Cite as: 515 U. S. 472 (1995)
Syllabus
outcome with respect to the prisoner's confinement conditions. This shift in focus has encouraged prisoners to comb regulations in search of mandatory language on which to base entitlements to various state-conferred privileges. Courts have, in response, drawn negative inferences from that language. Hewitt creates disincentives for States to codify prison management procedures in the interest of uniform treatment in order to avoid the creation of "liberty" interests, and it has led to the involvement of federal courts in the day-to-day management of prisons. The time has come to return to those due process principles that were correctly established and applied in Wolff and Meachum. Pp. 477-484. (b) Conner asserts, incorrectly, that any state action taken for a punitive reason encroaches upon a liberty interest under the Due Process Clause even in the absence of any state regulation. Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U. S. 520 (1979), and Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U. S. 651 (1977), distinguished. Pp. 484-485. (c) Conner's discipline in segregated confinement did not present the type of atypical, significant deprivation in which a State might conceivably create a liberty interest. At the time of his punishment, disciplinary segregation mirrored those conditions imposed upon inmates in administrative segregation and protective custody. Moreover, the State later expunged his disciplinary record, with respect to the more serious of the charges against him. And, his confinement did not exceed similar, but totally discretionary confinement in either duration or degree of restriction. Conner's situation also does not present a case where the State's action will inevitably affect the duration of his sentence, since the chance that the misconduct finding will affect his parole status is simply too attenuated to invoke the Due Process Clause's procedural guarantees. Pp. 485-487. 15 F. 3d 1463, reversed.
Rehnquist, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas, JJ., joined. Ginsburg, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Stevens, J., joined, post, p. 488. Breyer, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Souter, J., joined, post, p. 491.
Steven S. Michaels, First Deputy Attorney General of Hawaii, argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Margery S. Bronster, Attorney General of Hawaii, Robert A. Marks, former Attorney General, and Kathleen M. Sato, Deputy Attorney General.
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