Perry v. Moya
Annotate this CasePetitioner Joseph C. Perry, Petitioner, was a prison inmate at the Penitentiary of New Mexico serving sentence at the Lea County Correctional Facility for battery against a household member as well as for a parole violation for fraud over $2,500. In 2006, Petitioner was transported to the Otero County Detention Center for an arraignment relating to the fraud charge. While at the Otero Center, Petitioner raped inmate Joshua Sommer. Upon discovering Petitioner’s pending criminal charge for rape in Otero County District Court, the New Mexico Corrections Department (NMCD) pursued disciplinary action against him for the same rape incident. A disciplinary hearing was scheduled at the Lea County Facility. A hearing officer conducted the hearing, documenting the proceedings and the evidence in a form entitled "Disciplinary Summary of Evidence and Proceeding," the tape of which was lost. The hearing officer ultimately concluded that Petitioner committed rape and threats to other inmates. NMCD forfeited Petitioner’s earned good time (69 days) and placed him in Level VI Disciplinary Segregation at a maximum security facility for a period of 455 days. In 2007, Petitioner filed a pro se petition for a writ of habeas corpus at the Santa Fe District Court, asserting five grounds for habeas relief. Just over three weeks later, Petitioner was convicted in Otero County on second-degree felony of criminal sexual penetration and the third-degree felony of bribery or intimidation of a witness, based on the same rape incident. Approximately a year later, the State filed an amended response to an amended petition for a writ of habeas corpus and attached the judgment and sentence from Otero County. The central issue at the evidentiary hearing was whether NMCD had violated Petitioner’s due process rights by denying him an opportunity to call witnesses or otherwise elicit written testimony at his prison disciplinary hearing. At the conclusion of the habeas hearing, the district court agreed with Petitioner’s contentions and issued an order granting remedies with respect to its earlier findings of due process violations. Notwithstanding Petitioner’s intervening criminal convictions for rape and witness intimidation, the district court ordered NMCD to (1) restore Petitioner’s good-time credits, (2) remove the disciplinary hearing findings from Petitioner’s record, (3) never use findings of the disciplinary hearing against Petitioner in any way, including in present and future decisions relating to classification and placement within the prison system, and (4) never pursue the same factual allegations that were the subject of the disciplinary hearing in later proceedings against Petitioner. The NMCD appealed; the Supreme Court reversed: "In focusing on Petitioner’s procedural due process rights, the district court appears to have lost sight of the reason for such a hearing. The court failed to appreciate the significance of the intervening criminal convictions - not to whether due process was violated - but, pivotally, to what remedy was appropriate under the circumstances."
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