Harrison v. Dretke

865 F. Supp. 385, 1994 WL 585714
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Texas
DecidedOctober 21, 1994
DocketCiv. A. No. W-92-CA-113
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 865 F. Supp. 385 (Harrison v. Dretke) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Harrison v. Dretke, 865 F. Supp. 385, 1994 WL 585714 (W.D. Tex. 1994).

Opinion

ORDER

WALTER S. SMITH, Jr., District Judge.

I.STATEMENT OF THE CASE

Plaintiff is an inmate in the Alfred Hughes Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ), Institutional Division. On April 22, 1992, Plaintiff filed a complaint pro se and in forma pauperis pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Among other things, Plaintiff claimed that Defendants placed him on restraint status and container restriction without due process of law.1 This Court dismissed Plaintiffs original claims as frivolous on November 23, 1992. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit remanded the case to this Court on July 15, 1993, for reconsideration of Plaintiff’s due process claims regarding container restrictions and restraint status, 998 F.2d 1013. On remand, Defendants have filed a motion for summary judgment and Plaintiff has filed a response.

II. SUMMARY JUDGMENT

Summary judgment should be granted if “the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). Even assuming the version of the facts which is most favorable to the Plaintiff, Defendants are entitled to judgment as a matter of law, for the reasons described below.

III. DUE PROCESS CLAIM

This action arises from an incident in which Plaintiff allegedly threw feces and urine on another inmate on July 21, 1991. Three days later, the Hughes Unit classification committee placed Plaintiff on restraint status. Plaintiff claims that he was also placed on container restriction; for summary judgment purposes, we will assume this to be true. In addition, Plaintiff claims that he was not given notice of the restrictions being considered or an opportunity to attend a hearing, present evidence, or review statements against him. For summary judgment purposes, we will assume that Plaintiff’s first opportunity to present his view of the alleged incident was August 14, 1991, when he had a regularly scheduled review of his classification status.

Plaintiff contends that the Defendants’ course of action violated his right to due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, prisoners retain only a “narrow range of protected [387]*387liberty interests.” Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U.S. 460, 467, 103 S.Ct. 864, 869, 74 L.Ed.2d 675 (1988). A number of interests that are more substantial than those the Plaintiff allegedly was denied in this ease receive no direct protection from the U.S. Constitution. For example, there is no “constitutional or inherent right” to parole. Greenholtz v. Nebraska Penal Inmates, 442 U.S. 1, 7, 99 S.Ct. 2100, 2104, 60 L.Ed.2d 668 (1979). Good-time credits for satisfactory behavior are also not guaranteed by the Constitution. Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 557, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 2975, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974). In the present case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has already determined that Plaintiffs interests in having free access to containers and in not being on restraint status do not rise to the level of direct constitutional protection.

However, even where there is no direct constitutional right at stake, a state can create liberty interests through its own laws and regulations. See Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. at 557, 94 S.Ct. at 2975; Hewitt, 459 U.S. at 472, 103 S.Ct. at 871-72 (holding that Pennsylvania’s prison regulations created a liberty interest in remaining in the general prison population). Once in place, these liberty interests acquire some protection from the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In the prisoner context, such liberty interests may arise when a regulatory scheme limits the discretion of prison officials in restraining the freedom of prisoners. See Hewitt at 472, 103 S.Ct. at 871-72. If prison officials must use objective criteria and follow mandatory procedures before withdrawing a right or privilege under state regulations, then they may be obligated to provide constitutional due process to the prisoner. Id.

Plaintiffs first claim regarding restraint status fails because he has not shown the existence of any regulations that limit officials’ discretion in imposing restraint status. In fact, the TDCJ Administrative Segregation Plan mandates that prisoners such as Plaintiff who are classified as assaultive are to be under restraint whenever they are escorted from their cells.2 Any freedom of movement these inmates have beyond escort under restraint is an unregulated privilege extended by prison officials. Thus, the Constitution mandates no official procedure for withdrawing this privilege.

On the other hand, Plaintiffs interest in container access does find protection in state regulations. Under the TDCJ plan, prisoners in administrative segregation retain the same general property rights as those in the general prison population. Officials can deny only those items which represent a threat to the security of guards, other inmates or the prisoner himself; and this must be done on a case-by-case basis through a decision by the unit classification committee. Although this scheme creates objective criteria for restricting property rights, the procedural requirement of a decision by the classification committee is much less detailed than the procedures mandated by the regulations in Hewitt. See Id. at 470-71 n. 6, 103 S.Ct. at 871 n. 6. The Supreme Court has held that “simple procedural guidelines,” without more, do not invoke the due process standards of the Fourteenth Amendment. Id. at 471, 103 S.Ct. at 871. However, since the TDCJ guidelines have some of the mandatory language relied on in Hewitt, we will analyze the procedure by which Plaintiff was placed on container restriction under the constitutional standards established by the Supreme Court.

The remaining summary judgment issue is neither the correctness of the classification committee’s decision to deny container privileges nor whether the committee precisely followed the TDCJ’s own procedural guidelines. The pertinent question is whether Plaintiff was given constitutional due process. The extent of the process due depends upon the importance of the private interest at risk of deprivation, balanced against the value of additional procedural requirements and the governmental interest involved. Hewitt at 473, 103 S.Ct. at 872; see also [388]*388Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 335, 96 S.Ct. 893, 903, 47 L.Ed.2d 18 (1976). The Court in Hewitt, applying this balancing test, determined that transferring inmates from the general prison population to administrative segregation requires an informal, nonad-versary evidentiary review. Hewitt at 476, 103 S.Ct.

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Related

Harrison v. Dretke
68 F.3d 469 (Fifth Circuit, 1995)

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Bluebook (online)
865 F. Supp. 385, 1994 WL 585714, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/harrison-v-dretke-txwd-1994.