Court Opinion

ID: 9559197
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:24:31.109762+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:10:05.426114
License: Public Domain

Horowitz, J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part) —The majority’s holding that the provision for summary punishment of major offenses (section 8, rule 3) is constitutionally valid is contrary to Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 41 L. Ed. 2d 935, 94 S. Ct. 2963 (1974), and is completely out of line with other current authority on the right of prisoners to due process.
Section 8, rule 3, provides that any inmate who is deemed guilty of a major offense may be immediately sanctioned with any one of the punishments listed in section 8, rule 2(D). Included as a possible sanction is solitary confinement of up to 20 days. Under section 8, rule 3, the inmate is entitled to immediate written notice of the offense, the reasons for the punishment, and of his right to appeal the decision initially to the jail superintendent and then to the presiding superior court judge. However, the inmate is not entitled to a hearing before solitary confinement is imposed. The superintendent or his assistant has up to 3 court days to hold a hearing after it is requested by the inmate. Thus, it is possible that the inmate may be in solitary confinement for 3 days (or even longer depending upon the calendar) before he is entitled to a hearing on the offense for which he has been sanctioned.
In order for section 8, rule 3, to comply with current requirements of due process, the hearing must be held be*681fore the imposition of solitary confinement unless the superintendent or jail personnel make a good faith determination that immediate action is necessary to forestall a riot or major disturbance.
Wolff v. McDonnell, supra, establishes the general rule that a hearing must precede imposition of solitary confinement. Wolff involved Nebraska statutes and prison regulations providing that in case of flagrant or serious misconduct by inmates, the prison superintendent could order either forfeiture or withholding of good time, or confinement in a disciplinary cell. The former sanction was challenged by prisoners. The court held that before good time could be lost or withheld from a prisoner, he is entitled to the minimum requirements of procedural due process. This requires advance written notice of the claimed violation, and a hearing to follow the notice by at least 24 hours at which the prisoner has the right to present his version of the facts underlying the charge. Wolff v. McDonnell, supra at 557-58; accord, United States ex rel. Miller v. Twomey, 479 F.2d 701, 717-18 (7th Cir. 1973). Importantly, the court stated that these due process protections also apply when solitary confinement might be imposed.
Although the complaint put at issue the procedures employed with respect to the deprivation of good time, under the Nebraska system, the same procedures are employed where disciplinary confinement is imposed. The deprivation of good time and imposition of “solitary” confinement are reserved for instances where serious misbehavior has occurred. This appears a realistic approach, for it would be difficult for the purposes of procedural due process to distinguish between the procedures that are required where good time is forfeited and those that must be extended when solitary confinement is at issue. The latter represents a major change in the conditions of confinement and is normally imposed only when it is claimed and proved that there has been a major act of misconduct. Here, as in the case of good time, there should be minimum procedural safeguards as a hedge against arbitrary determination of the factual predicate for imposition of the sanction.
Wolff v. McDonnell, supra at 571-72 n.19.
*682The fact that Wolff involves a state penitentiary while our case involves a county jail is not significant in determining the due process standards which must be met by section 8, rule 3. A prisoner in a county jail may be serving a sentence of up to 1 year.9 The requirement of a hearing prior to imposition of a sanction and at least 24 hours after notice to the prisoner, is imposed, stated the court in Wolff, when “the prisoner’s interest has real substance and is sufficiently embraced within Fourteenth Amendment ‘liberty’ to entitle him to those minimum procedures appropriate under the circumstances and required by the Due Process Clause . . .” Wolff v. McDonnell, supra at 557. Whether solitary confinement is imposed upon an inmate of a penitentiary or a county jail, the quality of the change in the conditions of confinement is the same in both instances, and thus the degree of “liberty” taken away is the same.
The majority relies heavily upon Meachum v. Fano, ............ U.S. ............, 49 L. Ed. 2d 451, 96 S. Ct. 2532 (1976). The issue in Meachum was whether due process entitles a state prisoner to a hearing before transfer to a prison in which conditions are substantially less favorable, absent a state law or practice conditioning such transfer on proof of serious misconduct. The court held it did not. The court was careful to distinguish such a transfer from punitive actions which may be taken against prisoners. The court noted that the state law in question did not condition transfer on the occurrence of specific acts of misconduct.
But as we have said, Massachusetts prison officials have the discretion to transfer prisoners for any number of reasons. Their discretion is not limited to instances of serious misconduct. As we understand it no legal interest or right of these respondents under Massachusetts law would have been violated by their transfer whether or not their misconduct had been proved in accordance with *683procedures that might be required by the Due Process Clause in other circumstances. Whatever expectation the prisoner may have in remaining at a particular prison so long as he behaves himself, it is too ephemeral and insubstantial to trigger procedural due process protections as long as prison officials have discretion to transfer him for whatever reason or for no reason at all.
Meachum v. Fano, supra at 2540. Therefore, the court’s reasoning did not apply to disciplinary actions, such as solitary confinement or loss of good time.
No respondent was subjected to disciplinary punishment upon arrival at the transfer prison. None of the transfers ordered entailed loss of good time, or disciplinary confinement.
Meachum v. Fano, supra at 2537.
The majority also relies on Gnecchi v. State, 58 Wn.2d 467, 364 P.2d 225 (1961). This case, which permits summary revocation of a driver’s license, was written years before the landmark due process cases of Sniadach v. Family Fin. Corp., 395 U.S. 337, 23 L. Ed. 2d 349, 89 S. Ct. 1820 (1969); Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254, 25 L. Ed. 2d 287, 90 S. Ct. 1011 (1970); and Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 41 L. Ed. 2d 935, 94 S. Ct. 2963 (1974), revolutionized our concept of what is required by due process when the government deprives a person of liberty or property, whether in or out of prison. What force our decision in Gnecchi still has is further weakened by the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Bell v. Burson, 402 U.S. 535, 29 L. Ed. 2d 90, 91 S. Ct. 1586 (1971), which holds that as a general rule, except in emergency situations the due process clause requires that when a state seeks to terminate an interest such as a driver’s license, it must afford notice and the opportunity to be heard appropriate to the nature of the case before the termination becomes effective.
The basic due process requirement of a prior hearing was recently adopted by this court in Olympic Forest Prods., Inc. v. Chaussee Corp., 82 Wn.2d 418, 424, 511 P.2d 1002 (1973), where we held that prejudgment garnishment *684without a prior hearing violates due process. We said in that case:
This elasticity in the form of the hearing demanded by due process in different contexts should not, however, be confused with the basic right to a prior hearing of some sort.
. . . That the hearing required by due process is subject to waiver, and is not fixed in form does not affect its root requirement that an individual be given an opportunity for a hearing before he is deprived of any significant property interest, except for extraordinary situations where some valid governmental interest is at stake that justifies postponing the hearing until after the event.
Olympic Forest Prods., Inc. v. Chaussee Corp., supra at 424, quoting Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U.S. 371, 378, 28 L. Ed. 2d 113, 91 S. Ct.780 (1971).
A prior hearing, however, is not constitutionally required before imposition of the other sanctions set forth in section 8, rule 2(D), i.e., denial of visiting privileges,10 trustee status, access to recreational facilities, television, or commissary. These are privileges and do not involve the serious change in the conditions of confinement presented by solitary confinement. See Wolff v. McDonnell, supra at 571-72 n.19; United States ex rel. Miller v. Twomey, 479 F.2d 701, 717 (7th Cir. 1973).
Nor is the prior hearing required, even when solitary confinement is imposed, in cases of emergency.
A good faith determination that immediate action is necessary to forestall a riot outweighs the interest in accurate determination of individual culpability before taking precautionary steps. Indeed, even in many of the minor decisions that guards must make as problems suddenly confront them in their daily routines, the state’s interest in maintaining disciplined order outweighs the individu*685al’s interest in perfect justice. . . . Some mistakes and some arbitrary conduct are inevitable incidents of effective management of a large group of confined human beings.
United States ex rel. Miller v. Twomey, supra at 717. This is consistent with the Supreme Court’s caution in Wolff that inmates’ rights to due process remain subject “to restrictions imposed by the nature of the regime to which they have been lawfully committed. ... In sum, there must be mutual accommodation between institutional needs and objectives and the provisions of the Constitution that are of general application.” Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 556, 41 L. Ed. 2d 935, 94 S. Ct. 2963 (1974). The rules already contain such an exception for emergencies (section 8, rule 5) which may be referred to in any amended version of section 8, rule 3.
Stafford, C. J., and Utter, J., concur with Horowitz, J.

 RCW 9.92.020 provides that punishment for all gross misdemeanors will be imprisonment in a county jail for not more than 1 year. A computer search of the Revised Code of Washington shows that there are 384 gross misdemeanors. The computer search also shows there are 57 statutes specifically providing for punishment of up to 1 year in a county jail.

 Rule 2(D) (2) states denial of visiting privileges does not apply to visits with the inmate’s attorney, a legal intern, or licensed investigator. In order for this rule to be consistent with our recent case of State v. Burri, 87 Wn.2d 175, 180, 550 P.2d 507 (1976), the rule should not apply to visits with witnesses when the inmate is acting as his own attorney for a forthcoming trial.