Opinion
No. 97 C 5518
March 3, 1999
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Henry C. Hill brings this pro se complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, seeking an order directing the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) to follow its due process requirements, an award of money damages for the loss of his job and liberty, and the expungement of his escape charge. The court draws its understanding of the facts from several documents filed by Plaintiff Hill, including his complaint (Document 1), his answer to defendant's motion for a more definite statement (Document 25), his more definite statement (Document 34), and his report of status (Document 48).
As set forth in these materials, Hill alleges that on or about March 6, 1997, IDOC Director Odie Washington, or his agent, transferred Hill to a community correctional center (work release program) despite his knowledge that Hill had an outstanding warrant for the charge of assault. (Document 1.) Because of Hill's existing warrant, he was in fact ineligible for transfer to work release under Illinois law per 730 ILCS 5/3-13-4 (1996) and IDOC Rule 455.30. (Documents 34 and 48.)
Hill apparently is referring only to subsection (a) which provides:
The Department shall establish rules governing release status and shall provide written copies of such rules to both the committed person on work or day release and to the employer or other person responsible for the individual.
IDOC Rule 455.30(b)(4) provides, in relevant part:
b) For pre-release placement as a regular resident, the committed person must:
4) Have no outstanding warrants or detainers against him.
On April 25, 1997, Hill was arrested on the outstanding warrant and detained at Cook County Jail. (Document 1.) On April 28, 1997, Circuit Court Judge Michael W. Stuttley and Safer Foundation Board member Bennie E. Martin informed Defendant Roschelle White, the Director of Crossroads Community Correctional Center (Center), of Hill's outstanding warrant and arrest. (Document 1.) On May 1, 1997, several days after Hill had returned to the Center, White had him arrested, charged with escape, and transferred to a maximum security facility without due process. (Document 1.) In another filing, Hill claims that it was Defendant Washington who transferred him from work-release to a maximum security prison without a hearing on May 1, 1997. (Document 34.) On May 7, 1997, Hill was found guilty of escape. The disciplinary proceedings allegedly deprived Hill of his job and liberty without due process. (Document 1.)
White did not conduct an investigation and did not consider any documentary evidence, specifically, a letter from Judge Stuttley that corroborated Hill's claim that his absence from the Center was the result of an outstanding warrant. In fact, she allegedly destroyed the letter. (Document 1.) Hill alleges that White is anti-rehabilitation and is motivated by malice, vindictiveness, intolerance, prejudice and jealousy. (Document 1.) Washington did not use procedural safeguards to protect Hill from such actions. (Document 1.) Hill contends that Washington had direct involvement in his request for work release in that he signed the administrative appeal. (Document 25 and Exhibit B attached thereto.) Hill claims that Washington's actions caused him great health problems and emotional breakdown. (Document 34.)
This case has progressed to a point where the Defendants have been served and answered the complaint and Hill has filed numerous motions. Nevertheless, under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) the court is required to dismiss a case at any time if the court determines that it fails to state a claim on which relief may be granted. Here, even accepting Hill's allegations as true, the court finds that the complaint fails to state a claim as a matter of law.
It appears that Hill is making three distinct claims: (1) Washington violated state law and IDOC rules by not conducting a proper review before granting Hill work release. If the proper review had been done, then it would have been determined that Hill was ineligible for work release and the ensuing events would not have happened. (2) Hill was not guilty of the escape charge. If White had conducted an investigation, she would have discovered he was detained at Cook County Jail. Moreover, she allegedly destroyed the letter from Judge Stuttley, which showed that he was not guilty of escape. (3) Either Washington or White, or both of them, depending on which statement of facts is read, transferred Hill from the work release program to a maximum security facility without a hearing. The court, first, considers whether Hill had a constitutionally protected interest in remaining in his work release program.
An alternative understanding of Hill's claim is as a challenge to his placement in work release; but as Hill himself requested this assignment, and as it is viewed as a privileged status, the court will proceed on the understanding that Hill's central claim is a challenge to his removal from work release rather than his assignment to it.
Two Courts of Appeals have reached this issue. In Dominique v. Weld, 73 F.3d 1156 (1st Cir. 1996), the plaintiff was returned to confinement after he had been allowed to participate in a work release program for almost four years. The inmate did not argue that he had a liberty interest created by the Constitution itself, but rather that the Massachusetts state regulations and the Community Release Agreement established a liberty interest. Relying on Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 115 S. Ct. 2293 (1995) the First Circuit found that the state's action in revoking work release did not affect the duration of the plaintiff's sentence. Although the court acknowledged that there was a considerable difference between the freedoms the inmate enjoyed while on work release and the conditions of incarceration at a correctional facility, this "confinement within four walls of the type plaintiff now endures is an `ordinary incident of prison life.' It is not `atypical.'" Dominique, 73 F.3d at 1160.
In Sandin v. Conner, the Supreme Court held that due process liberty interests created by the state are "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." 515 U.S. at 484.
In Callender v. Sioux City Residential Treatment Facility, 88 F.3d 666, 668-69 (8th Cir. 1996), the Eighth Circuit found (1) that a work release program did not provide the sort of substantial freedom necessary to give rise to a protected liberty interest inherent in the Due Process Clause, and (2) that revocation of a prisoner's work release program was not an atypical or significant deprivation and thus there was no state-created liberty interest in remaining in a work release program entitling the prisoner to due process of law before the privilege was revoked.
Although the Seventh Circuit has not reached this issue, Judge Plunkett addressed this very question in Hamilton v. Peters, 919 F. Supp. 1168 (N.D. Ill. 1996). He noted that the Seventh Circuit in DeTomaso v. McGinnis, 970 F.2d 211, 212 (7th Cir. 1992), had already deemed that a prisoner had no liberty interest in obtaining an initial assignment to a work release program and that in Whitford v. Boglino, 63 F.3d 527 (7th Cir. 1995) (per curiam), the Court of Appeals reasoned that "just as in Meachum [ v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 96 S. Ct. 2532 (1976)], a prisoner in Illinois may be transferred even without being convicted of a disciplinary infraction; therefore . . . a prisoner `may not contest his transfer on the ground that his conviction violated due process.'" Id. at 532-33. Analyzing these two cases together, Judge Plunkett wrote:
While neither DeTomaso nor Whitford alone resolves the question presented by this case, together they make the answer clear. Hamilton had no liberty interest in obtaining his original assignment to work release under DeTomaso, and he had no liberty interest in remaining at any particular prison facility, or at a facility of any particular security level, under Whitford. Under these circumstances, we cannot see how Hamilton could have a liberty interest in avoiding a disciplinary transfer from a work release facility to a more secure facility.Id. at 1172.
The reasoning of Dominque, Callender, and Hamilton is persuasive. Because Hill's transfer from the community correctional center to a secured facility did not implicate a liberty interest, he was not entitled to any procedural due process. Although the analysis of this action could stop here, Hill has made (or suggested) several other arguments, which the court will now address.
As noted earlier, Hill has suggested that Washington or his agent should not have allowed his transfer to a work-release center in the first place, knowing that he had an outstanding warrant and that such a transfer violates 730 ILCS 5/3-13-4 and IDOC Rules Title 20, Chapter I, Subchapter d, § 455.30; Subchapter e, § 504.460. Even assuming that Washington knew personally that Hill had an outstanding warrant but transferred him anyway, the failure to comply with state laws or procedural guarantees does not constitute a violation of federal rights protected under Section 1983. See Archie v. City of Racine, 847 F.2d 1211, 1217 (7th Cir. 1988) ( en banc), cert. denied, 489 U.S. 1065 (1989). Moreover, as noted above, Hill has neither a federally nor state-protected interest in remaining on (or off) work release. Without such an interest, the alleged violation of state law cannot be a constitutional deprivation.
Hill's second argument is a challenge to the finding that he was guilty of escape. In Edwards v. Balisok, 520 U.S. 641, ___, 117 S. Ct. 1584, 1589 (1997), the Supreme Court held that damage claims in prison disciplinary proceedings, based on allegations that would necessarily imply the invalidity of the punishment imposed, are not cognizable under Section 1983 unless the finding of the prison disciplinary body has been reversed in some manner. Although Hill contends that he was wrongfully found guilty of escape, and thereby challenges the validity of the charge, he has not demonstrated that the finding of the Administrative Review Board has been reversed. In fact, he has submitted a copy of the Administrative Review Board decision denying his grievance (see exhibit B, attached to Document 25). Hill appears to believe that the letter from Judge Stuttley, which White allegedly destroyed, might have exonerated him. If so, then the destruction of the letter is an act that might call into question the validity of his punishment. His claims are thus not cognizable under Section 1983.
Moreover, the court notes that the Administrative Review Board could not have relied on the letter in making its finding; Hill himself admits that the letter was not written until three days after he was detained. Nor can Hill base a claim for relief on allegations that White did not properly investigate his whereabouts when he did not return to the Center. Allegations of inadequate investigations do not state a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. See McDonald v. State of Illinois, 557 F.2d 596 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 966 (1977); Woodall v. Partilla, 581 F. Supp. 1066, 1074 (N.D. Ill. 1984).
In any event, the record created by Plaintiff's own filings indicates that review of the letter or fuller investigation of his whereabouts would have made no difference in the outcome. The Review Board's findings reflect it was aware that Hill was incarcerated, but believed he was guilty of escape because he failed to contact the work release facility to explain his absence. Hill was found guilty of escape because no one knew his whereabouts for 51 hours, not because he was arrested.
Finally, Hill suggests that he should not have been transferred out of work release without a hearing. The Review Board, of course, did conduct a hearing on the escape charge. Further, as discussed above, Hill had no liberty interest in remaining in the work-release program and could thus be transferred at any time without a hearing.
Hill has also filed numerous motions, most of which are mooted by this court's opinion. However, the court will address briefly Hill's motion for attorneys of record to withdraw. Hill retained attorney Ernest N. Powell, Jr. and LaVerne Rolle Saunders to represent him. He now feels that he is better able to represent himself. On February 25, 1999, this court granted the attorneys' motion for leave to withdraw. Hill's motion is therefore denied as unnecessary. Hill also states in his motion that he believes his attorneys are entitled to reasonable attorneys' fees for services performed to date. The court did not appoint these attorneys, however. All attorneys' fees incurred are therefore Hill's responsibility, not the court's. All other pending motions are denied as moot.
If Hill wishes to appeal this dismissal, he may file a notice of appeal with this court within 30 days of the entry of judgment. Fed.R.App.P. 4(a)(4). If he does so, he will be liable for the $105 appellate filing fee. Unless he is granted leave to proceed in forma pauperis, he will have to pay the fee immediately. If he cannot do so, the appeal will be dismissed, but he will remain liable for the fee and it will be deducted from his inmate trust fund account in installments. Newlin v. Helman, 123 F.3d 429, 434 (7th Cir. 1997).