At separate hearings, Sergeant Maguire testified about the events he witnessed that suggested Hill and Crawford were involved in the fight.

The accumulation of good-time credits was a liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which required judicial review of the board's findings.

The Commonwealth also did not challenge the Supreme Judicial Court's holding that Massachusetts law gave rise to a liberty interest in good-time credits that was protected by the Due Process Clause.

The Court therefore proceeded on the assumption that there was, in fact, a liberty interest in the accumulation of good-time credits, and turned to the "nature of the constitutionally required procedures".

The Court reasoned that an "inmate has a strong interest in assuring that the loss of good time credits is not imposed arbitrarily", and simply requiring "a modicum of evidence to support a decision to revoke good time credits will help to prevent arbitrary deprivations without threatening institutional interests or imposing undue administrative burdens".