No. 15-31 In the Supreme Court of the United States ALFREDO PRIETO, Petitioner, V. HAROLD C. CLARKE, ET AL., Respondents. ON PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT REPLY BRIEF FOR PETITIONER MICHAEL E. BERN Counsel of Record ABID R. QURESHI KATHERINE M. GIGLIOTTI ALEXANDRA P. SHECHTEL* LATHAM & WATKINS LLP 555 11th Street, NW Suite 1000 Washington, DC 20004 (202) 637-1021 [email protected] * Admitted in California only; all work supervised by a member of the DC Bar. Counsel for Petitioner TABLE OF CONTENTS Page TABLE OF AUTHORITIES ........................................... ii INTRODUCTION .............................................................. 1 I. CERTIORARI IS WARRANTED TO RESOLVE THE ENTRENCHED CONFLICT ON THE QUESTIONS PRESENTED ............................................................ 1 A. Certiorari Is Warranted On The First Question Presented .................................. 2 B. This Is An Ideal Case To Resolve What Constitutes The “Ordinary Incidents Of Prison Life” ................................... 7 II. THE QUESTIONS PRESENTED WARRANT THIS COURT’S REVIEW NOW .......................................................................... 10 CONCLUSION ................................................................. 13 ii TABLE OF AUTHORITIES Page(s) CASES City of Mesquite v. Aladdin’s Castle, 455 U.S. 283 (1982) ...................................................... 11 City News & Novelty, Inc. v. City of Waukesha, 531 U.S. 278 (2001) ...................................................... 11 Chappell v. Mandeville, 706 F.3d 1052 (9th Cir. 2013) ................................... 5, 6 Davis v. Ayala, 135 S. Ct. 2187 (2015) .............................................. 2, 12 Frazier v. Coughlin, 81 F.3d 313 (2d Cir. 1996) ............................................. 4 Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. 167 (2000) ...................................................... 11 Gonzales v. Oregon, 546 U.S. 807 (2005) ...................................................... 10 Hatch v. District of Columbia, 184 F.3d 846 (D.C. Cir. 1999) ....................................... 8 Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U.S. 460 (1983) ........................................................ 3 iii Page(s) Lisle v. McDaniel, No. 3:10-cv-00064-LRH- VPC, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 170471 (D. Nev. July 5, 2012) ........................................................ 10 Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215 (1976) ........................................................ 7 National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, 132 S. Ct. 1133 (2012) .................................................. 10 Powell v. Weiss, 757 F.3d 338 (3d Cir. 2014) ........................................... 6 Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472 (1995) ................................................ 2, 3, 4 Shoats v. Horn, 213 F.3d 140 (3d Cir. 2000) ........................................... 6 Skinner v. Cunningham, 430 F.3d 483 (1st Cir. 2005) ........................................ 10 Tellier v. Fields, 280 F.3d 69 (2d Cir. 2000) ............................................. 3 United States v. Concentrated Phosphate Export Ass’n, 393 U.S. 199 (1968) ........................................................ 1 Wilkerson v. Goodwin, 774 F.3d 845 (5th Cir. 2014) ......................................... 6 Wilkinson v. Austin, 545 U.S. 209 (2005) ............................................. passim iv Page(s) Williams v. Wetzel, No. 12-944, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 184000 (W.D. Pa. Dec. 9, 2013) ................................................................................ 9 Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539 (1974) ........................................................ 3 RULES Sup. Ct. R. 10(a) ................................................................. 12 Sup. Ct. R. 10(c) ................................................................. 12 INTRODUCTION Evidence continues to build about the drastic psychological harm inflicted by long-term solitary confinement like that imposed on petitioner here. See Br. of Amici Curiae Corrections Experts; Br. of Amici Curiae Professors and Practitioners of Psychiatry and Psychology. This case presents an important opportunity for this Court to finally resolve whether states must afford such inmates due process before maintaining them in extreme conditions of long-term solitary confinement that sharply depart from the ordinary incidents of prison life. Respondents’ attempts to derail this important case fail. Much of respondents’ opposition focuses on denying or avoiding the deep division in the circuit courts over the questions presented. That effort is not persuasive. This Court and other courts have recognized—for good reason—that the courts of appeals are sharply divided on the questions presented. This Court’s review is necessary to resolve those entrenched splits. Second, Virginia’s determined effort to moot this case—including by executing petitioner before this Court can reach the questions presented—should not be rewarded. Another similarly-situated inmate with an identical interest recently moved to intervene in or join this action. This Court has previously granted similar motions and should do so here. Third, the State’s suggestion that “interim” changes to conditions on Virginia’s death row—after the filing of the petition in this case—somehow obviate the need for resolution of the important questions presented should be rejected. Such “voluntary cessation of allegedly illegal conduct does not moot a case.” United States v. Concentrated Phosphate Export Ass’n, 393 2 U.S. 199, 203 (1968). And particularly here, where respondents vigorously defend the judgment below, make only provisional changes, and explicitly reserve the right to resume their prior conduct, certiorari is strongly warranted. Whether the Constitution requires states to afford inmates basic procedural safeguards before imposing undeniably severe conditions of solitary confinement is an important issue that warrants this Court’s guidance sooner rather than later. Cf. Davis v. Ayala, 135 S. Ct. 2187, 2208-10 (2015) (Kennedy, J., concurring). This case provides a timely and sound vehicle to resolve that important question. The petition should be granted. I. CERTIORARI IS WARRANTED TO RESOLVE THE ENTRENCHED CONFLICT ON THE QUESTIONS PRESENTED A. Certiorari Is Warranted On The First Question Presented Respondents devote the bulk of their opposition to attempting to reconcile the Second and Fourth Circuits’ two-part analysis with this Court’s precedents and the decisions of other court of appeals. Opp.18-33. They do not succeed. 1. Respondents attempt to reframe the first question presented as whether Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472 (1995), and Wilkinson v. Austin, 545 U.S. 209 (2005) “dispensed with the requirement that a State- created liberty interest be one that the State actually created.” Opp.18. That is not the question presented and misses the point entirely. a. Petitioner’s argument is not that Sandin and Wilkinson treat state laws, regulations, or policies as irrelevant. Quite the opposite. State regulations and 3 practices establish the baseline consequences that follow from a criminal conviction within a jurisdiction— i.e. “‘the ordinary incidents of prison life.’” Wilkinson, 545 U.S. at 223 (citation omitted). States exercise substantial discretion in establishing what those baseline conditions are. See, e.g., Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 557 (1974) (ordinary right to good-time credits established by Nebraska law). Sandin and Wilkinson simply acknowledge that inmates have a liberty interest in avoiding significant deprivations relative to that state-created baseline, thereby requiring states to provide due process before “impos[ing] an atypical and significant hardship in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life.” Wilkinson, 545 U.S. at 223; see also Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae 8, Wilkinson, 545 U.S. 209 (2005) (No. 04-495), 2005 WL 273649 (“[S]tate action creates a liberty interest when it ‘imposes atypical and significant hardship on the inmate in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life.’” (citation omitted)). b. When it comes to the actual first question presented, respondents cannot reconcile this Court’s precedents with the “two-part analysis” adopted by the court below—one part of which requires inmates to satisfy a test this Court expressly “abandon[ed]” in Sandin. 515 U.S. at 483 n.5. Under the Fourth Circuit’s approach, an inmate cannot establish a liberty interest without showing that state “‘statutes or regulations require, in “language of an unmistakably mandatory character,” that a prisoner not suffer a particular deprivation absent specified predicates.’” Tellier v. Fields, 280 F.3d 69, 81 (2d Cir. 2000) (quoting, inter alia, Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U.S. 4 460, 471-72 (1983)); see Opp.27 (quoting Frazier v. Coughlin, 81 F.3d 313, 317 (2d Cir. 1996) (a liberty interest may not arise “in the absence of a particular state regulation or statute that (under Hewitt) would create one”). This Court has explained, however, that “the touchstone of the inquiry … is not the language of regulations regarding those conditions but the nature of those conditions themselves ‘in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life.’” Wilkinson, 545 U.S. at 223 (citation omitted). Respondents argue that Sandin merely “established an independent barrier” to identifying a liberty interest, while leaving intact