## Facts

- DeMont R.D. Conner, a Hawaii state prisoner, used angry and obscene language toward a correctional officer after a strip search.
- Conner received disciplinary charges for “high misconduct” (interference with a correctional function) and “low moderate misconduct” (abusive language and harassment).
- At a disciplinary hearing, an adjustment committee denied Conner’s request to call witnesses, citing witness unavailability and staffing constraints.
- The committee found Conner guilty and imposed 30 days’ disciplinary segregation in the Special Holding Unit; Conner served the term.
- Conner sought administrative review; months later a deputy administrator expunged the high-misconduct charge as unsupported.
- Conner filed a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action alleging a denial of procedural due process based on the refusal to permit witnesses.

## Issues

1. Whether Hawaii prison regulations or the Due Process Clause created a protected liberty interest in avoiding 30 days of disciplinary segregation.
2. Whether the denial of requested witnesses at the disciplinary hearing violated due process if no such liberty interest existed.
3. What standard governs when prison conditions or disciplinary sanctions trigger procedural protections under the Fourteenth Amendment.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit.
- The Court held that Conner’s 30 days of disciplinary segregation did not create a protected liberty interest because it did not impose an atypical and significant hardship compared to ordinary prison life.
- The Court rejected the approach that treated “mandatory language” in prison regulations as the primary basis for identifying state-created liberty interests.
- Because no protected liberty interest was implicated, the Constitution did not require the procedural protections Conner sought (including calling witnesses) for this sanction.

## Legal Principles

- State-created liberty interests in prison generally arise only when a restraint imposes an atypical and significant hardship on the inmate in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life.
- The liberty-interest inquiry focuses on the nature and effects of the restraint, not on whether prison regulations use mandatory phrasing.
- Routine, short-term disciplinary segregation that is comparable in duration and conditions to discretionary forms of confinement typically does not trigger due process protections.
- A liberty interest is more likely where a sanction inevitably affects the duration of confinement or otherwise departs sharply from expected conditions of a prison sentence.

## Conclusion

The Court held that 30 days of disciplinary segregation under the conditions presented did not impose an atypical and significant hardship and therefore did not implicate a protected liberty interest; without such an interest, due process did not require witness presentation rights at Conner’s disciplinary hearing.


Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472 (1995)