WESTEFER v. SNYDER
725 F.Supp.2d 735 (2010)
United States District Court, S.D. Illinois.
July 20, 2010.
The Court considers first the question of whether IDOC inmates have an adequate vehicle to challenge placement at Tamms through the grievance procedure afforded to inmates in IDOC custody by the IDOC regulations contained in Title 20 of the Illinois Administrative Code. See Ill. Admin. Code tit. 20, § 504.800 et seq. This matter can be disposed of quickly. In a previous order in this case, the Court ruled that decisions to assign inmates to Tamms are decisions of the Director of the IDOC that cannot be challenged through the grievance procedure. See Westefer v. Snyder, Civil Nos. 00-162-GPM, 00-708-GPM, 2010 WL 235003, at *4 (S.D.Ill. Jan. 15, 2010) (granting partial summary judgment for Plaintiffs on the issue of whether IDOC regulations furnish any administrative remedy by which to grieve a placement at Tamms). That decision of the Court is, of course, the law of the case, from which the Court sees no reason to depart at this time. See Westefer v. Snyder, Civil Nos. 00-162-GPM, 00-708-GPM, 2010 WL 331733, at *6 (S.D.Ill. Jan. 25, 2010) (under the doctrine of the law of the case, decisions made by a court at an
earlier stage of a case generally will control proceedings at later stages of the case); Potter v. Janus Inv. Fund, 483 F.Supp.2d 692, 708-09 (S.D.Ill.2007) (same). Thus, the Court concludes that IDOC grievance procedures do not furnish an avenue for IDOC inmates to challenge their assignment to Tamms and thus do not protect the liberty interest of such inmates in avoiding confinement in supermax custody. 3. Placement at Tamms in Disciplinary SegregationIt is undisputed that under current IDOC regulations, inmates who are assigned to Tamms in disciplinary segregation do not have the right to a hearing to review their transfer to the supermax prison until after they have completed their term of segregation. Ruane Tanner, who is the Clinical Services Supervisor and chair of the Transfer Review Committee at Tamms, and who testified in this case as the IDOC's representative pursuant to Rule 30(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure regarding the procedure for transfer of inmates to Tamms, testified that inmates assigned to Tamms in disciplinary segregation do not receive a hearing regarding their transfer to the prison until such time as they have completed their segregation sentence and are placed in administrative detention. See Deposition of Ruane Tanner at 4-5, 7, 28-29. What this means, then, is that an inmate serving a lengthy term of disciplinary segregation will not receive a hearing regarding his transfer to Tamms until such time as he has completed his term of segregation; thus, Rodney Guthrie and Ronnie Carroll both spent approximately six years in disciplinary segregation at Tamms without ever receiving a hearing regarding their transfer to the supermax prison. See Doc. 514 (Guthrie Testimony) at 17; Id. (Carroll Testimony) at 36-37. Similarly, Gene Arnett who, as already has been noted, currently is a Tamms inmate, testified that he has spent eleven years in disciplinary segregation at Tamms without ever receiving a transfer hearing. See Doc. 433 (Arnett Testimony) at 74-75. Given that Arnett still has a lengthy sentence of disciplinary segregation to complete, it appears that he will not be eligible to receive a transfer review hearing for seventeen years. See id. at 75. Also, disciplinary segregation inmates at Tamms do not receive an annual transfer review hearing to determine if their continued placement at Tamms is warranted. See Doc. 175 (Response to Request for Admissions) at 5 ¶ 7.
Defendants contend that the due process rights of inmates transferred to Tamms in disciplinary segregation are adequately protected by IDOC regulations governing Adjustment Committee hearings for IDOC inmates charged with infractions of prison discipline. Under the applicable regulations, "[t]he Adjustment Committee hearing shall be convened but need not be concluded within 14 days after the commission of the offense by an adult offender... or its discovery, whenever possible, unless the offender has received a continuance or is unable or unavailable for any reason to participate in the hearing." Ill. Admin. Code tit. 20, § 504.80(a). An inmate must receive written notice of the disciplinary charge against him or her at least a day before an Adjustment Committee hearing on the charge. Specifically, the applicable regulations provide, "[t]he offender shall receive written notice of the facts and charges being presented against him or her no less than 24 hours prior to the Adjustment Committee hearing." Id. § 504.80(b). Also, an inmate is required to be notified of any evidence in his or her favor: "The offender shall be informed before or at the hearing of information
that would tend to show that the offender was not guilty. If information is provided to him or her at the hearing, the offender shall, upon request, be given a continuance." Id. § 504.80(c). The inmate has the right to appear at the hearing, to make relevant statements, to produce relevant documents, and to request the presence of witnesses. Any offender charged with a violation of any rules shall have the right to appear before and address the Committee. Any refusal to appear shall be documented and provided to the Committee. However, failure to appear before or address the Committee may be adversely construed against the individual by the Adjustment Committee.
1) The offender may make any relevant statement or produce any relevant documents in his or her defense.
2) Prior to the hearing, the offender may request that witnesses be interviewed. The request shall be in writing on the space provided in the disciplinary report and shall include an explanation of what the witnesses would state. If the offender fails to make the request in a timely manner before the hearing, the individual may be granted a continuance for good cause shown.
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.