Court Opinion

ID: 9668405
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:11:48.959686+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:28:58.033748
License: Public Domain

NEUMAN, Justice,
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I join part I of the court’s opinion, but I respectfully dissent from part II.
Further reflection on this court’s holding in Backstrom leads me reluctantly to con-*153elude that it rested on a faulty interpretation of the Supreme Court’s opinion in Superintendent v. Hill. My concern is fortified by persuasive reasoning found in LaFaso v. Patrissi, 633 A.2d 695 (Vt.1993), an opinion issued contemporaneously with — but not cited in — Backstrom. The Vermont court’s careful analysis of Hill’s text reveals that the Court intended the “some evidence” rule to be a standard for reviewing courts, not a standard of- proof applicable to disciplinary authorities.
In a telling observation, the LaFaso court points to Hill’s holding that the “some evidence” standai’d “does not require examination of the entire record, independent assessment of the credibility of witnesses, or weighing of the evidence.” LaFaso, 633 A.2d at 698 (quoting Hill, 472 U.S. at 455, 105 S.Ct. at 2774, 86 L.Ed.2d at 365). The Vermont court concludes, and I think rightly so, that the Coui’t could only have intended such a statement to apply to a judicial standard of review:
We find incredible the suggestion that a de novo proceeding intended to determine the guilt or innocence of any individual could dispense with these procedures and retain a semblance of “fundamental fairness.”

Id.

Moreover, the LaFaso court notes, the Court’s further conclusion focuses on the level of due process demanded of a reviewing court, not that required of pilson officials:
[T]he fundamental fairness guaranteed by the Due Process Clause does not require courts to set aside decisions of prison administrators that have some basis in fact.
LaFaso, 633 A.2d at 697 (quoting Hill, 472 U.S. at 455, 105 S.Ct. at 2774, 86 L.Ed.2d at 365 (emphasis added)).
LaFaso concludes that the “safest reading” of Hill’s somewhat ambiguous analysis is that it does not purport to answer the question of standard of proof (as opposed to standard of revieiv) one way or the other. Id. at 698. Because a “some evidence” standard would “allow[ ] imposition of discipline* in the face of probable innocence,” id. at 699, it held that “due process requires prison authorities to prove inmate disciplinary in-' fractions by a preponderance of the evidence.” Id. at 698.
This same conclusion was i’eached and these same concerns expressed, in different terms, by the dissent filed in Backstrom. See Backstrom, 508 N.W.2d at 711 (Carter, J., dissenting). I failed to heed them then. I do so now.
CARTER and TERNUS, JJ., join this concurrence in part and dissent in part.