United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 00-1678
WAYNE AINSWORTH, et al.,
Plaintiffs, Appellants,
v.
HENRY RISLEY,
COMMISSIONER, NEW HAMPSHIRE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS,
Defendant, Appellee.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
[Hon. Steven J. McAuliffe, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Torruella, Chief Judge,
Boudin, and Lipez, Circuit Judges.
Michael J. Sheehan for appellants.
Andrew B. Livernois, Attorney, New Hampshire Civil Bureau,
with whom Philip T. McLaughlin, Attorney General, New Hampshire
was on brief, for appellee.
April 3, 2001
LIPEZ, Circuit Judge. A group of convicted sex offenders
claim, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, that the New Hampshire Department
of Corrections violated their Fifth Amendment right against self-
incrimination by requiring them to disclose their histories of sexual
misconduct to participate in a sex offender treatment program. The
plaintiffs argue that the required disclosures are incriminating
because they could lead to future prosecutions or perjury charges, or
could affect ongoing appeals. They argue that the disclosures are
compelled because completion of the treatment program is a de facto
requirement for parole and for maintaining residence in desired prison
housing. The district court granted the defendant's motion to dismiss,
finding that the plaintiffs failed to state a cognizable Fifth
Amendment claim. We affirm.
I.
The facts in this case generally are not disputed. The
plaintiffs are 23 inmates in the New Hampshire State Prison who have
been convicted of sex offenses. As sex offenders, they may apply for
the prison's Sexual Offender Program (SOP), instituted in 1986.
According to its mission statement, the SOP seeks to "ensure community
safety and protection" by preventing recidivism. The program is
designed to "address sexual addiction," "help offenders understand the
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thoughts, feelings and behaviors which precede their offense," and
"develop relapse prevention skills." To that end, the SOP provides
residential therapy to 60 inmates a year.1 Participants live together
in a dorm and receive 10 to 15 hours of treatment a week for 12 to 16
months. Treatment includes community meetings, social skills training
groups, clinical groups, and a year-long structured workbook series.
Inmates must apply to the SOP to be admitted. Applicants are
placed on a waiting list. Within two years of the earliest date on
which an applicant could receive parole, two SOP staff members assess
his eligibility for the program. Selection criteria include an
applicant's willingness to admit his offense and accept responsibility
for it. "If an applicant appears open and honest, recognizes he has a
serious problem and is committed to changing his behavior, he is
approved for programming." The program bases these requirements on the
belief that sex offenders must recognize past misconduct before
effective treatment can begin.
Inmates who are accepted by the SOP must sign a "treatment
contract." Provisions of the contract include: "I agree to be complete
[sic] open and honest and assume full responsibility for my offenses
and my behavior;" and "I understand that I have committed a sexual
crime and I will be required to discuss and complete assignments
1At the time relevant to this litigation, there were about 650
sex offenders in the New Hampshire State Prison.
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regarding my sexual history/deviancy. I may be required to answer many
questions about my sexual past and my current sexual behavior."
Inmates also agree to release any information about past behavior
sought by program staff, and, if necessary, to take a lie detector test
"to ensure full disclosure of offending history." Finally, SOP
participants must sign a waiver of confidentiality. The waiver states,
in relevant part:
I have been informed that any staff member at
N.H. State Prison is required by law to report to
the appropriate authorities, including but not
limited to, the County Attorney's Office, the
State Police, Local Police, Division for Children
and Youth Services and Probation Department, any
actual or suspected sexual offense of a
specifically identifiable victim, regardless of
how the staff member gains knowledge of such
occurrence or potential occurrence.
The SOP rejects inmates who refuse to comply with the terms of the
treatment contract or to sign a confidentiality waiver. The program
also generally deems inmates whose cases are on appeal unsuitable for
treatment because they have not acknowledged responsibility for their
crime of conviction.
Lance Messinger, director of the SOP, testified about the
disclosure requirements at a hearing on the plaintiffs’ petition for
injunctive relief. Messinger said that SOP staff members do not
require applicants to identify other victims whose names have not
already been reported, and that they discourage them from providing
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specific information that could be incriminating. However, Messinger
said that if staff members already have information about an offense
with which the applicant has not been charged, they press the applicant
to admit to that offense. Such information usually comes from an
inmate's presentence report and may concern allegations about an
additional victim. Any admissions of uncharged conduct that an inmate
makes must be reported to police and prosecutors. Messinger said that
he has tried on a case-by-case basis to win immunity from prosecution
for specific SOP participants, with limited success. Messinger said
that he remembered one case within the last ten years in which the
county attorney prosecuted a case based on admissions made through the
SOP.
The individual plaintiffs in this case have had a variety of
experiences with the SOP. Some of the plaintiffs have not applied for
the SOP because of the required disclosures. Others have applied and
were rejected because they refused to admit to their crime of
conviction, because their case was on appeal, or because they refused
to admit to an uncharged offense involving an additional victim.2
2
For the purposes of our analysis, we assume that the plaintiffs
collectively present the strongest set of facts that support the claim
they have developed--in other words, that they applied to the SOP and
were rejected; that they risk future prosecution by disclosing
uncharged conduct; that they have been or will be denied parole; and
that they have been or will be transferred to a less desirable
cellblock in the prison.
-5-
A few of the plaintiffs must complete the SOP as a condition
of their sentence. The majority, however, applied for the program for
two reasons. First, completion of the SOP is generally, though not
always, required before sex offenders receive parole. At the
preliminary injunction hearing, an official from the New Hampshire
Adult Parole Board testified that to date 97 to 98 percent of the sex
offenders who received parole had completed the SOP. Second, sex
offenders who do not complete the SOP often are transferred from South
Unit to Hancock Building. Both South and Hancock are medium security
units, but the plaintiffs view South as preferable housing. South has
two-man cells, 24-man pods, extensive outdoor privileges, and houses
mainly sex offenders. Hancock has eight-man cells, 96-man pods, only
one hour of outdoor access, and houses mainly drug and violent
offenders. The plaintiffs testified that South is a safer unit for sex
offenders, and some of them said they had been assaulted or hassled at
Hancock. They also point out that transfers to Hancock are used to
punish South inmates who commit minor disciplinary offenses.
The plaintiffs filed this action as a petition for
declaratory and injunctive relief. A magistrate judge held a hearing
on the petition and recommended that the court grant a preliminary
injunction enjoining the defendant from making admission of uncharged
criminal conduct a condition of participation in the SOP, unless the
plaintiffs received immunity from use of their admissions in future
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prosecutions. The district court rejected the magistrate judge’s
recommendation and granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss for
failure to state a claim, finding that the plaintiffs had failed to
establish that the prison’s policies violated the Fifth Amendment
privilege against self-incrimination.
Normally, a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim
is based only on the pleadings. See Fed R. Civ. Proc. 12(b)(6). In
this case, the district court had before it evidence developed at the
preliminary injunction hearing. See Developmental Disabilities
Advocacy Center, Inc. v. Melton, 689 F.2d 281, 282 (1st Cir. 1989).
Both the court and the parties repeatedly referred to this evidence,
effectively converting the motion to dismiss to a motion for summary
judgment. Fed. R. Civ. Proc. 12(b)(6) ("If, on a motion . . . to
dismiss for failure . . . to state a claim . . . matters outside the
pleading are presented to and not excluded by the court, the motion
shall be treated as one for summary judgment."). We thus review the
district court’s decision according to summary judgment standards,
considering the facts and all reasonable inferences to be drawn from
them in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. See F.D.I.C.
v. Kooyomjian, 220 F.3d 10, 13-14 (1st Cir. 2000). The moving party
prevails if there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the
party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. See Fed. R. Civ.
-7-
Proc. 56(c). Our review is de novo. See Garside v. Osco Drug, Inc.,
895 F.2d 46, 48 (1st Cir. 1990).
II.
The Fifth Amendment prevents any person from being "compelled
in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." U.S. Const.
amend. V. The Amendment's self-incrimination clause applies to the
states through the Fourteenth Amendment. See Spevack v. Klein, 385
U.S. 511, 514 (1967). The protection against self-incrimination
extends beyond criminal investigations, privileging a witness "not to
answer official questions put to him in any other proceeding, civil or
criminal, formal or informal, where the answers might incriminate him
in future criminal proceedings." Lefkowitz v. Turley, 414 U.S. 70, 77
(1973). A criminal defendant who has been convicted retains the
privilege after imprisonment as long as his testimony may be used
against him in a future trial for a crime of which he has not yet been
convicted. See Mitchell v. United States, 526 U.S. 314, 325 (1999);
Minnesota v. Murphy, 465 U.S. 420, 426 (1984). Two criteria must be
met in order for the privilege to apply: the witness must reasonably
believe that his statements may be used to incriminate him, Hoffman v.
United States, 341 U.S. 479, 486 (1951), and the statements must be
compelled. Lefkowitz v. Cunningham, 431 U.S. 801, 806 (1977) ("the
touchstone of the Fifth Amendment is compulsion"). Compulsion exists
when some factor denies the individual the "free choice to admit, to
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deny, or to refuse to answer." Lisenba v. California, 314 U.S. 219,
241 (1941).
The Supreme Court has found testimony to be compelled in
several contexts. For example, the Court has found that the state
impermissibly compelled testimony by forcing police officers and city
employees to choose between incriminating themselves and losing their
jobs. See Garrity v. New Jersey, 385 U.S. 493 (1967); Gardner v.
Broderick, 392 U.S. 273, 274 (1968); Uniformed Sanitation Men Ass’n v.
Comm’r of Sanitation of New York, 392 U.S. 280 (1968). The Court also
has found that the statements of an attorney made at a disciplinary
proceeding under threat of disbarment were compelled, see Spevack, 385
U.S. at 516. And it has invalidated state statutes that stripped an
attorney of his state political party office and architects of a city-
awarded contract because they refused to waive their Fifth Amendment
privilege. See Cunningham, 431 U.S. at 808; Turley, 414 U.S. at 85.
In these early cases, the consequences of refusing to give
potentially incriminating testimony were economic. Yet the Court
described compulsion in relatively broad terms. In Spevack, the Court
said that a "'penalty' is not restricted to fine or imprisonment" but
instead means "the imposition of any sanction which makes assertion of
the Fifth Amendment privilege 'costly.'" Spevack, 385 U.S. at 515
(citing Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609, 614 (1965)). In
Cunningham, the Court said that the Fifth Amendment protects against
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state-imposed "potent sanctions" or "substantial penalties."
Cunningham, 431 U.S. at 805. The Court also "rejected the notion that
citizens may be forced to incriminate themselves because it serves a
governmental need," saying that the interests of the state, even if
compelling, do not "justify infringement of Fifth Amendment rights."
Id. at 808.
Later Supreme Court cases, however, have qualified the
application of these broad, rights-protective statements in cases
involving prisoners, holding that courts must consider the state’s
interest in imposing a rule or requirement related to imprisonment when
deciding whether that requirement violates an inmate’s constitutional
rights. The watershed case is Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78 (1987), in
which the Court said that "when a prison regulation impinges on
inmates’ constitutional rights, the regulation is valid if it is
reasonably related to legitimate penological interests." Id. at 89.
As we have said before in assessing the impact of Turner, "[w]here
burdens are laid upon the exercise of constitutional rights by
prisoners, the Supreme Court’s current approach is to give very
substantial latitude to the state’s judgment." Beauchamp v. Murphy, 37
F.3d 700, 704 (1st Cir. 1994), cert. denied, 514 U.S. 1019 (1995).3
3 The Supreme Court has used Turner’s reasonableness test, for
example, in rejecting prisoners’ First Amendment claims. See, e.g.,
O’Lone v. Estate of Shabazz, 482 U.S. 342 (1987) (prison officials
acted reasonably by precluding Islamic inmates from attending weekly
Friday religious service and thus did not violate the First Amendment);
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As was the case in Beauchamp, Turner differs from the case
at hand because it involved "the actual running of prisons and the most
practical considerations of discipline, security, administrative
feasibility and cost." Id. The state offers treatment to sex
offenders out of concern about prisoners’ post-release conduct--most
pressingly, in hopes that such treatment will reduce recidivism rates
by helping to rehabilitate SOP participants--rather than out of concern
about effective prison management. Still, the state’s interest remains
relevant to determining whether the SOP’s required admissions violate
the plaintiffs’ Fifth Amendment rights. "The limitations on the
exercise of constitutional rights arise both from the fact of
incarceration and from valid penological objectives--including
deterrence of crime, rehabilitation of prisoners, and institutional
security." O’Lone v. Shabazz, 482 U.S. 342, 348 (1987). In light of
Turner, the burden that a prison rule or requirement places on an
inmate’s constitutional rights
cannot be unreasonable, and reasonableness
largely turns upon the facts. With some emphases
peculiar to prison regulation, Turner itself
identifies pertinent criteria: whether the
state’s policy serves a valid governmental
Thornburgh v. Abbott, 490 U.S. 401 (1989) (reasonable and so
constitutional to regulate prisoners’ mail). And the Court has been
similarly deferential to the state’s interests in Fifth Amendment due
process cases, holding that prisoners’ liberty interests extend only to
freedom from restraint that "imposes atypical and significant hardship
on the inmate in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life."
Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 472 (1995).
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interest; the extent to which the prisoner is
foreclosed or burdened in exercising his rights;
and the presence or absence of reasonable
alternatives for the government to achieve the
same ends by other means without significant cost
or impairment of the governmental interest at
stake.
Beauchamp, 37 F.3d at 705 (citing Turner, 482 U.S. at 89-91).4
As the defendant concedes, the plaintiffs can easily show
that the SOP’s required disclosures are incriminating. To participate
in the program, the plaintiffs must admit to uncharged offenses as well
as the behavior that led to their crime of conviction. They receive no
guarantee of immunity from prosecution--to the contrary, they are told
that incriminating statements will be reported to police and
prosecutors. In addition, an offender’s admission to his crime of
conviction could expose him to future prosecution for perjury if he
denied guilt at trial, or could undermine an ongoing appeal. See Lile
v. McKune, 224 F.3d 1175, 1180 (10th Cir. 2000) petition for cert.
filed, 69 U.S.L.W. 3506 (U.S. Jan. 22, 2001) (No. 00-1187).
Thus the real question before us is whether the disclosures
required by the SOP are unconstitutionally compelled within the meaning
of the Fifth Amendment. The plaintiffs offer two sets of facts to show
that the consequence of their refusal to make the admissions required
by the SOP is a penalty sufficient to constitute compulsion. First,
4We set aside a fourth consideration in Turner, the effect of the
remedy sought on the prison and other inmates, because it is "linked
peculiarly to prison operations." Beauchamp, 37 F.3d at 705 n.1.
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the plaintiffs claim that because the parole board has denied or will
deny them parole until they complete the SOP, they have no choice but
to comply with the program’s requirements. Second, they argue that
failure to complete the SOP has led or will lead to a "punitive
transfer" from South Unit to Hancock Building, and that this transfer
is sufficient punishment to compel their admissions. With particular
attention to the burden element, we apply Turner’s three-part test to
determine whether the denial of parole or the prison housing transfer
are penalties sufficient to compel speech within the prohibition of the
Fifth Amendment. See Lile, 224 F.3d at 1190 (applying Turner to
prisoners' Fifth Amendment claims).
A. Denial of Parole
1. Valid Government Interest
New Hampshire law gives the parole broad discretion over
release decisions, directing the board to base its judgment on whether
there is a "probability that the inmate will remain at liberty without
violating any law and will conduct himself as a good citizen." N.H.
Code of Admin. Rules. Ann. § 301.01. Whether a sex offender has
completed the SOP is one factor that the New Hampshire parole board may
consider in deciding whether a sex offender merits early release. See
N.H. Code of Admin. R. Ann. § 301.02(h) (parole board may take into
account evidence of "self-improvement" achieved through prison
programs, "specifically programs which addressed problems or issues
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that contributed to the inmate’s prior criminal conduct"). The
question under Turner is whether this consideration is based on a valid
governmental interest.
Unquestionably, the state has an acute interest in seeking
to rehabilitate sex offenders in hopes of deterring future crime,
particularly given the large body of research showing that sex
offenders commit repeat crimes at alarming rates.5 To that end, New
Hampshire established the SOP. The program’s requirement that
participants admit to their crimes is widely believed to be a necessary
prerequisite to successful treatment.6 While some research stresses the
difficulty of drawing conclusions about the success rates of sex
offender treatment,7 other studies show that treated sex offenders are
5 See Katie Isaac, Kansas v. Hendricks: A Perilous Step Forward in
the Fight Against Child Molestation, 35 Hous. L. Rev. 1295, 1296 (1998)
(citing a 1993 study that found that "forty-two percent of imprisoned
child molesters are later reconvicted for violent or sexual crimes").
6 See Brendan J. Shevlin, "[B]etween the Devil and the Deep Blue
Sea:" A Look at the Fifth Amendment Implications of Probation Programs
for Sex Offenders Requiring Mandatory Admissions of Guilt, 88 Ky. L.J.
485, 485 (2000); Jonathan Kaden, Therapy for Convicted Sex Offenders:
Pursuing Rehabilitation Without Incrimination, 89 J. Crim. L. &
Criminology 347, 365 n.103(1998); Scott Michael Solkoff, Judicial Use
Immunity and the Privilege Against Self-Incrimination in Court Mandated
Therapy Programs, 17 Nova L. Rev. 1441, 1450 (1993).
7 See David DePugh, The Right to Treatment for Involuntarily
Committed Sex Offenders in the Wake of Kansas v. Hendricks, 17 Buff.
Pub. Int. L.J. 71 n.140 (1999); Jessica Wilen Berg, Give Me Liberty or
Give Me Silence: Taking a Stand on Fifth Amendment Implications for
Court-Ordered Therapy Programs, 79 Cornell L. Rev. 700, 700 n.2 (1994).
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less likely to commit new crimes.8 Indeed, the SOP may be achieving
some success. Director Lance Messinger testified that twelve percent of
untreated offenders released from the prison since 1980 returned on a
new sex-offense conviction, while only six percent of those who
completed the SOP did. New Hampshire unmistakably has a valid
government interest in establishing the SOP, and in requiring sex
offenders to admit past conduct to participate in it.
2. Burden on the Exercise of Plaintiffs’ Rights
The plaintiffs argue that the denial of parole is a penalty
because it forces them to serve a longer prison term than they
otherwise would. For example, an inmate with an indeterminate sentence
of seven to fifteen years who has no disciplinary infractions would
become eligible for parole after serving seven years, but would most
likely serve his full sentence if he does not complete the SOP. The
defendant counters that parole is not a right but a privilege. He
points out that inmates do not have a "liberty right" to parole under
the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, see Greenholtz v.
Inmates of Nebraska Penal and Correctional Complex, 442 U.S. 1, 7
(1979), or under New Hampshire law, see N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann § 651-
8 See Kaden, supra note 6, at 365 n.103 (citing one study in which
60 percent of untreated offenders committed another crime, and another
in which only eight of 100 treated offenders did so); Solkoff, supra
note 6, at 1450 (citing study in which the four-year recidivism rate
decreased from 60 percent for untreated offenders to 25 percent for
treated offenders).
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A:6(I) (providing that a "prisoner may be released on parole upon the
expiration of the minimum term of his sentence") (emphasis added);
Knowles v. Warden, New Hampshire State Prison, 666 A.2d 972, 975 (N.H.
1995); Baker v. Cunningham, 513 A.2d 956, 960 (N.H. 1986).
The lack of a liberty interest in parole, however, does not
settle the question of whether the denial of parole can constitute a
penalty for the purpose of Fifth Amendment compulsion. From Garrity to
the recent case Ohio Adult Parole Authority v. Woodard, the Supreme
Court has evaluated Fifth Amendment self-incrimination claims without
reference to a liberty interest analysis. See, e.g., Garrity, 385 U.S.
at 496-501; Woodard, 523 U.S.272, 285-88 (1998); compare Lile, 224 F.3d
at 1183.
The SOP’s requirement that offenders disclose uncharged
conduct, at the risk that their admissions will be reported to police
and prosecutors, presents the plaintiffs with a difficult dilemma.
This dilemma undoubtedly imposes some burden on the exercise of their
Fifth Amendment rights. The extent of the burden is mitigated,
however, by three factors: the kind of burden the plaintiffs face, the
voluntary nature of their choice about whether to participate in the
SOP, and the fact that the denial of parole does not follow
automatically from the refusal to speak.9
9 The plaintiffs' brief asserts that some of the plaintiffs apply
for the SOP "because their sentence specifically requires completion."
These plaintiffs may have a stronger claim of Fifth Amendment
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First, parole involves relief from a penalty that has already
been imposed--the full period of incarceration to which the plaintiffs
were sentenced. There is no new or additional penalty for refusing to
participate in the SOP. To the extent that such labels are useful, the
SOP is a benefit that New Hampshire makes available to sex offenders,
and parole is a further benefit that the state may condition on
completion of the program. See Greenholtz, 442 U.S. at 11 ("That the
state holds out the possibility of parole provides no more than a mere
hope that the benefit will be obtained.").10
Because the plaintiffs have not yet obtained release, the
nature of the penalty they face differs from the one at issue in
Minnesota v. Murphy, 465 U.S. 420 (1984). Murphy was required to
compulsion. However, the plaintiffs in no way develop this argument in
their brief, precluding our consideration of the implications of any
such sentencing requirements.
10 The plaintiffs unsuccessfully look for support to Neal v.
Shimoda, 131 F.3d 818 (9th Cir. 1997). In Neal, the Ninth Circuit held
that a prison regulation that labeled inmates as sex offenders and
required completion of a sex offender treatment program as a condition
for parole eligibility created a liberty interest and some due process
protection for prisoners who had not been convicted of sexual
misconduct. See id. at 830. Since Neal found that an inmate’s due
process rather than Fifth Amendment self-incrimination rights were
violated by the prison regulation at issue, it is not contrary to our
holding here. Moreover, the Ninth Circuit emphasized the automatic
nature of the denial of parole in finding a liberty interest to be at
stake. See id. at 829 ("[B]ecause the State's regulations render the
inmate completely ineligible for parole if the treatment program is not
satisfactorily completed, the attachment of the 'sex offender' label to
the targeted inmate has a practical and inevitable coercive effect on
the inmate's conduct.") (emphasis in original).
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attend a treatment program for sex offenders as a condition of his
probation. When his probation officer questioned him about admissions
Murphy made during the course of treatment regarding an uncharged rape
and murder, he confessed to those crimes. See id. at 424. His
statements were then used to prosecute him. Murphy argued that his
statements were compelled because his probation would have been revoked
had he refused to answer. See id. at 434. The court agreed that the
state could not directly link invocation of the Fifth Amendment
privilege to revocation of probation, stating:
There is thus a substantial basis in our cases
for concluding that if the state, either
expressly or by implication, asserts that
invocation of the privilege would lead to
revocation of probation, it would have created
the classic penalty situation . . . and the
probationer’s answers would be deemed compelled
and inadmissible in a criminal prosecution.
Id. at 435. The Court held, however, that Murphy’s confessions were
not compelled because there was "no suggestion that his probation was
conditional on his waiving his Fifth Amendment privilege." Id. at
437.11
While both Murphy and the case at hand involve the issue of
prosecution based on criminal admissions made during a sex offender
treatment program, Murphy’s "classic penalty" scenario does not apply
11 Of course, the quoted statement in Murphy is 17-year-old dictum,
and we do not know how the present Supreme Court would view disclosure
obligations imposed on parolees. Compare Asherman v. Meachum, 957 F.2d
978 (2d Cir. 1992).
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here. A probationer or parolee has already achieved liberty, and thus
has an expectation of retaining it. An inmate who has not been granted
parole has no such expectation. See Greenholtz, 442 U.S. at 9 ("There
is a crucial distinction between being deprived of a liberty one has,
as in parole, and being denied a conditional liberty that one
desires."). Moreover, the parole board has already weighed the safety
risk posed by the probationer or parolee and decided that he or she is
fit to rejoin the community. Before release, an inmate has not passed
this threshold test. In Greenholtz, the Court viewed these differences
as support for its holding that inmates do not have a constitutional
due process right to parole, in contrast to already released offenders,
who do have due process rights when the state seeks to revoke their
parole or probation. See id. at 9. Similarly, a treatment program
that conditioned participation on incriminating admissions might
violate the Fifth Amendment if that program was in turn a condition of
probation or of maintaining parole, but a program that conditioned
participation on incriminating admissions as a condition of obtaining
release on parole does not. The case law recognizes this distinction.
Following Murphy, some courts have found Fifth Amendment violations
where sex offenders were required to disclose past misconduct for
treatment programs that were a condition of probation or a court-
suspended sentence. See Mace v. Amestoy, 765 F.Supp. 847, 850 (D. Vt.
1991); State v. Fuller, 915 P.2d 809, 814 (Mont. 1996); State v. Imlay,
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813 P.2d 979, 985 (Mont. 1991); State v. Kaquatosh, 600 N.W.2d 153, 158
(Minn. Ct. App. 1999); cf. United States v. Davis, 2001 WL 224550 *2
(1st Cir. 2001) (probationer free to challenge revocation of supervised
release as a penalty for exercise of Fifth Amendment privilege should
revocation occur); but see Asherman v. Meachum, 957 F.2d 978 (2d Cir.
1992) (en banc). But courts have denied claims where treatment
programs were a condition of initial parole eligibility. See Doe v.
Sauer, 186 F.3d 903 (8th Cir. 1999); Russell v. Eaves, 722 F. Supp. 558
(E.D. Mo. 1989).
The second factor that mitigates the burden imposed by the
SOP’s disclosure requirement is the relatively voluntary nature of the
plaintiffs’ decision about whether to participate in the program. The
relevant precedent is Ohio Adult Parole Authority v. Woodard, 523 U.S.
272 (1998). Woodard, who had been sentenced to death, said that Ohio’s
clemency process violated his Fifth Amendment rights by forcing him to
answer questions at his one guaranteed clemency interview, or, if he
remained silent, permitting his silence to be used against him. He
argued that the "interview unconstitutionally condition[ed] his
assertion of the right to pursue clemency on his waiver of the right to
remain silent." Id. at 285-86.
The Court rejected this argument on the ground that Woodard
was not required to attend or speak at his clemency hearing. The Court
said: "It is difficult to see how a voluntary interview could 'compel'
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respondent to speak. He merely faces a choice quite similar to the
sorts of choices that a criminal defendant must make in the course of
criminal proceedings, none of which has ever been held to violate the
Fifth Amendment." Id. at 287. The Court recognized that Woodard faced
a choice between "providing information to the [Parole] Authority--at
the risk of damaging his case for clemency or for postconviction
relief--or of remaining silent." Id. at 287-88. But that choice,
despite its consequences, did not support a claim within the meaning of
the Fifth Amendment's self-incrimination clause. The Court said that
the "pressure to speak in the hope of improving [respondent's] chance
of being granted clemency does not make the interview compelled." Id.
at 288.
Whether the choice that the plaintiffs here face is voluntary
in a meaningful sense seems to us a closer question. By making the
admissions required by the SOP, the plaintiffs risk not only damaging
their cases on appeal, but also exposing themselves to future
prosecution. If the plaintiffs refuse to speak, they face the strong
possibility of serving more years in prison than they otherwise would.
Still, like Woodard, the plaintiffs have a choice about participating
in the SOP, despite the consequences that follow from that choice. The
plaintiffs’ choice about whether to disclose past misconduct is
voluntary as Woodard understands the term.
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The third factor we consider is whether the denial of parole
follows automatically from the plaintiffs’ refusal to speak. Some of
the plaintiffs testified that prison officials told them that they
would not be granted parole unless and until they completed the SOP,
and the defendant does not dispute that completion of the SOP functions
as a de facto requirement of parole for most New Hampshire sex
offenders. At the same time, the defendant has shown that a few
inmates who have not completed the SOP receive parole each year under
special circumstances.12 These unusual grants of release are possible
because New Hampshire’s parole statute nowhere states that the board
must reject a parole applicant because he has not completed the SOP.
As we have noted, New Hampshire’s parole statute gives the parole board
broad discretion to decide whether an inmate is likely to obey the law
and observe the terms of his release. See Baker, 513 A.2d at 960.
The distinction between a highly probable de facto
requirement and a statutorily mandated one has legal significance. In
the early Supreme Court cases that we have discussed, the state imposed
automatic penalties on those who refused to waive their right against
self-incrimination. The police officers in Gardner and Garrity and the
city employees in Uniformed Sanitation Men Association were discharged
12
At the preliminary injunction hearing, a parole board official
testified that one offender who had been released was convicted of a
relatively minor offense and had an elderly, blind mother for whom he
was the sole provider.
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because they invoked their Fifth Amendment rights and refused to
testify. The lawyer in Spevack was disbarred for the same reason. In
Turley and Cunningham, the Court declared unconstitutional New York
statutes that automatically stripped government contracts and political
party office from anyone who refused to waive his or her immunity.
By contrast, Baxter v. Palmigiano, 425 U.S. 308 (1976),
concerned the question of whether prison officials could draw an
adverse inference from an inmate’s silence at a disciplinary
proceeding. The Court held that the Fifth Amendment did not forbid the
state from drawing such an inference, given the civil nature of the
disciplinary proceeding.13 The Court distinguished Baxter from its
previous holdings on the ground that the state did not require
Palmigiano to waive his privilege, but rather said that his silence
could be used against him if he did not waive it. In addition,
Palmigiano could not be "automatically found guilty" as a consequence
of his refusal to testify because prison regulations required that
substantial evidence support a disciplinary decision. Id. at 317-318.14
13Baxter noted that no criminal proceedings were pending against
Palmigiano and distinguished the case from earlier holdings in part on
that ground. See Baxter, 452 U.S. at 317. However, this court has
applied Baxter in cases involving criminal charges. See, e.g., United
States v. Stein, 233 F.3d 6, 16 n.5 (1st Cir. 2000).
14Cunningham distinguished Baxter on this ground, stating:
"Respondent’s silence in Baxter was only one of a number of factors to
be considered by the finder of fact in assessing a penalty, and was
given no more probative value than the facts of the cases warranted;
here, refusal to waive the Fifth Amendment privilege leads
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In finding that drawing such an inference was permissible, the Court
noted that the state had not "insisted or asked" that the defendant
waive his Fifth Amendment privilege. Id. at 317. Nor was the
defendant "in consequence of his silence automatically found guilty of
the infraction with which he has been charged." Id. On the ground
that an inmate’s silence "in and of itself" did not trigger a sanction,
the Court distinguished Baxter from earlier cases such as Garrity and
Turley. Id. at 317-18.
We recently relied on Baxter and its reading of precedent in
rejecting an attorney’s claim that her testimony before the
Massachusetts Board of Bar Examiners was coerced because she believed
that she would be disbarred if she remained silent. See United States
v. Stein, 233 F.3d 6 (1st Cir. 2000), petition for cert. filed, (U.S.
Feb. 26, 2001) (No. 00-1354). We discussed the automatic penalties
faced in Gardner and Garrity, and concluded:
Where, however, invocation of the Fifth Amendment
does not, by itself, result in forfeiture of the
job or license in question, the fact that
claiming the Fifth may, as a practical matter,
result in damage to one’s chances of retaining
the privilege at stake does not necessarily
establish a constitutional violation.
Id. at 15. Three related facts led us to reject the attorney’s claim.
She was not subject to automatic disbarment for remaining silent; the
automatically and without more to imposition of sanctions."
Cunningham, 431 U.S. at 808 n.5.
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Board of Bar Examiners was not required to disbar her; and the board
had no formal rule or unwritten policy or practice of disbarring
attorneys for invoking their Fifth Amendment privilege. See id. at
16.15
Parallel facts are present here. The plaintiffs do not
automatically lose parole eligibility because they remain silent, the
parole board is not required to deny them parole, and the board has no
formal rule denying parole to sex offenders who do not complete the
SOP. See, e.g., Lile, 224 F.3d at 1182 (inmates required to admit past
misconduct for admission to a sex offender treatment program could not
show Fifth Amendment compulsion based on denial of parole because they
were not required to complete the treatment program for parole
eligibility). According to the plaintiffs, the board does have such an
unwritten policy or practice. But the defendant in Stein made a
15
The Second Circuit relied on a related rationale in two cases
cited by the defendant, Asherman v. Meachum, 957 F.2d 978 (2d Cir.
1992) (en banc), and Johnson v. Baker, 108 F.3d 10 (2d Cir. 1997). In
Asherman, the court found that revocation of a prisoner’s supervised
home release for his refusal to answer questions at a psychiatric
evaluation did not violate the Fifth Amendment. In Johnson, the court
found that an inmate’s Fifth Amendment rights were not violated by a
sex offender treatment program that required admissions of past
misconduct, and that was a prerequisite for a program that allowed
inmates to spend extended time with their families. Both cases
distinguished between a state’s adverse action against an individual
for invoking the right to self-incrimination and an action taken "for
failure to answer a relevant inquiry." Asherman, 957 F.2d at 982. The
court found that the inquiries made of the defendants in these cases
were relevant to the state’s public responsibilities. Id. at 983. In
Johnson, these responsibilities concerned sex offender rehabilitation.
See Johnson, 108 F.3d at 11.
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similar argument to no avail, and we see no reason to distinguish this
case on that ground. It is entirely permissible for a parole board to
take into account an inmate’s efforts to rehabilitate himself by
participating in a prison program designed to address his prior
criminal conduct. But to say that the parole board may consider an
inmate’s completion of a prison treatment program is not to say that it
must make a decision on that basis. That the board often weighs
heavily completion of the SOP in deciding whether to parole sex
offenders does not change the calculation. See Stein, 233 F.3d at 17
n.6 (fact that defendant "could have had good reason to fear disbarment
if she did not testify is not the same as being faced with automatic
disbarment for failure to testify"); United States v. Indorato, 628
F.2d 711, 716 (1st Cir. 1980) (fear of punishment as a result of
invoking the Fifth Amendment does not protect against subsequent use of
self-incriminating statements at a criminal trial).
3. Reasonable Alternatives
The third step under Turner requires us to consider whether
reasonable alternatives exist for the government to achieve its ends
without significant cost or impairment to the governmental interest at
stake.
Some states address the incrimination dilemma posed by sex
offender treatment programs by asking inmates seeking treatment only to
admit to 0misconduct of which law enforcement officials are already
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aware. See Neal v. Shimoda, 131 F.3d 832, 833 n.18 (9th Cir. 1997)
(citing provision of sex offender consent to treat contract stating, "I
understand that I am not required to provide information about crimes
that no one knows about"); Russell v. Eaves, 722 F. Supp. 558, 560
(E.D. Mo. 1989). Courts have also suggested that states grant use
immunity to sex offenders before requiring them to disclose past
misconduct during the course of treatment. See Lile, 224 F.3d at 1192;
Mace, 765 F. Supp. at 852; Fuller, 915 P.2d at 816; Imlay, 813 P.2d at
985.
A grant of limited use immunity need not conflict with
public safety, since it allows the state to prosecute the recipient
"for any crime of which he may be guilty . . . provided only that his
own compelled testimony is not used to convict him." Cunningham, 431
U.S. at 809 (comparing use immunity to broader transactional immunity,
which immunizes witnesses from prosecution for any transaction about
which they testify). Granting use immunity may in fact further the
state’s goal of rehabilitation by encouraging inmates to admit their
sex offenses, thus removing an obstacle to treatment. See Lile, 224
F.3d at 1192. Use immunity is the solution proposed by commentators
concerned about the tension between an inmate’s right against self-
incrimination and the state’s interest in pressing sex offenders to
admit past misconduct as a first step toward effective treatment. See
Shevlin, supra note 6, at 486; Kaden, supra note 6, at 350; Solkoff,
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supra note 6, at 1444. In his testimony at the preliminary injunction
hearing, SOP Director Lance Messinger expressed similar concerns,
saying that he tries to obtain use immunity for inmates when he thinks
they could be prosecuted on new charges based on information disclosed
during treatment.
This may indeed be a desirable outcome. But we agree with
the district court that the decision about whether to grant immunity to
sex offenders is a policy choice that lies in the state’s hands. We
think that it is for New Hampshire to say whether it could do so
without impairing the governmental interest at stake.
4. Conclusion under Turner
Our Turner analysis reflects the closeness of the Fifth
Amendment self-incrimination question presented here. Given the stakes
in parole and the avoidance of further prosecutions, the plaintiffs do
suffer some burden in the exercise of their Fifth Amendment rights when
they must choose between declining to participate in the SOP, which
significantly enhances their chances for parole, or disclosing other
criminal conduct. The availability of use immunity at least suggests
the possibility of an alternative means of advancing the state's
interest in securing inmate participation in the SOP without
necessarily compromising future prosecutions for other instances of
sexual misconduct.
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On the other hand, the state's interest in reducing the
recidivism of sex offenders is substantial. There may be undesirable
penological and law enforcement implications to the grant of use
immunity in the sensitive context of sexual misconduct cases that we do
not fully appreciate. The burden on the exercise of the Fifth
Amendment rights of the plaintiffs is lessened significantly by the
factors we have cited: the denial of parole does not impose a new
penalty on the plaintiffs, the plaintiffs may choose not to participate
in the SOP, and the denial of parole does not automatically follow from
a decision not to participate.
Weighing these factors, and drawing upon the meaning of
compulsion under the Fifth Amendment developed by the precedents we
have cited, we conclude that the reduced likelihood of parole for
refusing to participate in the SOP does not constitute a penalty
sufficient to compel incriminating speech in violation of the Fifth
Amendment.
B. Prison Housing Transfer
The alternate basis for the plaintiffs’ claim of compulsion
is the transfer from South Unit to Hancock Building that often follows
a refusal to participate in the SOP. The plaintiffs claim the transfer
is a penalty for Fifth Amendment purposes because it significantly
affects their living circumstances. This question is not close.
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Plaintiffs’ preference for South housing is understandable.
At the preliminary injunction hearing, prison officials testified that
Hancock is the prison’s "low-rent district" and compared South to a
hotel. The plaintiffs cite several advantages of living in South.
They have greater outdoor privileges; they live in two-man rather than
eight-man cells; they live on smaller "pods," or living groups. As
evidence that the move to Hancock is punitive, the plaintiffs argue
that such transfers are used to punish inmates who break the rules.
Some of the plaintiffs also said that even though both facilities are
classified as medium security, they feel safer at South because most of
the other inmates are also sex offenders. In Hancock, where they are
surrounded by violent and drug offenders, they are targets of
harassment and assault.
The plaintiffs’ claim that the transfer from South to Hancock
is a penalty for Fifth Amendment purposes fails under the Turner
analysis. First, the state has a valid governmental interest in
controlling where prisoners will be housed. Once an offender has been
sentenced, New Hampshire gives broad discretion to prison officials
over the "terms, conditions, and place of incarceration." State v.
Peabody, 438 A.2d 305, 308 (N.H. 1981); see also N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann.
§ 651:25. At the hearing on the plaintiffs’ petition for injunctive
relief, prison officials testified that they offer housing transfers as
an incentive to encourage inmates to act in particular ways. Prisoners
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may earn a place in South because they have a clean disciplinary record
or because they participate in a treatment program like the SOP. In
either case, the transfer to South is a benefit conferred on inmates
who earn it. This kind of reward system easily meets Turner's
legitimate penological interest standard.
The second and third Turner factors also weigh against the
plaintiffs. The quality-of-life differences between South and Hancock
are not severe enough to burden the exercise of the plaintiffs'
constitutional rights. Nor is there a reasonable alternative to giving
prison officials broad discretion over inmate housing. For the reasons
stated, the housing transfers do not rise to the level of a penalty
that establishes Fifth Amendment compulsion.16
IV.
We are unpersuaded by the plaintiffs’ claim that their Fifth
Amendment right against self-incrimination was violated by New
16We distinguish this case from Lile v. McKune, 224 F.3d 1175
(10th Cir. 2000), in which the Tenth Circuit found a Fifth Amendment
violation where sex offenders who refused to disclose their past
misconduct in order to participate in a prison treatment program were
automatically transferred from a medium to a maximum security facility.
The transfer resulted in loss of the following privileges: personal
television; limited access to prison organizations, activities, gym,
and yard; reduction in spending allowed in the canteen per pay period
from $140 to $20; reduction in pay and intake property; restricted
visiting privileges. See id. at 1181. The consequences of the
transfer described in Lile are more severe than those the plaintiffs
say accompany a transfer from South to Hancock. In addition, the
transfer in Lile automatically followed from an inmate’s decision not
to pursue treatment, whereas the transfers to Hancock complained of
here are likely rather than automatic. See id.
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Hampshire’s requirement that they disclose their histories of sexual
misconduct to participate in a prison treatment program that affects
their chances of obtaining early release on parole and of maintaining
residence in desired prison housing. The defendant is entitled to
judgment as a matter law. We affirm the district court.
Affirmed.
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