D. Your Procedural Due Process Rights Regarding Punishment, Administrative Transfers, and Segregation

LibraryThe Jailhouse Lawyer's Handbook (CCR) (2021 Ed.)

D. Your Procedural Due Process Rights Regarding Punishment, Administrative Transfers, and Segregation

√ The Rule: If the prison subjects you to treatment or conditions that are an atypical and significant hardship in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life, they must provide you with some level of process.

What this means in practice is you can only challenge a transfer or punishment in prison if it is extremely and unusually harsh, or if it is done to get back at you for something you have the right to do.

The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits a state from depriving "any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law." There are two parts to this clause: "substantive due process" and "procedural due process." This section deals only with procedural due process.

Your right to procedural due process means that the prison must provide you with some amount of protection (like a hearing or a notice) if the prison does something that harms your life, liberty, or property. Discipline, placement in segregation, transfers to extremely restrictive prisons, and loss of good time credit are all things that the prison can do to you that might violate due process if they are done without procedural protections, like a hearing.

Procedural due process has two parts: first you have to show that you have been deprived of a liberty interest and second, you have to show that you should have gotten more procedure than you received.

You only have a liberty interest if the prison's actions interfere with or violate your constitutionally protected rights, such as First Amendment rights, or if the prison treats you in a way that is much worse than is normal for prisoners. If a court finds that you don't have a liberty interest, then the prison doesn't have to provide you with any process at all.

1. Due Process Rights of People in Prison

Two important Supreme Court cases govern due process rights for prisoners:

> In the first case, Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539 (1974), the Supreme Court found that when prisoners lose good time credits because of a disciplinary offense, they are entitled to: (1) written notice of the disciplinary violation; (2) the right to call witnesses at their hearing; (3) assistance in preparing for the hearing; (4) a written statement of the reasons for being found guilty; and (5) a fair and impartial decision-maker in the hearing.

> The second important Supreme Court case, Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472 (1995), sharply limits the decision of Wolff, so due process protection only applies to discipline that makes a prisoner's time in prison longer (like by taking away his good time credits) or treatment that leads to an "atypical and significant hardship on the prisoner in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life." In Sandin, a prisoner was placed in disciplinary segregation for 30 days. The Supreme Court found that the prisoner had no liberty interest, because 30 days in disciplinary segregation is not an unusual or harsh punishment. "Significant hardship" means that treatment must be really awful, not just uncomfortable or annoying.

Beware!

You cannot bring a procedural due process challenge to a disciplinary proceeding that took away good time, or otherwise lengthened your time in prison, unless you first exhaust your administrative...

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