WESTEFER v. SNYDER
725 F.Supp.2d 735 (2010)
United States District Court, S.D. Illinois.
July 20, 2010.
Prison security, imperiled by the brutal reality of prison gangs, provides the backdrop of the State's interest. Clandestine, organized, fueled by race-based hostility, and committed to fear and violence as a means of disciplining their own members and their rivals, gangs seek nothing less than to control prison life and to extend their power outside prison walls. Murder of an inmate, a guard, or one of their family members on the outside is a common form of gang discipline and control, as well as a condition for membership in some gangs. Testifying against, or otherwise informing on, gang activities can invite one's own death sentence. It is worth noting in this regard that for prison gang members serving life sentences, some without the possibility of parole, the deterrent effects of ordinary criminal punishment may be substantially diminished.
Id. (citations omitted). The Court also noted Ohio's strong interest in prudently managing the state's limited resources. "The problem of scarce resources is another component of the State's interest. The cost of keeping a single prisoner in one of Ohio's ordinary maximum-security prisons is $34,167 per year, and the cost to maintain each inmate at OSP is $49,007 per year." Id. at 228, 125 S.Ct. 2384. "We can assume that Ohio, or any other penal system, faced with costs like these will find it difficult to fund more effective education and vocational assistance programs to improve the lives of the prisoners." Id. In view of these compelling state interests, the Court concluded, "courts must give substantial deference to prison management decisions before mandating additional expenditures for elaborate procedural safeguards when correctional officials conclude that a prisoner has engaged in disruptive behavior." Id.
After balancing the Mathews factors, the Wilkinson Court held that Ohio's policies governing placement of inmates of the state correctional system at the OSP adequately safeguard the liberty interest of such inmates in avoiding the conditions of confinement in supermax custody. The Court pointed out that in determining whether an inmate should be placed in supermax confinement, correctional officials must assess an inmate's whole prison record and make what amounts to a prediction of the inmate's conduct in the future, an inquiry that implicates both the
penological expertise of prison administrators and the overriding state interest in protecting the safety of other inmates and correctional personnel. In placing inmates at the OSP, the Court noted, Ohio is not, for example, attempting to remove an inmate from free society for a specific parole violation, or to revoke good-time credits for specific, serious misbehavior, where more formal, adversary-type procedures might be useful. Where the inquiry draws more on the experience of prison administrators, and where the State's interest implicates the safety of other inmates and prison personnel,... informal, nonadversary procedures... provide the appropriate model.
Wilkinson, 545 U.S. at 228-29, 125 S.Ct. 2384 (citations omitted). In sum, because decisions about placing inmates in supermax confinement are ones that implicate the correctional expertise of prison administrators and the compelling state interest in the maintenance of prison security, such decisions necessarily are most susceptible of resolution through informal procedures.
To determine what process, under Wilkinson and Mathews, is constitutionally due IDOC inmates placed in the supermax prison at Tamms, the Court must address three issues regarding existing IDOC procedures for placing inmates in Tamms: first, whether the administrative grievance procedures created by IDOC regulations provide a constitutionally adequate means of protecting the liberty interest of IDOC inmates in avoiding confinement at Tamms; second, whether for inmates assigned to Tamms in disciplinary segregation, who under current IDOC regulations are not entitled to a hearing to review their transfer to Tamms until such time as they have completed their sentence of segregation, the hearing that they receive on the disciplinary charge resulting in their segregation placement adequately protects the liberty interest of segregation inmates in avoiding confinement at Tamms; and third, whether for inmates assigned to Tamms in administrative detention status, the framework of periodic transfer review hearings furnished under current IDOC regulations adequately protects the liberty interest of those inmates in avoiding confinement at Tamms. After these three matters are resolved, the Court will examine the constitutional adequacy under Wilkinson and Mathews of the procedures for placing inmates at Tamms outlined in IDOC Director Randle's Ten-Point Plan.
2. Challenging Placement at Tamms through IDOC Grievance Procedures
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.