431 Mass. 1 | Mass. | 2000
The plaintiff, Mac S. Hudson, is incarcerated at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Cedar Junction (MCI, Cedar Junction). This case arises from Hudson’s placement in restrictive confinement and the procedure under which Hudson was found guilty of fighting with another inmate. Hudson, acting pro se, commenced an action in the nature of certiorari, pursuant to G. L. c. 249, § 4, against the defendants in the Superior Court. His complaint also sought declaratory relief under G. L. c. 231 A, § 1; damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1994); and an order for civil contempt. A Superior Court judge granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment on all counts, and the Appeals Court affirmed. We granted the plaintiff’s application for further appellate review. In accordance with the reasoning of Hudson v. Commissioner of Correction, 46 Mass. App. Ct. 538 (1999) (Hudson), we conclude that the grant of summary judgment was appropriate because Hudson received all the process he was entitled to trader the relevant regulations and constitutional provisions.
The material facts are not in dispute. On June 1, 1996, an altercation took place at MCI, Cedar Junction, and correction personnel found a bloody shirt in the stairwell of the Essex II housing unit. After an investigation, inmates Hudson and Warren Antwine (Antwine) were placed on “awaiting action” status in Essex II.
On June 11, 1996, Hudson was issued a disciplinary report alleging that he had either assaulted or played a role in the two
The hearing occurred on June 19 and 20, 1996. Hudson testified in his own behalf, and filed an affidavit denying the charges, asserting that he and Antwine were acquaintances who had never had a disagreement. Hudson submitted Antwine’s affidavit to similar effect. Correction officers testified to their observations and presented evidence received from an informant with personal knowledge of the altercation, who identified Hudson as having assaulted Antwine. Incident reports were also introduced indicating that Hudson and Antwine had been involved in oral confrontations.
On June 20, 1996, the hearing officer issued his written decision. Not crediting Hudson’s version of the facts, the hearing officer found Hudson guilty by a preponderance of the evidence of fighting on June 1, 1996, and dismissed the other charges. The hearing officer recommended a sanction of two weeks’ loss of television, radio, canteen, and telephone privileges, all sanctions suspended for sixty days.
Hudson’s appellate arguments center on alleged procedural
It is clear that Hudson’s “placement and confinement . . . before ... his disciplinary hearing [were] explicitly authorized by unchallenged applicable regulations.” Hudson, supra at 542. The “awaiting action” regulation at the time of Hudson’s offense, 103 Code Mass. Regs. § 430.21(1) (1993), stated: “At the discretion of the Superintendent or his designee ... an inmate who is under investigation for a possible disciplinary offense or has been charged with or found guilty of a disciplinary offense, may be placed on awaiting action status at the institution where he is then confined. Such status may include more restrictive confinement as deemed appropriate by the Superintendent or his designee.”
Regarding Hudson’s due process claims under the Federal and State Constitutions in regard to his placement in Essex I before his hearing, we have “long recognized the broad discretion of the Commissioner of Correction to transfer inmates within the prison system or within a particular institution” or to
Hudson further argues that the Superior Court judge’s grant of summary judgment was in error because there was a disputed issue of fact to be resolved. Hudson alleges that he was moved to Essex I on June 4, 1996, sometime before the assault on Antwine, while the defendants maintain that Hudson was moved subsequent to the assault. However, “[tjhat some facts are in dispute will not necessarily defeat a motion for summary judgment. The point is that the disputed issue of fact must be material.” Beatty v. NP Corp., 31 Mass. App. Ct. 606, 607 (1991), citing Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., All U.S. 242, 247-248 (1986). Even assuming Hudson’s version of the timing were correct, it was not material because the “awaiting action” regulation authorized his transfer after the June 1 incident. With no material fact at issue, resolution of the case on summary judgment was appropriate.
Hudson also contests the approximately thirty-two days he spent in Essex I following the issuance of the hearing officer’s written decision, as well as the lack of a review of his placement fifteen days after the hearing as specified by the regulations. Hudson, however, appears to acknowledge that he was
As for Hudson’s total stay in Essex I, the duration of administrative segregation is a factor in determining its reasonableness. See Puckett v. Commissioner of Correction, 28 Mass. App. Ct. 448, 451 (1990), and cases cited. Hudson’s placement in Essex I for a total of six or seven weeks, “with each stage consistent with the regulations and validated by a hearing,” was reasonable. Hudson, supra at 544. Cf. Lamoureux v. Superintendent, Mass. Correctional Inst., Walpole, supra at 417-418 (no due process violation involved in administrative segregation for fourteen weeks). Contrast Royce v. Commissioner of Correction, 390 Mass. 425, 430 & n.9 (1983) (administrative segregation for a period of two years without hearing or status review unreasonable); Puckett v. Commissioner of Correction, supra (restrictive detention on awaiting action status for five and one-half months without explanation unreasonable as matter of law).
Finally, Hudson claims that his rights under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution and art. 26 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights were violated because, at some unspecified point during his challenged confinement, he was denied exercise for seventeen days. However, this claim is contradicted by the record, and, as the Appeals Court noted, even assuming the claim to be true, it “is also devoid of factual support . . . that ... the defendants acted in this regard with deliberate indifference to the claimed unlawful conditions and that those conditions constituted . . . unnecessary and wanton
Hudson claims that the Superior Court judge erred in relying on the standard set out in Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472 (1995) (Sandin), for evaluating prisoners’ due process claims because he was entitled to greater protections under State constitutional law. Procedural due process protections are only triggered when a liberty or property interest is at issue. See Regents of State Colleges v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 571 (1972). In Sandin, supra at 484, the United States Supreme Court held that, absent a showing of an “atypical and significant hardship ... in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life,” State regulations would not create the requisite liberty interest to trigger due process protections under the Federal Constitution.
We agree with the reasoning of the Appeals Court. In Torres v. Commissioner of Correction, 427 Mass. 611, 618, cert. denied, 525 U.S. 1017 (1998), we analyzed the process provided to the inmate and concluded that he had received the process due an individual with a liberty interest. Such is the situation in this case. It is therefore unnecessary to resolve the unsettled questions identified by the Appeals Court in applying the San-din analysis, see note 9, supra, or whether it is appropriate for purposes of the State Constitution’s due process requirements.
Accordingly, the grant of summary judgment for the
Judgment affirmed.
Inmates can be placed on “awaiting action” status pending an investigation or a disciplinary hearing. See 103 Code Mass. Regs. § 430.21(1) (1993).
Hudson’s request to examine the informant reports themselves was denied because all the informant’s information was to be addressed at the hearing, and his request for Antwine’s medical records was denied due to confidentiality concerns.
Because of the sixty-day suspension of the disciplinary sanctions, it appears that Hudson was never actually subjected to them.
Hudson now asserts, in conclusory fashion, that continued confinement in Essex I was a routine punishment for those found guilty in disciplinary hearings. But in his affidavit in support of his motion for summary judgment, Hudson acknowledges that he was held in Essex I pending the availability of a cell in Essex II.
Many of Hudson’s arguments also seem to question the correctness of the hearing officer’s determination of guilt. There was sufficient evidence in the record to support the finding of guilt. It is not this court’s role to “second-guess” the credibility determinations of the hearing officer.
Hudson relies on a court decision issued on January 5, 1996, in Gilchrist vs. DuBois, Suffolk Superior Court No. 93-6300, which he interprets as requiring the provision of various due process protections prior to a transfer to more restrictive confinement, to argue that the precise timing of his transfer to Essex I was a material fact. The alleged violation of the Gilchrist order is also the basis for Hudson’s claim that the defendants should be held in contempt. The order in Gilchrist, however, is not applicable here, because as the Appeals Court pointed out, “the original injunctive order in Gilchrist applied to only inmate Gilchrist himself and was not amended to apply to other prisoners until . . . eleven weeks after Hudson’s transfer.” Hudson, supra at 540 n.5. We also note that the Appeals Court has since vacated the Gilchrist order pending further proceedings. See Gilchrist v. Commissioner of Correction, 48 Mass. App. Ct. 60, 66 (1999).
Hudson also “contends that the judge abused his discretion in allowing the defendants’ motion for a protective order, pursuant to Mass. R. Civ. P. 26 (c), as amended, 423 Mass. 1401 (1996), to stay his discovery pending a ruling on their motion to dismiss or in the alternative for summary judgment.” Hudson, supra at 549. This argument is without merit, as “[h]e makes no showing, . . . as is necessary, that the judge abused the broad discretion with which he is invested in dealing with protective orders, see Merles v. Lerner, 391 Mass. 221, 226 (1984).” Id.
As the Appeals Court decision noted: “A number of unsettled and difficult questions remain regarding how to apply the Sandin analysis, among them (1) what are the criteria for determining whether the restrictive hardships challenged by the prisoner are or are not ‘atypical and significant’ deprivations; and (2) what circumstances or conditions are to be taken as representing ‘the ordinary incidents of prison life.’ ” Hudson, supra at 546-547, and cases cited.