A Claim for Third Party Standing in America's Prisons

Abstract

This article examines a state prison system's unwritten policy of limiting intra-prison disciplinary hearing findings of not guilty to ten percent of total dispositions and a hearing officer's termination for refusing to adhere to the unconstitutional policy. The article argues that third party standing to assert disciplinary hearing defendants' due process claims should be available to prison disciplinary hearing officers who are terminated for disregarding disciplinary hearing guilty verdict quotas. Ultimately, the piece concludes that a third party challenge to intra-prison policies establishing guilty verdict quotas for such hearings provides an avenue for guaranteeing the preservation of prisoners' due process rights.

Keywords: due process, third party standing, standing, prison