Court Opinion

ID: 9858799
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 16:42:08.60852+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:56:05.307521
License: Public Domain

CARTER, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent. The standard-of-proof issue before this court does not involve a quantitative measure of evidence presented at prison disciplinary hearings. Nor does it involve a qualitative assessment of the reliability of any portion of the evidence. The crux of this issue involves the standard of probability to be applied by the administrative fact finders in finding whether a rule violation has been established. The petitioner has asserted that a standard of probability of guilt that falls below “more probable than not” offends against the hazard of arbitrary decision making condemned in Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974). I agree.
Although the due process guarantees provided to prisoners in state correctional facilities under the Wolff decision are skeletal, they have at their core the prevention of the “hazard of arbitrary decision making.” Id. at 571, 94 S.Ct. at 2982, 41 L.Ed.2d at 959-60. This court has equated a preponderance-of-evidenee standard with a probability assessment of more likely than not. Carpenter v. Security Fire Ins. Co., 183 Iowa 1226, 168 N.W. 231 (1918). In keeping with that proposition, I must assume that the rule that the court approves includes a probability standard of less likely than not. Manifestly, that standard is the equivalent of no standard at all and provides a license for arbitrary decision making. For these reasons, I agree with petitioner’s contention that the standard employed by the administrative decision maker in the present ease did not meet the *712due process standards that Wolff made available to prisoners in state facilities.
A more appropriate ground of decision in the present appeal would be to avoid consideration of the constitutional issue through an interpretation of the applicable statutory law. It is provided in Iowa Code section 903A.3(1) (1991) that good time forfeiture may only occur “[u]pon finding that an inmate has violated an institutional rule.” I would hold that the necessary finding under this statute must be made on a preponderance-of-evidence or more-likely-than-not standard. ‘The writ should be sustained.