0LESTER M. DENMON v. NEW JERSEY DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE

APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION

SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY

APPELLATE DIVISION

DOCKET NO. 0

LESTER M. DENMON,

Appellant,

v.

NEW JERSEY DEPARTMENT

OF CORRECTIONS,

Respondent.

____________________________________

September 2, 2015

Submitted July 21, 2015 Decided

Before Judges Kennedy and Hoffman.

On appeal from the New Jersey Department of Corrections.

Lester M. Denmon, appellant pro se.

John J. Hoffman, Acting Attorney General, attorney for respondent (Lisa A. Puglisi, Assistant Attorney General, of counsel and on the brief; Randy Miller, Deputy Attorney General, on the brief).

PER CURIAM

Lester M. Denmon, a South Woods State Prison (South Woods) inmate serving a fifty-one-year sentence, with a twenty-four-year mandatory minimum, appeals from a final administrative decision issued by respondent, New Jersey Department of Corrections (DOC) on October 9, 2013. Having considered the record in light of the applicable law, we affirm.

On October 1, 2013, Denmon, while having his blood drawn in the South Woods infirmary, struck the hand of a lab technician as he removed a tourniquet from his arm and stated, this ain t necessary. The lab technician notified the medical officer and Denmon was placed in detention. Denmon was originally charged with prohibited act *.002, assaulting any person, but after an investigation that charge was revised to prohibited act .013, unauthorized physical contact with any person, to which Denmon pled not guilty.

A hearing was held on October 4, 2013, wherein Denmon was assisted by counsel substitute. Denmon argued that he was trying to refuse treatment and did not touch the lab technician; however, the hearing officer credited the lab technician s statement that Denmon struck her hand. Accordingly, the hearing officer found Denmon guilty of the charge and sanctioned him with ten days detention, with credit for time served; ninety days administrative segregation, suspended for sixty days; and sixty days loss of commutation time, also suspended for sixty days.

Denmon filed an administrative appeal on October 7, 2013, requesting leniency. On October 9, Assistant Superintendent Michael Angelo affirmed the hearing officer s sanction, concluding that the sanction imposed was proportionate to the offense.

Denmon appeals and argues that: the charges against him were unsubstantiated by credible evidence; his due process and equal protection rights under the Fourteenth Amendment were violated; his First Amendment rights were violated because the alleged infraction occurred only after he refused medical treatment; and, in violation of his Fourteenth and First Amendment rights, Denmon was not provided notice of the reduction in his charge from assault to unauthorized contact. As these matters were not raised as part of the administrative appeal and thus are not properly before us, we will not address them on appeal. See Nieder v. Royal Indem. Ins. Co., 62 N.J. 229, 234 (1973).

In any event, we note that the lab technician s statement that upon attempting to draw blood from Denmon, he struck her hand while he removed his tourniquet, is sufficient to sustain the charge of prohibited act .013 which prohibits an inmate from causing any unauthorized physical contact with any person. Furthermore, Denmon was granted sufficient leniency as the sanctions imposed by the hearing officer were suspended for sixty days, meaning that if Denmon was without infraction for sixty days following imposition of the sanctions, he would not be required to serve the sanctions.

Affirmed.