holding that “changes in a prisoner[’s] location, variations of daily routine, changes in conditions of confinement (including administrative segregation), and the denial of privileges – matters which every prisoner can anticipate are contemplated by his original sentence to prison – are necessarily functions of prison management that must be left to the broad discretion of prison administrators to enable them to manage the prisons safely and efficiently” and do not implicate due process
How later courts described this case
- holding that “changes in a prisoner[’s] location, variations of daily routine, changes in conditions of confinement (including administrative segregation), and the denial of privileges – matters which every prisoner can anticipate are contemplated by his original sentence to prison – are necessarily functions of prison management that must be left to the broad discretion of prison administrators to enable them to manage the prisons safely and efficiently” and do not implicate due process
- holding that “changes in a prisoners’ [sic] location, variations of daily routine, changes in conditions of confinement (including administrative segregation), and the denial of privileges—matters which every prisoner can anticipate are contemplated by his original sentence to prison—are necessarily functions of prison management that must be left to the broad discretion of prison administrators to enable them to manage the prisons safely and efficiently”
- recognizing that to safely and efficiently run the prison, prison officials maintain broad discretion over an inmate’s “location, variations of daily routines, changes in conditions of confinement (including administrative segregation), and the denial of privileges”
- concluding that to safely and efficiently run the prison, prison officials maintain broad discretion over an inmate's “location, variations of daily routines, changes in conditions of confinement (including administrative segregation), and the denial of privileges”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
BUTZNER, Senior Circuit Judge,
with whom Circuit Judge MURNAGHAN and Circuit Judge SPROUSE join, dissenting:
I fully subscribe to the following principle of constitutional law: “A substantial liberty from legal restraint is at stake when the State makes decisions regarding parole or probation.” Greenholtz v. Nebraska Penal Inmates, 442 U.S. 1, 18 , 99 S.Ct. 2100, 2109 , 60 L.Ed.2d 668 (1979) (Powell, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Indeed, we have previously decided that Virginia prisoners have a liberty interest entitling them to the minimum requirements of procedural due process in parole release proceedings. Franklin v. Shields, 569 F.2d 784, 800 (4th Cir.1978) (en banc). Criteria adopted by the Virginia Parole Board guiding its parole decisions included “the prisoner’s institutional experience.” Franklin, 569 F.2d at 791 -92 n. 29. On remand it should not be difficult to determine whether a prisoner’s possession of contraband is a factor that the parole board would typically consider.
For reasons adequately stated in the panel opinion in Gaston v. Taylor, 918 F.2d 25 (4th Cir.1990), I would vacate the summary judgment granted by the district court and remand for further proceedings.