must provide the prisoner with a “ ‘written statement by the factfinders as to the evidence relied on and reasons’ for the disciplinary action.” Id. at 564, 94 S.Ct. at 2979 (quoting Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 489, 92 S.Ct. 2593, 2604, 33 L.Ed.2d 484 (1972)). While it is true that the Court in Wolff did not explicitly indicate how detailed this “written statement” had to be, the Court did indicate that the statement should be adequate to (1) allow subsequent administrative or judicial review; (2) protect the inmate from adverse collateral consequences based upon misunderstanding of the original proceedings; and (3) ensure that prison officials would act fairly. Id. at 565, 94 S.Ct. at 2979.
The written statement issued to Hudson in this case was, in my view, clearly inadequate to fulfill any one of these announced purposes. Indeed, to suggest, as the majority does, that it is sufficient under Wolff for an Adjustment Committee to simply point to the charging officer’s report and assert that the discipline is based upon that report, deprives Wolff’s “written statement” requirement of any substance whatsoever. Even in its narrowest reading, Wolff clearly and unmistakably requires that a prisoner be given some explanation of the “reasons” for the Adjustment Committee’s action. No explanation was given to Hudson; merely rote recitations. As Judge Allen correctly observed:
The Report does not detail (or even list) what reports were presented to the Committee, who testified before the Committee, or whom the Committee believed and why the Committee credited their testimony. The Committee did not even attach any of the submitted reports or statements to the Incident Report which was filed in this case.
J.App. at 72.
Accordingly, I would affirm the district court’s decision that Hudson’s due process rights were violated in the circumstances of this case.
B.
Of course, as the majority correctly notes, even if Hudson’s due process rights were violated, Lt. Edmonson cannot be held personally liable in damages unless the state of the law in October 1983 was such that a responsible officer in a similar position should have reasonably known that the written report issued to Hudson was insufficient to satisfy due process. Stated another way, in order for Lt. Edmonson to be liable, it must have been “clearly established” prior to 1983 that a prisoner facing discipline for a major misconduct offense had a due process right to receive from the Adjustment Committee a written statement spelling out more clearly than was done here the Committee’s findings and the reasons for the disciplinary action. Because I believe it was “clearly established” in 1983 that a prisoner had such a right, I would hold that Edmonson, as chairman of the Adjustment Committee, is not entitled to qualified immunity in this case.
In order for a constitutional right to be “clearly established,” the “contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates the right.” Anderson v. Creighton, — U.S.-, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3039, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987). *691This does not mean that the “very action in question” must have previously been held unlawful; a defendant “cannot hide behind a claim that the particular factual predicate in question has never appeared in haec verba in a reported opinion.” Little v. Walker, 552 F.2d 193, 197 (7th Cir.1977). Rather, the right will be considered clearly established, and qualified immunity will be unavailable, upon the lesser showing that the unlawfulness of the official action was apparent in light of pre-existing law. Anderson, 107 S.Ct. at 3039. Thus, while an official “ ‘has, of course, no duty to anticipate unforeseeable constitutional developments,’ ... [i]f the application of settled principles to [a particular] factual tableau would inexorably lead to a conclusion of unconstitutionality, a prison official may not take solace in ostrichism.” Little, 552 F.2d at 197 (quoting O’Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U.S. 563, 577, 95 S.Ct. 2486, 2494, 45 L.Ed.2d 396 (1975)).
In my view, the holding in Wolff was by itself sufficiently clear to put a responsible official on notice that the written statement issued to Hudson would be insufficient as a matter of law to satisfy Hudson’s due process rights. Although, as I indicated earlier, the Wolff court did not explicitly articulate how detailed the written statement was required to be, the “contours” of the right were sufficiently clear that a reasonable official should have known that the cryptic statement Hudson received would not measure up. Wolff clearly requires that the written statement given to a prisoner must include the evidence relied upon and the reasons for the disciplinary action. The written statement given to Hudson merely stated that a charge of “inciting [a] riot and or rioting” was reduced to a charge of “interference” due to the “content of [the] incident report and statements to the Adjustment Committee.” (See Attachment “A,” supra). This statement reveals neither the reasons for the disciplinary action taken nor the evidence relied upon by the disciplinary committee. Hudson was not told why he was taken before a disciplinary committee in the first place, nor was he told what information the incident report contained or what statements were made to the committee and by whom. Unless Wolff’s “written statement” requirement is deprived of any substantive significance, which I believe is one result of the majority opinion, I simply cannot understand how it can be seriously maintained that it was reasonable for the Adjustment Committee to conclude, “implicitly” or otherwise, that the incident report and proceedings comported with Hudson’s due process rights.
That Wolff itself was sufficient to put responsible officials on notice that a statement like that provided to Hudson would not comport with due process is further suggested by decisions from lower federal courts interpreting and applying Wolff. For example, in Ivey v. Wilson, 577 F.Supp. 169 (W.D.Ky.1983), decided prior to the events at issue in this case, the court held that an adjustment committee's report was insufficient under Wolff. The court stated:
[T]he Committee was required to set out a short statement as to what were the facts, whose evidence was credible, etc. This statement may, indeed, be brief, and need not reach the length or complexity of a judicial “Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law.” However, the one sentence statement of the Adjustment Committee in this case is unacceptable.
Id. at 172-73.
The Ivey court based its decision entirely on Wolff’s holding that a prisoner facing discipline is entitled to a written statement by the factfinders as to the evidence relied upon and the reasons for the disciplinary action. There is absolutely no indication that the Ivey court found the Wolff decision to be unclear or that the court believed that Wolff was not itself a sufficient basis for the result reached. Moreover, the court cited with approval a 1981 decision in which the Seventh Circuit held, also solely on the basis of the language in Wolff that an adjustment committee report did not satisfy due process. Chavis v. Rowe, 643 F.2d 1281, 1286-87 (7th Cir.), cert. denied sub nom. Boles v. Chavis, 454 U.S. 907, 102 S.Ct. 415, 70 L.Ed.2d 225 (1981). Thus, while it may be true that courts prior to 1983 had not yet decided a case presenting *692the exact “factual tableau” as is presented here, it is clear that lower courts viewed Wolff’s written statement requirement as having substantive significance and were applying the Wolff decision, so viewed, in such a way that a responsible official would not have believed that a statement like that provided to Hudson would comport with due process.
The majority suggests that because Ivey was decided only three weeks prior to the events at issue in this case, the Ivey holding could not serve to appraise a reasonable official that the incident report was constitutionally deficient. The majority cites no support for this novel, and unmanageable, proposition, and I suggest that there is none. In any event, as I discussed above, since the holding in Wolff was itself sufficiently clear to outline the “contours” of the due process right to a written statement — a fact implicitly recognized in Ivey itself — it simply does not matter when Ivey, or any other case for that matter, was decided.
Finally, I do not think there is any merit to the majority’s suggestion that satisfaction of the “some evidence” standard of Superintendent, Mass. Correctional Institution v. Hill, 472 U.S. 445, 105 S.Ct. 2768, 86 L.Ed.2d 356 (1985) necessarily implies that Wolff’s written requirement has also been satisfied. As the majority points out, Hill and Wolff are concerned with entirely different issues. Hill involves the quantity of evidence necessary to support a disciplinary committee’s finding. Wolff, by contrast, focuses on the sufficiency of the written record developed by the disciplinary committee. Simply because the evidence in a particular case is “sufficient” to support a finding against a prisoner, it does not necessarily follow that the prisoner has received the kind of written statement to which he is entitled under Wolff as a matter of due process. Indeed, in my view, one of the primary reasons the Court in Hill was willing to allow a modicum of evidence to sustain a disciplinary decision was that, due to Wolff’s written statement requirement, significant protections against arbitrary action were already in place. Accordingly, I would hold that where the evidence is determined to be sufficient under Hill to support a finding of guilt or where, as here, the sufficiency of the evidence is not challenged, a court must nevertheless make an independent inquiry as to whether the written statement provided to the prisoner was sufficient under Wolff to comport with due process.
For all of the foregoing reasons, I would hold that Lt. Edmonson is not entitled to qualified immunity in this case. The lower court’s decision should be affirmed and the case remanded for a determination of damages.