In Re Jackson

Opinion

THE COURT. *

We granted a hearing to determine whether either federal or state due process requires state prison hearing officers to interview confidential informants in camera before finding an accused prison inmate guilty of a disciplinary violation solely on the basis of confidential information.

Prison officials regularly depend on confidential informants to identify prison rule violators. While stressing the paramount need to rely on such informants as a source of information, these officials stress an equal need to maintain confidential the identity of those informants: to do…