John Cannistraci filed a lawsuit when he was fined $200 and isolated for 30 days after allegedly holding down a fellow inmate as the man was stabbed 67 times.
His lawsuit was deemed "frivolous" and dismissed by a magistrate judge, a decision that was approved in U.S. District Court for Utah. This week, the federal 10th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the lower court decision, allowing Cannistraci to proceed with his suit.Cannistraci was one of two men accused of holding down inmate Lonnie Blackmon, as he was stabbed 67 times by Troy Michael Kell. Kell and another inmate, Eric Thomas Daniels, face the death penalty for the alleged crime. Cannistraci pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter and was sentenced to an additional one to 15 years in prison. The 26-year-old was to serve the sentence concurrent with weapon, drug and robbery convictions for which he was already serving time.
But, after prison officials handed down the fine and "punitive isolation," Cannistraci said his procedural rights - protected under the 14th Amendment - had been violated. He wasn't allowed to view a video of the stabbing, and Kevin Westover, an inmate disciplinary officer, wasn't impartial in his investigation of the July 1994 incident, he said.
Named in the suit are Westover and the warden of the Central Utah Correctional Facility, Fred Van Der Veur.
The Court of Appeals agreed the claim against Van Der Veur should be dismissed. But it said the application of a 1915 Supreme Court decision preserved Cannistraci's rights to view the video.
The court brief states that inmates are given three protections when punished by loss of good-time credits: written notice of the charges, an opportunity to document the evidence and a written statement of the reasons for the disciplinary actions.
The federal court said that "denial of access to a videotape or audiotape used by prison officials to establish the commission of an offense may infringe on an inmate's rights." Thus, the District Court "abused its discretion in dismissing Mr. Cannistraci's complaint as frivolous."
The case is remanded back to District Court.
The Court of Appeals did not determine whether the isolation and $200 fine resulted in an "atypical and significant hardship" on Can-nis-traci in prison. The determination was left for the U.S. District Court to decide.
Cannistraci remains incarcerated at the Central New Mexico Correctional Center in Los Linas, N.M.