Inmate Can Raise Due Process Challenge Over 180 Days in Solitary

A inmate who spent 180 days in segregation at Green Haven Correctional Facility in New York was entitled to due process at his disciplinary hearing, the Second Circuit said in a Wednesday opinion reversing judgment for the corrections officials.

Joseph Vidal’s six month confinement in Green Haven’s special housing unit imposed “an atypical and significant hardship,” at least in the absence of any countervailing evidence, US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Judge Beth Robinson said.

New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision officials failed to offer evidence that disciplinary segregation of that duration was “a common incident of prison life” at the time that Vidal was confined to the SHU.

The Second Circuit has avoided establishing a bright-line rule for the minimum duration of disciplinary segregation that amounts to a significant hardship and has explicitly said that SHU confinements of fewer than 101 days could constitute a significant hardship under certain circumstances, such as if SHU conditions are particularly severe.

The court emphasized that it wasn’t suggesting 180 days as a floor at which duration alone may implicate a liberty interest under “normal” SHU conditions, but rather saying that 180 days obviously meets the standard.

In the 2000 ruling Colon v. Howard, the Second Circuit held that 305 days of disciplinary confinement was an atypical and significant hardship. Since then, research has revealed more about the mental health consequences of solitary confinement, and developments in case law have trended toward shorter periods of disciplinary segregation, the opinion said.

A plaintiff has a Fourteenth Amendment due process claim when he has a protected liberty interest and is deprived of that interest without due process. In the prison context, protected liberty interests may be based on state laws or policies, or may arise when disciplinary confinement imposes a relatively “atypical and significant hardship,” Robinson said.

When liberty interests are implicated, inmates are entitled to procedural protections at disciplinary hearings. But at Vidal’s disciplinary hearing—which stemmed from an altercation with corrections officers—he wasn’t permitted to call a number of witnesses, nor was he permitted to access or introduce certain relevant documentary evidence, the opinon said.

Judge Sarah A. L. Merriam joined the decision. Judge Alison J. Nathan was originally on the panel but was ultimately unable to participate in consideration of the case.

Vidal is represented by MacArthur Justice Center.

The case is Vidal v. Venettozzi, 2d Cir., No. 24-2548-pr, 4/1/26.