Powell v. Banales

Background

Michael Angelo Powell, an inmate at Correctional Training Facility, filed a civil-rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 without a lawyer. The court had separately allowed him to proceed without paying the filing fee and reviewed his complaint under the prisoner-screening statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1915A.

The complaint named CTF Lieutenant E. Banales and CTF Sergeant Jones as defendants. Powell had received a rules-violation report for using a controlled substance based solely on a positive urinalysis collected on June 6, 2016. He was found guilty, but the report was reversed and reissued multiple times because of due-process violations. His claims arose from a January 31, 2017 hearing concerning those reports.

Claims and Analysis

In his first claim, Powell alleged that Banales failed to provide him, before the hearing, with two laboratory tests performed on the urine sample and Officer Gamboa’s on-the-job training documents concerning urinalysis collection. Powell argued that this violated California prison regulations and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s Department Operations Manual, and that those regulatory violations also violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.

The court held that Powell did not state a constitutional due-process claim. A violation of a state prison regulation does not by itself become a federal constitutional violation. The court stated that it was aware of no authority recognizing a constitutional right to copies of documents relevant to a rules-violation report or to a rehearing when an inmate was not provided those copies. It dismissed this claim with prejudice because amendment would be futile.

In his second claim, Powell alleged that Banales knowingly solicited false information from Jones about Officer Gamboa’s urinalysis certification, that this information supported the guilty finding, and that the defendants violated additional California prison regulations. The court again concluded that violations of state regulations do not, by themselves, establish a constitutional violation. It dismissed this claim with prejudice because amendment would be futile.

Ruling

The court dismissed the complaint with prejudice and directed the clerk to enter judgment in favor of the defendants and against Powell. Because the order dismissed a prisoner complaint during statutory screening for failure to state a claim, it is classified as a procedural order.