State v. Beck

Unified Judicial System

Formatting provided courtesy of State Bar of South Dakota
and South Dakota Continuing Legal Education, Inc.
222 East Capitol Ave.
Pierre, SD 57501-2596

STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA,
Plaintiff and Appellant,
v.
DAVID GORDON BECK,
Defendant and Appellee.

South Dakota Supreme Court
Appeal From The First Judicial Circuit, Bon Homme County, SD
Hon. Kathleen K. Caldwell, Judge
#19246 -- Reversed

Mark W. Barnett, Attorney General
John M. Strohman, Assistant Attorney General, Pierre, SD
Attorneys for plaintiff and appellant.

Kevin L. Reiner, James & Reiner, Yankton, SD
Attorneys for defendant and appellee.

Considered On Briefs On Feb 13, 1996; Opinion Filed Mar 27, 1996

MILLER, Chief Justice.

[¶1] David Gordon Beck, a prisoner at the Springfield Correctional Facility, alleged that his prosecution for possession of marijuana by an inmate, following the imposition of prison discipline for the same conduct, violated the double jeopardy protections of the state and federal constitutions. The trial court agreed and dismissed the information. State appeals. We reverse and remand.

FACTS

[¶2] Beck is a prisoner at the Springfield Correctional Facility, serving time for a conviction of aggravated assault. Based on a tip by a confidential informant, prison and law enforcement officials searched his person and prison cell and found three cigarettes on Beck's person. Chemical analysis indicated the cigarettes contained marijuana.

[¶3] As part of the prison disciplinary process, Beck received a form entitled, "Notice of Violation of Prohibited Act." The form indicated he had been reported for use or possession of marijuana, a violation of prison rules and also stated that a hearing regarding the alleged violation had been scheduled. Beck marked the following response on the notice form: "I desire to plead: guilty. I waive my right to an adverse hearing and accept the penalty of: 90 days punitive segregation and 90 days loss of good time which I understand will be imposed upon me as soon as possible after I have returned this portion of the Notice to the Disciplinary Office." Beck signed and dated the form on the same day as the search of his cell. He spent 93 days in punitive segregation and lost 90 days of good time as a result of the violation of prison rules. Beck was also transferred to a higher security facility and became ineligible for trustee status.

[¶4] Some weeks later, the State charged Beck with a violation of SDCL 24-2-14(1), possession of marijuana by an inmate. State also alleged he was an habitual offender. Beck filed a motion to dismiss the charges claiming the prosecution for possession of marijuana by an inmate, in addition to the prison disciplinary action, violated the Double Jeopardy Clause of the United States and South Dakota Constitutions. The trial court agreed, reasoning punitive segregation and loss of good time credits constituted punishment for Beck's marijuana violation; a subsequent criminal [96 SDO 186] prosecution for the same conduct would be a second punishment for the same offense in violation of double jeopardy guarantees.

ISSUE

[¶5] Did the trial court err in holding that prison discipline, including punitive segregation and loss of good time, constitutes punishment for purposes of double jeopardy so that a subsequent criminal prosecution for the same conduct is prohibited by the Double Jeopardy Clause of the United States and South Dakota Constitutions?

STANDARD OF REVIEW

[¶6] This case calls for an analysis of the double jeopardy protections contained in the state and federal constitutions. Constitutional interpretation is a question of law which is reviewable de novo. Poppen v. Walker, 520 NW2d 238, 241 (SD 1994). Accordingly, we give no deference to the conclusions of the trial court. Id.

DECISION

[¶7] The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution reads: "

[N]or shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb [.]" USConstAmend V. This provision is applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 US 711, 717, 89 SCt 2072, 2076, 23 LEd2d 656, 664 (1969) (citing Benton v. Maryland, 395 US 784, 89 SCt 2056, 23 LEd2d 707) (1969)), overruled on other grounds, Payne v. Tennessee, 501 US 801, 111 SCt 2597, 115 LEd2d 720 (1991). Our state constitution also prohibits double jeopardy: "No person shall ... be twice put in jeopardy for the same offense." SDConstArt VI, 9.

[¶8] The Double Jeopardy Clause guards against three governmental abuses: (1) a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal; (2) a second prosecution for the same offense after conviction; and (3) multiple punishments for the same offense. United States v. Halper, 490 US 435, 440, 109 SCt 1892, 1897, 104 LEd2d 487, 496 (1989) (Pearce, 395 US at 717, 89 SCt at 2076, 23 LEd2d 656 (1969)).

[¶9] This case concerns the prohibition against multiple punishments for the same offense. In State v. Weekley, 90 SD 192, 195, 240 NW2d 80, 84 (1976), we held the Double Jeopardy Clause was not violated when a defendant was subjected to prison discipline for escaping from the institution and then criminally prosecuted for the same conduct. We wrote:

[T]he purpose of the double jeopardy clause is to require that a person be subject only once to a criminal proceeding that may result in criminal punishment designed to vindicate public justice. We do not consider administrative discipline imposed by penitentiary officials as constituting that type of proceeding. The administrative discipline imposed by penitentiary officials is designed to serve purposes essential to the orderly administration of the penitentiary. A formal criminal prosecution by the state on a charge of escape, together with the attendant publicity and potentially severe punishment, is designed to vindicate the vital interest that the citizens of this state have in enforcing the law which imposes a sanction for escaping from the penitentiary. True, some of the purposes of the two types of proceedings may overlap, e.g., the deterrent effect the administrative and penal sanctions imposed may have upon others who are contemplating escape; however, other purposes served by the action taken by penitentiary officials, e.g., the necessity of promptly confining a returned escapee in order to maintain security within the institution, may be different from the purposes served by the prosecution on the charge of escape brought in the name of the state. Although appellant argues that the deprivation of liberty resulting from his being confined in isolation did not secure the objectives of preserving order, preventing escape, or rehabilitating an escapee, that is a question committed to the considered judgment of those officials charged with the [96 SDO 187] responsibility of operating the penitentiary. It is for those officials, possessing expertise with respect to the maintenance of order, morale and discipline within a penal institution, to decide whether or not the imposition of administrative sanctions upon a returned escapee is necessary or desirable to further the objectives of maintaining an orderly institution.

90 SD at 195-96, 240 NW2d at 82-3 (emphasis supplied).

[¶10] Weekley would appear to resolve the issue presented here. However, the trial court concluded that a subsequent decision by the United States Supreme Court, United States v. Halper, 490 US 435, 109 SCt 1892, 104 LEd2d 487 (1989), mandates a different result. In Halper, Irwin Halper had submitted sixty-five separate false claims for Medicare reimbursement, resulting in an overpayment of $585 by the federal government. The United States indicted Halper on sixty-five counts of violating the criminal false-claims statute and he was convicted on all counts. He was also convicted of mail fraud. He received a two-year prison sentence and a fine of $5,000. The United States then brought an action against Halper under the civil False Claims Act, 31 USC 3729-31, under which a single false claim could result in a civil penalty of $2,000 payable to the government. Because Halper had violated the Act sixty-five times, he could be subjected to a statutory penalty of $130,000. The district court declined to award this figure, concluding the $2000-per-count penalty, coupled with the previous conviction and sentence, would violate the constitutional prohibition against multiple punishments. Instead, the district court limited the government's recovery to double damages of $1170 and the costs of the civil action.

[¶11] On appeal, the United States Supreme Court framed the issue as "whether the statutory penalty authorized by the civil False Claims Act, under which Halper is subject to liability of $130,000 for false claims amounting to $585, constitutes a second 'punishment' for the purpose of double jeopardy analysis." 490 US at 441, 109 SCt at 1898, 104 LEd2d at 497. The Court set forth a test for determining the punitive character of civil proceedings:

[A] civil sanction that cannot fairly be said solely to serve a remedial purpose, but rather can only be explained as also serving either retributive or deterrent purposes, is punishment

[.] ... We therefore hold that under the Double Jeopardy Clause a defendant who already has been punished in a criminal prosecution may not be subjected to an additional civil sanction to the extent that the second sanction may not fairly be characterized as remedial, but only as a deterrent or retribution.

490 US at 448-49, 109 SCt 1902, 104 LEd2d at 502.

[¶12] The Court reasoned that a civil penalty, which is "overwhelmingly disproportionate" to the damages caused by the defendant, loses its remedial character and constitutes punishment for purposes of double jeopardy. 490 US at 449, 109 SCt at 1902, 104 LEd2d at 502. The Court wrote:

Where a defendant previously has sustained a criminal penalty and the civil penalty sought in the subsequent proceeding bears no rational relation to the goal of compensating the Government for its loss, but rather appears to qualify as "punishment" in the plain meaning of the word, then the defendant is entitled to an accounting of the Government's damages and costs to determine if the penalty sought in fact constitutes a second punishment.

490 US at 449, 109 SCt at 1902, 104 LEd2d at 502. The Court remanded the case to the district court to determine what portion of the statutory penalty could be sustained as compensation for the government's actual damages.

[¶13] In applying the Halper analysis to Beck's case, the trial court emphasized the punitive aspects of prison discipline, concluding:

The facts in this case, where the Defendant spent 90 days in punitive segregation and [96 SDO 188] lost 90 days of good time for the possession of less than one ounce of marijuana clearly reveals that the administrative sanction and remedies imposed served the purpose of punishment, retribution and deterrence, sufficient to invoke the double jeopardy clause of the United States Constitution and the Constitution of the State of South Dakota... . To subsequently charge the Defendant, David Gordon Beck with a criminal complaint or information for possession of marijuana by a prison inmate, after the Defendant, David Gordon Beck had already received the administrative sanction or penalty of 90 days punitive segregation and 90 days loss of good time constitutes a violation of the double jeopardy clause of the United States Constitution and the South Dakota Constitution.

[¶14] We disagree with the trial court's conclusions. In our view the Halper analysis has little application outside of the context of civil monetary judgments. In fact, the Halper court specifically limited the reach of its holding:

What we announce now is a rule for the rare case, the case such as the one before us, where a fixed-penalty provision subjects a prolific but small-gauge offender to a sanction overwhelmingly disproportionate to the damages he has caused.

490 US at 449, 109 SCt at 1902, 104 LEd2d at 502 (emphasis supplied).

[¶15] Further, in a later case, the Court reemphasized the narrow applicability of the Halper test. In Dep't of Revenue of Montana v. Kurth Ranch, 511 US ___, ___,114 SCt 1937, 1941, 128 LEd2d 767, 772-73 (1994), the Court considered "whether a tax on the possession of illegal drugs assessed after the State has imposed a criminal penalty for the same conduct may violate the constitutional prohibition against successive punishments for the same offense." Although the Court invalidated the tax as an impermissible second punishment for drug offenders, the Court reasoned that Halper's test for civil penalties was inapplicable:

[T]ax statutes serve a purpose quite different from civil penalties, and Halper's method of determining whether the exaction was remedial or punitive "simply does not work in the case of a tax statute."

511 US at ___, 114 SCt at 1948, 128 LEd2d at 781.

[¶16] The Court noted that other presumptively valid taxes on alcohol and cigarettes include a deterrent purpose and that such a motive was not necessarily fatal to the validity of a taxing scheme under double jeopardy analysis. 511 US at ___, 114 SCt at 1946, 128 LEd2d at 779 ("

[N]either a high rate of taxation nor an obvious deterrent purpose automatically marks this tax a form of punishment.").

[¶17] Significantly, other jurisdictions have rejected the Halper test when determining whether prison discipline equals punishment for double jeopardy purposes. As the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals aptly observed:

Historically, we have deferred to the expertise of prison authorities regarding questions of prison administration and discipline. We cannot conclude that the Court intended its ruling in Halper to alter this tradition by subjecting prison disciplinary actions to constitutional scrutiny in every case involving a subsequent criminal prosecution. Nor do we believe that the Court intended to bar those criminal prosecutions... .

[T]he reasoning and motives behind Halper [do not] fit the prison context. This [c]ourt cannot depart from a rule uniformly established by federal and state courts simply because dicta in a Supreme Court opinion dealing with facts and issues wholly unrelated to the present dispute, could be read to require a different result.

Garrity v. Fiedler, 41 F3d 1150, 1153 (7thCir 1994) (citations and quotations omitted), cert. denied, 115 SCt 1420, 131 LEd2d 303, 63 USLW 3706 (1995).

[¶18] Likewise, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals wrote: [96 SDO 189]

We note at the outset that Halper did not involve a prison disciplinary proceeding. This distinction is critical... . [A]s a practical matter applying the prohibition against double jeopardy to prison disciplinary proceedings would effectively compel the government to choose between remedial and punitive goals. Seeking disciplinary sanctions and criminal penalties in a single proceeding is not feasible:

[t]he difficulties and delay that a criminal prosecution entails would leave the prisoners who violated the prison rules without a prompt resolution of charges and hinder prison administration and discipline. If prison authorities waited until prosecutors decided whether to bring charges and criminal proceedings were completed, the offending inmate might remain in the prison as a threat to institutional order for an extended period. If, on the other hand, prison authorities acted to maintain order by promptly sanctioning the inmate, criminal prosecution would be barred.

United States v. Brown, 59 F3d 102, 104 (9thCir 1995) (citations and quotations omitted).

[¶19] Even were we to conclude that the Halper test applies in this case, no double jeopardy violation is present. Halper invalidated a civil sanction that could not "fairly be characterized as remedial, but only as a deterrent or retribution." 490 US at 449, 109 SCt at 1902, 104 LEd2d at 502. Here, prison discipline allows correction authorities to achieve a valid remedial goal -- the maintenance of prison security and order. Garrity, 41 F3d at 1153; United States v. Newby, 11 F3d 1143, 1145 (3rdCir 1993), cert. denied, 115 SCt 111, 130 LEd2d 58, 63 USLW 3259(1994). Furthermore, "the adoption and execution of policies and practices necessary to preserve internal order and discipline, and to maintain institutional security in the prison are 'peculiarly within the province and professional expertise of corrections officials, and, in the absence of substantial evidence in the record to indicate that the officials have exaggerated their response, courts should ordinarily defer to their expert judgment in such matters.'" Newby, 11 F3d at 1146 (quoting Bell v. Wolfish, 441 US 520, 548, 99 SCt 1861, 1878-79, 60 LEd2d 447 (1979)).

[¶20] With this rule of deference in mind, we now consider whether any of the disciplinary sanctions imposed on Beck "are so grossly unrelated to prison authorities" remedial goal as to constitute "punishment" within the meaning of the Double Jeopardy Clause." Newby, 11 F3d at 1145. As a preliminary matter, we note punishment for double jeopardy purposes does not arise simply because the terms "penalty" and "punitive" segregation were used to describe the prison sanctions. "Labels do not control in a double jeopardy inquiry." State v. Walker, 646 A2d 209, 211 (ConnCtApp 1994) (citing Halper, 490 US at 448, 109 SCt at 1901-02, 104 LEd2d at 501), cert. denied, 648 A2d 159 (Conn 1994). "[T]he fact that the sanction was labeled punitive does not make it so; rather we must make a particularized assessment of what purpose the penalty may fairly be said to serve." Id. (citing Halper, 490 US at 448, 109 SCt at 1901-02, 104 LEd2d at 501). Here, the sanctions imposed served the remedial goal of maintaining prison order and discipline. Placing Beck in punitive segregation restricted his access to other inmates and visitors who might have been supplying him with illegal drugs. It also likely discouraged Beck and other inmates from repeating the same conduct. Although Halper regards deterrence as indicative of punishment, this interpretation does not apply in the prison context; promoting compliance with prison rules is directly related to the government's remedial goal of maintaining order and security. Brown, 59 F3d at 105. "Punitive interests and remedial interests ... are nowhere so tightly intertwined as in the prison setting, where the government's remedial interest is to maintain order and to prevent violent altercations among a population of criminals. Accordingly, the mere fact that a sanction imposed by prison officials has a [96 SDO 190] punitive component does not mean that the sanction constitutes 'punishment' for double jeopardy purposes." United States v. Hernandez-Fundora, 58 F3d 802, 806 (2ndCir 1995), cert. denied, 115 SCt 2288, 132 LEd2d 290, 63 USLW 3860 (1995).

[¶21] Nor was the loss of good time "divorced from [the] remedial goal" of maintaining discipline in prison. See, e.g., Halper, 490 US at 443, 109 SCt at 1899, 104 LEd2d at 498. "Good time credits are granted to reward good behavior and they are conditioned upon continuing good behavior. The authorities' ability to revoke them is designed to encourage the inmates to continue their good conduct and, thus, is rationally related to the remedial goal." Newby, 11 F3d at 1145. Furthermore, loss of good time is not a punishment for the crime of marijuana possession, it is an integral part of Beck's single punishment for aggravated assault. See Brown, 59 F3d at 105. "[C]ompliance with the conditions for awarding good time credit is one of the terms of the original sentence." Id.

[¶22] As to Beck's transfer to a higher security prison, "'[c]onfinement in any of the State's institutions is within the normal limits or range of custody which the conviction has authorized the State to impose.'" Id. (quoting Meachum v. Fano, 427 US 215, 225, 95 SCt 2532, 2538, 49 LEd2d 451 (1976)). A change in the place of an inmate's confinement based on a determination that his misconduct requires the transfer does not alter the original sentence nor does it bar criminal prosecution for the misconduct. Id. Finally, removing Beck's eligibility for trustee status following a violation of prison rules was in keeping with the need to maintain security and encourage compliance with prison rules.

[¶23] In sum, placing Beck in punitive segregation, removing good time credits and trustee eligibility, and transferring him to another facility was directly related to the need for maintaining order and discipline and therefore did not constitute punishment for double jeopardy purposes. See Brown, 59 F3d at 105-6; Hernandez-Fundora, 58 F3d at 807. More generally, it would be bizarre indeed if we permitted prison officials to impose disciplinary sanctions for minor infractions of prison rules while restricting their ability to address more reprehensible criminal conduct. See id.

[¶24] We therefore hold that an inmate may be disciplined for misconduct and may also be criminally prosecuted for the same conduct, so long as the disciplinary sanctions are not grossly disproportionate to the government's interest in maintaining prison order and discipline. Id. Accord, Brown, 59 F3d at 105; 58 F3d at 807; Garrity, 41 F3d at 1152; Newby, 11 F3d at 1146; United States v. Rising, 867 F2d 1255, 1259 (10thCir 1989); Coleman v. State, 642 So2d 532, 533-34 (AlaCrimApp 1994); People v. Watson, 892 P2d 388, 390 (ColoCtApp 1994); Walker, 646 A2d at 212; State v. Mullins, 647 NE2d 676, 678 (IndCtApp 1995); State v. Lynch, 533 NW2d 905, 911 (Neb 1995); Hernandez v. State, 904 SW2d 808, 813 (TexCtApp 1995); Wild v. Commonwealth, 446 SE2d 626, 627 (VaCtApp 1994); State v. Fonder, 469 NW2d 922, 926 (WisCtApp 1991), review denied, 475 NW2d 164 (Wis 1991), cert. denied, 502 US 993, 112 SCt 614, 116 LEd2d 636 (1991).

[¶25] Reversed and remanded.

[¶26] SABERS, AMUNDSON, KONENKAMP, and GILBERTSON, Justices, concur.