18-c-2 Transfers

• Library: A Jailhouse Lawyer's Manual (2020 Edition)

18-C-2. Transfers

You can trigger due process analysis when you move to a different facility. The Supreme Court says you do not have a protected liberty interest in staying at a specific prison.⁵⁴ But you may have a claim if the move was a result of exercising your constitutional rights.⁵⁵

You also do not have a recognized liberty interest in staying in a specific prison even if the new prison has a different level of security. ⁵⁶ For example, a discretionary transfer from a minimum security prison to a medium security prison is not worse than the ordinary disruptions of prison life.⁵⁷ Likewise, moves from the general population to maximum security can be "within the normal limits or range of custody which the conviction" lets the state impose, even when maximum security conditions are much worse.⁵⁸ How often you move between prisons does not matter. ⁵⁹

The courts use this same reasoning for deportation. You do not have a protected liberty interest in moving to a prison in your home country, even if conditions in the United States are worse than in your home country. ⁶⁰

54. See Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 224-25, 96 S. Ct. 2532, 2538-39, 49 L. Ed. 2d 451, 459-60 (1976) (holding that...