Court Opinion

ID: 9430244
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:29:19.650959+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:23.883137
License: Public Domain

Justice Rehnquist,
with whom The Chief Justice and Justice White join, dissenting.
The Court concludes that the members of the Institution Discipline Committee of a federal prison are more like school board members than they are like administrative law judges or members of a parole, board, and that therefore they are not entitled to absolute immunity from liability for damages. Concededly the hearings in which these officials perform their adjudicatory function do not include all of the procedural safeguards or the adherence to written precedent that surround the function of an administrative law judge, but I do not read Butz v. Economou, 438 U. S. 478 (1978), as making these factors dispositive against a claim for absolute immunity. I also think that the factors peculiar to the prison *209environment counsel in favor of such an immunity for these officials.
Litigation before administrative law judges is generally conducted by lawyers, who are trained to suppress their dislike of, or contempt for, the particular judge before whom they try their case. The lawyers and their clients come from their homes and hotels to a government building in the morning, present their case to the judge, go and have lunch, return in the afternoon, and again present their case. When the court recesses for the day, the parties and their lawyers return to their homes and hotels. At least one side will be disappointed with the ultimate ruling of the judge, but there is little reason to think that they will bear personal animus or hostility toward the judge as a result of his decision.
Inside the prison walls, however, a considerably different atmosphere appears to obtain. A prisoner charged with a serious violation of prison regulations and threatened with administrative detention and loss of good time may have quite different emotions when appearing before the Institution Discipline Committee than does, for example, the plant manager of an employer charged with a violation of the National Labor Relations Act appearing before an administrative law judge. “Prison fife, and relations between the inmates themselves and between the inmates and prison officials or staff, contain the ever-present potential for violent confrontation and conflagration.” Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners’ Labor Union, 433 U. S. 119, 132 (1977).
Our observations in Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 475 (1973), about the relationship between a State and its prisoners are equally applicable to the relationship between the Federal Government and its prisoners:
“The relationship of state prisoners and the state officers who supervise their confinement is far more intimate than that of a State and a private citizen. For state prisoners, eating, sleeping, dressing, washing, working, and playing are all done under the watchful eye of the *210State, and so the possibilities for litigation under the Fourteenth Amendment are boundless. What for a private citizen would be a dispute with his landlord, with his employer, with his tailor, with his neighbor, or with his banker becomes, for the prisoner, a dispute with the State.” Id., at 492.
In Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539 (1974), our first major decision applying the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to prison disciplinary proceedings, we said:
“Prison disciplinary proceedings . . . take place in a closed, tightly controlled environment peopled by those who have chosen to violate the criminal law and who have been lawfully incarcerated for doing so. Some are first offenders, but many are recidivists who have repeatedly employed illegal and often very violent means to attain their ends. They may have little regard for the safety of others or their property or for the rules designed to provide an orderly and reasonably safe prison life. . . . Guards and inmates co-exist in direct and intimate contact. Tension between them is unremitting. Frustration, resentment, and despair are commonplace. Relationships among the inmates are varied and complex and perhaps subject to the unwritten code that exhorts inmates not to inform on a fellow prisoner.” Id., at 561-562.
Not only may emotions run higher and tensions be exacerbated in the prison environment, but prisoners simply are not subject to many of the constraints which often deter members of the population at large from litigating at the drop of a hat. We have held, for example, that prisoners in confinement are entitled to free access to lawbooks or some other legal assistance. Bounds v. Smith, 430 U. S. 817 (1977). And the great majority of prisoners qualify for in forma pauperis status, which entitles them to relief from statutory *211filing fees. With less to profitably occupy their time than potential litigants on the outside, and with a justified feeling that they have much to gain and virtually nothing to lose, prisoners appear to be far more prolific litigants than other groups in the population. And prisoners have made increasing use of § 1983 and Bivens-type suits in recent years: 18,856 such suits were filed in federal court in the year ending June 80, 1984, as compared to just 6,606 in 1975. Administrative Office of the United States Courts, Annual Report of the Director 143, Table 24 (1984).
In light of the foregoing, I think a slightly different balancing of the ledger is called for in the case of prison disciplinary officials than in the case of administrative law judges. The latter are surrounded by greater procedural protections for the litigants, and are governed by precedent. But the former operate in a far more volatile environment, are called upon to make decisions more quickly, and are much more likely to be the object of harassing litigation in the absence of absolute immunity. If in fact the administrative system set up by the government offers administrative relief from these officials’ mistakes, and thereby permits the vindication of constitutional claims in this manner, I believe that the grant of absolute immunity meets the conditions set out in Butz v. Economou, 438 U. S. 478 (1978).
Here we need not look far for the availability or speed of administrative relief. Both respondents appeared before the Institution Discipline Committee on February 21, 1975. A few days later that committee issued its ruling, and respondents appealed to the Warden. On March 21, 1975, the Warden granted most of the relief requested, ordering respondents released from administrative segregation and restoring their forfeited good time. He also directed that their records carry a notation that the incident should not adversely affect their chances for parole. Respondents then appealed to the Regional Director of the Bureau of Prisons, who on April 11, 1975, granted respondents’ final request *212that all mention of the incident be expunged from their records. The entire administrative proceeding, from the day on which the hearing before the committee was held to the final ruling of the Regional Director granting respondents all of the relief requested, took less than two months.
In Price v. Johnston, 334 U. S. 266 (1948), we said that “[ljawful incarceration brings about the necessary withdrawal or limitation of many privileges and rights, a retraction justified by the considerations underlying our penal system.” Id., at 285. It requires no more than a commonsense application of this observation to the general principles laid down in Butz, supra, to conclude that the members of the Institution Discipline Committee are entitled to absolute immunity from liability for their decisions.
I respectfully dissent.