Opinion
CIVIL ACTION No. 03-5178
January 16, 2004
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
Plaintiff has filed a complaint against Defendants Gerald Sobitor, T.J. Dohman, and David DiGugielmo ("Defendants") for alleged violations of the Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments during his incarceration at the State Correctional Institution at Graterford ("Graterford") in Pennsylvania. Defendants are all employed as security personnel at Graterford. Plaintiff has filed this complaint pro se and is seeking damages and declaratory and injunctive relief pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Before us now is Defendants' Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff's complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. For the reasons stated below, we grant Defendants' Motion.
I. Facts
The following facts have been alleged by Plaintiff. On April 20, 2003, between approximately 5:00 and 6:00 pm, a security team entered Plaintiff's cell at Graterford to search for contraband. In addition to his cell being searched, Plaintiff was strip searched and escorted out of his cell for urinalysis. No contraband was found. Two days later, on April 22, 2003, Plaintiff's cell was again searched and he again underwent a strip search at the request of Defendant Dohman. After this second search, Plaintiff was escorted to see Defendant Dohman. Dohman showed Plaintiff a photo of an inmate and asked Plaintiff if the inmate in the photo had given him a jar of peanut butter. Plaintiff indicated to Dohman that he had not, whereupon Dohman assured Plaintiff that he was "`not in any trouble about a jar of peanut butter.'"
Sometime thereafter, Plaintiff reported this incident to the unit manager, Ms. Bessie Williams. That afternoon, Plaintiffs cell was searched again and he was strip searched. This search also produced no contraband. Plaintiff was again escorted to see Dohman, who questioned him further about the peanut butter. Dohman accused Plaintiff of lying about who had given him the peanut butter and Plaintiff insisted that he was given the peanut butter by another inmate who had been released the day before. Dohman again accused Plaintiff of lying and threatened to place him in the Restricted Housing Unit (RHU) if he did not tell him who was bringing contraband into Graterford. Plaintiff was then sent to RHU, where he received a written report that stated that he was placed in administrative custody because he posed a threat to the prison population. Plaintiff was later told that his review before the Program Review Committee (PRC) regarding his placement in RHU was scheduled to take place in 90 days. In the interim, Plaintiff filed several grievances with prison staff. On May 29, 2003, Plaintiff was transferred to the RHU at State Correctional Institute at Frackville until June 5th, when he was returned to the RHU at Graterford.
On June 13, 2003, a copy of a report recommending Plaintiff's transfer from Graterford mysteriously appeared in his cell. The report stated that Plaintiff had been cited for misconduct and that he
should be separated from Graterford based on information gathered from CSIs [confidential sources of information] and monitoring his mail found him and other inmates to be manipulating staff to allow them to do illegal activity that included selling items from the block and bringing drug and jewelry into the institution.
Maintaining that this report was false, Plaintiff filed additional grievances with prison staff and appealed them when relief was denied. When Plaintiff showed the report to Defendant Sobotor and asked him about the allegations therein, it was confiscated. Plaintiff's appeals to prison staff on July 10th, July 17th, and August 4th were all denied. On July 15th, Plaintiff was transported to Skippack Township to be questioned by a district attorney regarding the origin of the peanut butter. Prior to and after being questioned, Plaintiff waited in a "hot van" for other inmates to return from their proceedings. Although Plaintiff does not state how long he waited, it could not have been more than five hours in total, since he alleges that they arrived in Skippack at 8:00 am and returned to Graterford sometime between 12:00 and 1:00 pm. On August 28, 2003, Plaintiff was released from the RHU.
II. Standard of Review
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) permits a court to dismiss a claim in whole or in part "for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted." In reviewing a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), the Court must accept as true all the allegations set forth in the complaint and must draw all reasonable inferences in favor of plaintiffs. Ford v. Schering-Plough Corp., 145 F.3d 601, 604 (3d Cir. 1998). Dismissal is proper only if plaintiffs can prove no set of facts in support of their claims which would entitle them to relief. Id.
III. Discussion
a. Plaintiff's Fourth Amendment ClaimPlaintiff claims that Defendants violated the Fourth Amendment's protection from unreasonable searches and seizures by either monitoring or censoring his mail. It is unclear whether Plaintiff is asserting only that his mail was monitored or that it was also censored. Plaintiff states in his "Preliminary Statement" that he is "alleging censoring mail in violation of the Fourth Amendment." However, the censorship of prisoners' mail has generally been addressed by the courts within the context of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. See Thornburgh v. Abbott, 490 U.S. 401 (1989);Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S. 396 (1974). Moreover, the only fact Plaintiff offers in support of this claim is that he saw a copy of a report which stated that information regarding Plaintiff's involvement in contraband activities was gleaned from "monitoring his mail," not censoring his mail. Nonetheless, since Plaintiff is proceeding pro se and therefore subject to less stringent pleading requirements, we will deem his complaint to have alleged monitoring and censoring of his mail in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, respectively. See Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520 (1972).
The practice of monitoring inmates' correspondence has long been deemed an acceptable means of maintaining prison security. Stroud v. United States, 251 U.S. 15, 21 (1919). Thus even if Plaintiff is able to prove that prison officials read his mail, such an act does not constitute a violation of Plaintiff's Fourth Amendment rights and he has failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted in this regard.
However, a claim may exist when prison officials censor prisoners' mail, but fail to comply with procedural safeguards derived from the Fourteenth Amendment. Procunier, 416 U.S. at 418. In Procunier, the Court held that when mail addressed to a prisoner is withheld, the "liberty interests" created by the Fourteenth Amendment dictate that the prisoner be notified and given an opportunity to protest the censorship. Id. Plaintiff states hypothetically that if Defendants' have in fact censored his mail, they have violated his constitutional rights by failing to notify him and give him a chance to contest the censorship. Thus, while Plaintiff has properly stated the law regarding this claim, he has failed to allege any facts which, if proven, would entitle him to relief under Procunier. Plaintiff merely makes a conclusory statement that he filed this action "alleging censoring mail in violation of the Fourth Amendment" and refers to a report he saw which stated that his letters were "monitored." These statements alone do not purport to allege facts which would support a claim that Defendants' unlawfully censored Plaintiff's mail. Without some facts to support Plaintiff's allegation, if proven, such as that he was missing letters that were sent to him, we must dismiss this claim.
b. Plaintiff's Eighth Amendment Claim
Plaintiff alleges that Defendants violated the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment by placing him in the RHU, falsifying documents, transferring him, harassing him, and mentally, emotionally, and psychologically abusing him. When considering a violation of a prisoner's Eighth Amendment rights, we must determine whether "`the officials acted with a sufficiently culpable state of mind' and if the alleged wrongdoing was objectively `harmful enough' to establish a constitutional violation." Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U.S. 1, 8 (1992), citing Wilson v. Seiter, 501 U.S. 294 (1991). The application of these standards varies according to the type of complaint made.
Plaintiff's primary complaint under the Eighth Amendment is that his placement in the RHU constituted cruel and unusual punishment. The Supreme Court has interpreted the Eighth Amendment as requiring that prison officials maintain "humane conditions for prisoners" by ensuring that "inmates are provided with adequate food, clothing, shelter, and medical care." Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 832 (1994), citing Deshaney v. Winnebago County Dept. of Social Servs., 489 U.S. 189, 198-99 (1989). In complaints concerning the condition of confinement, Plaintiff must first show that the alleged deprivation was "sufficiently serious" such that it resulted in "the denial of `the minimal civilized measure of life necessities.'"Farmer, 511 U.S. at 834, citing Wilson, 501 U.S. at 298. Second, the officials will only be deemed culpable if Plaintiff is able to demonstrate that their actions constituted "deliberate indifference" to the condition. Wilson, 501 U.S. at 297.
Plaintiff has not alleged that he was deprived of food, clothing, shelter or medical care. Nor has he alleged facts which, if proven, would show that he was denied `the minimal civilized measure of life necessities." Even if Plaintiff is able to prove that he was wrongly accused of lying and therefore wrongly placed in the RHU, unless Plaintiff alleges a "sufficiently serious" deprivation, he has not stated a claim upon which relief can be granted. As the Court said in Wilson, "The Constitution . . . does not mandate comfortable prisons." Id. at 298, citing Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U.S. 337, 347 (1981). Because we hold that Plaintiff has not met the first part of the test in challenging the conditions of his confinement under the Eighth Amendment, we need not consider whether the officials responsible for confining him were culpable. Nor has Plaintiff alleged facts to support any of the other wrongs he has alleged under the Eighth Amendment. Having failed to allege facts which would entitle him to relief, we must dismiss Plaintiff's Eighth Amendment claim.
c. Plaintiff's Fourteenth Amendment Claim
Plaintiff alleges that his right to procedural due process under the Fourteenth Amendment was violated when he was placed in the Restricted Housing Unit (RHU), or administrative custody, without a hearing. However, due process protection for state created liberty interests is limited to where the deprivation "imposes atypical and significant hardship on the inmate in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life." Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 486 (1995). The Third Circuit has held that confinement to administrative custody for fifteen months does not pose an "atypical or significant hardship" and "falls within the expected parameters of the sentenced imposed." Griffin v. Vaughn, 112 F.3d 703, 706-8, citing Sandin, 515 U.S. 472, 485. Plaintiff was placed in the RHU, or administrative custody, for approximately four months. He has not alleged that the conditions of this confinement were "atypical" in any way or that they presented a "significant hardship." Thus he is not entitled to procedural due process protections and this claim must therefore be dismissed for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.
IV. Conclusion
Plaintiff's Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment claims must be dismissed for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted because Plaintiff has failed to allege facts which, if proven, would entitle him to relief. An appropriate order will follow.
ORDER
AND NOW, this 16th day of January, 2004, upon consideration of Plaintiffs Complaint, filed on October 8, 2003; Commonwealth Defendant's Motion to Dismiss and Memorandum of Law in support thereof, filed on December 9, 2003; and Plaintiff's Response to Defendant's Motion to Dismiss, filed on December 31, 2003, it is hereby ORDERED that Defendant's Motion to Dismiss is GRANTED. This case is closed.