Wilkinson v. Austin
The plaintiffs in this class action law suit are prisoners who claim that the procedures used by Ohio state prison administrators to assign them to a super-maximum security prison violate their constitutional right to due process. The district court ruled in favor of the inmates, finding first that the prisoners have a protected “liberty interest” in avoiding placement in the super-max, due to the severity of the conditions compared to other prisons in Ohio. Given that the inmates have a liberty interest, the district court next identified multiple deficiencies in the administrative procedures in place, including that inmates are not given notice of all the evidence that may be relied upon in their classification hearings, that inmates are not allowed to call witnesses and that the final decisionmaker, the Bureau of Classification, was not required to describe the facts found and reasoning used in making its placement decisions. The district court ordered modifications to the prison regulations to correct these deficiencies.
On appeal, Ohio argued that the inmates’ due process rights would be satisfied by an informal, non-adversarial proceeding to review the placement decision. In Hewitt v. Helms , 459 U.S. 460 (1983), the Supreme Court had held that an informal proceeding satisfied the due process requirements of a predictive administrative decision to place a prisoner in solitary confinement. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court, finding that the severity of the conditions in the super-max mandated a more formal procedure for reviewing the placement decision.
Question Presented:
Where state prison officials decide to place a prisoner in a "super-maximum security" facility based on a predictive assessment of the security risk the
prisoner presents, but prison regulations create a liberty interest for the prisoner in avoiding such placement, do procedures meeting the requirements specified in Hewitt v.
Helms. 459 U.S. 460 (1983), satisfy the prisoner's due process rights?
