Cite as: 515 U. S. 472 (1995)
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
ment as punishment for "high misconduct" not only deprives prisoners of privileges for protracted periods; unlike administrative segregation and protective custody, disciplinary confinement also stigmatizes them and diminishes parole prospects. Those immediate and lingering consequences should suffice to qualify such confinement as liberty depriving for purposes of Due Process Clause protection. See Meachum v. Fano, 427 U. S. 215, 234-235 (1976) (Stevens, J., dissenting).1
I see the Due Process Clause itself, not Hawaii's prison
code, as the wellspring of the protection due Conner. Deriving protected liberty interests from mandatory language in local prison codes would make of the fundamental right something more in certain States, something less in others. Liberty that may vary from Ossining, New York, to San Quentin, California, does not resemble the "Liberty" enshrined among "unalienable Rights" with which all persons are "endowed by their Creator." Declaration of Independence; see Meachum, 427 U. S., at 230 (Stevens, J., dissenting) ("[T]he Due Process Clause protects [the unalienable liberty recognized in the Declaration of Independence] rather
1 The Court reasons that Conner's disciplinary confinement, "with insignificant exceptions, mirrored th[e] conditions imposed upon inmates in administrative segregation and protective custody," ante, at 486, and therefore implicated no constitutional liberty interest. But discipline means punishment for misconduct; it rests on a finding of wrongdoing that can adversely affect an inmate's parole prospects. Disciplinary confinement therefore cannot be bracketed with administrative segregation and protective custody, both measures that carry no long-term consequences. The Court notes, however, that the State eventually expunged Conner's disciplinary record, ibid., as a result of his successful administrative appeal. But hindsight cannot tell us whether a liberty interest existed at the outset. One must, of course, know at the start the character of the interest at stake in order to determine then what process, if any, is constitutionally due. "All's well that ends well" cannot be the measure here.
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