WESTEFER v. SNYDER
725 F.Supp.2d 735 (2010)
United States District Court, S.D. Illinois.
July 20, 2010.
The Court turns to the third of the Wilkinson factors to be considered in determining whether there is a liberty interest in avoiding confinement at Tamms, the effect of placement at the supermax prison on the length of an inmate's sentence. In Wilkinson the Court identified as a factor relevant to the existence of a liberty interest in avoiding confinement at the OSP the fact that placement at the OSP automatically disqualifies an inmate of the supermax prison from consideration for parole. See 545 U.S. at 224, 125 S.Ct. 2384. The parties to this action agree that inmates at Tamms are eligible for release on parole or mandatory supervised release at the same time they would be if incarcerated at another Illinois prison. Nevertheless, as the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals cautioned at an earlier stage of this case, to interpret Wilkinson as "turn[ing] exclusively on the absence of parole constitutes, [in] our view, far too crabbed a reading of the decision." Westefer, 422 F.3d at 590. "The very text of the [Wilkinson ] decision belies such a claim in noting that, `[w]hile any of these conditions standing alone might not be sufficient to create a liberty interest, taken together they impose an atypical and significant hardship within the correctional context.'" Id. (quoting Wilkinson, 545 U.S. at 224, 125 S.Ct. 2384).
Further, it is clear from the record that placement at Tamms does affect the length of an inmate's sentence, by rendering the inmate ineligible to receive various kinds of good time credit. Under Illinois law, a prison inmate, depending on the nature of his or her underlying sentence, is eligible for day-for-day good time credit pursuant to 730 ILCS 5/3-6-3, which provides, in relevant part, that "a prisoner who is serving a term of imprisonment shall receive one day of good conduct credit for each day of his or her sentence of imprisonment. . . . Each day of good conduct credit shall reduce by one day the prisoner's period of imprisonment[.]" 730 ILCS 5/3-6-3(a)(2.1). See also Thomas v. Sims, No. 05 C 3307, 2006 WL 495941, at *2 (N.D.Ill. Feb. 28, 2006). Thus, a Tamms inmate, according to the nature of his sentence, receives day-for-day good time credit in the same manner as inmates at any IDOC prison do. See, e.g., Williams v. Johnson, No. 07-cv-35-DRH, 2009 WL 5183793, at *1 & n. 2 (S.D.Ill. Dec. 22, 2009). However, placement at Tamms deprives an inmate of the right to earn certain other kinds of good time credit.
Pursuant to Section 3-6-3 of the Illinois Unified Code of Corrections, most IDOC inmates are eligible to receive good time credit for participating in work, education, and substance abuse programs:The rules and regulations shall also provide that the good conduct credit accumulated and retained under paragraph (2.1) of subsection (a) of this Section by any inmate during specific periods of time in which such inmate is engaged full-time in substance abuse programs, correctional industry assignments, or educational programs provided by the Department under this paragraph (4) and satisfactorily completes the assigned program as determined by the standards of the Department shall be multiplied by a factor of 1.25 for program participation before August 11, 1993 and 1.50 for program participation on or after that date.
730 ILCS 5/3-6-3(a)(4). See also Bryant v. Peters, No. 94 C 2758, 1995 WL 708566, at *1 (N.D.Ill. Nov. 30, 1995). Also, inmates at most Illinois prisons are eligible to receive meritorious good time credit under Section 3-6-3, which states, in relevant part, "The rules and regulations shall also provide that the Director [of the IDOC] may award up to 180 days additional good conduct credit for meritorious service in specific instances as the Director deems proper[.]" 730 ILCS 5/3-6-3(a)(3). See also Rooding v. Peters, 864 F.Supp. 732, 738 (N.D.Ill.1994). Because there are no educational programs or substance abuse programs at Tamms, and Tamms inmates are not permitted to hold job assignments, inmates of the supermax prison perforce cannot earn good time credit for participating in work, education, and substance abuse programs. See Doc. 175 (Response to Request for Admissions) at 13-14 ¶¶ 61-64, ¶ 66. Additionally, Tamms inmates are ineligible to receive meritorious good time credits. See Health Care Unit Request Acknowledgment by LCSW Rocky Peppers to IDOC Inmate Sean Jordan (Plaintiffs' Exhibit 15). Because of the strict constraints that placement at Tamms imposes on the ability of the inmates of the supermax prison to accrue good time credit, the Court concludes that the effect of placement at Tamms is to extend the sentence of an inmate who is confined there.4 Accordingly, the third of the Wilkinson factors relevant to the existence of a liberty interest in avoiding confinement at a supermax prison, the effect of confinement in such a prison on the length of an inmate's sentence, is satisfied here. 3. Baseline Comparatives of Tammsa. Conditions at the OSP
1. The Court notes that there is also a minimum security prison at Tamms; all references to Tamms in this Order are to the supermax prison there.
2. This perhaps is the place to note that this Order is intended to be a concise account of the bench trial conducted on the procedural due process claims in this case, and to that end only matters deemed by the Court to be credible, material, and relevant will be reported. The reader should presume that evidence omitted from the Court's findings of fact was considered by the Court to be irrelevant or in any event less persuasive than competing evidence. The Court notes in passing that, in addition to alleging violations of procedural due process, Plaintiffs Von Perbandt, Taylor, Sparling, Sorrentino, Santiago, V. Rodriguez, E. Rodriguez, Lasley, Knox, Horton, Harper, Felton, Combs, Clayton, Chapman, Burrell, Bivens, and Cunningham also assert claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that they were assigned by Defendants to the supermax prison at Tamms in retaliation for filing grievances and lawsuits and engaging in other protected activities challenging the conditions of their confinement, in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. These retaliation claims have been resolved in a series of jury trials, and they are not at issue here.
3. In fact, statistical data assembled by the IDOC shows that the average time served for the current population at Tamms is 73.4 months, or over six years. See Ten-Point Plan (Plaintiffs' Exhibit 7) at 6. Seventy of the 243 inmates (28.3%) have been at Tamms for at least ten years, and more than half have been at Tamms for over five years. See id. at 8. Over three-quarters (76.9%) or 190 of the inmates at Tamms have been there for over three years. See id., Table 4.
4. The Court recognizes that it is assuming here that, were work, education, and substance abuse programs available at Tamms, inmates of the supermax prison would participate in such programs. This assumption seems reasonable to the Court. Participation in such programs doubtless would be a happy alternative to the crushing monotony of being confined alone in a cell for up to twenty-four hours a day that currently is the lot of Tamms inmates. Also, it seems probable that Tamms inmates would welcome the opportunity to earn money by participating in work programs, in order to purchase small items like walkmans or arch supports that make life in a place like Tamms somewhat more bearable. See Doc. 433 (Testimony of Adolfo Rosario) at 50-51 (the witness, a Tamms inmate, complained that the shoes issued to him by Tamms correctional personnel lack arch supports, but he cannot purchase shoe inserts at the prison commissary because he is indigent and has no money to spend at the commissary).
5. Finally, although strictly speaking Point Two of IDOC Director Randle's Plan is not concerned with the issue of whether or not an inmate should be placed at Tamms, it is worth noting that Point Two protects inmates from spending an unnecessary amount of time in the supermax prison. Under the Plan, as already has been noted, upon arrival at Tamms new inmates of the supermax prison will be advised at orientation of the probable length of their stay at the prison, expressed as a range of possible terms of supermax confinement; further, inmates will work with counselors to ensure that they achieve the behavioral levels necessary to be transferred out of Tamms in the least possible time. See Ten-Point Plan (Plaintiffs' Exhibit 7) at 16; Doc. 522 (Randle Testimony) at 13-14.