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Robert J. Daigle v. Frank A. Hall, 564 F.2d 884, 1st Cir. (1977)
Robert J. Daigle v. Frank A. Hall, 564 F.2d 884, 1st Cir. (1977)
2d 884
In Montanye v. Haymes, 427 U.S. 236, 96 S.Ct. 2543, 49 L.Ed.2d 466 (1976),
the Supreme Court held that "(a)s long as the conditions or degree of
confinement to which the prisoner is subjected are within the sentence imposed
upon him and are not otherwise violative of the Constitution, the Due Process
Clause does not in itself subject an inmate's treatment by prison authorities to
judicial oversight." Id. at 242, 96 S.Ct. at 2547. It is clear to us that both of
these conditions exist in this case. First, the DSU is part of the Massachusetts
prison system to which these prison inmates were sentenced. We are pointed to
nothing in the order of the sentencing judge that puts the DSU beyond the
bounds of their sentences. No liberty interest springs up to protect inmates from
transfer to DSU simply because they are originally placed in the less unpleasant
surroundings of the general population. See Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215,
225, 96 S.Ct. 2532, 49 L.Ed.2d 451 (1976). Second, we have already held that
conditions of confinement in the DSU at Walpole do not of themselves violate
the Eighth Amendment. O'Brien v. Moriarty, 489 F.2d 941 (1st Cir. 1974).
Appellants have not demonstrated that conditions have so deteriorated as to
require a contrary conclusion in this case.
3
Thus freedom from transfer between the general population and DSU is not a
"liberty interest" protected by the Fourteenth Amendment in itself. This
conclusion was, of course, implicit in our decision in Four Certain Unnamed
Inmates v. Hall, 550 F.2d 1291 (1977), in which we denied any due process
relief to inmates who, like the inmates in this case, were transferred from the
general population to the DSU at Walpole. As we recognized there, appellants,
in order to trigger federal guarantees of procedural due process, must show
"some right or justifiable expectation rooted in state law that (they) will not be
transferred except for misbehavior or upon the occurrence of other specified
events." Id. at 1292, quoting Montayne v. Haymes, supra, 427 U.S. at 242, 96
S.Ct. 2543.
Because Four Certain Unnamed Inmates was decided under the same statute
and regulations that governed the transfer in this case, we ought not to have to
address the issue again. We do so only because in that case we did not
expressly distinguish the statutes and regulations dealt with in Meachum v.
Fano, supra, and Lombardo v. Meachum, 548 F.2d 13 (1st Cir. 1977),
governing transfer between institutions, from those relevant to tranfers within
an institution.1
Nor does D.O. 4450.1 confer such a right. Paragraph 1, the statement of the
DSU is necessary to house inmates who behave disruptively, creating "serious
management problems and/or security hazards." It does not attempt to set out a
precise standard against which one might measure an inmate and conclude that
he was outside the purpose of the DSU. It does not say who does not belong in
the DSU. Moreover, to the extent it does comment on the type of inmate who
will be placed in the DSU, it merely explains the statutory standard, defining
Appellants claim that in general, and in their particular cases, specific acts of
major misconduct trigger transfers to the DSU. Meachum v. Fano, supra, 427
U.S. at 228, 96 S.Ct. at 2540, however, renders that fact immaterial, so long as
the prison official's discretion is not limited to acts of serious misconduct,
because "no legal interest or right . . . would have been violated by their
transfer whether or not their misconduct had been proved in accordance with
procedures that might be required by the Due Process Clause in other
circumstances." As we have found, the same is true in this context.2
Appellants now assert that even if they lose on all their federal claims, we
should at least remand the case for determination of whether appellees violated
state law by failing to observe their own regulations.3 This claim, however, was
never raised below. Appellants relied exclusively on federal causes of action.
There is no pendent state law claim for us to consider.
10
Affirmed.
Given this finding, we can see no significance to the fact that the prison
officials chose to give hearings before some transfers to the DSU, but not
before those precipitated by an act that was being referred to a district attornery
for investigation