Inmates have due process rights, too

When the jail charges the inmate with misconduct, and the charges may lead to solitary confinement or some other punishment, the jail has to follow due process to ensure the inmates receive a fair hearing. But a fair hearing is not like the hearings we see outside the prison context, i.e., in public employment. I cannot recall the last time an inmate won an appeal like this in the Second Circuit, but the Court of Appeals holds the plaintiff was denied due process. 

The case is Vidal v. Venettozzi, issued on April 1. The inmate was incarcerated at Green Haven Correctional Facility. The jail charged him with punching a correctional officer in a dispute over when he could bring his legal materials into the A-Block. The jail said that plaintiff then punched a second correction officer who came to assist the first officer. But even if plaintiff is an inmate, the Supreme Court says he is still entitled to defend himself at the disciplinary hearing. 

This hearing lasted nine days. Under the rules, the jail has to assign someone to help the inmate gather witnesses for the hearing. This is a security measure. The inmate cannot just walk through the jail obtaining witness statements and commitments from other inmates to testify. Plaintiff claims he was not permitted to get and introduce certain documentary evidence, including the A-Block logbook. While the assigned evidence-gatherer, Carroll, did not obtain any witness statements, he told plaintiff these witnesses had agreed to testify. Following the hearing, he was found guilty to sentenced to 270 of confinement in the special housing unit, what we call SHU, where he has limited free movement or access to recreation, daily showers, use of the telephone, exercise equipment, social activities., regular visits without restrictions, access to the law library, and other benefits or access to programs at the jail. Plaintiff ultimately served 258 days in SHU. There is an assumption that the plaintiff did not receive a fair hearing, so the question is whether the due process clause required that the jail provide him one. The issue is whether plaintiff had a liberty interest in avoiding solitary confinement.

 

Inmates have a liberty interest under the due process clause to be free from disciplinary segregation without due process. But that right only kicks in if the inmate is subjected to an "atypical and significant hardship" at the jail, a legal standard devised by the Supreme Court in Sandin v. Conner (1995). One prior case holds that 305 days for disciplinary SHU qualifies as an aytpical and significant hardship, but that lesser amounts for administrative confinement may also qualify. The Court of Appeals holds that "the duration of Vidal's disciplinary segregation alone was an aytpical and significant hardship in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life and thus implicates a protected liberty interest." Other cases hold that lengthy solitary confinement can cause significant psychological hardship, even physical hardship. The Court of Appeals (Robinson and Merriam) rules that plaintiff was entitled to due process. The case returns to the district court to determine if the individual defendant can invoke qualified immunity.