Ex Parte Berry

794 So. 2d 307, 2000 WL 1234609
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedSeptember 1, 2000
Docket1990230
StatusPublished
Cited by21 cases

This text of 794 So. 2d 307 (Ex Parte Berry) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ex Parte Berry, 794 So. 2d 307, 2000 WL 1234609 (Ala. 2000).

Opinion

794 So.2d 307 (2000)

Ex parte Douglas BERRY.
(Re Douglas Berry v. Alabama Department of Corrections).

1990230.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

September 1, 2000.
Rehearing Denied December 15, 2000.

Douglas Berry, petitioner, pro se.

Andrew W. Redd, general counsel, and William F. Addison, asst. general counsel, Department of Corrections, for respondent.

COOK, Justice.

Douglas Berry, an Alabama prisoner, appealed from the circuit court's summary dismissal of his writ of habeas corpus. The Court of Criminal Appeals, on September 10, 1999, affirmed by an unpublished memorandum, Berry v. Alabama Dep't of Corrections, (No. CR-98-1789) 778 So.2d 882 (1999) (table). We granted Berry's petition for certiorari review.

*308 Berry argues that the Department of Corrections, without providing him due process, deprived him of a liberty interest he claimed in remaining a part of the work-release program, by removing him from work-release status. Berry's removal from work-release status was the result of an administrative change in the criteria that determined an inmate's eligibility for the program. Berry further argues that the Department of Corrections' policy and procedures created on the part of an inmate a liberty interest in retaining work-release status.

On December 8, 1992, Berry began participating in the work-release program, and he continued to do so for over six years. On February 12, 1999, his work-release status was revoked. On March 17, 1999, he was notified that he was to appear before a reclassification committee on March 18, 1999. On March 18, the reclassification committee informed Berry that he was being reclassified as a "heinous offender," pursuant to new criteria that became effective on February 3, 1999. The committee also informed Berry that because of his new classification as a "heinous offender" he was permanently ineligible to participate in the work-release program. Berry argues that he was entitled to a due-process hearing, as provided by the Department of Corrections' Classification Manual, before the Department of Corrections could revoke his work-release status.

The United States Constitution has not been interpreted to confer on inmates a liberty interest in work-release programs. See Whitehorn v. Harrelson, 758 F.2d 1416 (11th Cir.1985). Nor has Alabama law. See Francis v. Fox, 838 F.2d 1147 (11th Cir.1988). In Fox, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit stated: "The existence of a liberty interest in work-release arising from state law depends on the extent to which official discretion has been constrained by statute, regulation, or practice." Id. at 1149. Section 14-8-2(a), Ala.Code 1975, allows inmates to leave the prison facility and work at paid employment "at the discretion of the [B]oard [of Corrections]." Therefore, the statute governing work release does not confer a liberty interest, but leaves any inmate's participation in the work-release program to the discretion of the Board of Corrections. The Eleventh Circuit further held in Fox that the regulations employed in that case protected the Department's discretion in choosing inmates for the work-release program. Fox, 838 F.2d at 1149-50.

However, Berry argues that the Department of Corrections' Classification Manual, not the statute, created a liberty interest, by stating: "No due process hearing is required for transfers among institutions other than removal from full work release status including free world employment, PDL or SIR." (Emphasis added.) The Classification Manual, by requiring a due-process hearing before an inmate is removed from full work-release status, imposes a restriction on the discretionary power of the Board of Corrections.

This Court has not previously addressed the issue whether the Department of Corrections' regulation and practice confers upon an inmate a liberty interest in participating in the work-release program. However, the Eleventh Circuit has previously addressed this issue. In Whitehorn v. Harrelson, 758 F.2d 1416, 1422 (11th Cir.1985), the Eleventh Circuit narrowed the issue to "whether the State of Alabama, by statute, regulation, or practice, created a liberty interest in the plaintiff's continued participation in the Alabama work release program that could not properly be revoked without due process of *309 law." In answering that question the Eleventh Circuit wrote:

"The rules and procedures set forth in the Handbook suggest that the Alabama Department of [Corrections'] discretion to terminate a prisoner's work release status is a guided discretion that cannot be exercised for any reason or for no reason at all. This limitation on the prison administration's discretion, coupled with the severity of the loss of conditional liberties enjoyed by a participant in the work release program, tends to establish a legitimate expectation [of] or entitlement to the plaintiff's continued participation in the work release program.... Moreover, although the plaintiff has asserted that his protected liberty interest stems, at least in part, from the practices of the prison administration, there has been no factual development in the case concerning these practices. All of these elements must be considered before a determination can be made of the nature of the plaintiff's protected liberty interest, if any, its scope, and the due process protections implicated by its revocation.
". . . .
"`... [T]he practices of a state may be determinative, for even if a state by statute or regulation explicitly refuses to grant inmates certain liberty interests, practices of a state may nevertheless give rise to those same liberty interests.'"

Id. at 1424 (quoting Parker v. Cook, 642 F.2d 865, 876 (5th Cir.1981)). The Eleventh Circuit held that Whitehorn had "raised a genuine issue of material fact as to the regulations applicable at the time his work release status was revoked and as to the official prison practices regarding revocation of work release" and that the "[s]ummary dismissal of Whitehorn's claim was, therefore, inappropriate." Id. at 1425.

Similarly, in this present case Berry argues that the procedures set out in the Classification Manual require a due-process hearing before an inmate's participation in the work-release program can be terminated. Berry has provided this Court with the portion of the Department of Corrections' Classification Manual that contains the language stating that "[n]o due process hearing is required for transfers among institutions other than removal from full work release status including free world employment, PDL or SIR." Berry also alleges that it has been the practice of the Department of Corrections to remove inmates from the work-release program only after the inmate commits some infraction of an administrative rule or regulation. The language in the Classification Manual

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794 So. 2d 307, 2000 WL 1234609, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ex-parte-berry-ala-2000.