Court Opinion

ID: 9462754
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:49:21.104195+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:45.863858
License: Public Domain

ON REHEARING
PER CURIAM:
In the opinion of this court on March 23, 1976, slip op. 2747, we held that the complaint stated a claim for relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against appellees LaVallee and Czarnetsky on the basis that it alleged they had deprived appellant of counsel’s assistance at prison disciplinary proceedings involving serious criminal conduct which culminated in a state murder charge against appellant. We there pointed out that final resolution would have to await the Supreme Court’s ultimate decision in Clutchette v. Procunier, 328 F.Supp. 767, 779-83 (N.D.Cal.1971), aff’d and modified on other grounds, 497 F.2d 809, 822-23 (9th Cir. 1974), aff’d and modified on other grounds on rehearing, 510 F.2d 613, 616 (9th Cir.), cert. granted sub nom., Enomoto v. Clutchette, 421 U.S. 1010, 96 S.Ct. 1551, 47 L.Ed.2d 810 (1975). The wait was not very lengthy since in Baxter v. Palmigiano, 421 U.S. 1010, 96 S.Ct. 1551, 47 L.Ed.2d 810, 44 U.S.L.W. 4487 (1976), the Court, while reaffirming that a prisoner’s silence in prison disciplinary proceedings cannot be used in a criminal case as the basis for drawing an inference of guilt, at 1010, 96 S.Ct. at 1556, 44 U.S.L.W. at 4490, declined to hold that inmates have a right to counsel, either retained or appointed, in prison disciplinary hearings, at 1010, 96 S.Ct. at 1555, 44 U.S. L.W. at 4489-90. The Court has thus apparently extended Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 570, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974), to the situation where the disciplinary charges involve conduct punishable as a crime under state law. Accordingly, our holding, in reliance on the court of appeals cases reversed in Baxter, supra, has been negated and the original judgment of the district court dismissing the complaint must be affirmed.
Judgment affirmed.