ELBERT SMITH, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. DENNIS COLLINS; ANTHONY GILBERT; RICHARD LIGHT; LESLIE FLEMING; MARCUS ELAM, Defendants - Appellees.
No. 18-7313
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
July 10, 2020
PUBLISHED. Argued: April 24, 2020. Vacated and remanded by published opinion. Judge Floyd wrote the opinion in which Chief Judge Gregory and Judge Thacker joined.
Argued: April 24, 2020 Decided: July 10, 2020
Before GREGORY, Chief Judge, and FLOYD and THACKER, Circuit Judges.
Vacated and remanded by published opinion. Judge Floyd wrote the opinion in which Chief Judge Gregory and Judge Thacker joined.
ARGUED: Noah McCullough, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY LAW CENTER, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Martine Elizabeth Cicconi, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF VIRGINIA, Richmond, Virginia for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Erica Hashimoto, Director, Nicolas Sansone, Supervising Attorney, Ariel Dukes, Student Counsel, Appellate Litigation Program, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY LAW CENTER, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Mark R. Herring, Attorney General, Victoria N. Pearson, Deputy Attorney General, Margaret Hoehl O’Shea, Assistant Attorney General, Laura Haeberle Cahill, Assistant Attorney General, Toby J. Heytens, Solicitor
Plaintiff-Appellant Elbert Smith spent over four years in solitary confinement at Wallens Ridge State Prison, a supermax correctional facility within the Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC). In 2017, while Smith was housed in administrative segregation, he filed this pro se lawsuit against various correctional officials under
Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Smith, we think a reasonable jury could disagree. In line with the Supreme Court’s decision in Wilkinson v. Austin, 545 U.S. 209 (2005), our atypical-and-significant-hardship analysis turns on three factors: “(1) the magnitude of confinement restrictions; (2) whether the administrative segregation is for an indefinite period; and (3) whether assignment to administrative segregation had any collateral consequences on the inmate’s sentence.” Incumaa v. Stirling, 791 F.3d 517, 530 (4th Cir. 2015). Here, Smith has presented evidence demonstrating that his confinement conditions were severe in comparison to those that exist in general population (factor one) and that his segregation status may have had collateral consequences relating to the length of his sentence (factor three). Moreover, although the duration of Smith’s
For these reasons, we hold that there is at least a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether Smith’s conditions of confinement imposed a significant and atypical hardship in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life. Therefore, we vacate the district court’s summary judgment order and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. Specifically, on remand, the district court should consider in the first instance, and after further discovery, whether the process that Smith received was constitutionally adequate and whether the Defendant-Appellees are nevertheless entitled to qualified immunity.
I.
Smith is currently serving a forty-four-year sentence in VDOC custody. In November 2010, he was placed in VDOC’s Grooming Standards Violators Housing Unit (VHU), which was then located at Keen Mountain Correctional Center. Until recently, VDOC’s grooming policy, Operating Procedure (OP) 864.1, required prisoners to keep their hair above a certain length or be moved to some form of alternative segregated
Several months later, in February 2011, Smith was transferred to Wallens Ridge State Prison on an emergency basis, after he was accused of assaulting a correctional officer at Keen Mountain. Wallens Ridge is one of VDOC’s twin maximum-security facilities with segregation units for holding prisoners in long-term solitary confinement. Upon arrival, Smith was assigned a “Level S” security level—a special designation reserved for prisoners who must be managed in an administrative segregation1 setting due to a security risk. Certain kinds of past acts are segregation qualifiers, and aggravated assault against a correctional officer is one of them.
Shortly after he was assigned to Level S, Smith was transferred to VDOC’s other supermax facility, Red Onion State Prison, for intake, orientation, and assessment, and he remained in administrative segregation there until his transfer back to Wallens Ridge in July 2013. In mid-2012, a little more than a year after Smith arrived at Red Onion, he began participating in an earlier version of VDOC’s “Segregation Reduction Step-Down Program,” which is now memorialized in OP 830.A. See generally J.A. 74–93 (OP 830.A). Because the Step-Down Program lies at the heart of Smith’s appeal, we briefly summarize
A.
The stated purpose of the Step-Down Program is to “establish[] procedures for incentive[-]based offender management” that will create a “pathway” for prisoners housed in segregation “to step-down from Security Level S to lower security levels in a manner that maintains public, staff[,] and offender safety.” J.A. 74. Per OP 830.A, upon completion of the intake and orientation process at Red Onion, Level S prisoners are placed on one of two pathways by a “Dual Treatment Team”2 based on their identified risk level: Intensive Management (IM) or Special Management (SM). J.A. 76. Depending upon whether they choose to participate in the Step-Down Program,3 prisoners may then be assigned a “privilege status” within their respective pathways. J.A. 76. Offenders in the IM track can be classified as IM0, IM1, or IM2—with IM0 offenders receiving the fewest privileges and having the most restrictive conditions. The same is true for SM offenders.
Step-Down Program participants are “challenged to meet goals in three areas.” J.A. 78. They must commit to (1) eliminating disciplinary infractions, (2) meeting a set of responsible behavior goals, and (3) participating in self-improvement and education programs, including a seven-part curriculum called the Challenge Series. Members of a “Unit Management Team”—a multi-disciplinary group comprised of corrections officers, counselors, and a unit manager—are charged with informally tracking participants’ progress and advancing them through the IM or SM pathway. See J.A. 75, 78. In addition to monitoring participants’ disciplinary charges, the Unit Management Team tracks each participant’s progress toward responsible behavior and program participation both by rating their weekly performance in categories such as cell maintenance, personal hygiene, standing for count, and respect, and by rating their level of participation in weekly programming.
All told, if a prisoner earns positive weekly ratings and evaluators find that he meets the goals of his current step, then he may advance to the next step and earn its additional privileges. But prisoners who do not meet their goals, or who commit disciplinary infractions, may be moved back a step or required to redo a Challenge Series workbook.
Once Smith began participating in the Step-Down Program at Red Onion in 2012, he quickly advanced from SM0 to SM1. Although an ICA recommended that Smith be advanced to SM2 in June 2013, that recommendation was not approved due to Smith’s purported failure to comply with VDOC’s grooming policy. See J.A. 208. About a month later, on July 20, 2013, Smith completed the seven-workbook Challenge Series. J.A. 9.
As relevant here, Smith was transferred from Red Onion to Wallens Ridge on July 30, 2013. See generally J.A. 78 (explaining that “SM offenders” who complete intake and orientation at Red Onion and demonstrate satisfactory participation in the Step-Down Program may be assigned to SM1 or SM2 and will either be retained at Red Onion or transferred to Wallens Ridge). Because he was still designated as a Level S prisoner, he was immediately placed in administrative segregation.
C.
Smith remained in administrative segregation at Wallens Ridge for over four years, until his transfer back to Red Onion in October 2017. As we explain below, it is this period of confinement that led Smith to file suit under
Despite his earlier progress to SM1 at Red Onion, Smith’s ICA hearing reviews from Wallens Ridge reveal that during his first two-and-a-half years there, he was merely deemed an appropriate “segregation” candidate, without any reference to his step level within the Step-Down Program. See J.A. 211 (Dec. 2013); J.A. 214 (March 2014); J.A. 215 (June 2014); J.A. 216 (Sept. 2014); J.A. 217 (Dec. 2014); J.A. 219 (March 2015); J.A.
Like many of the preceding reviews and ones yet to come, the February 2016 review cited the need for a “longer period of stable adjustment” as justification for the ICA’s recommendation that Smith either remain in segregation or at an SM0 status. J.A. 223; see also, e.g., J.A. 214, 230. Moreover, in every subsequent ninety-day review until Smith’s ultimate transfer back to Red Onion in October 2017, the ICA cited Smith’s noncompliance with the grooming policy as a reason for denying his progress in the Step Down Program. See J.A. 224–26, 228 (Apr., July, Oct., and Dec. 2016); J.A. 229–31 (Mar., June, and Aug. 2017). At each of these hearings, Smith asked about “a pathway . . . out of segregation,” see, e.g., J.A. 231, and on at least one occasion, he reiterated his desire to be transferred to the VHU, see J.A. 225.
Unit Manager Dennis Collins and Lieutenant Richard Light were among Smith’s ICAs at Wallens Ridge. Anthony Gilbert, who served as Smith’s counselor, assisted Gilbert and Light by attending the cell-side ICA hearings and making recommendations regarding Smith’s demonstrated behavior and program participation. J.A. 242; see also
During his nearly four-and-a-half years in administrative segregation at Wallens Ridge, and for over two years prior at Red Onion, Smith was confined in highly restrictive conditions. Smith attests that: (1) he was confined alone in a nine-by-fourteen-foot cell for twenty-four hours per day on non-recreation and non-shower days; (2) he was only permitted to leave his cell for showers three times per week and for recreation in an eight-by-fourteen-foot fenced cage five times per week, though recreation was frequently cancelled; (3) each time he left his cell, he was subjected to a highly invasive strip search, and he remained in shackles; (4) he was required to eat his meals alone in his cell; (5) almost all human contact was prohibited; (6) any visitation opportunities were conducted through glass walls, and he was limited to two brief phone calls per month; (7) his cell door was solid metal and outfitted with metal strips to prevent communication with other prisoners; (8) the lights remained on in his cell at all times, dimming only at night, and he faced further discipline if he attempted to cover the light in an effort to sleep; and (9) he was unable to participate in rehabilitation programs. As a result of these conditions, Smith attests that he was “suffering from untreated mental health issues, due to
Smith was transferred back to Red Onion in October 2017, several months after he initiated this lawsuit. See infra Part II. In December 2017, Red Onion officials changed Smith’s status from SM0 to SL6—a three-step jump that took him all the way from the most severe form of segregated confinement to the initial stages of non-segregation. Eventually, Smith was transferred to a lower-security facility, where he remains to date. See J.A. 314 (notice of change of address dated July 22, 2019).
II.
In May 2017, while still housed in administrative segregation at Wallens Ridge, Smith filed this pro se lawsuit under
A flurry of discovery requests by Smith followed. Defendants moved for summary judgment on November 17, 2017, the deadline set by the magistrate judge, without responding to Smith’s discovery requests. Shortly thereafter, Defendants moved for a protective order staying all discovery pending resolution of their summary judgment motion.
Still pro se, Smith opposed Defendants’ motion for summary judgment, in part because he had not yet been given an opportunity to conduct discovery. A few weeks later, the district court denied Defendants’ motion for a protective order and ordered them to file responses or objections to Smith’s discovery requests by January 5, 2018, at which point it would permit Smith to supplement his opposition to Defendants’ motion for summary judgment.
Defendants complied, and so did Smith. In his additional response to Defendants’ summary judgment motion, Smith emphasized his need to conduct further discovery to prove that Defendants conducted “sham reviews” and barred him from progressing in the Step-Down Program. And in the months that followed, Smith filed discovery request after discovery request, and eventually moved to compel discovery. A magistrate judge summarily denied Smith’s motion without prejudice in April 2018; in the magistrate’s
The district court granted Defendants’ motion for summary judgment on September 20, 2018. In doing so, the district court relied primarily on Smith’s failure to establish any genuine dispute of material fact as to the atypicality and hardship of the conditions of segregated confinement for SM pathway prisoners like Smith, and thus as to the existence of a protected liberty interest for purposes of Smith’s procedural due process claim. See Smith, 2018 WL 4515898, at *5–7; see also Wilkinson, 545 U.S. at 222–23 (explaining that “the touchstone of the inquiry into the existence of a protected, state-created liberty interest in avoiding restrictive conditions of confinement” is whether such conditions impose an “‘atypical and significant hardship on the inmate in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life’” (quoting Sandin, 515 U.S. at 484)). The district court also held that to the extent the Complaint could be construed to raise a procedural due process claim challenging Smith’s initial classification as a Level S offender, Defendants were entitled to judgment as a matter of law on that claim because the relevant statute of limitations had run. Smith, 2018 WL 4515898, at *4.
Smith timely appealed, and he was later appointed counsel by this Court. Through his counsel, Smith clarifies that on appeal, he only presses “individual capacity damages claims against defendants for their role in leaving him in ongoing and severe conditions of segregated confinement without providing a genuine pathway for relief.” Opening Br. 22. Thus, neither the initial-classification claim that the district court read into Smith’s
III.
“We review a district court’s grant of a motion for summary judgment de novo, applying the same legal standards as the district court.” Nader v. Blair, 549 F.3d 953, 958 (4th Cir. 2008). A district court should award summary judgment only if “there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.”
IV.
The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides that “[n]o State shall . . . deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
As discussed, in granting summary judgment to the defendants in this case, the district court held that Smith failed to establish a protected liberty interest—the first prong
The district court held that the first requirement of prong one was satisfied because VDOC policy provides for a security-level review for Level S prisoners in the Step-Down Program every ninety days, Smith, 2018 WL 4515898, at *5, and Defendants do not challenge that conclusion on appeal, Resp. Br. 30 n.10; see also Incumaa, 791 F.3d at 527 (finding state prison policy requiring thirty-day, administrative-segregation review created potential liberty interest). Instead, the parties’ dispute centers on the second requirement—namely, whether the conditions of Smith’s confinement as a Level S prisoner failed to constitute an atypical and significant hardship as a matter of law, as the district court held. See Smith, 2018 WL 4515898, at *5–6.
“Whether confinement conditions are atypical and substantially harsh ‘in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life’ is a ‘necessarily . . . fact specific’ comparative exercise.” Incumaa, 791 F.3d at 527 (alteration in original) (quoting Beverati v. Smith, 120 F.3d 500, 502–03 (4th Cir. 1997)). In this case, we must compare the conditions in
Drawing on the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Wilkinson, this Court has construed the atypical-and-significant-hardship analysis as turning on primarily three factors: “(1) the magnitude of confinement restrictions; (2) whether the administrative segregation is for an indefinite period; and (3) whether assignment to administrative segregation had any collateral consequences on the inmate’s sentence.” Incumaa, 791 F.3d at 530; see Wilkinson, 545 U.S. at 221, 224. Applying those factors here, we conclude that Smith has at least demonstrated a genuine issue of material fact with regard to the atypicality and harshness of his confinement in administrative segregation at Wallens Ridge, and thus as to the existence of a liberty interest in avoiding such confinement.
The first Wilkinson factor weighs strongly in Smith’s favor. The severity of the conditions alleged by Smith in his verified Complaint and affidavit opposing summary judgment are substantially similar to those that contributed to the finding of a protected liberty interest in the Supreme Court’s decision in Wilkinson and this Court’s decision in Incumaa. See Wilkinson, 545 U.S. at 214, 223–24; Incumaa, 791 F.3d at 521–22, 531.
The conditions in the state supermax facility at issue in Wilkinson were “synonymous with extreme isolation,” and nearly “every aspect” of prisoners’ lives were controlled and monitored. 545 U.S. at 214. For example, “almost all human contact [was] prohibited,” id. at 223, even to the point that “solid metal doors with metal strips along their sides and bottoms” prevented conversation from “cell to cell,” see id. at 214, 223–24, and all meals were taken “alone in the inmate’s cell instead of in a common eating area,” id. at 214. Opportunities for visitation were “rare” and “in all events [were] conducted through glass walls.” Id. at 214. The Wilkinson plaintiffs were also “deprived of almost any environmental or sensory stimuli” at the supermax facility. Id. They were required to remain in their cells, which measured seven-by-fourteen feet, for twenty-three hours per day, id., and even the one-hour daily exercise period took place in a “small indoor room,” id. at 224. Finally, though the light in their cells could be dimmed, it remained on at all times. Id. at 224.
In Incumaa, this Court held that a prisoner confined in the Special Management Unit (SMU) of a South Carolina prison had likewise endured “severe” confinement conditions. See 791 F.3d at 531. In doing so, we explained that “[i]n many respects,” the “severely
If the Wilkinson conditions now sound familiar, it is likely because Smith has presented evidence demonstrating that he was subject to many of those same conditions. See generally supra p. 11. Indeed, like the plaintiff in Incumaa, Smith has shown that the circumstances of his confinement in administrative segregation at Wallens Ridge may have been worse in some respects, due to the highly intrusive search.
Notably, the district court here acknowledged that the conditions of administrative segregation at Wallens Ridge were “highly restrictive.” Smith, 2018 WL 4515898, at *1, *5. Nevertheless, it found that these conditions were not atypical or significantly harsh for primarily three reasons. First, it held that the “mere existence” of highly restrictive conditions is insufficient to establish atypicality, “because general population inmates can expect temporary terms in segregated confinement under similar restrictions.” Id. at *5; see Sandin, 515 U.S. at 486 (thirty days in disciplinary segregation not atypical); Beverati, 120 F.3d at 504 (six months in administrative segregation not atypical). Second, the district
We disagree with the district court’s analysis on all three fronts. The first rationale is unconvincing from a severity perspective: Expectations held by general-population prisoners about any potential temporary term in highly restrictive segregation conditions have no bearing on the first Wilkinson factor, as that factor evaluates the severity of the segregation conditions themselves. Moreover, this rationale begs the question whether Smith’s confinement in administrative segregation was “temporary,” rather than indefinite, for purposes of the second Wilkinson factor. See Smith, 2018 WL 4515898, at *5; see also infra Part IV.B (explaining why the duration of Smith’s confinement in administrative segregation, which lasted longer than the thirty-day and six-month periods in Sandin and Beverati, respectively, actually helps tip the scales in his favor).
The district court’s third and final rationale, which is premised on the review procedures enshrined in VDOC’s Step-Down Program policy, is also wide of the mark. The fact that VDOC policy contemplates communication between staff and Step-Down Program participants hardly mitigates the seriousness of the deprivation of social stimuli that prisoners like Smith experience in administrative segregation. We have never heard of a prison that manages itself. Correctional staff do not obviate the need for social interaction by performing their most basic duty—checking in on the welfare and ensuring the safety of prisoners.
B.
Because the severity of the conditions alone are insufficient to create a liberty interest, see Wilkinson, 545 U.S. at 224, we turn next to indefiniteness. In Wilkinson, the Supreme Court held that the plaintiffs’ interest in receiving meaningful procedural review was magnified because they were confined to a supermax facility for an indefinite period. See id. Accordingly, courts have looked to the indefiniteness of solitary confinement, as
Critically, even though VDOC’s Step-Down Program is designed to provide Level S prisoners with a pathway out of segregation, Smith asserts that the Program did not provide him with a viable path to release. Recall that after Smith completed the Challenge Series in 2013, he advanced to SM1 at Red Onion. But at Wallens Ridge, his progress was stalled for over four years. Indeed, Smith somehow reverted back to SM0 upon arrival at Wallens Ridge, and he never advanced past that step until his return to Red Onion in late 2017. One of three rationales, or a combination of them, was always cited in denying Smith progress in the Step-Down Program at Wallens Ridge: (1) Smith violated the grooming policy; (2) Smith was simply appropriate for segregation or should remain there; or (3) Smith needed a longer period of stable adjustment. The conclusory nature of the latter two rationales could lead a reasonable jury to find that the ICA reviews did not offer Smith any real opportunity for release from segregation. Thus, the parties appropriately home in on the significance of the first rationale—Smith’s failure to comply with VDOC’s grooming policy—for purposes of indefiniteness.
Defendants argue that Smith’s confinement in administrative segregation was not truly indefinite because he was in control of his own fate; by refusing to comply with the grooming policy, he effectively chose not to progress through the Step-Down Program. Smith, on the other hand, says that compliance with the grooming policy was no path out of segregation at all, given his status as a religious objector. We agree with Smith. Defendants’ only rejoinder is premised on Smith’s failure to assert a claim under the
The duration of Smith’s confinement in administrative segregation at Wallens Ridge strengthens his evidentiary showing of indefiniteness. To be sure, Smith’s period of segregated confinement is quite shy of the twenty-year period at issue in Incumaa. See 791 F.3d at 531. But four years and three months is far longer than the thirty-day period at issue in Sandin, see 515 U.S. at 486, and the six-month period at issue in this Court’s decision in Beverati, see 120 F.3d at 504. It also exceeds the length of various periods that
Given the “wide range of psychological scars” that solitary confinement “imprints on those that it clutches,” Apodaca v. Raemisch, 139 S. Ct. 5, 9 & n.8 (2018) (statement of Sotomayor, J., respecting the denial of certiorari); see also Davis v. Ayala, 135 S. Ct. 2187, 2210 (Kennedy, J., concurring) (describing the “terrible price” exacted by “[y]ears on end of near-total isolation”), we have little trouble concluding that four-plus years in solitary confinement is significant enough to tip the indefiniteness factor in Smith’s favor, particularly when coupled with the foregoing ICA hearing review evidence that we must view in the light most favorable to Smith. Accordingly, we need not address Smith’s contention that we must consider his entire period of confinement in administrative segregation at both Wallens Ridge and Red Onion. See Opening Br. 5 n.3, 33–34 & n.9 (insisting that because atypical and significant hardship “examines segregation’s effects on inmates,” and because Defendants “knew [that] Smith had been in segregation at Red Onion for a lengthy time before his transfer to Wallens Ridge,” the Court should consider his entire six-year period in segregation, even though he only sues Wallens Ridge officers individually for damages).
Defendants offer one final argument in furtherance of their position that Smith’s confinement in administrative segregation was definite, but we are not persuaded. Because Smith was eventually released from segregation via the Step-Down Program, Defendants assert that we cannot compare him to the plaintiffs in Wilkinson and Incumaa, whose
In sum, we conclude that the three rationales cited throughout Smith’s ICA hearing reviews, when taken together, at least establish a genuine issue of fact as to the existence of a viable pathway out of segregation for Smith, especially when coupled with the record evidence of duration. Because indefiniteness is one of the factors that we must consider in assessing the atypicality and harshness of a prisoner’s confinement in administrative segregation, this fact is plainly material to Smith’s procedural due process claim.
C.
That leaves the third factor: “whether assignment to administrative segregation had any collateral consequences on the inmate’s sentence.” Incumaa, 791 F.3d at 530. In Wilkinson, the “collateral consequences” took the form of parole ineligibility. See 545 U.S. at 224. Here, Smith points to his inability to earn good-time credits as a collateral consequence of his stalled progress in the Step-Down Program.
VDOC assigns prisoners one of four good-time credit class levels, with Level I accruing the most credits and Level IV accruing none. See OP 830.3, available at https://vadoc.virginia.gov/files/operating-procedures/800/vadoc-op-830-3.pdf (saved as ECF Opinion attachment).8 Defendants accept that depriving someone of good-time credits is a collateral consequence, and they concede that Smith was ineligible to progress to Level I while in segregation. Nevertheless, they argue that Smith was not affected by such ineligibility because he never ascended to Level III or Level II, and so could not have reached Level I.
We easily reject Defendants’ argument, as it fails to capture how Smith’s stagnated progress in the Step-Down Program may have caused his stagnation in class level for good-time credit purposes. While Smith does not appear to have been eligible to progress past Level IV until sometime in early 2015,9 he was continually denied an increase in class level after that time, despite zero infractions. The reasons given were the same: Smith had failed to “complete[] any treatment programs during the review period,” “did not [have] a job title,” and was “out of compliance with the grooming standard.” J.A. 222 (Dec. 2015);
accord J.A. 227 (Dec. 2016).
Indeed, as Smith points out, the connection between the Step-Down Program and Class Level “is even more obvious given [his] simultaneous progression in both” once he moved back to Red Onion in December 2017. Reply Br. 16. The same day that Smith accelerated three levels in the Step-Down Program in October 2017, see supra p. 12 (discussing Smith’s three-step jump from SM0 to SM-SL6), Red Onion officials recommended a change from Class Level IV to Class Level III, which allowed Smith to accrue good time credits for the first time in three years, see J.A. 235–36.
* * *
There is at least a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Smith’s conditions of confinement in administrative segregation at Wallens Ridge imposed an atypical and significant hardship, such that he had a protected liberty interest. Smith has presented
V.
That there is a genuine dispute as to the existence of a protected liberty interest does not end our inquiry, however. To succeed on his procedural due process claim, Smith must establish not only a liberty interest but also that Defendants failed to afford him adequate process to protect that interest. See id. Moreover, even if Smith successfully establishes a procedural due process violation, he cannot recover damages from Defendants if they are entitled to qualified immunity. See Occupy Columbia v. Haley, 738 F.3d 107, 118 (4th Cir. 2013) (“Qualified immunity is an affirmative defense that shields government officials performing discretionary functions from personal-capacity liability for civil damages under
Because the district court determined that Smith had no liberty interest in avoiding administrative segregation at Wallens Ridge, the district court did not address whether Defendants’ review of Smith’s ongoing confinement in administrative segregation at Wallens Ridge satisfied procedural due process standards, or whether Defendants are entitled to qualified immunity based on the absence of then-existing clearly established law. Although Defendants urge us to reach these issues in the first instance on appeal and affirm the district court’s judgment on alternative grounds, we decline to do so on the present record.
For starters, there is a clear need for further discovery on the adequacy-of-process issue. Smith submitted numerous discovery requests relating to the process that he received at Wallens Ridge, only some of which was answered. For example, Smith sought information about (1) the meaning of the “needs longer period of stable adjustment” rationale, see J.A. 269–71, which was cited in nearly every one of Smith’s ninety-day ICA hearing reviews, see J.A. 214–17, 219–21, 223–25, 228–30; (2) the application of VDOC’s review procedures in the context of the Step-Down Program and whether Smith was ever considered for the VHU, see J.A. 264–67, 275–77; and (3) the additional (non-ICA) layers
We also leave the issue of qualified immunity to the district court on remand. This Court need not consider an alternative ground for affirmance that was not addressed by the district court, see Hawkins v. i-TV Digitalis Tavkozlesi zrt., 935 F.3d 211, 226 (4th Cir. 2019), and we think it would be particularly unwise to do so here. Defendants dedicated a mere two pages to their qualified immunity argument below, and that argument has only taken on slightly more nuance on appeal. The district court will be better equipped to
VI.
For the foregoing reasons, we vacate the judgment of the district court and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
VACATED AND REMANDED