Opinion
No. 3:02cv0395 AS
September 25, 2002
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
This Court takes judicial notice of the proceedings and the decision of this Court in 3:02cv0394, Murphy v. McBride. The petition seeking relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 in this case was filed on June 3, 2002 by the pro se petitioner, Jesse Murphy, an inmate at the Maximum Control Complex (MCC) in Westville, Indiana. The Response filed on behalf of the respondent by the Attorney General of Indiana on August 30, 2002, demonstrates the necessary compliance with Lewis v. Faulkner, 689 F.2d 100 (7th Cir. 1982). The petitioner filed a Traverse on September 20, 2002, which this Court has carefully examined. In this case, the Attorney General has placed before this Court exhibits 1 through 10, both inclusive, which explicate a prison disciplinary proceeding involving this petitioner, and those items have been examined here.
The petitioner is a convicted felon serving a sentence imposed by a court in the State of Indiana. This particular proceeding was at the Indiana State Prison (ISP), and it involved this petitioner. He was sanctioned with a deprivation of 180 days of earned credit time which implicates Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539 (1974). The sanction also included six months of disciplinary segregation with the segregation suspended pending no class A or B conduct reports.
These events took place in the ISP in November, 2001 when an officer named McCarty filed a conduct report alleging that this petitioner had habitually violated the rules of conduct, a class A conduct violation, because he had been found guilty of five class A, B or C conduct violations within a six-month period. The conduct violations involved possession of an intoxicant, a class B conduct violation, on November 5, 2001, engaging in group demonstration, a class B conduct violation on November 5, 2001, possession-use of an unauthorized substance, a class A conduct violation on November 5, 2001, refusing to obey an order, a class C conduct violation on August 22, 2001, and refusing to obey an order, a class C conduct violation on July 2, 2001. Procedures here comply with the mandates of Wolff, which governs this case.
The petitioner here asserts a double jeopardy violation, and that simply is without merit. The double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States does not apply to this species of disciplinary proceedings. See Breed v. Jones, 421 U.S. 519 (1975); Meeks v. McBride, 81 F.3d 717 (7th Cir. 1996), and in this Court, Gorman v. Moody, 710 F. Supp. 1256 (N.D.Ind. 1989).
The other contention here is that the guilty finding violated the law of Indiana as reflected in its regulations, and that generally is not a basis for relief in this species of proceeding under Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62 (1991). See also in this Court Hester v. McBride, 966 F. Supp. 765 (N.D.Ind. 1997).
For all of these reasons, there is no basis for relief here under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, and such is now DENIED.
IT IS SO ORDERED.