David Hill v. Brent Reinke ( 2018 )

FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
MAY 01 2018
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
DAVID TYLER HILL, No. 15-35061
Plaintiff-Appellant, DC No. CV 13-38 BLW
v.
MEMORANDUM*
BRENT REINKE; SHANE EVANS;
JANE DOES, 1-2; RANDY BLADES,
Warden; VICKI HANSEN; SHANNON
BLACKBURN; RICHARD CRAIG;
CLAUDIA LAKE,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Idaho
B. Lynn Winmill, Chief Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted April 10, 2018
Seattle, Washington
Before: TASHIMA and GRABER, Circuit Judges, and MIHM,** District
Judge.
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The Honorable Michael M. Mihm, United States District Judge for the
Central District of Illinois, sitting by designation.
Plaintiff-appellant David Tyler Hill, an Idaho state prisoner, appeals from
the district court’s summary judgment in his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action against
defendants Brent Reinke, Randy Blades, and Richard Craig, officials of the Idaho
Department of Correction (“IDOC Defendants”). Hill alleges that the IDOC
Defendants violated his due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment by
moving him to the Secure Mental Health Unit (“MHU”) without a pre-transfer
hearing.
1. Hill has not demonstrated that his transfer to the MHU imposed
“atypical and significant hardship . . . in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison
life.” Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 483–84 (1995). The MHU is within an
IDOC unit, Hill was transferred there only temporarily, and the transfer did not
affect his sentence.
For the same reasons, Vitek v. Jones, 445 U.S. 480 (1980), does not control
this case. The plaintiff in Vitek was transferred indefinitely to a hospital outside
the corrections system. Id. at 483–84. By contrast, Hill was transferred
temporarily to the MHU, an IDOC facility, for the purpose of evaluation. See
United States v. Jones, 811 F.2d 444, 448 (8th Cir. 1987). Thus Hill lacked a
liberty interest in his transfer to the MHU, and the IDOC Defendants were not
required to provide him a hearing.
2
At a minimum, the IDOC Defendants are entitled to qualified immunity
because Hill did not possess a clearly established right to a hearing at the time of
his transfer. See Chappell v. Mandeville, 706 F.3d 1052, 1064–65 (9th Cir. 2013).
2. Hill’s claims for injunctive relief would fail even if he had a liberty
interest. It is only speculative that IDOC will transfer Hill to the MHU during his
remaining year-plus of confinement. See Melendres v. Arpaio, 695 F.3d 990, 997
(9th Cir. 2012) (“To have standing to assert a claim for prospective injunctive
relief, a plaintiff must demonstrate ‘that he is realistically threatened by a repetition
of [the violation].’” (alteration in original) (quoting City of L. A. v. Lyons, 461 U.S.
95, 109 (1983))).
• ! •
The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.
3