Cite as: 515 U. S. 472 (1995)
Opinion of the Court
facilities "for whatever reason or for no reason at all." Meachum, supra, at 228.4
Shortly after Meachum, the Court embarked on a different approach to defining state-created liberty interests. Because dictum in Meachum distinguished Wolff by focusing on whether state action was mandatory or discretionary, the Court in later cases laid ever greater emphasis on this somewhat mechanical dichotomy. Greenholtz v. Inmates of Neb. Penal and Correctional Complex, 442 U. S. 1 (1979), fore-shadowed the methodology that would come to full fruition in Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U. S. 460 (1983). The Greenholtz inmates alleged that they had been unconstitutionally denied parole. Their claim centered on a state statute that set the date for discretionary parole at the time the minimum term of imprisonment less good time credits expired. The statute ordered release of a prisoner at that time, unless one of four specific conditions were shown. 442 U. S., at 11. The Court apparently accepted the inmates' argument that the word "shall" in the statute created a legitimate expectation of release absent the requisite finding that one of the justifications for deferral existed, since the Court concluded that some measure of constitutional protection was due. Nevertheless, the State ultimately prevailed because the minimal process it had awarded the prisoners was deemed sufficient under the Fourteenth Amendment.
4 Later cases, such as Vitek v. Jones, 445 U. S. 480 (1980), found that the Due Process Clause itself confers a liberty interest in certain situations. In Vitek, a prisoner was to be transferred involuntarily to a state mental hospital for treatment of a mental disease or defect; the Court held that his right to be free from such transfer was a liberty interest irrespective of state regulation; it was "qualitatively different" from the punishment characteristically suffered by a person convicted of crime, and had "stigmatizing consequences." Id., at 493-494. Washington v. Harper, 494 U. S. 210, 221-222 (1990), likewise concluded that, independent of any state regulation, an inmate had a liberty interest in being protected from the involuntary administration of psychotropic drugs.
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