Amato v. WardAmato v. Ward
In this proceeding under CPLR article 78, petitioner Amato, a State prisoner, seeks an order directing respondent correctional authorities to restore six months "good time”, that is, time allowed for good behavior in determining eligibility for conditional release (Correctiоn Law, § 803, esp subds 1, 5; Penal Law, § 70.40, subds 1, 3). Supreme
The issue is whether constitutional mandates of due process of law require that a prisoner be given a hearing, with written advance notice of "charges” or bases for denying him a full time allowance, before the authorities may, in the exercise of their statutory discretion, deny him good behavior time based on his whole institutional record. Not involved, although confused by petitioner, is the institutional resolution of particular charges of misconduct against a prisoner. Resolution of such charges may require a hearing on notice with the now usual and accepted procedural rights in New York to confront and to call witnesses, and, in appropriate cases, the right to representation.
The order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed. Due process of law does not mandate a rigid procedure for making good time determinations. Instead, the Constitution requires only that prisoners be not penalized for prison misconduct without notice and hеaring on charges of misconduct. Petitioner, indeed, received hearings, more protective than those required by due process of law, on all discrete charges of misconduct in prison. Once those proceedings were concluded prison authorities werе entitled to rely upon them as well as everything else in his prison record, good or bad, in granting petitioner less than the maximum allowable good time.
On February 16, 1973, petitioner Amato, having been convicted of manslaughter, second degree, was sentenced to an indeterminatе prison term with a maximum of 10 years. Amato was credited, as of the time of sentence, with almost four years of jail time (1,419 days).
Amato’s prison record was marked by altercations with the prison authorities, often resulting in disciplinary action. The unfavorable record started shortly aftеr he was received in the State prison and continued even after his appearance before the time allowance committee. Petitioner was brought before an adjustment committee more than a half dozen times, and, on two occasions, chargеs were filed against him in a superintendent’s proceeding. In each case, disciplinary sanctions were imposed. In the first superintendent’s proceeding, one of the sanctions imposed was the loss of 60 days good time. That sanction is not an issue in this appeal.
On or abоut October 1, 1975, as Amato’s conditional release date drew near, he appeared before the prison time allowance
After the committee’s October determination, this proceeding was brought in Supreme Court, Dutchess County, seeking restoration of six months good behavior time. On November 20, 1975, the petition was dismissed, and on May 24, 1976, the Appellate Division affirmed, with two Justices dissenting. Although Amаto has since been released on parole, the case presents recurring issues of public interest, and should not be dismissed for mootness (see, e.g., Matter of Beattie v New York State Bd. of Parole,
Petitioner relies on Wolff v McDonnell (
Petitioner contends, in effect, that Wolff v McDonnell requires that any prison inmate be given a full-scale hearing before a decision is reached on his good time allowance. The argument, however, confuses, if it does not misstate, the Wolff doctrine. In Wolff, a prisoner was chаrged with misconduct, given short oral notice and an inadequate hearing on the charge, and deprived of good time as a result. The Supreme Court, it is true, stressed the due process rights of prisoners involved in disciplinary hearings. It happens that loss of good time was the disciplinаry sanction involved in Wolff, but that is only coincidental. The holding of the Wolff case is narrower
In Wolff, the Supreme Court set forth two basic requirements of due process which must be available to prison inmates charged with misconduct: at least 24 hours advance written notiсe of the charged violation, and a written statement of the fact finders as to the evidence relied upon and the reasons for the action taken (418 US, pp 563-564). The first requirement is designed to enable the inmate to marshal the facts in his defense and to clarify the charges (id., p 564). The second is to provide a written basis for administrative or judicial review of the actions of the prison authorities, if such review is available (id., pp 564-565).
The court declined to go further and provide prisoners with a right to confrontation and a right to counsel in disciplinary proсeedings (id., pp 567-570). Even the right to present documentary evidence and to call witnesses is carefully circumscribed: where institutional safety or correctional goals are at stake, prison officials have discretion to permit such presentation of evidence (id., pp 566-567).
In contrast, disciplinary proceedings in the prisons of this State provide prisoners with procedural protections beyond those mandated by the Supreme Court. Whenever a report of misbehavior is made out, an adjustment committee, made up of three emplоyees, investigates the alleged infraction (7 NYCRR 252.1 [b], 252.2 [a]). The adjustment committee "shall endeavor to obtain from the inmate as full and complete an explanation of his behavior in the situation as possible” (7 NYCRR 252.3 [e]). Then, the committee may either recommend that no actiоn be taken, or require counseling or imposition of relatively minor sanctions to improve the inmate’s behavior (7 NYCRR 252.4, 252.5). The committee may make no formal findings as to whether any violations have occurred (7 NYCRR 252.4 [b] [3]). Since no sanction more severe than the loss of minor privileges can result from adjustment committee action, strict full due process standards need not be
If any formal charges are to be made, or if an inmate’s behavior constitutes a danger to life, health, security, or property, a superintendent’s proceeding must be held (7 NYCRR 252.4 [b] [2], [3], 253.1, 253.2). Not only must the inmate be apprised of the charge in writing, but he may choose an employee, from a list, to assist him in the proceedings. Documentary evidence and statements of witnesses gathered by the assisting employee must be presented to the presiding official. (7 NYCRR 253.3.) Moreover, at least one employee with direct knowledge of the incident must be interviewed by the presiding official (7 NYCRR 253.4 [c]). And, of course, a record of the proceedings must be made (7 NYCRR 253.4 [b]). Thus, the superintendent’s proceeding provides vastly greater protection than that required by the Federal Constitution as interpreted in the Wolff case, in that the New York inmate is entitled to representation and to have documentary evidence and statements of witnesses presented to the presiding official.
Finally, provisions are made for review of both adjustmеnt committee decisions and superintendent proceeding dispositions (7 NYCRR 270.1, 270.2; see, also, Matter of Salinas v Henderson,
Thus, when a time allowance committee is presented with a prison record laden with instances of adjustment committee action and superintendent’s proceedings, it may assume that the prisoner has received, with regard to all discrete charges of misconduct, procedural protеctions in excess of those mandated by the Wolff doctrine.
The function of the time allowance committee, then, is not the investigation and punishment of particular acts of misconduct, charged or uncharged. Instead the time allowance committee evaluates the inmate’s prison record and recommends the amount of good behavior allowance to be granted not as a punitive sanction but as a standard measuring the progress, capacity, efforts, and achievement by the prisoner during his stay in prison (7 NYCRR 260.3, 261.2). The committee is not to act "in аccordance with any automatic rule, but shall appraise
Of course, since the time allowance committee has before it the inmate’s entire prison record, complete with notations of all charges, hearings, and dispositions, any further hearing would be superfluous. Moreover, since no charges are pending before the time allowance committee, there are no issues* on which a hearing could be held. It would be senseless to require advance notice of violations and a statement of evidence relied upon when there is no new violation and no new evidence. The inmate already knows what violations and evidence were involved in his prison record, since he already has had hearings on those violations, and the dispositions are recorded on his prison disciplinary record.
In summary, the function of the time allowance committee in New York is entirely different from the function of the adjustment committee under the Nebraska prison scheme condemned in Wolff v McDonnell. The Nebraska committee was a disciplinary body; the New York time allowance committee is not (see McGinnis v Royster,
In light of the analysis, the result in this case should be obvious. During his time in prison, petitioner misbehaved constantly. He was disciplined by the adjustment committee on numerous occasions and twice his behavior required the intervention of a superintendent’s proceeding. At all of these proceedings, of course, petitioner was afforded all due process rights, and, indeed, mаny more than were mandated by the court in the Wolff case for punitive disallowances based on acts of serious misconduct.
Faced with petitioner’s rather remarkably bad prison record, the time allowance committee quite reasonably concluded that somеthing less than the maximum possible good time should be allowed. Rather than recommending three years
The reality of petitioner’s attempt in this case is to denude the correctional authorities of discretion in the granting of good time allowances. The attempt flies in the face of studied statutory and regulatory languagе. It is a penological commonplace that it is necessary to provide positive incentives for good behavior in prison. Good time allowances are one of those incentives, allowances to be based on a prisoner’s overall perfоrmance in prison and not on segregated charges of misconduct. No constitutional infirmity in this procedure has been shown either under Wolff (supra) or otherwise.
Thus, none of Amato’s due process rights have been violated. He has had a hearing on each charge of misconduct leveled agаinst him. His prison record has been reviewed by the time allowance committee, and he has been allowed more than 80% of the maximum allowable good time. He is entitled to no more.
Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed, without costs.
Judges Jasen, Gabrielli, Jones, Wachtler, Fuchsberg and Cooke concur.
Order affirmed.