Olim v. Wakinekona

Background

Delbert Wakinekona is a Hawaii inmate serving life without parole who was classified maximum security and moved to Folsom State Prison in California after a Program Committee recommended transfer. Hawaii’s Rule IV requires a hearing for transfers that cause a “grievous loss” and sets out hearing procedures, but the prison Administrator makes the final decision. Wakinekona sued, claiming the hearing was biased and that the transfer denied him due process. The District Court dismissed his federal claim; the Ninth Circuit reversed, and the Supreme Court agreed to decide the constitutional question.

Reasoning

The Court asked whether moving a prisoner to another State by itself creates a liberty interest protected by the Fourteenth Amendment and whether Hawaii’s rules limited officials’ discretion enough to create such an interest. Relying on earlier cases that held ordinary transfers within a system do not trigger due process, the Court distinguished transfers to mental hospitals as different in kind. It concluded that serving time in a different State remains within the normal range of confinement authorized by a conviction. The Court also found Rule IV imposes no substantive limits on the Administrator’s discretion, so its procedural requirements do not, by themselves, create a protected entitlement. The Supreme Court therefore reversed the Ninth Circuit.

Real world impact

The decision means interstate transfers generally do not by themselves require federal procedural protections. States can use interstate contracts or compacts to move inmates without creating a constitutional right to remain in-state. This ruling resolves a circuit split and governs similar transfer disputes nationwide.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Marshall dissented, arguing the Hawaii-to-California transfer imposed an unusually severe isolation like banishment and that Rule IV’s substantive language created a legitimate expectation deserving due-process protection.