The Supreme Court/The Supreme Court.iso/pc/ascii/1993/93_1911/93_1911.zd

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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
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No. 93-1911
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CINDA SANDIN, UNIT TEAM MANAGER, HALAWA
CORRECTIONAL FACILITY, PETITIONER v.
DEMONT R. D. CONNER et al.
on writ of certiorari to the united states court
of appeals for the ninth circuit
[June 19, 1995]

  Justice Ginsburg, with whom Justice Stevens joins,
dissenting.
  Respondent DeMont Conner is a prisoner in a maxi-
mum-security Hawaii prison.  After Conner reacted
angrily to a strip search, a misconduct report charged
him with obstructing the performance of a correctional
officer's duties, using abusive language when talking to
a staff member, and harassing a staff member.  Conner
received notice of the charges and had an opportunity,
personally, to answer them.  However, the disciplinary
committee denied his request to call as witnesses staff
members he said would attest to his innocence.
  Conner contested the misconduct charges, but, accord-
ing to the report of the disciplinary committee, he
admitted his hesitation to follow orders and his use of
profanity during the search.  Based on Conner's state-
ment to the committee, and on written statements
submitted by the officer who conducted the search and
his supervisor, the committee found Conner guilty of all
charges.  Sentenced to 30 days in the prison's segrega-
tion unit, Conner pursued an administrative appeal,
which ultimately resulted in reversal of the obstruction
conviction.
  Unlike the Court, I conclude that Conner had a liberty
interest, protected by the Fourteenth Amendment's Due
Process Clause, in avoiding the disciplinary confinement
he endured.  As Justice Breyer details, Conner's prison
punishment effected a severe alteration in the conditions
of his incarceration.  See post, at 4.  Disciplinary
confinement as punishment for -high misconduct- not
only deprives prisoners of privileges for protracted
periods; unlike administrative segregation and protective
custody, disciplinary confinement also stigmatizes them
and diminishes parole prospects.  Those immediate and
lingering consequences should suffice to qualify such
confinement as liberty-depriving for purposes of Due
Process Clause protection.  See Meachum v. Fano, 427
U. S. 215, 234-235 (1976) (Stevens, J., dissenting).
  I see the Due Process Clause itself, not Hawaii's
prison code, as the wellspring of the protection due
Conner.  Deriving protected liberty interests from
mandatory language in local prison codes would make of
the fundamental right something more in certain States,
something less in others.  Liberty that may vary from
Ossining, New York, to San Quentin, California, does
not resemble the -Liberty- enshrined among -unalienable
Rights- with which all persons are -endowed by their
Creator.-  Declaration of Independence; see Meachum,
427 U. S., at 230 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (-[T]he Due
Process Clause protects [the unalienable liberty recog-
nized in the Declaration of Independence] rather than
the particular rights or privileges conferred by specific
laws or regulations.-).
  Deriving the prisoner's due process right from the code
for his prison, moreover, yields this practical anomaly:
a State that scarcely attempts to control the behavior of
its prison guards may, for that very laxity, escape
constitutional accountability; a State that tightly cabins
the discretion of its prison workers may, for that
attentiveness, become vulnerable to constitutional claims.
An incentive for ruleless prison management disserves
the State's penological goals and jeopardizes the welfare
of prisoners.
  To fit the liberty recognized in our fundamental
instrument of government, the process due by reason of
the Constitution similarly should not depend on the par-
ticularities of the local prison's code.  Rather, the basic,
universal requirements are notice of the acts of miscon-
duct prison officials say the inmate committed, and an
opportunity to respond to the charges before a trustwor-
thy decisionmaker.  See generally Friendly, -Some Kind
of Hearing,- 123 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1267, 1278-1281 (1975)
(an unbiased tribunal, notice of the proposed government
action and the grounds asserted for it, and an opportu-
nity to present reasons why the proposed action should
not be taken are fundamental; additional safeguards
depend on the importance of the private interest, the
utility of the particular safeguards, and the burden of
affording them).
  For the reasons Justice Breyer cogently presents, see
post, at 14-15, a return of this case to the District
Court would be unavoidable if it were recognized that
Conner was deprived of liberty within the meaning of
the Due Process Clause.  But upon such a return, a
renewed motion for summary judgment would be in
order, for the record, as currently composed, does not
show that Conner was denied any procedural protection
warranted in his case.
  In particular, a call for witnesses is properly refused
when the projected testimony is not relevant to the
matter in controversy.  See Wolff v. McDonnell, 418
U. S. 539, 566 (1974) (justifications for a prison tribu-
nal's refusing to hear witnesses are -irrelevance, lack of
necessity, [and] the hazards [to institutional safety or
correctional goals] presented in individual cases-).
Unless Conner were to demonstrate, in face of the
disciplinary committee's stated reliance on his own
admissions, that an issue of material fact is genuinely
in controversy, see Fed. Rules Civ. Proc. 56(c), (e), his
due process claim would fail.

                       *    *    *
  Because I conclude that Conner was deprived of
liberty within the meaning of the Due Process Clause,
I dissent from the judgment of the Court.  I would
return the case for a precisely focused determination
whether Conner received the process that was indeed
due.