—the Supreme Court held that the involuntary transfer of a prisoner to a mental hospital implicates a liberty interest protected by the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause.

—transfer to mental hospital coupled with mandatory behavior modification treatment implicated liberty interests

—the issue was whether the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment entitled a prisoner to certain procedural protections, including notice and a hearing, before he could be transferred involuntarily from the prison to a state mental hospital for treatment of a mental disease or defect.

State statutes may create liberty interests that are entitled to the procedural protections of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

—this Court held that the transfer of an inmate from a prison to a mental hospital did implicate a liberty interest.

—recognizing liberty interest in avoiding involuntary psychiatric treatment and transfer to mental institution

—involuntary commitment to a mental hospital results in a massive curtailment of liberty that requires due process protection

"The medical nature of the inquiry, however, does not justify dispensing with due process requirements [,]" as "[i] t is precisely the subtleties and nuances of psychiatric diagnoses that justify the requirement of adversary hearings."

Thus, Aliza K.'s transfer implicates a liberty interest which triggers rights to procedural due process

"[W] e pointed out that" minimum [procedural] requirements [are] a matter of federal law, they are not diminished by the fact that the State may have specified its own procedures that it may deem adequate for determining the preconditions to adverse official action. "