Opinion
No. 106,965.
2012-09-28
Louis BROUILLARD, Appellant, v. WARDEN, EL DORADO CORRECTIONAL FACILITY, et al., Appellees.
Appeal from Butler District Court; Charles M. Hart, Judge. Louis Brouillard, appellant pro se. Julie St. Peter, of Kansas Department of Corrections, El Dorado Correctional Facility, for appellees.
Appeal from Butler District Court; Charles M. Hart, Judge.
Louis Brouillard, appellant pro se. Julie St. Peter, of Kansas Department of Corrections, El Dorado Correctional Facility, for appellees.
Before BUSER, P.J., ATCHESON, J., and KNUDSON, S.J.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
PER CURIAM.
Louis Brouillard, an inmate at the state prison in El Dorado, filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus challenging discipline imposed on him for possession of contraband—betting slips and pornography—at his offsite workplace. The Butler County District Court denied the petition and affirmed that discipline. Notwithstanding the relaxed standards for judicial review of institutional discipline of inmates, the evidence prison officials introduced at the administrative hearings failed to focus guilt on Brouillard in a way that conforms to the constitutional due process protections afforded him. We, therefore, reverse the district court and vacate the discipline imposed on Brouillard.
Prison officials conducted a shakedown or search of inmate work areas at Century Manufacturing. Brouillard worked at a computer terminal at the company. Other inmates worked in the same area and used that computer on a daily basis, according to a corrections officer who testified at the hearings. Corrections officers found pornography on computer disks they seized from that work area. They also found betting slips in the common area. And they found templates for the slips on the computer. At the disciplinary proceedings, evidence showed that Brouillard had a password to access the computer. But no evidence was presented on whether the password was exclusive to Brouillard or whether the template was found in an area of the computer that only Brouillard could access. The evidence did not suggest, let alone establish, that other inmates using the computer would have been unable to create the templates found on the computer. Nothing else tied Brouillard to the disks containing the pornography or the betting slips.
Nobody disputes the pornography and the betting slips amount to contraband and their possession would violate rules governing inmate conduct. Brouillard does not contest the discipline imposed on him as excessive or otherwise improper in and of itself. Brouillard received punishment for each violation that included a fine, thereby establishing loss of a protected property right sufficient to support a claim under K.S.A. 60–1501. See Sauls v. McKune, 45 Kan.App.2d 915, 920, 260 P.3d 95 (2011). Brouillard contends prison officials submitted insufficient evidence to establish he violated the prison rules. Brouillard exhausted his administrative remedies and filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to K.S.A. 60–1501. The district court denied the petition, finding prison officials presented enough evidence against Brouillard and, therefore, properly disciplined him. Brouillard has timely appealed that decision. On appeal, he also says he was improperly denied the opportunity to call a witness during the disciplinary proceedings. Because we dispose of the appeal in Brouillard's favor on sufficiency of the evidence, we do not address the witness issue.
The controlling authority on sufficiency of the evidence in prison disciplinary proceedings requires only that “some evidence” support a finding that an inmate has violated a rule or regulation. Superintendent v. Hill, 472 U.S. 445, 455–56, 105 S.Ct. 2768, 86 L.Ed.2d 356 (1985); Sammons v. Simmons, 267 Kan. 155, 158–59, 976 P.2d 505 (1999) (recognizing Hill as supplying the governing standard and quoting at length from that decision). The inmate bears the burden of proving prison officials failed to satisfy that evidentiary requirement. Sammons, 267 Kan. at 158. A reviewing court must accept the evidence presented in the disciplinary process in a light most favorable to the penal institution and, therefore, must resolve every conflict in the evidence against the inmate. Hill, 472 U.S. at 455–56;Sammons, 267 Kan. at 158 (quoting Hill, 472 U.S. at 455–56).
In Hill, the Court fashioned those standards to balance inmates' due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution against a penal institution's need to operate safely and efficiently, especially given the nature of its purpose and clientele. The Court recognized that inmates have a due process right prohibiting the arbitrary deprivation of their constitutionally protected interests through the institution's procedures for punishing infractions of rules and regulations. Hill, 472 U.S. at 455–56. As the Kansas courts have recognized, a fine depriving an inmate of money entails such a protected interest. See Sauls, 45 Kan.App.2d at 920. But a prisoner's due process rights must be measured to accommodate “the legitimate institutional needs of assuring the safety of inmates and prisoners, avoiding burdensome administrative requirements that might be susceptible to manipulation, and preserving the disciplinary process as a means of rehabilitation.” Hill, 472 U.S. at 454–55.
In reviewing inmate disciplinary proceedings for due process, courts need only determine that “some evidence” supports the institution's punitive action. 472 U.S. at 455. That evidence merely must be enough to “deduce” the decisionmaker's conclusion in finding a violation. 472 U.S. at 455. And a reviewing court should not consider conflicting evidence inconsistent with the administrative decision. 472 U.S. at 455–56. Acknowledging the standard to be relaxed, the Court held that requiring “a modicum” of evidence supporting the disciplinary action would sufficiently serve inmates' due process rights by “prevent[ing] arbitrary deprivations without threatening institutional interests or imposing undue administrative burdens.” 472 U.S. at 455.
The facts of Hill are illustrative of the some-evidence standard. In that case, a prison guard heard a commotion, found an inmate who had just been beaten, and saw Hill with two other inmates running down an enclosed walkway from that area. The guard saw no other inmates in the vicinity. The fallen inmate claimed Hill and the others had not attacked him. 472 U.S. at 447–48. Those circumstances provided “some evidence” to support the disciplinary action against Hill for assaulting the inmate. 472 U.S. at 456–57. The Court concluded “the record is not so devoid of evidence that the findings of the disciplinary board were without support or otherwise arbitrary.” 472 U.S. at 457. And, therefore, Hill suffered no due process violation.
Those facts may be contrasted with Broussard v. Johnson, 253 F.3d 874 (5th Cir.2001). There, the court found a due process violation when Broussard was disciplined for hiding bolt cutters in his work area—possession of contraband in violation of prison rules. A correctional officer testified at the disciplinary hearing that an informant of unknown credibility had told the warden that Broussard intended to use the bolt cutters to make an escape. 253 F .3d at 875. The testifying officer did not know the name of the informant and had not directly spoken with the informant. The evidence at the hearing showed that as many as 100 inmates had access to the work area. 253 F.3d at 877. Applying Hill, the Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's ruling setting aside the discipline as a violation of Broussard's due process rights. The presence of the bolt cutters in the work area was inadequate to tie them to Broussard, and the informant's tip lacked sufficient foundation to be considered. 253 F.3d at 877.
The facts here fit between the bookends of Hill and Broussard but rest on the insufficient evidence side of the shelf. Consider those cases. Hill and two cohorts were seen running from where another inmate had just been beaten. Flight may be taken as some evidence of culpability. Apart from Hill and his buddies, the first guard to arrive saw no other inmates in the vicinity. Those circumstances focus guilt on the trio, including Hill. While no evidence directly established that Hill hit the injured inmate, he appeared to be acting in concert with the others. All three might have struck blows or Hill might have been the lookout. There was “some evidence” to support a finding Hill helped carry out the attack in some fashion. By contrast, Broussard was improperly disciplined because contraband was found in a work area he and many other inmates used. No evidence, properly considered, differentiated him from the others or made him any more likely culpable.
Here, corrections officers found contraband in a work area common to Brouillard and a number of other inmates. The record is unclear as to exactly how many other inmates worked in or had access to that area. But more than a few apparently did. The evidence also showed that other inmates used the same computer as Brouillard on a daily basis. There is no evidence Brouillard somehow acted in concert with any of the other inmates with respect to the contraband. From that evidence alone, the pornography and the betting slips could not be attributed to Brouillard any more than to one or more of the other inmates using the computer or having access to that work area. The testimony that Brouillard had a password to the computer really doesn't advance the prison's position. The fact is presented in just that sort of disconnected, abstract way. There was no evidence that the other inmates lacked passwords or that only Brouillard (or someone with this password) could have created the betting slips or accessed and copied the pornography. In that way, the password is comparable to the informant in Broussard—the evidence lacks sufficient foundation to implicate the inmate in the charged violation. In short, the evidence against Brouillard fails to display adequate clarity and specificity to support the violations, even under the some-evidence standard. The evidence placed Brouillard and a number of other inmates in proximity to the contraband. But imposing liability on Brouillard based on that sort of shared proximity reflects arbitrary decisionmaking that cannot be squared with the constitutional process due inmates as outlined in Hill.
The constitutional defect may be illustrated through a rhetorical foil counsel for the prison presented on appeal: “If Brouillard's arguments are accepted, any contraband found in a prison dormitory setting or work area would be insufficient to support the imposition of discipline in a prison setting.” Prison officials, then, seem to believe that if they find contraband in the common area of a dormitory, they can then select one inmate among the residents housed there and prove a disciplinary violation against him or her based on nothing more. Select how? Maybe by lot or birthday nearest the date of the offense or general incorrigibility. It could be the prison officials believe they can charge all of the residents with possession of the contraband. Either way, that sounds arbitrary, perhaps more strikingly so than the disciplinary action taken against Brouillard. But neither comports with due process.
The district court is reversed. Because the evidence fails to support the disciplinary actions, against Brouillard, those actions and the punishments imposed are vacated.
* * *
BUSER, J., concurring: I concur in the result.