TODD ASHKER, ET AL V. GAVIN NEWSOM, ET AL, No. 21-15839 (9th Cir. 2023)
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A settlement agreement generally ends a legal dispute. Here, it was just the beginning. In August 2015, the State of California settled a dispute with a plaintiff class of inmates over alleged constitutional violations. Eight years later, the dispute continues. In settlement, the State agreed to stop housing inmates in solitary confinement for long-term or indefinite periods based on gang affiliation. The inmates’ counsel would monitor the state’s compliance for two years. The settlement agreement and monitoring period could be extended for twelve months if the inmates demonstrated continuing constitutional violations that were either alleged in their complaint or resulted from the agreement’s reforms. The twice successfully extended the settlement agreement before the district court.
The Ninth Circuit reversed in part, vacated in part, and dismissed in part the district court’s extensions of the settlement agreement. The panel reversed the district court’s order granting the first twelve-month extension of the settlement agreement. First, the panel held that there was no basis for extending the agreement based on the inmates’ claim that the CDCR regularly mischaracterizes the confidential information used in disciplinary hearings and fails to verify the reliability of that information. Next, the panel held that there was no basis for extending the agreement based on the inmates’ claim that CDCR unconstitutionally validates inmates as gang affiliates and fails to tell the parole board that old gang validations are flawed or unreliable. The claim was not included in, or sufficiently related to, the complaint.
Court Description: Prisoner Civil Rights The panel (1) reversed the district court’s order granting inmates a twelve-month extension of a 2015 settlement agreement in which the State of California agreed to stop housing inmates in solitary confinement for long-term or indefinite periods based on gang affiliation; and (2) vacated on jurisdictional grounds the district court’s order granting inmates a second twelve-month extension of the settlement agreement, and dismissed the appeal from that order as moot.
Pursuant to the 2015 settlement agreement, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and state officials (collectively “CDCR”) agreed to implement various reforms. The inmates’ counsel would monitor compliance for twenty-four months and could seek a twelve- * The Honorable James S. Gwin, United States District Judge for the Northern District of Ohio, sitting by designation. month extension if the inmates demonstrated a continuing constitutional violation that was either alleged in their complaint or resulted from the settlement agreement’s reforms.
The panel reversed the district court’s order granting the first twelve-month extension of the settlement agreement. First, the panel held that there was no basis for extending the agreement based on the inmates’ claim that the CDCR regularly mischaracterizes the confidential information used in disciplinary hearings and fails to verify the reliability of that information. The claim was not alleged in the inmates’ complaint, CDCR’s alleged misuse of confidential information was not caused by the agreement’s reforms, and plaintiffs failed to demonstrate current and ongoing systemic Fourteenth Amendment due process violations arising from CDCR’s confidential information disclosures and reliability determinations.
Next, the panel held that there was no basis for extending the agreement based on the inmates’ claim that CDCR unconstitutionally validates inmates as gang affiliates and fails to tell the parole board that old gang validations are flawed or unreliable. The claim was not included in, or sufficiently related to, the complaint. Moreover, even if the prior validation process and resulting validations were deficient, an extension was not justified because CDCR had no reason to doubt the reliability of the validations and did not misrepresent or omit information to the parole board deliberately or with reckless disregard for the truth.
Finally, the panel held that there was no basis for extending the agreement based on the inmates’ claim that CDCR violates due process by placing inmates with safety concerns in the Restrictive Custody General Population Unit (“RCGP”). The inmates do not have a liberty interest in avoiding RCGP placement, which does not impose an atypical and significant hardship in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life. Moreover, CDCR employed constitutionally sufficient procedural protections in effecting the placements.
Because the first twelve-month extension of the settlement agreement was improper, the district court’s jurisdiction over the matter terminated when the agreement’s initial twenty-four-month monitoring period ended. The district court therefore lacked jurisdiction to order the second twelve-month extension of the settlement agreement. The panel vacated the district court’s second extension order and dismissed the appeal from that order as moot.
Concurring, Judge R. Nelson, joined by Judge Gwin, noted that this court has not definitively resolved what the proper baseline is for measuring what constitutes an atypical and significant hardship in evaluating whether inmates have a liberty interest in avoiding certain conditions of confinement. In his view, the conditions of administrative segregation or protective custody are the proper baseline comparators when determining whether a challenged prison condition is atypical and significant.
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