Court Opinion

ID: 9480824
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:59:49.031932+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:56.227616
License: Public Domain

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment.
Illinois has a rule of the form: “The warden may do A for any reason, but if that reason is M the warden must prove M before acting.” Alternatively a state might say: “The warden may do A for any reason except M.” Does either create a “liberty” interest, so that the due process clauses require hearings before the state acts? Judge Sneed answers “it depends on whether the warden is acting for reason M” and supports affirmance because, he concludes, the warden’s reason was not M. Judge Cudahy apparently agrees with this approach but not with its application. I conclude that neither of these rules creates a liberty interest and therefore believe that the warden’s reason is irrelevant. This brings me out with Judge Sneed, although for a different reason.
A in our case is changing the prisoner’s job assignment. M is misconduct. Wallace may have taken hooch to his job at the tailor shop, which violates a rule of the prison. Or he may have gotten his supervisor’s goat, which violates no rule but may make it wise to move. Or he may have done both. New workers in the United States hold their jobs until the employer *877shows “just cause” to dismiss them. Prisoners assuredly are not among those with tenure. The thirteenth amendment abolishes involuntary servitude “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted”.
Illinois could give a prisoner an enforceable interest in a particular job but has not. Ill.Rev.Stat. ch. 38 ¶ 1003-12-1 provides that the Department of Corrections “shall, in so far as possible, employ at useful work committed persons confined in institutions”. This takes a step toward ensuring a job for each prisoner, but not a particular job. One step, moreover, is not the same as a liberty interest. Only statutes or rules with “explicitly mandatory language”, Kentucky Department of Corrections v. Thompson, 490 U.S. 454, 109 S.Ct. 1904, 1909-10, 104 L.Ed.2d 506 (1989), give prisoners liberty or property interests. Weasel words such as “in so far as possible” show that Illinois has not assured its inmates any job, let alone the job the inmate prefers. The warden therefore could switch Wallace from tailor to clerk on learning that he burned the trousers, or did not return after lunch, or sassed his supervisor — or for no particular reason at all. Paragraph 1003-12-1 does not create a liberty or property interest.
Illinois does curtail the discretion of wardens to punish prisoners by changing their jobs. Ill.Rev.Stat. ch. 38 ¶ 1003-8-7(b)(2) provides that “[disciplinary restrictions on visitations, work, education or program assignments ... shall be related as closely as practicable to abuse of such privileges or facilities.” Subpara-graph 7(e) continues:
(e) In disciplinary cases which may involve ... a change in work, education, or other program assignment of more than 7 days duration, the Director shall establish disciplinary procedures consistent with the following principles: ...
(6) A change in work, education, or other program assignment shall not be used for disciplinary purposes except as provided in paragraph (b) of this Section and then only after review and approval under Section 3-8-3.
Section 3-8-3 establishes elaborate procedures to use in disciplinary cases, and administrative regulations add still more procedures. The upshot is that the prison may change job assignments only for “abuse of such privileges or facilities” (at least when that is “practicable”), and then only after following prescribed steps. Thus the characterization of the Illinois rules with which I began: “The warden may do A [give the prisoner a different job] for any reason, but if that reason is M [misconduct] the warden must prove M before acting.” Alternatively we may understand the rule as: “The warden may do A [give the prisoner a different job] for any reason except M [misconduct unrelated to that job].”
Prisoners have no constitutional entitlement to one job rather than another. Treating the sort of regulations that appear in all prison systems to curtail the discretion of the guards as creating liber-ty or property interests nonetheless gives the' prisoners greater protections of their employment than free persons receive. Because everything prisons do is state action, and prisons control every aspect of the inmates’ lives, decisions that to some degree depend on the regulatory apparatus occur every day for every inmate. Thompson reserves, 109 S.Ct. at 1909 n. 3, the question whether regulations of whatever kind create liberty out of the minor decisions that characterize prison life. We ought to answer that question “No”. See Moody v. Daggett, 429 U.S. 78, 88 n. 9, 97 S.Ct. 274, 279 n. 9, 50 L.Ed.2d 236 (1976). When the state takes away good time credits or denies release on parole, the decision affects the duration of confinement. When a state turns one inmate from a tailor into a clerk, another inmate gets to be a tailor. Both experience the ordinary incidents of confinement in any penal system.
Prisons put their charges to work for the benefit of society (work supplies a combination of rehabilitation and punishment). Statutes and regulations governing job assignments, commissary privileges, and the like are efforts by the state to control the jailers, to reduce disparity among its agents, not to give the prisoners legally enforceable entitlements. So we under*878stood them in Miller v. Henman, 804 F.2d 421 (7th Cir.1986); Colon v. Schneider, 899 F.2d 660, 667-69 (7th Cir.1990); Woods v. Thieret, 903 F.2d 1080, 1082-83 (7th Cir.1990); and other recent cases. Anything else ties prisons up in bureaucratic knots, turning guards’ attention from the prisoners to the procedures. In such a place, with damages liability awaiting guards who take a wrong step, live and let live is the best policy. Turn a blind eye. Protect your wallet first, worry about the safety of the prisoners second and the rules of the prison third (or not at all). No wonder prisons are so hard to control. See David K. v. Lane, 839 F.2d 1265, 1278-80 (7th Cir.1988) (concurring opinion). Are American courts out to use prisons as models for Grant Gilmore’s bitter valedictory that “[i]n Hell there will be nothing but law, and due process will be meticulously observed.”? The Ages of American Law 111 (1977).
Behind the accretion of procedures in state prisons stands nothing but state law. No constitutional clause or policy, no federal rule or policy, requires states to accord prisoners the protections civil servants receive. If Illinois wants to do more than the Constitution requires yet falls short of objectives it has set for itself, the error should be understood as a violation of state law, to be redressed through state agencies and courts. The due process clause of the fourteenth amendment is not a federal guarantee that states will follow their own laws. Easter House v. Felder, 910 F.2d 1387 (7th Cir.1990) (in banc); Archie v. Racine, 847 F.2d 1211, 1215-18 (7th Cir.1988) (in banc); Doe v. Milwaukee County, 903 F.2d 499 (7th Cir.1990); Thornton v. Barnes, 890 F.2d 1380, 1391 (7th Cir.1989) (concurring opinion); Caine v. Hardy, 905 F.2d 858, 863-67 (5th Cir.1990) (Jones, J., dissenting), rehearing in banc granted, 1990 U.S.App. Lexis 13558. So if guards tried to tiptoe around 111003-8-7(b)(2) and penalize Wallace for his hooch by turning him into a clerk, that is a subject for the courts of Illinois, not for constitutional litigation.
Let us suppose, however, that a change of job ought to be treated the same as a decision not to release Wallace from prison. Then the question becomes whether the state’s rules create a “legitimate claim of entitlement”. Thompson, 109 S.Ct. at 1908-10; Board of Pardons v. Allen, 482 U.S. 369, 107 S.Ct. 2415, 96 L.Ed.2d 303 (1987); Olim v. Wakinekona, 461 U.S. 238, 103 S.Ct. 1741, 75 L.Ed.2d 813 (1983); Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U.S. 460, 103 S.Ct. 864, 74 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983); Connecticut Board of Pardons v. Dumschat, 452 U.S. 458, 101 S.Ct. 2460, 69 L.Ed.2d 158 (1981); Greenholtz v. Nebraska Inmates, 442 U.S. 1, 99 S.Ct. 2100, 60 L.Ed.2d 668 (1979); Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 96 S.Ct. 2532, 49 L.Ed.2d 451 (1976); Montanye v. Haymes, 427 U.S. 236, 96 S.Ct. 2543, 49 L.Ed.2d 466 (1976); Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974); Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 577, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 2709, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972). A “legitimate claim of entitlement” means more than an abstract desire. It is instead an entitlement contingent on facts, something you hold unless prescribed conditions of its defeasance can be established. Thompson, 109 S.Ct. at 1909-10; Roth, 408 U.S. at 577-79, 92 S.Ct. at 2709; Fleury v. Clayton, 847 F.2d 1229, 1231-32 (7th Cir.1988). Something “securely and durably yours ... as distinct from what you hold subject to so many conditions as to make your interest meager, transitory, or uncertain”. Reed v. Village of Shorewood, 704 F.2d 943, 948 (7th Cir.1983). How securely? Your entitlement must be “legally enforceable”, O’Bannon v. Town Court Nursing Center, 447 U.S. 773, 788 n. 21, 100 S.Ct. 2467, 2477 n. 21, 65 L.Ed.2d 506 (1980); Upadhya v. Langenberg, 834 F.2d 661, 665 (7th Cir.1987). Or in the formulation of Thompson there must be “ ‘explicitly mandatory language,’ in connection with the establishment of ‘specific substantive predicates’ to limit discretion”, 109 S.Ct. at 1910.
Illinois does not set up “specific substantive predicates” to limit discretion. Wallace could be moved from one job to another for almost any reason. There is no “explicitly mandatory language”. Any prisoner’s interest in the job-of-preference *879is “meager, transitory, [and] uncertain”. Prison tailors lack a “legally enforceable” interest in that job, as opposed to some other. It follows that Wallace had no liberty or property interest in being a tailor.
Now Wallace responds that although the warden may assign him a new job because the warden does not like the cut of his jib: I have a legitimate claim of entitlement not to lose my position as a tailor because of misconduct unless through proper procedures the prison shows that the misconduct took place and is job-related. This uses the language of Roth but is a different character from a statement such as: “I have a legitimate claim of entitlement to the job unless good reasons have been established.” Wallace lacks this latter kind of claim. Yet only the latter claim is liberty or property for constitutional purposes, given Thompson and Roth.
Due process comes into play when substantive rules limit the reasons that support action. Procedures ensure that the necessary basis exists. When there are no necessary conditions of action, there is nothing to hold a hearing about. Illinois has the rule: “The warden may do A for any reason, but if that reason is M the warden must prove M before acting.” Suppose Illinois gives Wallace a hearing, and the panel unanimously determines that M does not exist. Is Wallace secure against a change of jobs? Not at all. The warden still may say: “Fine, but prisoners who do not get along with their supervisors should move.” That is that; no substantive rule, no “explicitly mandatory language”, prevents the warden from making the switch. Nothing Wallace could say, no fact he could prove, would establish his entitlement to stay in the tailor shop. So there is no liberty or property interest.
Precedent dispels all doubt. Rules of the form “The. state may do A for any reason except M” and “The state may do A for any reason, but if that reason is M the state must prove M before acting” are ubiquitous. There is no such thing as unbridled discretion in American law. No state may penalize protected expression or discriminate because of race. So a rule that at first glance allows a warden to act for any or no reason really means: “The warden may do A [give the prisoner a new job] for any reason except M [race, speech, and so on].” See Dumschat, 452 U.S. at 467, 101 S.Ct. at 2465-66 (Brennan, J., concurring). Do these limits on official discretion create liberty or property interests? Montanye holds that they do not.
New York transferred Haymes from its prison at Attica to the one at Clinton. Haymes contended that the warden was retaliating for Haymes’ efforts to give legal assistance to other prisoners. He argued — and New York conceded — that the rule in force effectively meant that “the warden may transfer a prisoner for any reason except activities protected by the first amendment.” The Court held that this rule did not create a legitimate claim of entitlement, because no facts Haymes could establish at a hearing would entitle him to remain in Attica. 427 U.S. at 243, 96 S.Ct. at 2547. Even if he could establish beyond doubt that the warden’s original decision was based on speech, the state could transfer him anyway, for a different (or no) reason. There was accordingly no need for a pre-transfer hearing. A transfer motivated by speech could violate the Constitution, but the bar would come from the first amendment and not the due process clause. Indeed, on remand the Second Circuit held that the state may have retaliated for protected speech. Haymes v. Montanye, 547 F.2d 188 (2d Cir.1976). Remedy came from the first amendment.
If New York had regulations saying: “Wardens may transfer prisoners for any reason except speech”, the result would have been no different. The prisoner’s entitlement is the same whether the rule comes from state law and the exceptions from federal law, or both have the same source. Cf. Howlett v. Rose, — U.S. -, 110 S.Ct. 2430, 2439, 110 L.Ed.2d 332 (1990) (“ ‘federal’ law is part of the Law of the Land in the State”); Alleghany Corp. v. Haase, 896 F.2d 1046, 1053-56 (7th Cir.1990) (concurring opinion). In either case, the prisoner has no right to remain in a prison unless specified facts exist. Putting one (or more) grounds off limits therefore *880does not create liberty or property. As I understand Judge Sneed’s approach, however, the Supreme Court and the Second Circuit should have held that the transfer violated the due process clause: the rule “No transfers in retaliation for speech” created a liberty interest, and once Haymes showed that speech was the warden’s true motive, it should have followed that the state needed to give him a hearing before the transfer. Montanye blazes a different path.
Promises of particular procedures also do not create legitimate claims of entitlement. Consider the form: “The state may do A for any reason, but if the reason is M the state must hold hearings before acting.” One could describe this as a legitimate claim of entitlement to retain one’s current status until the completion of hearings. But Olim held that a state’s extension of procedural safeguards does not create a property interest. Hawaii promised prisoners that it would not transfer them in advance of hearings. Wakinekona was transferred without hearings, and the court of appeals thought this deprived him of his legitimate claim of entitlement to process. In reversing that decision, the Court remarked that “[p]rocess is not an end in itself. Its constitutional purpose is to protect a substantive interest to which the individual has a legitimate claim of entitlement.” 461 U.S. at 250, 103 S.Ct. at 1748 (emphasis added). See also Doe, 903 F.2d at 504. A prisoner whose job assignment may be changed for any reason lacks such a substantive interest, even if the state has promised elaborate procedures before using a particular reason (misconduct) as the basis of action.
Practical reasons support these precedents. I have stressed one — that using criteria of state law to define liberty that in turn activates the due process clause converts state entitlements into constitutional ones. Judge Sneed believes that in order to resolve the due process claim, we must first learn the warden’s “true” reason for giving Wallace a new job. If we conclude that the reason is Wallace’s misconduct, we shall declare that the transfer violated the Constitution. This is the equivalent of retrying, on the merits, the very question that the adjustment committee of the prison decided. Although the Constitution is not supposed to transfer to federal court all questions concerning prison governance, that would be the practical effect of my colleagues’ approaches.
A second reason is that rules concerning process must be established in advance. The warden must know before acting whether the Constitution requires a hearing. An opinion from a federal court saying “You need to offer a hearing if you act for reason M, but not if you act for reason Q or Z, and we will collect damages if you do not offer a hearing and we think your real reason was M”, leads to one of two outcomes. Either prisons will extend hearings in every case or a federal court will retry the prison’s decision in order to determine the “true” reason — and thus whether a hearing was necessary. Rules, especially procedural rules, must be knowable in advance. Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 435 U.S. 519, 546-48, 98 S.Ct. 1197, 1213, 55 L.Ed.2d 460 (1978). Trials to determine the procedures that should have been used are wasteful, and the threat of choosing procedures after the fact throws a monkey wrench into the administrative process.
If we were on record that jailers’ motive has constitutional significance, then I would have no choice but to go along with Judge Sneed. The circuit is not so committed, however. Judge Sneed cites only two cases for the proposition that motive matters. The first is at page 873: “Our first task, therefore, is to consider whether Wallace has ‘affirmatively show[n] that there is a genuine issue for trial,’ Merritt [v. Broglin ], 891 F.2d [169] at 171 [(7th Cir.1989) ], concerning whether his job transfer was disciplinary.” Merritt does not concern the motive for a transfer. The quoted language correctly states the standard for summary judgment. The case holds that the Indiana rules concerning leave for inmates do not create a liberty or property interest. To the extent Merritt is pertinent, it supports the view I have been *881advancing: Merritt holds that the state’s rules do not create a liberty or property interest, 891 F.2d at 172, even though the prisoner asserted that the prison officials had acted for a reason the rules did not allow. In other words, Merritt implies that the motive or intent of the state officials is not pertinent to defining the prisoner’s liberty and property interests.
The second case, cited at page 873, is Abdul-Wadood v. Duckworth, 860 F.2d 280 (7th Cir.1988), and Judge Sneed quotes this passage, id. at 285: “the issue becomes whether the restrictions placed on [the inmate] were for the purpose of punishing him”. Although Abdul-Wadood inquires into purpose, it does so only because the parties conceded that this is appropriate, see id. at 284-85: “The parties do not dispute that, if Abdul-Wadood had been in fact subjected to disciplinary action, he would have had at stake a liberty interest sufficient to invoke the protection of the due process clause.” Because the court decided the case on the basis of this view of the parties, it cannot be taken as a holding that purpose is dispositive. United States v. Daniels, 902 F.2d 1238, 1241 (7th Cir.1990) (collecting cases). Especially not when the Indiana regulation (quoted at 285 n. 7) was exclusively procedural. All Indiana said was that before taking disciplinary action, the warden shall afford the person charged with misconduct a hearing. Given subsequent cases such as Doe and Colon (and earlier cases such as Olim that the court did not need to discuss, in light of the parties’ agreement), the regulations at issue in Abdul-Wadood did not create a liberty interest no matter what the prison officials’ purpose.
We are free, then, to hold that regulations of the form “The warden may do A for any reason, but if that reason is M the warden must prove M before acting” do not create liberty or property interests. We should do so not only because federal courts generally should leave to prisons the granting and withholding of amenities (the question reserved in Thompson) but also because no promise in this form creates a legitimate claim of entitlement. Either of the contrasting positions advocated by my colleagues uses the due process clause to achieve federal enforcement of state law.