18-d-8 The Ruling and the Requirement of a Written Record

LibraryA Jailhouse Lawyer's Manual (2020 Edition)

18-D-8. The Ruling and the Requirement of a Written Record

At the end of the hearing the hearing officer may, at his discretion, do one of several things: he may affirm all the charges, he may dismiss all the charges, or he may affirm some charges and dismiss others. 211 The only requirement is that some evidence support the hearing officer's final decision. This standard is very low. It does not require the hearing officer to produce substantial evidence or a preponderance of evidence against you. Generally, if any evidence exists at all, the court will uphold the hearing officer's conclusion. Also, the fact finder (here, the hearing officer) is not required to make a decision solely upon the evidence presented at the hearing. In Baxter v. Palmigiano, 212 the Supreme Court explained that, in the unique prison environment, facts that may not come to light until after the formal hearing should not be excluded in determining what happened, since they may help officials understand the incident and tailor penalties to further penal goals. The Court also clarified that the fact finder must provide a written statement of the evidence that he relied on and the reasons for the disciplinary action taken.213

Often, the only or primary evidence against a prisoner is the misbehavior report itself. New York's regulations require that misbehavior reports present a detailed written account of the alleged incident, so the report alone may provide enough evidence to support a disciplinary ruling. 214 In one case where reports merely restated that all of the prisoners in the mess hall were part of a disturbance, without describing their specific misbehavior, the evidence was found insufficient to...

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