USCA1 Opinion
June 5, 1996
[NOT FOR PUBLICATION]
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
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No. 95-1801
BRENDAN MCGUINNESS,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
LARRY DUBOIS, ETC., ET AL.,
Defendants, Appellees.
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APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
[Hon. William G. Young, U.S. District Judge]
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Before
Torruella, Chief Judge,
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Stahl and Lynch, Circuit Judges.
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Brendan M. McGuinness on brief pro se.
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Nancy Ankers White, Special Assistant Attorney General, William
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D. Saltzman and Rosemary Ford on brief for appellees.
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Per Curiam. Brendan McGuinness has filed an appeal from
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two separate actions, filed pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1983,
which were consolidated in the district court. The district
court rulings can be found at McGuinness v. Dubois, 891 F.
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Supp. 25 (D. Mass. 1995) and McGuinness v. Dubois, 893 F.
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Supp. 2 (D. Mass. 1995). Upon careful review of the parties'
briefs and the record on appeal, we affirm.
1. McGuinness has appealed the grant of summary judgment in
favor of the defendant prison officials on his two-part claim
that his six-month confinement (imposed for his attempt to
flush his sweatshirt down his cell toilet) to the Department
Disciplinary Unit (the DDU) at the Massachusetts Correctional
Institute at Cedar Junction violated Mass. Gen. L. ch. 127,
401 [hereinafter "the isolation statute"] because (i)
1
conditions in the DDU amount to isolation and their
application in excess of 15 days violates the isolation
statute and (ii) confinement to the DDU is for disciplinary
purposes and, thus pursuant to that statute, confinement may
not exceed 15 days for any one offense. The district court
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1Mass. Gen. L. ch. 127, 40 states:
1
For the enforcement of discipline,
an inmate in any correctional institution
of the commonwealth may, at the
discretion of its superintendent, be
confined, for a period not to exceed
fifteen days for any one offence, to an
isolation unit.
Such isolation units must provide
light, ventilation and adequate sanitary
facilities, may contain a minimum of
furniture, and shall provide at least one
full meal daily.
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concluded that isolation and confinement in the DDU are
distinct forms of incarceration authorized by statute and,
thus, McGuinness' six-month term of confinement did not
impermissibly conflict with the isolation statute.
McGuinness v. Dubois, 891 F. Supp. at 27-29.
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We affirm, but on a different ground. Medina-Munoz v.
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R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 896 F.2d 5, 7 (1st Cir. 1990) (in
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reviewing a summary judgment, a court of appeals is not
limited to the district court's reasoning, but may affirm on
any independently sufficient ground). McGuinness' argument
on appeal is a straightforward claim, unadorned by any
reference to constitutional underpinnings, that the prison
regulation authorizing a sentence to the DDU in excess of 15
days, see 103 CMR 430.25(3)(d), violates state law. However,
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"[m]erely erroneous applications of state statutes do not
present a question of federal constitutional magnitude as
long as there is an adequate state remedy." Colon-Rivera v.
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Puerto Rico Dep't of Soc. Serv., 736 F.2d 804, 806 (1st Cir.
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1984) (per curiam), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1112 (1985).
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There is no evidence, indeed no contention, of an inadequate
state remedy in this case. See also Coyne v. City of
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Somerville, 972 F.2d 440, 444 (1st Cir. 1992) ("It is bedrock
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law in this circuit, however, that violations of state law -
even where arbitrary, capricious, or undertaken in bad faith
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- do not, without more, give rise to denial of substantive
due process under the U.S. Constitution.").
2. McGuinness has also appealed the district court's ruling
that the defendants are entitled to qualified immunity on his
claim that the denial of his request for witnesses at his
April 7, 1993 prison disciplinary hearing (for his assault of
a prison guard) violated due process -- a ruling that also
permitted the defendants to rehear that disciplinary matter.
McGuinness v. Dubois, 891 F. Supp. at 31-36. The defendants
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have not appealed the grant of a declaratory judgment in
McGuinness' favor that held that they had violated a prison
regulation, which the district court construed as a state-
created liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause
and which the court interpreted to require an individualized
assessment regarding whether calling a particular inmate
witness would be unduly hazardous to institutional safety or
correctional goals. We have no cause, therefore, to review
that declaratory judgment. But see McGuinness v. Dubois, 75
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F.3d 794, 798-800 (1st Cir. 1996) (per curiam) (reserving the
question whether reliance on an across-the-board prison
policy denying requests for live testimony from general
population inmates at disciplinary hearings held in a
segregated wing violates federal due process and, on the
facts of the case, reversing the court's finding of a due
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process violation).2 But, as our own recitation of the
2
state of the law reveals a less than clearly established
constitutional right of which a reasonable officer would have
known, see id. at 799-800, we conclude that, in any event,
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the district court's conclusion that the defendants are
entitled to qualified immunity is correct. And, we perceive
neither error nor abuse of discretion in permitting the
defendants to rehear the disciplinary matter.
3. Finally, McGuinness appeals the district court's ruling
that the defendants are entitled to qualified immunity on his
claim that the deprivation of "yard-time," which, due to
McGuinness' repetitive recalcitrant behavior, resulted in a
cumulative sanction of approximately one year, violated the
Eighth Amendment. We affirm, essentially for the reasons
stated in the district court's opinion. McGuinness v.
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Dubois, 893 F. Supp. at 3-4.
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Affirmed.
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2Our opinion in McGuinness v. Dubois, 75 F.3d 794 (1st
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Cir. 1996) (per curiam) issued after the district court's
rulings underlying the current appeal.
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