United States District Court, D. Minnesota
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
Hildy
Bowbeer United States Magistrate Judge.
This
matter comes before the Court on Petitioner Melvin
Vaughn's Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus Under 28
U.S.C. § 2241, “Petition” [Doc. No. 1],
accompanied by a Memorandum of Law in Support of Petition for
a Writ of Habeas Corpus Under 28 U.S.C. § 2241,
“Memorandum” [Doc. No. 2]. Respondent Warden R.
Marques has responded to the Petition, and Vaughn elected not
to file a reply. See (Gov't's Resp. to Pet.
for Writ of Habeas Corpus Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241,
“Resp.” [Doc. No. 5]; Decl. of Dr. Emily Becker,
“Becker Decl.” [Doc. No. 6]); cf. (May
22, 2018 Order [Doc. No. 4 at 2] (permitting but not
requiring reply).) For the reasons provided below, the Court
recommends denying the Petition and dismissing this action
with prejudice.
I.
BACKGROUND
In June
2011, Vaughn entered into a plea agreement under which he
agreed to plead guilty to conspiring to distribute at least
280 grams of material containing cocaine base. See
Plea Agreement at 1, United States v. Vaughn, No.
11-CR-3009 (D. Neb. June 28, 2011). In September 2011, the
U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska sentenced
Vaughn to 180 months in prison, followed by 5 years of
supervised release. See J. in a Criminal Case at
2-3, United States v. Vaughn, No. 11-CR-3009 (D.
Neb. Sept. 23, 2011). Relying on certain retroactive
amendments to the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, the sentencing
court later reduced Vaughn's prison term to 130 months.
See Order Regarding Mot. for Sentence Reduction
Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2) at 1, United
States v. Vaughn, No. 11-CR-3009 (D. Neb. Apr. 15,
2016).
In
April 2016, Vaughn was an inmate at the Federal Prison Camp
in Yankton, South Dakota (“FPC-Yankton”)
participating in FPC-Yankton's Residential Drug Abuse
Program (“RDAP”). See (Mem. at 1; Resp.
at 1.) Developed by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons
(“BOP”) due to a Congressional requirement that
the BOP “provide residential substance abuse
treatment” to inmates, RDAP is a three-phase program
that offers successful participants the chance to reduce
their time in custody by up to a year. See (Resp. at
2-3); cf. 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e)(1) (establishing
treatment-provision requirement); id. §
3621(e)(2)(B) (establishing possible sentence reduction); 28
C.F.R. § 550.53 (discussing RDAP phases). By early April
2016, Vaughn had completed RDAP's first phase, “a
unit-based residential component . . . comprised of a course
of individual and group activities provided by drug abuse
specialists in a treatment unit set apart from the general
prison population.” (Resp. at 3, 6; Mem. at 1.)
On
April 30, 2016, FPC-Yankton staff issued Vaughn an incident
report based on conduct observed in the visiting room (the
area where inmates meet with outside visitors). (Resp. at 5;
see also Becker Decl. Ex. C. [Doc. No. 6-3 at 3-4]
(incident report).[1]) The report asserted that Vaughn had acted
inappropriately with a female visitor:
At approximately 12:45pm, . . . [an FPC-Yankton staff member]
saw [Vaughn] reach his hand inside the front of his
visitor's . . . pants. . . . Vaughn's visitor
attempted to conceal Vaughn's hand by moving her coat
over his hand. [The staff member] immediately approached . .
. Vaughn and his visitor. . . . Vaughn attempted to quickly
remove his hand from the front of his visitor's pants.
[The staff member] instructed . . . Vaughn to exit the
visiting room immediately. [The staff member] explained to
Vaughn what [he had] witnessed and [Vaughn] admitted he had
his hands inside of her pants.
(Id. at 3.). Vaughn admitted to another officer that
during this interaction, he had put a finger into his
visitor's vagina. See (id. at 8
(memorandum from J. Tadlock to J. Pribyl).)
The
incident report initially listed Vaughn's violation as
“engaging in a sexual act, ” corresponding to a
“prohibited act code” of 205. (Id. at
3); see also 28 C.F.R. § 541.3(b) (containing
table of prohibited acts and associated codes). BOP
regulations detail four categories of prohibited acts-the
most serious are “100-level” acts, and the least
serious are “400-level” acts. See 28
C.F.R. § 541.3. A code-205 violation thus falls within
the second-most-serious category of prohibited acts. See
id.
Authorities
investigated the incident report soon after the alleged
incident. Compare (Becker Decl. Ex. C. at 3 (stating
that incident occurred at 12:45 PM), with Id. at 4
(stating that investigation began at 1:45 PM).) The
investigator reported asking Vaughn if he had placed
“his hand down the pants of his visitor”; Vaughn
confirmed that he had. (Id. at 4.) In the
report's “Investigator's Comments and
Conclusions” section, the investigator stated that
“there is enough supporting evidence to continue to
processing [sic] this report through the inmate disciplinary
process, ” and that “[t]he reporting officials
[sic] report is accurately written and the charge of
prohibited act code 205 is warranted.” (Id.)
As the
Court understands the applicable regulations, cf.
(Resp. at 4-5 (providing some description)), after an
incident-report investigation, a Unit Disciplinary Committee
(“UDC”) reviews the report; inmates may appear at
this review. See 28 C.F.R. § 541.7(a), (d). A
UDC has the discretion to refer an incident report to a
Discipline Hearing Officer (“DHO”) to conduct a
hearing on the report. See Id. §§
541.7(g), 541.8. Inmates are also generally permitted to
attend these DHO-led hearings. See Id. §
541.8(e).
It is
not entirely clear from the report what happened during the
disciplinary proceedings concerning Vaughn's incident
report. The report's section on “Committee
Action” contains various materials that are crossed
out, and at least two different people appear to have made
entries on the form on two different dates. See
(Becker Decl. Ex. C. at 3-4).) Based on the relevant C.F.R.
provisions and materials provided by Respondent, however, it
appears that (1) the UDC review occurred on May 2, 2016; (2)
Vaughn admitted the relevant conduct at that review; (3) the
UDC referred the incident report to a DHO; (4) the DHO-led
hearing took place on May 4, 2016; and (5) Vaughn accepted
responsibility for the relevant conduct at the DHO hearing.
The
Court may be wrong about these particulars, [2] but on two key
points there appears to be no dispute. First, Vaughn admitted
to the relevant conduct at least twice during the hearing
process (in addition to his admission during the earlier
investigative process). Second, at some point during the
disciplinary process, [3] someone decided to reclassify the act code
of Vaughn's violation; instead of the 200-level act of
“engaging in a sexual act, ” he was charged with
the 400-level act of “conduct with a visitor in
violation of BOP regulations.”
On May
5, 2016, Vaughn was expelled from FPC-Yankton's RDAP
program. See, e.g., (Resp. at 6.) The expulsion was
explicitly due to the visiting-room incident. See
(id.; see also Mem. at 2.) Under 28 C.F.R.
§ 550.53(g)(1), an inmate “may be removed from
[RDAP] . . . because of disruptive behavior related to the
program or unsatisfactory progress in treatment.”
Cf. (Becker Decl. ¶ 6 (making the same point).)
And while “[o]rdinarily, inmates must be given at least
one formal warning before removal from RDAP, ” the
relevant regulations state that “[a] formal warning is
not necessary when the documented lack of compliance with
program standards is of such magnitude that an inmate's
continued presence would create an immediate and ongoing
problem for staff and other inmates.” 28 C.F.R. §
550.53(g)(2); cf. (Becker Decl. ¶ 6 (making the
same point).) Vaughn took various actions to appeal his
expulsion, but none led to the expulsion's reversal.
See (Mem. at 2.)
The
Clerk of Court received and filed the present Petition in May
2018. See (Pet. at 1.) Vaughn asks the Court to
“restore [his] status as ‘RDAP Complete' and
[his] eligibility for a sentence reduction under [18 U.S.C.
§ 3621(e)].” (Id. at 9.[4]) He asserts two
grounds for relief. Ground One states that Vaughn's
“Constitutional Rights to Equal Protection under the
Law were violated when he was expelled from the BOP's
[RDAP] for receiving a 400 level disciplinary infraction and
other ‘similarly situated' inmates guilty of higher
level infractions were treated favorably.”
(Id. at 7.) Ground Two states that “BOP
Officials had discriminatory purpose and discriminatory
intent when they expelled Petitioner from RDAP for a 400
level infraction but did not expel ‘similarly
situated' inmates who were not African American.”
(Id. at 8.) The Court construes these two grounds as
essentially making the same argument: that the BOP's
decision to expel Vaughn from RDAP violated his Fourteenth
Amendment right to equal protection.
II.
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