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01-1720 Eads v. Hanks

By: dmc-admin//January 21, 2002//

01-1720 Eads v. Hanks

By: dmc-admin//January 21, 2002//

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“Eads] claims that the proceeding denied him due process of law because (he alleges) a member of the committee is the ‘live-in boyfriend’ of one of the witnesses, a female guard… Oddly, we cannot find an appellate case dealing with the cognate issue of bias in prison disciplinary committees. The requirements of due process are considerably relaxed in the setting of prison discipline…, even though the consequences are frequently and here a prolongation of the prisoner’s confinement. But it is well settled that the prisoner is entitled to an impartial tribunal…, and he is denied that right if a member of the tribunal was a witness to the incident at issue… It would not be a giant step to deem the right denied if the witness were the spouse or ‘significant other’ of a member of the tribunal. And so we shall assume that if the relationship were as intimate as alleged here and if the witness were crucial to the prosecution, the proceeding would indeed violate due process.

“We need not pursue the question, however, because the prisoner had the information about the alleged relationship between the committee member and the witness before he filed his administrative appeal, yet failed to advise the appellate tribunal, thus forfeiting his right to urge it as a ground for obtaining relief in a federal habeas corpus proceeding.”

Affirmed.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, Young, J., Posner, J.

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