Opinion
April 11, 1996
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Albany County (Harris, J.).
Petitioner, an inmate at Auburn Correctional Facility in Cayuga County, wrote to respondent Estelle Peterman, the inmate records coordinator of the facility, disputing the accuracy of certain information contained in his "Program and Security Assessment Summary" form (hereinafter PSAS) and requested that Peterman correct the challenged information. Peterman replied that the challenged information could not be changed, and petitioner appealed to respondent Inspector General of the State requesting that Peterman be directed to correct said records. When petitioner received no response from the Inspector General, he commenced this CPLR article 78 proceeding to compel Peterman to expunge the contested information from his PSAS. Supreme Court dismissed the petition, and this appeal followed.
We affirm. It has long been the rule that an inmate has no right to contest the accuracy of information contained in a PSAS and, accordingly, Supreme Court properly dismissed the petition ( see, e.g., Matter of Fox v. Malone, 196 A.D.2d 913, 914, lv denied 82 N.Y.2d 663).
While petitioner correctly urges that he has a constitutional right to have erroneous information expunged from his records, this right is clearly limited ( see, Paine v. Baker, 595 F.2d 197, 201, cert denied 444 U.S. 925). Among other things, in order to successfully assert a constitutional claim, the inmate must establish that the challenged information in his file is false ( see, Paine v. Baker, supra, at 201). This petitioner has not done. The source of the information contained in the PSAS is petitioner's presentence report and his admissions contained therein. Petitioner has not challenged the accuracy of the information contained in his presentence report but, rather, he claims that the information contained therein is not accurately reflected in his PSAS. While we agree that the information in the PSAS is not a verbatim recounting of the presentence report, our review of the two satisfies us that there is a rational basis in the presentence report for the information contained in the PSAS and that the latter, therefore, cannot be found to be false ( see, Matter of Udzinski v. Coughlin, 188 A.D.2d 716).
Cardona, P.J., White, Yesawich Jr. and Spain, JJ., concur. Ordered that the judgment is affirmed, without costs.