IN RE: D'UONE MORRISON (2026)

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

Calendar Date:  May 26, 2026

Appeal from a judgment of the Supreme Court (Denise Hartman, J.), entered April 5, 2024 in Albany County, which dismissed petitioner's application, in a proceeding pursuant to CPLR article 78, to review three determinations of respondent finding petitioner guilty of violating certain prison disciplinary rules.

Petitioner, an incarcerated individual, was charged in a misbehavior report with several prison disciplinary rule violations after he made an approximately 20–minute long telephone call without approval, ignoring several orders to hang up and return to his cell and preventing others from making calls.  He was found guilty of refusing a direct order, employee interference and telephone program violation following a tier II disciplinary hearing.  Petitioner was charged in a second misbehavior report with committing a facility correspondence violation after he included several pages of his business plan for an adult magazine with a written complaint that he sent to prison officials.  Following a tier II disciplinary hearing from which he was removed due to his disruptive conduct, he was found guilty as charged.

Petitioner lost his computer tablet privileges for 60 days as a result of the determination on the first misbehavior report and, after surveillance video and his Internet activity revealed that he used a tablet passed among incarcerated individuals to send out messages during that period, he was charged in a third misbehavior report with unauthorized exchange, possession of contraband and noncompliance with a hearing disposition.  He was found guilty of those charges at the conclusion of a tier II disciplinary hearing.  Respondent upheld all three determinations upon administrative appeal, prompting petitioner to commence this CPLR article 78 proceeding.  Following joinder of issue and further proceedings, Supreme Court dismissed the petition.  Petitioner appeals.

We affirm.  Turning first to petitioner's claims relating to the first misbehavior report, petitioner claims that he was improperly denied the right to present evidence regarding a correction sergeant who had purportedly authorized him to use the telephone in the hours before the incident.  Petitioner was “required to promptly obey directives without argument” even if he believed them to be unwarranted, however, and the Hearing Officer properly found the requested evidence to be “irrelevant to whether he disobeyed” what hearing testimony and video footage of the incident showed to be several orders to hang up the telephone and go back to his cell (Matter of Tarbell v. Prack, 89 AD3d 1342, 1343 [3d Dept 2011];  see Matter of Mack v. Annucci, 219 AD3d 1033, 1034 [3d Dept 2023], lv denied 40 NY3d 908 [2023] ).  Petitioner's further requests for testimony regarding his compliance with a later order to hang up and for his telephone records were properly denied as redundant and/or irrelevant (see Matter of Tafari v. Fischer, 94 AD3d 1324, 1325 [3d Dept 2012], lv denied 19 NY3d 807 [2012] ).

As for his claims relating to the second misbehavior report, petitioner satisfied none of the criteria entitling him to an employee assistant, and the denial of his request for one was not an abuse of discretion in that petitioner refused to explain what specific assistance he needed despite the Hearing Officer's requests and has not otherwise shown any prejudice (see 7 NYCRR 251–4.1;  Matter of Simpson v. Jordan, 235 AD3d 1223, 1224 [3d Dept 2025];  Matter of Vansteenburg v State of N.Y. Dept. of Corr. & Community Supervision, 128 AD3d 1295, 1296 [3d Dept 2015] ).  Further, in view of his interrupting the Hearing Officer despite warnings that he would be removed if he continued to do so, he was properly removed from the hearing (see Matter of Clark v. Jordan, 212 AD3d 976, 978 [3d Dept 2023];  Matter of Rizzuto v. Melville, 210 AD3d 1152, 1154 [3d Dept 2022] ).

With regard to the claims relating to the third misbehavior report, the Hearing Officer did not abuse his discretion in denying petitioner's request for an employee assistant and offering instead to obtain relevant documents and evidence he requested (see Matter of Vansteenburg v State of N.Y. Dept. of Corr. & Community Supervision, 128 AD3d at 1296).  As petitioner's tablet was presented at the hearing and a correction officer testified to collecting it from him, the Hearing Officer properly denied petitioner's request for the video of that collection as redundant (see Matter of Abdullah v New York State Dept. of Corr. & Community Supervision, 222 AD3d 1095, 1096 [3d Dept 2023] ).¹  The Hearing Officer also cannot be faulted for failing to provide a contraband receipt and log entry for the tablet that the record reflected did not exist, or for denying petitioner's requests for witnesses whose testimony would have been redundant and/or irrelevant (see Matter of Malloy v. Rodriguez, 200 AD3d 1382, 1383–1384 [3d Dept 2021];  Matter of Cosme v New York State Dept. of Corr. & Community Supervision, 168 AD3d 1327, 1328–1329 [3d Dept 2019] ).

Finally, nothing in the record supports petitioner's contentions that the Hearing Officer who conducted the hearings on all three misbehavior reports was biased against him or that any of the determinations of guilt flowed from that purported bias (see Matter of Maynard v. Bondarenka, 240 AD3d 1117, 1118 [3d Dept 2025] ).  Petitioner's remaining contentions have been examined and found to be lacking in merit.

Reynolds Fitzgerald, J.P., Ceresia, McShan and Ryba, JJ., concur.

ORDERED that the judgment is affirmed, without costs.

FOOTNOTES

1.   Although petitioner maintained at the hearing that no one had come to collect his tablet, he notably refused to say whether he actually had the tablet in his possession or whether he had surrendered it to staff.

Mackey, J.