Wolff v. McDonnell
Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.
Status
More on how this was screened
The three confirmed treatments are listed below: Greenholtz v. Inmates of the Nebraska Penal & Correctional Complex declined to carry Wolff's disciplinary procedures into parole-release decisions; Hewitt v. Helms required only informal review for administrative segregation; and Tyler v. Hooks found no clearly established right to personal review of video evidence. The other opinions applied Wolff, used its phrase protecting rights from being “arbitrarily abrogated,” or placed treatment language next to unrelated precedent and dispositions.
12,149 later cases cite Wolff v. McDonnell; 563 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.
Relying on Wolff v. McDonnell?
This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.
Treatments
Limited
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The Supreme Court declined to extend Wolff's fact-focused disciplinary procedures to Nebraska's predictive parole-release decisions.
Greenholtz v. Inmates of the Nebraska Penal & Correctional Complex · Supreme Court of the United States · filed
It is argued that the Nebraska parole-determination provision is similar to the Nebraska statute involved in Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539 (1974), that granted good-time credits to inmates. ... Procedures designed to elicit specific facts, such as those required in Morrissey, Gagnon, and Wolff, are not necessarily appropriate to a Nebraska parole determination.
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The Supreme Court declined to require Wolff's full disciplinary-hearing procedures for nonpunitive administrative segregation and held that an informal, nonadversary review sufficed.
Hewitt v. Helms · Supreme Court of the United States · filed
The Court of Appeals ... said that Helms could not be deprived of this interest without a hearing, governed by the procedures mandated in Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539 (1974), to determine whether such confinement was proper. ... On these same facts, we agree with the Court of Appeals that the Pennsylvania statutory framework governing the administration of state prisons gave rise to a liberty interest in respondent, but we conclude that the procedures afforded respondent were “due process” under the Fourteenth Amendment. ... These considerations convince us that petitioners were obligated to engage only in an informal, non-adversary review of the information supporting respondent’s administrative confinement, including whatever statement respondent wished to submit, within a reasonable time after confining him to administrative segregation.
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The Fourth Circuit held under AEDPA that Wolff does not clearly establish a right to require a disciplinary hearing officer to personally review requested video evidence.
Tyler v. Hooks · Fourth Circuit · filed
This conclusion is buttressed by the fact that under AEDPA, the Supreme Court’s holdings alone control our analysis and, to date, the Supreme Court has never held that the due process rights announced in Wolff extend to video evidence or that inmates possess a right to compel DHOs to personally review such evidence during a disciplinary hearing.
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