Citations
- 408 F. Supp. 988
Full opinion text
OPINION AND ORDER
EDWARD R. BECKER, District Judge.
I. Preliminary Statement
Plaintiff in this civil rights case is a state prisoner serving a 21 to 42 year sentence for second degree murder, aggravated robbery and conspiracy. Originally confined in 1967 at the State Correctional Institution at Graterford, plaintiff was demotionally transferred approximately sixteen months later to the State Correctional Institution at Pittsburgh. On January 21, 1970, plaintiff was retransferred from Pittsburgh to Graterford to accommodate a Philadelphia court appearance and remained at Graterford until July. The gravamen of his complaint is that, in being relegated to administrative segregation status for the entire five and one half month period spent at Graterford while awaiting court proceedings in Philadelphia, he was deprived of liberty without due process and denied equal protection of the law.
Plaintiff filed this action pro se on June 11, 1970, and the case was assigned to our late colleague Judge Ralph C. Body. .Judge Body appointed law student counsel for plaintiff pursuant to Local Civil Rule 9V2 in February 1972. Thereafter, defendants moved for summary judgment; the motion was granted on August 16, 1972. Plaintiff appealed, and, in an unpublished per curiam opinion filed on March 26, 1974, the Court of Appeals held that Judge Body erred in granting summary judgment on plaintiff’s equal protection and due process claims and remanded the case for further proceedings consistent with its opinion. The Court of Appeals also: (1) upheld Judge Body’s disposition of plaintiff’s eighth amendment claim; (2) suggested that on remand the due process claim be considered in the light of several of its intervening opinions regarding the due process rights of prisoners subjected to special disciplinary treatment; and (3) noted that should plaintiff prevail on the merits, his relief must be limited to damages. Plaintiff was no longer at Graterford, and the regulations governing administrative segregation of prisoners had been changed to incorporate the procedural safeguards required by the Third Circuit decisions cited at note 4, supra.
Plaintiff’s due process claim is substantive and not procedural; the specific due process requirements announced by the Court of Appeals after the events in question and subsequently implemented are not retroactive. See Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 573-74, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974). However, plaintiff contends that fundamental notions of substantive due process require that segregative confinement be based on some actual infraction of prison rules or a showing of present danger, even if it was not necessary to accord 1 ‘ particular form of hearing on the ; for the confinement.
After receiving the record uj mand, we conducted a hearing. I tion to receiving the plaintiff’s te, ny, we admitted several uncontrc affidavits and all the available re records of the institutions at plaintiff had been confined. Foil, the receipt of briefs and reques; findings, we requested further els tion of thé defendants’ immunity The Deputy Attorney General subí, 90U9 an affidavit from defendant Wolf