Inmates lose due process claim over solitary confinement and denial of religious services

These inmates sued the state of Connecticut because they were locked up in solitary confinement, enduring what they claim were unconstitutional conditions of confinement. They sue under the due process clause, which the Supreme Court has interpreted to protect inmates from certain liberty deprivations without due process. The inmates lose this claim.

The case is Baltas v. Chapdelaine, issued on September 3. Inmates do have rights, you know. The Supreme Court will not go so far as to strip inmates, even convicted criminals, of their rights just becase they are bad people. But the Court has made it difficult to win these cases. In Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472 (1995), the Supreme Court scaled back due process for inmates in holding that they can only prove a deprivation of liberty when the jail conditions post an "atypical or significant hardship," and the conditions create a "major disruption" to their living environment. The Second Circuit has further explained the rules this way:

Relevant factors “include the extent to which the conditions of the  disciplinary  segregation  differ  from  other  routine  prison conditions and the duration of the disciplinary segregation imposed compared to discretionary confinement.” “[E]specially harsh conditions endured for a brief interval and somewhat harsh conditions endured for a prolonged interval might both be atypical.”

Plaintiffs lose the case. They claim that 23 hours of solitary confinement, with only one hour per day for outside recreational activity, deprives them of a liberty interest. But other inmates, in general population, only get two hours of outside recreation per day. As the Court of Appeals (Carney, Park and Nardini) states, "We have never held that such a deprivation of recreation and socialization constitutes an atypical and significant hardship[.]" Without such a holding, the defendants are entitled to qualified immunity.

Plaintiffs also claim their jailers violated their religious liberty by depriving access to religious services. "But their allegations do no rise to a cognizable hardship under Sandin," the Court holds, because one plaintiff was stuck in solitary confinement for five months, and "there is no caselaw establishing that denial of religious services for five months imposes an aytpical or significant hardship. While a prior Second Circuit case held a jail may deprive an inmate of religious services for 18 days -- far less time than the plaintiff asserts here -- the Second Circuit says "our decisions do not clearly establish a bright-line rule about when such deprivations are actionable under Sandin." Under the qualified immunity analysis, where the plaintiff has to show the public defendants violated a clearly-established right, plaintiff therefore cannot proceed with the case.