Krug

Lawrence Krug is an Arizona state prisoner. He claims that Appellants, various Arizona Department of Corrections officials (“ADOC officials”), violated his procedural due process rights by failing to give him the opportunity to appeal the exclusion of incoming pubhcations to a prison official other than the one who made the initial exclusion decision. The ADOC officials interloeutorily appealed the district court’s order granting a permanent injunction in Krug’s favor, and Krug cross-appealed the district court’s grant of qualified immunity to the ADOC officials. We conclude that the Hook Consent Decree, entered into in 1973 by a group of inmates and the ADOC, does not bar Krug’s claim, nor is he required to seek modification of the decree in order to obtain relief. We further conclude that Krug has a constitutional right to a two-level review of exclusion decisions. We also conclude that the ADOC officials are entitled to qualified immunity from Krug’s claim for damages. We therefore affirm the district court’s order.

FACTUAL and PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

In 1973, before Krug was incarcerated in the Arizona state prison system, inmates and the ADOC entered into a consent…