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Sandin Inapplicable to Pretrial Detainees

Procedural Due Process--Disciplinary Proceedings (920): Sandin does not apply to detainees, who are entitled to procedural due process in disciplinary proceedings. Here there was some evidence because staff said the plaintiff had confessed.

Procedural Due Process--Administrative Segregation (921): Placement of an escape risk in segregation without a hearing, and requiring him to wear leg irons when out of his cell, was not unlawful punishment.

Procedural Due Process--Disciplinary Proceedings, Personal Property (921): The plaintiff alleged that his cell was stripped for 14 days. The Fourteenth Amendment requires no process when officials search a cell or remove property to ensure security.

Personal Property (922): Short-lived deprivation of commissary buys does not violate the Constitution.

Attorney Consultation (922): The plaintiff complained of lack of attorney-client confidentiality; however, the defendants denied listening in on conversations and and there was no evidence to the contrary. The appearance of impropriety does not violate the Constitution.

Correspondence, Procedural Due Process--Property (924): Allegations that an officer hid the plaintiff's outgoing mail do not state a claim since another officer found it and mailed it a few hours later. Allegations that unspecified, non-written items were removed from correspondence do not state a claim if there are post-deprivation remedies available.

Dental Care, Serious Medical Needs (925-26): The plaintiff's dental complaint does not meet the serious medical needs standard in the absence of pain and discomfort, which he did not allege.

Use of Force--Restraints (926): The plaintiff alleged that after he had been subdued during an escape attempt he was handcuffed so tightly that he suffered permanent nerve damage. The defendant is denied summary judgment.

Communication with Media, Correspondence--Legal and Official (927): The refusal to mail letters to a newspaper reporter and an attorney pursuant to a policy against sending mail with anything on the envelope other than address and return address did not violate the Constitution, since he could resend the letters. See: Zimmerman v. Tippecanoe Sheriff's Dept., 25 F.Supp.2d 915 (N.D.Ind. 1998).

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Related legal case

Zimmerman v. Tippecanoe Sheriff's Dept.