Gilbert v. City of Little Rock

Larry Wayne Jones, Ronney David Briggs, Jerry Wayne McKee, Terry Gene Howell, and Dennis Earl Jordan, inmates of the Arkansas Department of Correction, brought this action for damages and an injunction against the Director and certain employees of the Department. They allege that they were placed in a special High Security Risk (HSR) classification, with privileges substanially curtailed, without a hearing, and that they were thus deprived of their liberty without due process of law, in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Fourteenth Amendment. The District Court held that the placement of plaintiffs in the HSR classification was a reasonable response to a situation legitimately believed by correctional officials to be an emergency, and that neither state law, administrative regulations, nor past practice had created any "liberty interest" entitling plaintiffs, as a matter of federal constitutional law, to a hearing. We affirm.