Miller v. Beard

Full title: DARRYL MILLER, Plaintiff, v. MARCUS BEARD, and BISHOP, Defendants

Court: United States District Court, N.D. Indiana, South Bend Division

Date published: May 25, 2010

CAUSE NO. 3:10-CV-035 (N.D. Ind. May. 25, 2010)

Opinion

CAUSE NO. 3:10-CV-035.

May 25, 2010

OPINION AND ORDER

RUDY LOZANO, District Judge

This matter is before the Court on a complaint filed by Darryl Miller. For the reasons set forth below, this case is DISMISSED pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915A.

BACKGROUND

DISCUSSION

pro se pro se pro se Erickson v. Pardus,551 U.S. 8994 28 U.S.C. § 1915A12 Lagerstrom v. Kingston,463 F.3d 621624

[A] complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face. A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.

Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. ___, ___; 129 S. Ct. 1937, 1949; 173 L. Ed. 2d 868, 884 (2009) (quotation marks and citations omitted). "In order to state a claim under § 1983 a plaintiff must allege: (1) that defendants deprived him of a federal constitutional right; and (2) that the defendants acted under color of state law." Savory v. Lyons, 469 F.3d 667, 670 (7th Cir. 2006).

Here, Miller alleges that "[t]here was no rational basis for the denial of dual classification and there was no legitimate penological purpose for [these] actions." (DE #1, Complaint, p. 3.) He alleges that this "violated my Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection." ( Id.) Miller does not claim that he was denied dual classification based on his status as a member of a protected class, e.g. race, religion. Rather he alleges "a class-of-one equal protection violation based solely upon purported irrationality. . . ." United States v. Moore, 543 F.3d 891, 898 (7th Cir. 2008). Nevertheless, in the case of inmate classification issues within a prison, this does not state a claim because

[t]o treat like individuals differently in this context, even without a strictly rational justification, is not to classify them in a way that raises equal protection concerns . . .

Id. at 901 (quotation marks and citation omitted).

There are some forms of state action, however, which by their nature involve discretionary decisionmaking based on a vast array of subjective, individualized assessments. In such cases the rule that people should be `treated alike, under like circumstances and conditions' is not violated when one person is treated differently from others, because treating like individuals differently is an accepted consequence of the discretion granted. In such situations, allowing a challenge based on the arbitrary singling out of a particular person would undermine the very discretion that such state officials are entrusted to exercise.

Engquist v. Oregon. Dep't of Agric., 553 U.S. 591, ___; 128 S. Ct. 2146, 2154 (2008). Classifying inmates in a prison is a discretionary decisionmaking process involving a vast array of subjective, individualized assessments. As such, even an allegedly irrational classification decision is not challengeable under the Fourteenth Amendment under a class of one theory. Indeed, a prison does not even need a reason to relocate a convicted inmate, nor is a prisoner entitled to due process before he is relocated. Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 485 (1995).

CONCLUSION

For the reasons set forth above, this case is DISMISSED pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915A.