United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
F I L E D
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT May 14, 2003
_____________________________________
Charles R. Fulbruge III
No. 02-30516 Clerk
_____________________________________
ROBERT KING WILKERSON; ALBERT WOODFOX; HERMAN WALLACE
Plaintiffs - Appellees
v.
RICHARD L. STALDER; ET AL
Defendants
RICHARD L. STALDER; BURL CAIN; TOM NORRIS; RICHARD PEABODY; R.
RACHAL; SAM SMITH; PAUL J. MYERS
Defendants - Appellants
__________________________________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Louisiana
__________________________________________________
Before KING, Chief Judge, DAVIS, Circuit Judge and ROSENTHAL*,
District Judge.
W. EUGENE DAVIS, Circuit Judge:
I.
Louisiana State Penitentiary officials challenge the
district court’s order denying in part their Motion to Dismiss on
grounds of qualified immunity a § 1983 suit filed against them
*
District Judge of the Southern District of Texas, sitting by
designation.
by three inmates. The district court ruled that the evidence,
when viewed in a light most favorable to the inmates, showed that
the prison officials violated due process rights secured to the
inmates under the Fourteenth Amendment, and that the law was
clearly established at the time of the violation. For the
reasons provided below, we affirm the district court’s denial of
the prison officials’ Motion to Dismiss.
II.
Robert Wilkerson, Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace
(collectively “inmates”) sued a number of prison officials and
alleged that their confinement in extended lockdown for
approximately thirty years violates the Eighth Amendment’s
guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment. They further
alleged that the “sham” reviews of their continued confinement in
extended lockdown violate their right to procedural due process
guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. The inmates sought
compensatory damages, punitive damages, and declaratory and
injunctive relief.
Before 1972, the inmates were sentenced to the custody of
the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections
(“Corrections”) and were confined at the Louisiana State
Penitentiary at Angola, Louisiana (“Angola”). The inmates named
as defendants seven officials, including the Secretary of
Corrections, the Warden and Deputy Warden of Angola, and other
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corrections officers (collectively “prison officials”).
Prison officials placed the inmates in extended lockdown in
1972. Wallace remains in lockdown. Wilkerson remained in
extended lockdown until his conviction was overturned in 2001.
Woodfox remains in extended lockdown and has been there
continuously except for a three year period when he was housed in
the county jail.
As the magistrate judge explained:
Extended lockdown is the effective equivalent
of solitary confinement. Prisoners in
extended lockdown remain alone in a cell
approximately 55 to 60 square feet in size of
[sic] 23 hours each day. One hour each day,
the prisoner may shower and walk along the
tier on which his cell is located. Three
times a week, weather permitting, the
prisoner may use this hour to exercise alone
in a fenced yard. Additional restrictions
are placed on generally available inmate
privileges including those pertaining to
personal property, reading materials, access
to legal resources, work and contact
visitation.
In contrast, inmates in the general prison
population live in a dormitory setting where
they can interact with one another. They
have educational opportunities, training and
other privileges that are not available to
inmates in extended lockdowm.
The inmates in extended lockdown appear before the Lockdown
Review Board (“Board”) every 90 days. The inmates allege that
they received only “sham” reviews before the Board. The inmates
insist that the Board members discussed immaterial matters such
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as hunting and fishing rather than the inmates’ cases. The
inmates alleged that when they attempted to discuss the merits of
their cases, a Board member told them that the Board hearing is
not the place to litigate. The inmates also alleged that the
Board members told them that they must remain in extended
lockdown due to the “nature of original reason for lockdown. ”
The inmates originally filed this suit pursuant to 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983 against the prison officials in a Louisiana state
district court. The prison officials removed the suit to
federal district court. Stalder, Cain and Norris promptly
filed a Motion to Dismiss and asserted qualified immunity.1
After being released from prison, Wilkerson filed an unopposed
motion to dismiss his claims for injunctive relief.
The prison officials’ motion was submitted to a magistrate
judge. In her report, the magistrate judge recommended that
Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss be denied.2
The prison officials filed a timely Objection to the
Magistrate Judge’s Report, but the district court issued a ruling
adopting the Magistrate Judge’s Report as the court’s opinion.
The district court agreed with the magistrate judge’s analysis
1
The prison officials did not move to dismiss the inmates’
Eighth Amendment claim, so that claim remains in the trial court.
2
The magistrate judge recommended (and the district court
accepted that recommendation) that the suit against the Secretary
of Corrections be dismissed because of his lack of direct
involvement in providing process to the inmates.
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and denied the prison officials’ Motion to Dismiss on grounds of
qualified immunity. Applying Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472
(1995), the district court concluded that the confinement in
extended lockdown for the long duration experienced by these
prisoners presented an “atypical and significant hardship” and
“extraordinary circumstances” such that the pleadings established
that a liberty interest was implicated. The district court also
concluded that no reasonable officer could believe that such
confinement for an extended period of time approaching three
decades was not atypical under Supreme Court and Fifth Circuit
standards. The prison officials filed a timely notice of appeal.
III.
We have jurisdiction to review the district court’s denial
of the prison officials’ Rule 12(b)(6) motion under the
collateral order doctrine. See Morin v. Caire,77 F.3d 116, 119
(5th Cir. 1996). We review the district court’s refusal to
dismiss the inmates’ Fourteenth Amendment claim on the basis of
qualified immunity de novo. See Morin v. Caire, 77 F.3d 116, 120
(5th Cir. 1996). Id. at 120.
IV.
In their appeal, the prison officials ask us to reverse the
portion of the district court’s ruling that denies them qualified
immunity on the inmates’ federal due process claim, state due
process claim, and claim for punitive damages. The only issue
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that requires discussion is the inmates’ Fourteenth Amendment due
process claim.3
A.
“Government officials performing discretionary functions
generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar
as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory
or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have
known.” Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). The
court must engage in a two-step analysis to determine whether an
official is entitled to qualified immunity. First, the court
must determine whether the plaintiff’s allegations make out a
violation of a clearly established constitutional right. If such
a right is shown, the court must determine if the right was
clearly established at the time of the events in question.
Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201 (2001).
B.
The inmates argue that the district court correctly applied
Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472 (1995), to the facts in this case.
In Sandin, the Supreme Court held that no state-created liberty
interest was implicated when an inmate was placed in
3
The inmates’ state due process claim follows the federal
due process claim. The district court chose to defer ruling on the
prison officials’ claim that the Prison Litigation Reform Act bars
the inmates’ claim for punitive damages until such time as
liability is found. Therefore, this issue is not properly before
the court on appeal. 28 U.S.C. § 1291.
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administrative segregation for thirty days for disciplinary
reasons. The Court explained:
Following Wolff, we recognize that States may
under certain circumstances create liberty
interests which are protected by the Due
Process Clause. But these interests will be
generally limited to freedom from restraint
which, while not exceeding the sentence in
such an unexpected manner as to give rise to
protection by the Due Process Clause of its
own force, nonetheless imposes atypical and
significant hardship on the inmate in
relation to the ordinary incidents of prison
life.
Id. at 483-84.
The district court concluded that the State had imposed
“atypical and significant hardship” on these inmates sufficient
to implicate a liberty interest. The prison officials’ 12(b)(6)
motion was, of course, presented to the district court without
contextual facts concerning the reasons the inmates were
initially confined to extended lockdown or why they remained
confined in extended lockdown for such an inordinate period of
time. At argument, counsel informed us that Wallace and Woodfox
were placed in extended lockdown after being convicted in state
court of killing a prison guard. Wilkerson was placed in
extended lockdown after being convicted in state court of killing
a fellow inmate, and he was released from Angola after his
conviction was overturned in 2001. Assuming counsel’s
uncontradicted statement at oral argument is true, we surmise
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that the three inmates, following their convictions, were likely
classified as maximum custody inmates under the Louisiana
Department of Public Safety and Corrections regulations.4
Louisiana Dep’t of Public Safety and Corrections, Inmate
Classification, Sentencing, and Service Functions, § 5(C)(3)
(June 1998).
In resolving the nature of the liberty interest and the
process that is due for confinement of prisoners in extended
lockdown under these circumstances, it is crucial to know
whether, based on their crimes of conviction, the inmates’
confinement is the result of an initial classification by prison
officials as opposed to confinement for violations of less
serious prison disciplinary rules. Generally, courts are not
concerned with a prisoner’s initial classification level based on
4
“Maximum Custody” is defined as:
Assignment of an inmate to a cell based
upon the need to protect the inmate, other
inmates, the public, staff or the institution.
This includes temporary assignment to
Administrative Segregation or permanent
assignment to Disciplinary Detention/Extended
Lockdown and Working Cellblock and may include
Protective Custody/Extended Lockdown.
Louisiana Dep’t of Public Safety and Corrections, Inmate
Classification, Sentencing, and Service Functions, § 5(C)(3) (June
1998).
The Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections has
developed a set of regulations to address “Inmate Classification,
Sentencing, and Service Functions” and an entirely different set of
regulations to address “Disciplinary Rules and Procedures for Adult
Inmates.”
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his criminal history before his incarceration. This circuit has
continued to hold post-Sandin that an inmate has no protectable
liberty interest in his classification. See Harper v. Showers,
174 F.3d (716, 719 (5th Cir. 1999); Whitley v. Hunt; 158 F.3d
882, 889 (5th Cir. 1998); Woods v. Edwards, 51 F.3d 577, 581-82
(5th Cir. 1995) (citing Wilkerson v. Maggio, 703 F.2d 909, 911
(5th Cir. 1983)) ("Classification of inmates in Louisiana is a
duty of the Louisiana Department of Corrections and an inmate has
no right to a particular classification under state law.").
“Classification of prisoners is a matter left to the discretion
of prison officials.” McCord v. Maggio, 910 F.2d 1248, 1250 (5th
Cir. 1990) (citing Wilkerson v. Maggio, supra). “[I]t is well
settled that ‘[p]rison officials must have broad discretion, free
from judicial intervention, in classifying prisoners in terms of
their custodial status’” Id. “Prison officials should be accorded
the widest possible deference in the application of policies and
practices designed to maintain security and preserve internal
order.” Id. at 1251 (citing Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 547
(1979)).
Thus, if the inmates’ confinement in extended lockdown is
not the result of their initial classification, the Sandin test
would be triggered. In Sandin, the prisoner, Conner, directed
angry and foul language at a prison guard during a strip search.
As a result, he was placed in disciplinary segregation for thirty
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days as punishment for violating prison disciplinary rules.
Conner argued that he had a state-created liberty interest in
remaining free from segregation. The Court held that Conner’s
confinement in disciplinary segregation for thirty days “did not
present the type of atypical, significant deprivation in which a
State might conceivably create a liberty interest.” Sandin at
486. Although the action taken by the prison officials was
punitive, it did not “present a dramatic departure from the basic
conditions of Conner’s indeterminate sentence.” Id. The Court
noted that the conditions imposed on Conner were essentially the
same as those imposed on inmates in administrative segregation
and protective custody. “Thus, Conner’s confinement did not
exceed, similar, but totally discretionary, confinement in either
duration or degree of restriction.” Id. Other circuits have
applied the Sandin test to inmates placed in administrative
segregation for violations of prison disciplinary rules. Wagner
v. Hanks, 128 F.3d 1173 (7th Cir. 1997); Colon v. Howard, 215
F.3d 227 (2nd Cir. 2000); Hatch v. District of Columbia, 184 F.3d
846 (1999); Griffin v. Vaughn, 112 F.3d 703 (1997).
If, on remand, the district court determines that the Sandin
test is triggered, the district court must determine the
appropriate baseline against which to measure the inmates’
confinement in reviewing whether the inmates’ confinement is
“atypical.” See Hatch v. Columbia, supra; Wagner v. Hanks,
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supra.
Because the inmates’ Complaint does not allege whether the
inmates’ confinement in extended lockdown resulted from their
initial classification or from violations of prison rules, we
cannot determine whether the inmates have asserted facts that
would give rise to denial of a liberty interest. We therefore
AFFIRM the district court’s Order denying the prison officials’
Motion to Dismiss the inmates’ procedural due process claims
based on qualified immunity.
AFFIRMED.
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