James v. State, Department of Corrections

OPINION

FABE, Justice.

I. INTRODUCTION

After a disciplinary hearing, a hearing officer found Alaska prison inmate Joseph James guilty of the "low-moderate" infraction of "threatening another person with future bodily harm" at Red Rocks Correctional Center in Arizona. The determination was based entirely on an incident report written by a prison staff member who had not witnessed the incident. Instead, the report's author, G. Mathey, provided a hearsay account of a conversation between James and another staff member, Carl Richey. After exhausting his administrative remedies, James filed an appeal…