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The Law Of Typicality: Examining The Procedural Due Process Implications Of Sandin V. Conner, Donna H. Lee

Fordham Law Review

Although the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment has long protected against deprivations that implicate state-created liberty interests as well as core constitutional concerns, the Supreme Court changed course in liberty interest jurisprudence in Sandin v. Conner. It retreated from a positivist approach and articulated a new test for determining when a prisoner's claim warrants procedural due process. The Court held that the challenged action must impose an "atypical and significant" hardship, but provided little guidance on how to measure typicality and significance. This Article proposes a methodology for examining typicality that is grounded in empirical evidence and advocates …