486
Opinion of the Court
out deciding that freedom from punitive segregation for " 'serious misconduct' " implicates a liberty interest, holding only that the prisoner has no right to counsel) (citation omitted), this Court has not had the opportunity to address in an argued case the question whether disciplinary confinement of inmates itself implicates constitutional liberty interests. We hold that 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. The record shows that, at the time of Conner's punishment, disciplinary segregation, with insignificant exceptions, mirrored those conditions imposed upon inmates in administrative segregation and protective custody.7 We note also that the State expunged Conner's disciplinary record with respect to the "high misconduct" charge nine months after Conner served time in segregation. Thus, Conner's confinement did not exceed similar, but totally discretionary, confinement in either duration or degree of restriction. Indeed, the conditions at Halawa involve significant amounts of "lockdown time" even for inmates in the general population.8 Based on a comparison between inmates inside and outside disciplinary segregation, the State's actions in placing him there for 30 days did not work a major disruption in his environment.9
7 Hawaii has repealed the regulations describing the structure of inmate privileges in the SHU when confined in administrative segregation, Brief for Petitioner 6, n. 3, but it retains inmate classification category "Maximum Custody I" in which inmate privileges are comparably limited. App. to Brief for Petitioner 48a-71a.
8 General population inmates are confined to cells for anywhere between 12 and 16 hours a day, depending on their classification. 1 App. 126.
9 The State notes, ironically, that Conner requested that he be placed in protective custody after he had been released from disciplinary segregation. Id., at 43. Conner's own expectations have at times reflected a personal preference for the quietude of the SHU. Although we do not think a prisoner's subjective expectation is dispositive of the liberty inter-
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