Mckune v. Lile

536 U.S. 24 (2002)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

In 1982, Lile (D) lured a high school student into his car as she was returning home from school. At gunpoint, D forced the victim to perform oral sodomy on him and then drove to a field where he raped her. After the sexual assault, the victim went to her school, where, crying and upset, she reported the crime. The police arrested D and recovered on his person the weapon he used to facilitate the crime. D contended that the sexual intercourse was consensual. D was convicted of rape, aggravated sodomy, and aggravated kidnapping. In 1994, a few years before D was scheduled to be released, prison officials ordered him to participate in a Sexual Abuse Treatment Program (SATP). Inmates are required to complete and sign an 'Admission of Responsibility' form, in which they discuss and accept responsibility for the crime for which they have been sentenced. Kansas leaves open the possibility that new evidence might be used against sex offenders in future criminal proceedings. In addition, Kansas law requires the SATP staff to report any uncharged sexual offenses involving minors to law enforcement authorities. D was informed that if he refused to participate in the SATP, his privilege status would be reduced from Level III to Level I. As part of this reduction, D's visitation rights, earnings, work opportunities, ability to send money to family, canteen expenditures, access to a personal television, and other privileges automatically would be curtailed. In addition, D would be transferred to a maximum-security unit, where his movement would be more limited, he would be moved from a two-person to a four-person cell, and he would be in a potentially more dangerous environment. D refused to participate in the SATP on the ground that the required disclosures of his criminal history would violate his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. He brought this action under 42 U. S. C. §1983 against the warden and the secretary of the Department, seeking an injunction to prevent them from withdrawing his prison privileges and transferring him to a different housing unit. The District Court entered summary judgment in D's favor concluding that the consequences of not admitting the crime with respect to the program constituted coercion in violation of the Fifth Amendment. The Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed. It held that the compulsion element of a Fifth Amendment claim can be established by penalties that do not constitute deprivations of protected liberty interests under the Due Process Clause. It held that the reduction in prison privileges and housing accommodations was a penalty, both because of its substantial impact on the inmate and because that impact was identical to the punishment imposed by the Department for serious disciplinary infractions. In the Court of Appeals' view, the fact that the sanction was automatic, rather than conditional, supported the conclusion that it constituted compulsion.