by Sagi Schwartzberg

On May 5, 2026, the Iowa State Appeal Board approved a settlement agreement between the Iowa Department of Corrections (DOC) and three Iowa prisoners who challenged their disciplinary violations. This settlement will impact all prisoners and institutions across the DOC.

Prisoners Amanda Wright, Monica Fagan and Cheyanne Harris (“Prisoners”) are incarcerated at the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women in Mitchellville, Iowa, an institution under the control of the DOC. At the time of their incarceration, the DOC maintained policies for individuals within its prisons and correctional institutions that the DOC claimed served to advance successful reentry by incarcerated individuals into the community, protected the public, staff, and incarcerated individuals from victimization, and maintained order in its institutions. Such policies were implemented through rules, regulations and procedures that incorporated all applicable due process requirements.

One such regulation included disciplinary policies designating certain conduct that may subject an incarcerated individual to lose “time credit,” which is used by such individual to reduce his or her sentence and can further result in a substantial deprivation of liberty. As a result, incarcerated individuals within the DOC were entitled to due process in disciplinary proceedings involving allegations of major discipline, including a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”).

The due process protections provided by the DOC required the ALJ to make findings of fact and impose guilt based on “some evidence,” an extremely low burden of proof that a prison must meet to find a disciplinary violation.

The DOC also maintained procedures for the investigation of violations of disciplinary rules relating to the use of illicit substances, described in DOC policy as a violation of “Dangerous Drugs and Intoxicants.” Per DOC procedures, an incarcerated individual suspected of violating this policy was subjected to an Immunoassay-based Urinalysis field test (“UA”), the results of which would be admitted as evidence during a major disciplinary violation hearing before an ALJ. DOC policies prohibited the individual whose UA was alleged to have returned a positive result from requesting a confirmation test. The type of UA used by the DOC is not considered reliable for medical treatment or employment-based testing purposes and must be confirmed by more reliable lab-based testing.

Prisoners Wright, Fagan and Harris were suspected of violating DOC policy relating to the use of illicit substances. As a result of this suspicion, each was required to submit to a UA, which they did. The DOC contended that their UAs returned a positive result, but per policy they were not allowed to request or obtain a confirmation test to ensure the reliability of the positive result.

During each of their disciplinary hearings, prison officials introduced the results of their UAs as evidence of their disciplinary violation. Applying the “some evidence” burden of proof, the ALJ in each of their hearings found that they violated the DOC “Dangerous Drugs and Intoxicants” policy. As a result, each of them lost respective “time credits,” which extended their incarceration. The three Prisoners appealed the ALJs’ decisions to the Warden, but the Warden upheld the ALJs’ decisions.

In the spring of 2024, with the assistance of the ACLU of Iowa and Leah Patton of Patton Legal Services, LLC, the Prisoners filed a Disciplinary Post-Conviction Application under Iowa law, in part asking the Polk County District Court to reverse the discipline imposed and reapply their “time credits” revoked by the ALJ.

After some litigation, the Prisoners and the DOC reached a settlement, which expunged their respective disciplinary records relating to the alleged faulty drug tests and restored their “time credits.” More importantly, however, the DOC also agreed to make important changes to its policies and procedures across all institutions relating to their drug testing and disciplinary hearing proceedings.

First, the DOC agreed to revise its policies and provide notification, training, and guidance to all appropriate DOC staff members that a single positive Immunoassay Urinalysis test shall no longer be considered sufficient evidence, standing alone, to impose any major disciplinary violation, and staffers shall not submit a UA as evidence to support a major disciplinary violation unless certain conditions are met.

The new policy will provide that, in the event a preliminary UA points to a positive result, the testing staff member must provide the incarcerated individual with a notice that contains:

1. The meaning and purpose of a confirmation test;
2. The cost of the confirmation testing, including that the DOC will bear the initial cost and the cost of any negative confirmation testing; however, the incarcerated individual may be assessed the cost of a positive confirmation test; and
3. That the incarcerated individual has the right to decline the confirmation test, but that such decision to decline will be used against the individual in any disciplinary action arising from the initial UA (“Notice”).

The DOC and its staff will not submit a UA as evidence supporting a major disciplinary violation unless the UA is accompanied by appropriate confirmation testing, or the incarcerated individual either admits to the use of the substance for which the UA indicates a positive result or, after receiving the Notice, exercises their right to waive the confirmation testing.

In revising its policies and procedures, the DOC will also remove the prohibition on confirmation testing. The settlement agreement also provides that because currently reasonably available scientific methods for testing for “K2” and other cannabinoid synthetics are limited and unreliable in detecting K2, the DOC will be required to submit alternative evidence that meets or exceeds the new standard of proof required to be met by the prison, “greater weight of the evidence,” in order to impose any major discipline related to that substance.

As part of the settlement with the three Prisoners, the DOC also agreed to raise the burden that the prison must meet before an ALJ can find that an inmate is guilty of a major disciplinary violation. The DOC agreed to change its policies and procedures to mirror the federal prison system’s standard of proof in disciplinary proceedings of “greater weight of the evidence.”

This standard includes, at a minimum:

1. Every prisoner charged with a major disciplinary infraction may make a statement and present documentary evidence on their own behalf;
2. The ALJ must weigh all of the evidence presented—not just the prison’s evidence; and
3. The ALJ must consider what evidence is reliable, and if a conflict in the evidence arises, the ALJ must resolve the conflict by the greater weight of the evidence.

The agreement also included small cash awards for the three Plaintiffs—$92.43 to Wright, $1,429.42 to Harris and $19.71 to Fagan. See: Wright v. Iowa, Iowa Dist. (Polk Cty.), Case No. 05771 PCCE090035.

After the settlement was announced, Thomas Story, a senior staff attorney for the ACLU of Iowa, said, “We are appreciative of our clients and the Department of Corrections for the progress that has been made to ensure more reliable disciplinary processes are used moving forward. All inmates must follow the rules in prison. But no matter what crime someone is convicted of, all inmates retain certain constitutional rights, including due process and a prison disciplinary system that is fair, accurate and reliable. By requiring drug testing to be reliable, this change serves all interests—the inmates, the prisons, and the public.”  

Additional source: ACLU of Iowa

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