Juan Campos v. State of Florida, Department of Corrections ( 2015 )

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL
FIRST DISTRICT, STATE OF FLORIDA
JUAN CAMPOS, NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO
FILE MOTION FOR REHEARING AND
Appellant, DISPOSITION THEREOF IF FILED
v. CASE NO. 1D14-5583
STATE OF FLORIDA,
DEPARTMENT OF
CORRECTIONS,
Appellee.
_____________________________/
Opinion filed December 4, 2015.
An appeal from the Circuit Court for Leon County.
Charles A. Francis, Judge.
Juan Campos, pro se, Appellant.
Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, and Susan A. Maher, Chief Assistant Attorney
General, Tallahassee, for Appellee.
PER CURIAM.
AFFIRMED.
WOLF and KELSEY, JJ., CONCUR; THOMAS, J., SPECIALLY
CONCURRING WITH OPINION
THOMAS, J., Specially Concurring.
I concur but write to note that our case law allowing state prisoners to seek
certiorari review in this court to challenge prison-disciplinary actions should be
reconsidered. In Florida, inmates receive adequate due process in the Department
of Corrections’ institutional procedures and then further judicial review in the
circuit court to challenge disciplinary procedures. This is all that is required under
the federal constitution. Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 483-84 (1995) (liberty
interests of inmates protected by due process clause “will be generally limited to
freedom from restraint which, while not exceeding the sentence in such an
unexpected manner as to give rise to protection by the Due Process Clause of its
own force nevertheless imposes atypical and significant hardship on the inmate in
relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life”) (emphasis added; citations
omitted)); Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539 (1974) (inmates entitled to advance
written notice of the disciplinary charge; an opportunity to call witnesses and
present documentary evidence; and a written statement of the evidence relied on in
reasons for the disciplinary action). To allow a second level of judicial review in
this court of the inherently executive functions of maintaining prison discipline is
without rational and legal justification in my view.
An inmate like Petitioner is entitled to an opportunity to be heard and
present evidence during a hearing panel at the institution, further review by the
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institution’s warden, further review by the Secretary of the Department of
Corrections, and finally, mandamus review by a circuit court. Id.; Plymel v.
Moore, 770 So. 2d 242 (Fla. 1st DCA 2000). Under Plymel, the inmate is then
entitled to seek extraordinary relief in this court by certiorari review. Thus, a state
prison inmate is allowed five layers of review of a prison-disciplinary action. Four
layers of review would be more than constitutionally adequate to ensure the
Department’s actions are proper under Wolff and Sandin.
The Florida Supreme Court has held that certiorari review in this court is
extremely limited, to wit: whether the circuit court, acting in its appellate capacity,
provided procedural due process and whether the circuit court applied the correct
law. Fla. Parole Comm’n v. Taylor, 132 So. 3d 780, 783 (Fla. 2014). Even this
narrow review, however, is unnecessary and wasteful of judicial resources where
prison-disciplinary issues are raised.
It is rational and appropriate to allow such review of a decision, like in
Taylor, where a released inmate serving a conditional sentence subject to
revocation was returned to prison. Id.; Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471 (1972).
But in a challenge to a prison disciplinary action, such as this, the United States
Supreme Court has properly recognized that states have broad latitude to protect
prison safety and institutional control should not engender certiorari review.
Further, appellate courts do not possess unlimited resources to engage in
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unnecessary and duplicative review of a circuit court decision, which further
imposes burdens on the executive branch to respond to meritless claims by inmates
challenging their previous four levels of review of a disciplinary action.
The executive branch and the circuit court can fulfill their duty to ensure that
a prison disciplinary decision was fair and based on “some evidence” of guilt to
support a guilty finding. Superintendent, Mass. Corr. Inst., Walpole v. Hill, 472
U.S. 445, 454-55 (1985); Cason v. McDonough, 943 So. 2d 861 (Fla. 1st DCA
2006) (quoting Dugger v. Grant, 610 So. 2d 428, 432 (Fla. 1992)).
Nothing in the decisions of the United States Supreme Court or the Florida
Supreme Court requires the district courts of appeal to allow judicial review by
extraordinary relief of circuit court decisions reviewing executive branch prison
disciplinary actions. This Court should consider whether its prior case law
allowing prisoners to obtain certiorari review of prison disciplinary actions is
grounded in law and a rational allocation of the court’s limited judicial resources.
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