Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
APPEALS from and order of the Superior Court of Kern County. No. HC011064A Michael E. Dellostritto, Judge.
Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Julie L. Garland, Assistant Attorney General, Jessica N. Blonien and Michael G. Lagrama, Deputy Attorneys General, for Appellant.
Arthur R. Titus, Public Defender, and David L. Kelly, Deputy Public Defender, for Respondent Kevin W. Mardis.
Before Cornell, Acting P.J., Dawson, J. and Hill, J.
On May 29, 2008, Kevin W. Mardis, an inmate at Kern Valley State Prison, received a disciplinary ruling from the prison finding him guilty of “[m]utual combat with no serious injuries where the aggressor cannot be determined” (former Cal. Code Regs., title 15, § 3323) and was assessed a 90-day credit forfeiture and a 90-day loss of quarterly packages and special purchases. Mardis exhausted his administrative remedies within the prison system without success. He then filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus with the Kern County Superior Court. The court issued an order to show cause and ultimately granted the petition without holding an evidentiary hearing finding the evidence insufficient to meet the standard of “some evidence” necessary to uphold the disciplinary order. On de novo review of the record, we affirm the judgment of the superior court.
FACTS
On May 15, 2008, Officer G. Lira issued Mardis a rules violation report charging him with mutual combat. According to the report, on May 2, 2008, at approximately 1:35 p.m., Officer Lira’s attention was distracted by inmates who were gathered by “C-Medical door.” As he walked over to that location, Officer Lira ordered the inmates to get down on the floor. When he again ordered the inmates to get on the floor, he noticed Mardis and Hill, another inmate, “facing each other in a fighting stance.” Lira ordered them to get down and they each moved back from each other and complied. According to Lira, both inmates had injuries consistent with mutual combat.
Mardis appealed and a hearing on the appeal was held on May 29, 2008. At this hearing, Mardis submitted a written statement as his testimony and a written statement from his cellmate, Lewis, as Lewis’s testimony, which were accepted for that purpose by the hearing examiner. The hearing officer also considered the rules violation report and medical records pertaining to the medical exams that were performed on Mardis and Hill following the underlying altercation.
According to Mardis’s declaration, on May 2, 2008, at approximately 10:00 a.m., Mardis was cleaning a shower when Hill came up to Mardis, struck him on the right side of his head and face, and stated, “You treat me like a piece of [shit], I’ll treat you like a punk.” When Mardis asked if Hill struck him because Mardis had refused to lend Hill a chess set, Hill stated, “You don’t treat me that way, and if you tell I’ll [smash you].”
At approximately 2:00 p.m., as Mardis and Lewis walked to form a line to get some medication, Hill’s cellmate, “John-John, ” told Mardis he wanted to talk to him. As Mardis stepped toward John-John, Hill called Mardis’s name. Mardis turned to face Hill and was struck on his head by Hill with a cane. Mardis grabbed hold of the cane and was able to dislodge it from Hill’s hand. Hill then grabbed Mardis and body slammed him to the ground. Mardis rolled out from under Hill, got up, and assumed a defensive stance. Hill also stood up but did not continue to assault Mardis because an alarm had sounded and they could hear repeated commands for the inmates to get down on the ground. Mardis was given a medical exam and was interviewed by a lieutenant. He was informed that he was not going to be written up and Hill was going to be placed in administrative segregation.
On May 5, 2008, Mardis spoke with Counselor Q.B. Whitt who informed him that Hill was housed in the administrative housing unit and that he thought Hill would get written up because the incident was a battery.
On May 14, 2008, Officer T. Perez gave Mardis a CDC 115 rules violation report charging him with participating in mutual combat.
Lewis’s declaration stated that on May 1, 2008, Hill asked Mardis for permission to borrow a chess set. Hill appeared to get upset when Mardis refused.
On May 2, 2008, at approximately 10:45 p.m. when Mardis returned from cleaning a shower, he had a large red mark on the left side of his face. Mardis told Lewis that Hill hit him on the face and had tried to get him to fight, but that Mardis had walked away.
At approximately 2:00 p.m., as Lewis and Mardis were getting in a line to get medication, John-John called Mardis over. Lewis tried to follow him but was prevented by another inmate. Lewis then heard Hill call Mardis. When Mardis turned to face Hill, Hill struck Mardis with a cane in the head. Mardis grabbed the cane and was able to wrestle it away from Hill. Hill then grabbed Mardis and body slammed him to the ground. Lewis attempted to go to Mardis’s aid but was again prevented by another inmate. Lewis heard someone yell “Get down” and saw Hill and Mardis facing each other about four feet apart. He also heard Hill tell Mardis, “You had enough - or you want to get sprayed too?” Mardis and Hill then both got on the ground and were handcuffed. According to Lewis, Hill was 100 pounds heavier, four to six inches taller, and 16 years younger than Mardis.
The day after the altercation, Lewis gave statements to two officers.
The records for the medical exam performed on Mardis after the alteration with Hill disclosed that he had a swollen area over his right eye, a bleeding laceration over his right eye, an abrasion on each of his knees and each of his elbows, an abrasion above his left knee, a swollen area on his right pinky, and a bruise on his back by his right armpit.
The records for the medical exam performed on Hill after the altercation showed that he suffered only an abrasion on his right elbow.
After considering the evidence summarized above, the hearing officer found Mardis guilty of “[m]utual combat with no serious injuries where the aggressor cannot be determined” in violation of former subdivision (f)(9) of California Code of Regulations, title 15, section 3323.
On March 9, 2009, after having exhausted his administrative remedies with the prison system without success, Mardis filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the Kern County Superior Court.
On September 14, 2009, the superior court granted Mardis’s petition and ordered the underlying rules violation dismissed and Mardis’s lost credits restored.
DISCUSSION
The People contend the superior court’s order granting Mardis’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus must be reversed because some evidence supports the hearing officer’s finding that Mardis engaged in mutual combat. The People point to the following evidence as supporting this finding: 1) Officer Lira’s observation of Mardis and Hill both in a “fighting stance”; 2) Lewis’s statement that Mardis wrestled a cane away from Hill and took an aggressive stance; 3) the medical reports showing both inmates sustained injuries; and 4) Mardis’s admission that he fought back. We conclude the record does not contain some evidence in support of at least one of the elements of the offense that Mardis was found guilty of, and affirm the judgment.
“A prisoner has no constitutional right to good conduct credits. [Citation.] Nevertheless, where as here, ‘the State ha[s] created the right to good time [credits] and itself recogniz[es] that its deprivation is a sanction authorized for major misconduct, ’ a prisoner’s interest in retaining good conduct credits ‘has real substance and is sufficiently embraced within Fourteenth Amendment “liberty” to entitle him to those minimum procedures appropriate under the circumstances and required by the Due Process Clause to insure that the state-created right is not arbitrarily abrogated.’ [Citation.] Consequently, before a prisoner can be deprived of good conduct credits, the state must provide: ‘(1) advance written notice of the disciplinary charges; (2) an opportunity, when consistent with institutional safety and correctional goals, to call witnesses and present documentary evidence in his defense; and (3) a written statement by the factfinder of the evidence relied on and the reasons for the disciplinary action.’ [Citation.]
“In addition, to insure that the prisoner is not arbitrarily deprived of good conduct credits, the findings of the prison authorities must be supported by ‘some evidence.’ [Citation.] This standard, which takes into account the unique circumstances of the prison environment, is intended to be extremely deferential, and recognizes that ‘[r]evocation of good time credits, ’ while significant enough to implicate due process rights, ‘is not comparable to a criminal conviction.’ [Citation.] Ascertaining whether the ‘some evidence’ standard is satisfied ‘does not require examination of the entire record, independent assessment of the credibility of witnesses, or weighing of the evidence. Instead, the relevant question is whether there is any evidence in the record that could support the conclusion reached by the’ prison authorities. [Citations.]” (In re Rothwell (2008) 164 Cal.App.4th 160, 165-166.)
Here, the original citation charged Mardis with engaging in mutual combat in violation of former subdivision (c) of California Code of Regulations, title 15, section 3005 which, in pertinent part, prohibited inmates from using force or violence. On May 29, 2008, the hearing officer found Mardis guilty of “Mutual combat with no serious injuries where the aggressor cannot be determined” in violation of former subdivision (f)(9) of California Code of Regulations, title 15, section 3323. This offense is composed of at least two elements: 1) an inmate’s involvement in mutual combat; and 2) the inability of prison authorities to determine who the aggressor was.
The People’s argument for reversing the superior court’s granting of Mardis’s petition is not persuasive because it addresses only the first element. Further, we conclude there is no evidence in the record that supports a finding that the prison authorities were unable to determine whether Mardis or Hill was the aggressor in the underlying altercation. Although no officer actually saw the altercation between Mardis and Hill, prison authorities had two cooperative witnesses in Mardis and Lewis who provided them with detailed statements. The statements by Mardis and Lewis pointed to Mardis’s failure to lend Hill a chess set as the motivation for Hill assaulting Mardis and clearly identified Hill as the aggressor. Further, their depiction of Hill as the aggressor was corroborated by the medical records, which showed that Mardis suffered injuries that appeared to be consistent with their version of events, i.e., that the actual altercation between Hill and Mardis began when Hill struck Mardis in the head with a cane and that after Mardis wrestled the cane away, Hill grabbed Mardis and slammed him to the ground. Accordingly, since the record does not contain any evidence in support of at least one of the elements of the offense Mardis was charged with, we find no basis to reverse the trial court’s granting of Mardis’s petition.
DISPOSITION
The court’s order granting Mardis’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus is affirmed.