Frees v. Starr

Background

Nastassia (Goff) Frees, also identified as Nastassia Goff, was incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Waseca, Minnesota, serving a 10-year sentence for crimes related to distributing methamphetamine. In March 2022, she was accused of aiding a violation of Bureau of Prisons Code 113. That rule prohibits possessing a controlled substance that medical staff did not prescribe for the individual.

According to the incident report, a corrections officer saw another inmate, identified as J.R., take two pills from an orange prescription bottle in Frees’s cell. J.R. told the officer that J.R.’s prescription for the same medication had run out. Frees initially told the officer that she had given J.R. permission to take the pills, although she later denied giving permission and said she had been writing her husband when J.R. took them.

The prison’s Unit Disciplinary Committee found that Frees violated Code 113 and referred the matter to a Discipline Hearing Officer because the violation was classified as being of the greatest severity. Frees attended the hearing but did not present witnesses or request a staff representative, despite having the right to do so. The Hearing Officer found that she committed the violation and imposed several punishments, including the loss of 27 days of good-conduct time.

The Hearing Officer did not issue a written decision until July 18, 2022, nearly two months after the hearing and after Frees filed her petition. Frees argued that the delay violated due process. She also argued that the evidence did not support the decision because she and J.R. had prescriptions for the same medication. Frees further challenged the Hearing Officer’s statement that photographic evidence showed the prescriptions were not for the same medication. The photograph showed that both prescriptions were for buspirone, but Frees’s prescription was for 15 milligrams and J.R.’s was for 10 milligrams.

Legal standard

The court explained that a federal prisoner may use a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 to challenge custody that violates federal law or the Constitution. Loss of good-conduct time implicates a liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause.

For a prison disciplinary proceeding that may result in loss of good-conduct time, due process requires advance written notice of the charges, an opportunity—when consistent with safety and correctional goals—to call witnesses and present documentary evidence, and a written statement explaining the evidence relied on and the reasons for the disciplinary action. The disciplinary finding must also be supported by “some evidence” in the record. Applying that standard does not require the court to reconsider witness credibility or reweigh all the evidence.

Court’s analysis

The court treated the central issue as whether some evidence supported the Hearing Officer’s decision. It rejected Frees’s interpretation that Code 113 could not apply because both inmates had prescriptions for the same underlying medication.

The court reasoned that the corrections officer saw J.R. take two pills from a prescription written for Frees, and Frees told the officer that she had given J.R. permission to take them. Even if the prescriptions had involved the same medication and the same dosage, the prescription was written for Frees, not J.R. The court therefore found sufficient evidence that Frees aided J.R. in possessing medication that was not prescribed for J.R., violating Code 113.

The court distinguished decisions involving inmates who were accused of stockpiling their own prescription medication. Unlike those cases, Frees allowed another inmate to take medication prescribed for Frees. The court also stated that medication dosages are not interchangeable and that taking a larger dosage without a physician’s direction can cause harm.

Disposition

The court concluded that Frees failed to establish that the Hearing Officer’s decision violated her due-process rights. It denied the Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus and ordered judgment entered accordingly.