WESTEFER v. SNYDER
725 F.Supp.2d 735 (2010)
United States District Court, S.D. Illinois.
July 20, 2010.
Id. § 504.80(f). If the Adjustment Committee is satisfied that the inmate committed the offense with which he or she is charged, the Adjustment Committee may recommend discipline, including placing the inmate in segregation status. See id. § 504.80(k)(4)(H). The Adjustment Committee may also recommend that the inmate be transferred to another correctional facility. See id. § 504.80(k)(4)(E). The regulations impose no limitation concerning the other prisons to which an inmate may be transferred as punishment for a disciplinary infraction. See id. The recommendation of the Adjustment Committee is subject to review by the Chief Administrative Officer (that is, the Warden) of the prison where the inmate is housed or, in appropriate cases, by the Director of the IDOC. See id. § 504.80(p).
The Court finds unpersuasive Defendants' argument that the Adjustment Committee hearing provided for under IDOC regulations as outlined above is adequate to protect the due process liberty interest in avoiding confinement at Tamms of inmates assigned to the supermax prison in disciplinary segregation. No inmate who testified in this case stated that he was advised at an Adjustment Committee hearing that he was being considered for placement at Tamms. In fact the testimony in this case was quite uniform that inmates transferred to Tamms in disciplinary segregation were not informed at their Adjustment Committee hearings that part of their punishment for a disciplinary infraction might be assignment to Tamms. See, e.g., Doc. 433 (Bell Testimony) at 26; Id. (Rosario Testimony) at 52; Doc. 482 (Testimony of Eugene Horton) at 16-17; Id. (Testimony of Vincente Rodriguez) at 19; Doc. 507 (Combs Testimony) at 7; Doc. 514 (Guthrie Testimony) at 17. Moreover, several prisoners testified to lengthy temporal gaps between the time they were placed at Tamms in disciplinary segregation and the offenses that caused them to be so placed. For example, Brian Nelson testified that he was placed in disciplinary segregation at Tamms over an incident that occurred perhaps as much as two years earlier than his arrival at the supermax prison. See Doc. 433 (Nelson Testimony) at 7. Similarly, Tamms inmate Johnny Almodovar testified that he was transferred to the supermax prison in disciplinary segregation on the basis of disciplinary charges that had been leveled at him during a previous term of incarceration that was separate from the term Almodovar currently is serving. See id.
(Almodovar Testimony) at 67-68. In sum, nothing in the record supports the inference that the Adjustment Committee hearing granted to IDOC inmates charged with disciplinary infractions adequately protects the liberty interest of such inmates in avoiding confinement at Tamms, and the Court concludes that it does not. 4. Placement at Tamms in Administrative DetentionThe Court considers next the matter of whether, for inmates assigned to Tamms in administrative detention status, the framework of periodic transfer review hearings to evaluate the propriety of placement at Tamms in administrative detention that is provided under current IDOC regulations adequately protects the liberty interest of administrative detention inmates in avoiding placement at Tamms. Under existing IDOC regulations, inmates transferred to Tamms in administrative detention status are entitled to a transfer review hearing within ten working days of their transfer, when possible; additionally, inmates assigned to Tamms in administrative detention receive an annual transfer review hearing. See Ill. Admin. Code tit. 20, § 505.60(a); Id. § 505.70(b); Deposition of Odie Washington at 90. Also, the files of inmates transferred to Tamms in administrative detention are reviewed quarterly to determine whether placement at the prison is still appropriate. See Ill. Admin. Code tit. 20, § 505.70(a). The evidence of record compels the conclusion that under existing IDOC regulations, inmates placed at Tamms in administrative detention do not receive adequate constitutional process.
The principal constitutional flaw in the existing transfer review hearing procedure provided to IDOC inmates assigned to Tamms in administrative detention status is the IDOC's failure to give such inmates advance notice of their transfer review hearing and the reason the inmates have been transferred to Tamms. Defendants admit that IDOC inmates do not receive notice of the reason why they have been transferred to Tamms. See Doc. 175 (Response to Request for Admissions) at 5-6 ¶ 12. Similarly, IDOC's Rule 30(b)(6) designee Ruane Tanner conceded that before 2005 IDOC inmates did not receive written notice in advance of their transfer review hearing. See Tanner Deposition at 29-30. Moreover, IDOC regulations do not provide that an inmate must be given notice in advance of the transfer review hearing as to the reason he is being sent to Tamms. See Washington Deposition at 91. Although inmates may make a statement and present documents at their transfer review hearing, Defendant Washington, a former IDOC Director, conceded that he does not know how an inmate could raise a meaningful challenge to his placement at Tamms or present relevant information at a transfer review hearing without knowing the reason for his placement at Tamms:
Q. I'm asking you how they [inmates] are supposed to know what statements would be relevant [at a transfer review hearing] if they are not told why they were sent there [Tamms]?
A. I can't answer that.
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.