427 U.S. 215 (1976)
During a two-and-a-half-month period in 1974, nine serious fires occurred at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Norfolk, a medium-security institution.1 Based primarily on reports from informants, the six respondent inmates were removed from the general prison population and placed in the Receiving Building, an administrative detention area used to process new inmates.2
Each respondent was notified of the classification hearing and informed that the authorities had information indicating that he had engaged in criminal conduct.3 Individual classification hearings were held with each respondent represented by counsel.4 The Board heard in camera testimony from Superintendent Meachum repeating the informant information.5 Each respondent was allowed to present evidence in his own behalf and denied involvement in the particular infraction being investigated.6
The Classification Board recommended that some respondents be transferred to Walpole, a maximum-security institution where living conditions are substantially less favorable, and others to Bridgewater.7 The recommendations were reviewed and accepted by the Acting Deputy Commissioner for Classification and Treatment and the Commissioner of Corrections.8 The transfers were carried out without any respondent being subjected to disciplinary punishment or loss of good time.9
The respondents brought an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against prison officials alleging deprivation of liberty without due process of law due to the transfers without adequate factfinding hearings.10 The District Court held the procedures inadequate and ordered the respondents returned to Norfolk until proper hearings could be held.11 A divided panel of the Court of Appeals affirmed that decision.12
Whether the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment entitles a state prisoner to a hearing when he is transferred to a prison the conditions of which are substantially less favorable to the prisoner, absent a state law or practice conditioning such transfers on proof of serious misconduct or the occurrence of other events?13
No. Applying the rule to the established facts, the respondents' valid convictions had already deprived them of liberty to the extent that the State could confine them in any of its prisons, including maximum-security facilities like Walpole with substantially less favorable conditions.16 The transfers occurred after the Classification Board hearings based on informant reports regarding the fires at Norfolk, but Massachusetts law did not condition such transfers on proof of misconduct, leaving the decision to the discretion of prison officials.17 No loss of good time or disciplinary confinement resulted from the transfers.18
Related opinions on this issue
Justice Stevens dissented from the majority's holding.21 He contended that the majority's rationale rested on a fundamentally incorrect conception of liberty.22 According to Stevens, the Due Process Clause protects a basic liberty interest that is not created by the Constitution or state law.23
He argued that convicted prisoners retain a residuum of constitutionally protected liberty.24 Stevens agreed with the Court of Appeals that the transfer in this case was sufficiently serious to require due process protections.25 He maintained that even after conviction the individual possesses an unalienable interest in liberty at the very minimum the right to be treated with dignity which the Constitution may never ignore.26