Washington v. Pa. Dep't of Corr.

306 A.3d 263

Thomas WASHINGTON, Appellant

v.The PA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Appellee

No. 13 MAP 2022

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued: May 24, 2023

Decided: December 19, 2023

Appeal from the Order of the Commonwealth Court at No. 485 MD 2020 dated December 30, 2021, Mary Hannah Leavitt, Senior Judge, Patricia A. McCullough, J. Andrew Crompton, Judges

Andrew Chapman Christy, Esq., Connor Pearse Hayes, Esq., ACLU of Pennsylvania, for Amicus Curiae American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania et al.

Ted Angelo Hages, Esq., James Christopher Martin, Esq., for Appellant.

Kimberly Anne Adams, Esq., Chase M. Defelice, Esq., Timothy Andres Holmes, Esq., for Appellee.

TODD, C.J., DONOHUE, DOUGHERTY, WECHT, MUNDY, BROBSON, JJ.

Justice Donohue delivers the Opinion of the Court but for Section III.B.1.b and the final paragraph of footnote 53.

OPINION

JUSTICE DONOHUE

"The heart of the matter is that democracy implies respect for the elementary rights of men, however suspect or unworthy; a democratic government must therefore practice fairness; and fairness can rarely be obtained by secret, one-sided determination of facts decisive of rights." Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Comm. v. McGrath, 341 U.S. 123, 170, 71 S.Ct. 624, 95 L.Ed. 817 (1951) (Frankfurter, J., con- curring). Appellant, Thomas Washington ("Washington"), an inmate at the State Correctional Institution ("SCI") at Houtzdale, has spent the better part of the last two decades on probation or incarcerated for serious criminal offenses. He works in the prison for a fraction of the minimum wage and occasionally receives gifts from friends and family, both serving to supplement the meager necessities provided by the institution that controls virtually every other aspect of his life. Those wages and gifts were garnished pursuant to Act 84¹ at a rate of 20% to pay for Washington’s court-ordered financial obligations associated with his criminal conviction until 2020 when, without prior notice or an opportunity to be heard, the deduction rate was suddenly increased to 25%.

[1] The government may be entitled to the additional five percent of Washington’s property, but that is not the question before us. Today we are concerned with the manner of the taking, because a democratic government must practice fairness to be worthy of its name, and procedural due process must be afforded to both heroes and villains with equal vigor when state action infringes on a fundamental right.² Today, this Court reaffirms that principle by holding that Pennsylvania’s Department of Corrections ("the DOC" or "the Department") violated Washington’s procedural due process rights when it increased the rate of his Act 84 deductions without pre-deprivation notice and an opportunity to be heard. Thus, we reverse the Commonwealth Court’s order sustaining the DOC’s preliminary objections and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I. Background

In 2015, Washington entered a nolo contendere plea to charges of aggravated assault and person not to possess a firearm,³ after which the trial court immediately sentenced him to five to ten years of incarceration pursuant to a plea agreement. The court ordered Washington to pay the costs associated with his prosecution, N.T., 3/9/2015, at 19, and restitution totaling $15,666.49, Restitution Order, 4/8/2015, at 1.⁴ Since that time, Washington has been serving his sentence at SCI Houtzdale.

Until January of 2020, deposits to Washington’s prisoner account at SCI Houtzdale were docked by the DOC at a rate of 20% pursuant to Act 84, but he later discovered that the Act 84 deduction rate increased to 25%. When he discovered the increase had been applied, Washington filed an official grievance form with the DOC. CD-804 Grievance Form, 8/2/2020, at 1. Therein, he asserted that he was never notified by the DOC of the increase, and he requested that any additional deductions "cease until a proper hearing is afforded." Id. On August 5, 2020, Washington’s grievance was rejected.⁵

On August 25, 2020, Washington timely filed a petition for review in the Commonwealth Court alleging that he was denied his procedural due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment when the DOC deducted Act 84 payments from his prison-account deposits at the 25% rate absent notice and without holding a pre-deprivation hearing. Pet. for Review, 8/25/2020, ¶¶ 4-5, 10. Washington asserted that he was entitled to relief in the form of a post-deprivation hearing and requested injunctive relief—the cessation of the additional deductions—until that hearing was provided. Id. ¶ 10.⁶ The DOC filed preliminary objections in the nature of a demurrer, maintaining that the deductions were authorized under Act 84 and that any procedural due process concerns had been satisfied at the sentencing hearing. Prelim. Obj., 9/21/2020, ¶¶ 7-10. Furthermore, the DOC argued that the newly-amended version of Act 84 mandated a minimum deduction of 25%. Id., ¶¶ 14-15. Because Washington did "not dispute that he was sentenced to pay … financial obligations associated with his sentence, and the [DOC] has authority under Act 84 to deduct those costs," the DOC argued for dismissal of Washington’s petition for failure to state a claim. Id. ¶ 18.

In a non-precedential memorandum opinion filed on December 30, 2021, a divided panel of the Commonwealth Court "sustained the demurrer[,]" reasoning that because the DOC "lacks discretion to alter the amount of deductions" under the newly amended version of Act 84, Washington failed to "state a constitutional claim[.]" Washington v. PA Dep’t of Corr., No. 485 M.D. 2020, 2021 WL 6139806 at *1 (Pa. Commw. Dec. 30, 2021) (non-precedential decision).

[2, 3] In reaching that conclusion, the court first considered its standard of review for preliminary objections in the nature of demurrer⁷ and the leniency it affords to pro se litigants, before turning to consider Act 84's pre-amendment history. The lower court acknowledged that in Bundy v. Wetzel, 646 Pa. 248, 184 A.3d 551, 556 (2018), this Court established that the DOC is subject to certain due process requirements when making Act 84 deductions from prisoner accounts. Washington, 2021 WL 6139806 at *2. Namely, applying the rationale of the Third Circuit in Montañez v. Secretary Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, 773 F.3d 472 (3d Cir. 2014), we held in Bundy that to satisfy the Due Process Clause in connection with Act 84 deductions, the DOC must,

prior to the first deduction: (a) inform the inmate of the total amount of his financial liability as reflected in his sentencing order, as well as the Department’s policy concerning the rate at which funds will be deducted from his account and which funds are subject to deduction; and (b) give the inmate a reasonable opportunity to object to the application of the Department’s policy to his account.

Bundy, 184 A.3d at 558-59.

The Commonwealth Court next considered our subsequent decision in Johnson v. Wetzel, 662 Pa. 159, 238 A.3d 1172 (2020), which largely reaffirmed our holding Bundy. Washington, 2021 WL 6139806 at *3. From our decision in Johnson, the Commonwealth Court ascertained that

[t]o the extent the circumstances do not allow a pre-deprivation process, "a meaningful post-deprivation remedy satisfies due process." Johnson, 238 A.3d at 1182 (quoting Bundy[ ], 184 A.3d at 557). As such, due process requires that the DOC, in response to an administrative grievance which accurately recites that no Bundy process was afforded prior to the first Act 84 deduction, must give the grievant notice of the items required by Bundy and a reasonable opportunity to explain why the past and/or intended deductions should not take place notwithstanding the dictates of Act 84.

Id.

The Commonwealth Court acknowledged that it was undisputed in this case that the DOC "did not provide notice of the increased deduction." Id. Nevertheless, the court distinguished Washington’s due process claim from those raised in Bundy and Johnson because, prior to its recent amendment, "Act 84 did not specify a percentage for deduction," and instead "authoriz[ed the] DOC to make deductions and allow[ed the] DOC to establish the amount." Id. The DOC’s prior policy set a maximum deduction rate of 20%, with the caveat that the DOC would only make Act 84 deductions from inmate accounts with balances exceeding $10.00. Id. However, the newly-amended version of Act 84 requires a minimum deduction of 25%.

The lower court then cited, but only briefly discussed, its prior decision in Beavers v. Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, No. 486 M.D. 2020, 2021 WL 5832128 (Pa. Commw. filed Dec. 9, 2021). That decision was issued by the same three judges who decided this case, and by the same two-to-one split,⁸ approximately three weeks earlier. Beavers also involved an inmate’s procedural due process challenge to the DOC’s implementation of the 2019 amendment to Act 84.⁹ The Beavers court explained that when Act 84 was originally enacted, the legislature had "committed the rate of the deduction to the discretion of the Department[,]" but the 2019 amendment "set a minimum deduction rate of 25%." Id. at *3. Beavers claimed that the DOC "should have provided him" with notice and a hearing "prior to raising the deduction rate from 20% to 25%." Id. at *4.

The Beavers court disagreed, first, because Beavers was "presumed to know the laws of this Commonwealth" and therefore had been adequately notified of the 25% rate by the 2019 amendment itself. Id. Second, the court reasoned that the DOC satisfied its obligations under Bundy because Beavers already had an Act 84 hearing before the rate change. Id. To the extent that Bundy requires notice of the rate of deduction, the Commonwealth Court determined that "the deduction rate will be an item in a Bundy hearing" after the 2019 amendment "only where the Department exercises discretion to impose a deduction rate higher than 25%." Id. at *4 n.5.¹⁰

Third, the Beavers court...