JAMES DINGUS v. COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY
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RENDERED: January 15, 1999; 10:00 a.m.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
C ommonwealth O f K entucky
C ourt O f A ppeals
NO.
1998-CA-000111-MR
JAMES DINGUS
v.
APPELLANT
APPEAL FROM BOYLE CIRCUIT COURT
HONORABLE STEPHEN M. SHEWMAKER, JUDGE
ACTION NO. 97-CI-00423
COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY
APPELLEE
OPINION
AFFIRMING
* * * * * * * * * *
BEFORE: COMBS, DYCHE, and GUIDUGLI, JUDGES.
DYCHE, JUDGE.
James Dingus (Dingus) appeals from an order of the
Boyle Circuit Court dismissing his Petition for Declaration of
Rights filed pursuant to Kentucky Revised Statute (KRS) 418.040
and Kentucky Rule of Civil Procedure (CR) 57.
We affirm.
Dingus is an inmate at the Northpoint Training Center
in Burgin, Kentucky.
In September 1997, he filed a petition for
declaratory judgment asking the circuit court to order the
Department of Corrections to amend his institutional
classification status.
More specifically, he sought removal of
points that were added to his custodial classification score
because of a prior history of institutional violence which
resulted in his receiving a medium, as opposed to a minimum,
security classification.
In November 1997, the Department of Corrections filed a
response challenging the merits of the petition and asking the
court to dismiss the action for failure to state an actual
controversy.
Attached to the response was an affidavit of the
Classification Branch Manager for the Division of Adult
Institutions of the Department of Corrections, various documents
related to Dingus's attempt to obtain administrative relief,
court records from Pike Circuit Court involving Dingus's
misdemeanor conviction on fourth-degree assault, two jail
incident reports, and the Corrections Resident Record Card
setting out the time calculations for Dingus's prison sentence.
Dingus filed a response to the pleading filed by the Department
of Corrections and its request for dismissal.
On December 9,
1997, the trial court issued an order dismissing the petition for
failure to state a claim.
Dingus filed a motion for
reconsideration, which the trial court denied.
This appeal
followed.
Initially, we note that while the trial court dismissed
the action for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be
granted, when parties file exhibits and affidavits in support of
their positions, as was done here, we shall treat the request for
dismissal and the circuit court order dismissing as a summary
judgment.
See Hoke v. Cullinan, Ky., 914 S.W.2d 335, 339 (1995);
Smith v. O'Dea, Ky. App., 939 S.W.2d 353, 355 n.1 (1997); CR
-2-
12.02.
As the court noted in Smith v. O'Dea, supra, inmate
declaratory judgment suits invoke the circuit court's authority
as a body reviewing administrative agency action.
Under these
circumstances, the Smith court recognized a modified standard for
summary judgment.
"[W]e believe summary judgment for the
Corrections Department is proper if and only if the inmate's
petition and any supporting materials, construed in light of the
entire agency record (including, if submitted, administrators'
affidavits describing the context of the acts or decisions), does
not raise specific, genuine issues of material fact sufficient to
overcome the presumption of agency propriety, and the Department
is entitled to judgment as a matter of law."
939 S.W.2d at 356.
Dingus contends that prison officials violated his
right to due process under the 14th Amendment of the United
States Constitution and Section 11 of the Kentucky Constitution
in assigning his custody status classification.
He argues that
the prison Classification Committee improperly imposed the higher
medium level security classification score, rather than a score
that would have allowed him to be placed in a minimum level
facility.
Under the security classification procedure, prison
inmates are evaluated for purposes of assigning them to various
security level facilities based on a numerical score that takes
into account the inmate’s history of institutional violence, as
well as other factors.
Under this procedure, Dingus was given
points that increased the level of his security classification
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for a past history of institutional violence.
When Dingus
inquired about his classification, he was told by prison
officials that the history of past violence concerned an incident
at the Pike County Jail for which he received a misdemeanor
conviction for assaulting a fellow inmate.
While Dingus does not
dispute the facts of the conviction, he argues that prison
classification policies required prison officials to have
documentation of any violent or disciplinary incident in order to
consider it for custody status.
Although the Corrections
Department included in its responsive pleading documentation of
the fourth-degree assault conviction and two incident reports
related to his conduct at the Pike County Jail, Dingus states the
Northpoint Classification Committee did not actually have these
documents prior to determining his security classification.
Prison officials have discretion in the management of
prisons and the placement of prisoners.
See, e.g., KRS 197.065.
It is well-established that an inmate has no constitutional right
to be housed in a particular institution, and an inmate may be
transferred for any reason, or no reason at all.
Olim v.
Wakinekona, 461 U.S. 238, 103 S. Ct. 1741, 75 L. Ed. 2d 813
(1983); Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 224-25, 96 S. Ct. 2532,
2538, 49 L. Ed. 2d 451, 459 (1976).
An inmate has no inherent
constitutional due process right to a particular security
classification.
Moody v. Daggett, 429 U.S. 78, 88 n.9, 97 S. Ct.
274, 279 n.9, 50 L. Ed. 2d 236, 244 n.9 (1976); Beard v. Livesay,
798 F.2d 874, 876 (6th Cir. 1986).
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In Mahoney v. Carter, Ky.,
938 S.W.2d 575 (1997), the Kentucky Supreme Court held that the
Kentucky Department of Corrections' policies and procedures did
not create a due process liberty interest giving an inmate a
right to a particular security classification or to be housed in
a particular prison facility.
Thus, Dingus has no protected
liberty interest in a particular security classification.
Moreover, it is not unreasonable that the Department of
Corrections should take into consideration an inmate’s behavior
in other prison facilities, including county jails, in assessing
an inmate’s security classification.
Because the Department of
Corrections was entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law,
the trial court did not err in dismissing the action.
We affirm the order of the Boyle Circuit Court.
ALL CONCUR.
BRIEF FOR APPELLANT:
BRIEF FOR APPELLEE:
James Dingus, pro se
Burgin, Kentucky
No Brief
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