Court Opinion

ID: 9476385
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:54:48.734663+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:17.577332
License: Public Domain

FAGG, Circuit Judge,
concurring and dissenting.
I agree with the court that Malek was not denied due process by the prison disciplinary committee’s limitations on his presentation of evidence; however, because I believe Malek’s complaint also fails to state a claim based on the lack of an impartial decisionmaker, I respectfully dissent.
Malek’s discipline was upheld by an appeals board. While such a circumstance would be irrelevant in a ease involving a court adjudication, see Ward v. Village of Monroeville, 409 U.S. 57, 61-62, 93 S.Ct. 80, 83-84, 34 L.Ed.2d 267 (1972), I do not believe the same conclusion should follow in the case of prison disciplinary proceedings. The Supreme Court has recognized that “one cannot automatically apply procedural rules designed for free citizens in an open society * * * to the very different situation presented by a [prison] disciplinary proceeding.” Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 560, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 2976, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974).
I believe a prison disciplinary hearing and the accompanying administrative review should be considered a unitary proceeding. Due process would then depend not on the internal integrity of distinct trial and appellate tiers but on the fairness of prison disciplinary procedures taken as a whole. Specifically, there would be no prejudice from a biased decisionmaker, and no constitutional violation, if a neutral appeals board found in the record the minimal “some evidence” needed to sustain the prison disciplinary action. See Superintendent v. Hill, 472 U.S. 445, 455, 105 S.Ct. 2768, 2774, 86 L.Ed.2d 356 (1985).
In this case Malek makes no claim, beyond a conclusory allegation of “conspiracy,” that the prison appeals board was other than neutral; and he does not challenge the sufficiency or integrity of the record before the board or the board’s apparent failure to exercise its power to call witnesses (except as to the disallowance of certain witnesses, an issue of which the court has already disposed). Under these circumstances the board’s impartial determination of the sufficiency of the evidence to support Malek’s discipline purges any taint at the hearing level. In the context of prison discipline, due process cannot require more process for Malek.
I would affirm the order of the district court.