In re Kendall CA3

Filed 11/3/26 In re Kendall CA3 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA THIRD APPELLATE DISTRICT (Lassen) In re ADAM KENDALL on Habeas Corpus. C105635 (Super. Ct. No. 2024- CR90749) After a disciplinary hearing, appellant California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) found inmate Adam Kendall (petitioner) guilty of possession of a prohibited controlled substance while he was housed at the High Desert State Prison (HDSP). CDCR revoked 150 days of petitioner’s custody credits and immediately suspended various privileges. Petitioner filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus (petition), in which he alleged HDSP staff violated his statutorily conferred rights under Penal Code section 2932, subdivision (c)(1)(A) (section 2932(c)(1)(A)). Section 2932(c)(1)(A) says CDCR, “shall, using reasonable diligence to investigate, provide written notice to the prisoner ... 15 days after the discovery of information leading to charges that may result in a possible denial of credit .....” In In re Semons (1989) 208 Cal.App.3d 1022, 1027-1029 (Semons), the court of appeal approved CDCR’s interpretation of section 2932(c)(1)(A), which treated the date 1 of “discovery of information leading to charges” as the date of receipt of a laboratory report confirming a substance was a prohibited controlled substance. Here, once staff at the laboratory used by HDSP completes a report, the laboratory automatically uploads the results to a web portal that HDSP staff can search. However, the laboratory does not provide HDSP staff notification that results have been posted and leaves it to HDSP staff to search for results. The trial court concluded that HDSP did not use reasonable diligence to investigate and deliberately delayed receipt of the positive laboratory report because it did not check the web portal for results until it collected the tested specimen from the laboratory during a regularly scheduled monthly trip to the laboratory. The trial court implied that reasonable diligence requires HDSP to search the portal for lab results in pending cases at least once a week. The trial court ordered CDCR to restore Kendall’s lost custody credits. CDCR appeals, arguing that petitioner’s petition was procedurally barred as untimely and that the trial court reached a wrong conclusion on the merits. While CDCR has not raised a persuasive argument regarding timeliness, the trial court erred on the merits and we reverse the judgment. FACTS AND HISTORY OF THE PROCEEDINGS Because neither party argues the trial court’s factual summary which follows was incorrect, we accept it here. (See Aguayo v. Amaro (2013) 213 Cal.App.4th 1102, 1109 [stating we review factual findings under the substantial evidence test, we assume they are correct, and it is an appellant’s burden to show they are not].) “On February 1[8], 2020 a suspected controlled substance, butane honey oil (BHO), was found in the cell occupied by Petitioner and his cellmate…. Petitioner provided a urine test that was negative and did not sign a waiver, retaining his right to laboratory confirmation of the substance. .... The substance itself (HDSP Evidence Item 2 #101) was delivered to the [Department of Justice (DOJ)] laboratory ... on February 26, 2020. “DOJ’s procedures provide that, upon completion of testing the DOJ laboratory report is automatically generated and uploaded to their web portal for access by the requesting agency, which involves the agency going to the portal and entering the agency name and the report number or name of the individual attached to the evidence. DOJ requires that the agency either pick up the substance or arrange for shipping via common carrier, as they are not equipped for long term storage of narcotics. It is the policy of the HDSP to travel once a month to Redding, about 116 miles from the prison, to deliver and pick up any substances submitted to the DOJ lab for testing. There is no written regulation regarding the frequency of those trips, so it is left to discretion of Investigative Services Unit (ISU) officers to determine how often they will travel to the DOJ lab and process everything. They have determined that once a month is both reasonable and practical because CDCR only has about 10 items taken to and from the lab each month, so going weekly would be a hardship on the institution. Although they have access to the reports on the DOJ portal at the time they are complete and uploaded for that purpose, it is the ISU practice to wait until they have picked up the physical evidence from the lab before checking the portal for results. “In this case, the DOJ laboratory report of the test results was completed on April 2, 2020. ... On April 29, 2020, a trip was made to the DOJ lab and upon return to HDSP [the evidence officer] obtained the report from the portal and issued a General Chrono indicating that the ISU received the laboratory report from California DOJ that day, making 04/29/2020 the ‘date of discovery.’ Fourteen days later and 90 days after the incident on May 13, 2020, Petitioner was issued a Rules Violation Report (RVR) for possession of BHO. In a hearing on June 6, 2020, 115 days after the incident, he was found guilty of that charge, resulting in immediate loss of custody credits and various privileges. The findings were not completed by the Hearing Officer until July 17, 2020, 3 and do not contain any reference to the disposition of Evidence Item #101. Petitioner was provided with the finalized copy of the RVR signed by the Chief Disciplinary Officer (CDO) on August 12, 2020, 6[7] days after the hearing was concluded.” Thus, the timeline here is: On February 18, 2020, HDSP staff discovered suspected BHO in Kendall’s cell. On February 26, 2020, eight days later, during the regular monthly trip to the laboratory, HDSP staff delivered the substance to the DOJ laboratory for testing. On April 2, 2020, 36 days later, laboratory employees completed their report which was automatically uploaded to the web portal. DOJ did not notify HDSP that the report was posted, but HDSP staff could have checked for and retrieved the results any time after this posting. On April 29, 2020, 27 days after completion of the report, HDSP staff collected the sample from DOJ and, upon return to HDSP, checked the web portal for the laboratory results for the first time and retrieved the report. On May 13, 2020, 14 days after HDSP staff obtained the laboratory results from the web portal but 41 days after the results were posted online, staff gave petitioner the RVR. On June 6, 2020, 24 days later, HDSP conducted the disciplinary hearing. On August 12, 2020, 67 days later, petitioner received the hearing report. On April 23, 2024, petitioner signed his petition for a writ of habeas corpus and filed it in the Amador County Superior Court. That court transferred the petition to the Lassen County Superior Court on June 20, 2024. In the petition, petitioner wrote, “I was barred from law library access from the end of 2019 until the middle of 2023. Since 2019 I have been transferred many times. At a few prisons I was able to access to [sic] law library for short periods of time. [H]owever, I was never able to get enough law library access to get wind under the wings of the claims now before this court. At one point, even begging the Superior Court of 4 Los Angeles County to intervene and permit me law library access … . In July 2023 the prison where I was housed began to provide access to Lexis Nexis and case law on the tablets. Ever since then I have been preparing this petition.” Petitioner attached a copy of the disciplinary hearing results to his petition. The evidence used to support findings that petitioner was guilty of a rules violation, include: (1) the RVR report which describes the discovery of the sample on February 18, 2020; (2) the Department of Justice/ Physical examination report dated; April 2, 2020, showing that the substance found on February 18 in petitioner’s cell tested positive for 3.270 grams gross of delta-9-tetrahyrdocannabinolic (THC); and (3) a photograph showing the controlled substance found in the cell. The trial court ordered CDCR to provide an informal response to the petition. CDCR filed an informal letter response and attached the RVR related to the incident. According to the report, “On April 02, 2020, California D.O.J. Laboratories reported that the evidence collected from … Inmate Kendall tested positive for THC. High Desert State Prison [ISU] did not receive the report from California D.O.J. until April 29, 2020, therefore making the discovery date of April 29, 2020.” The trial court issued an order for CDCR to show cause as to “why petitioner should not be granted relief on the grounds that HDSP failed to file and deliver a copy of the RVR to Petitioner within the 15-day time period required ... .” In the return to the petition, CDCR alleged, “the matters at issue in [petitioner’s] petition took place four years ago, but the petition was not filed until April 2024. [Petitioner] was obligated to file his petition ‘without substantial delay, or if delayed, adequately explain the delay.’ (In re Harris (1993) 5 Cal.4th 813, 828 (Harris), overruled on another ground by Shalabi v. City of Fontana (2021) 11 Cal.5th 843.) [Petitioner] has not provided adequate explanation for the almost four-year delay in bringing this petition, and thus the petition should be barred.” 5  With respect to the merits of petitioner’s claim, CDCR argued that petitioner had taken the position that he should have been provided notice of the charges within 15 days of the laboratory reports completion, but (1) he provided no evidence that HDSP had the report the day it was completed; and (2) he even attached a “contemporaneous chrono documenting” HDSP received the results on April 29, 2020. In his traverse, petitioner responded to CDCR’s allegations regarding whether he delayed in filing his petition by asserting nothing supported CDCR’s claim that the four years between the disciplinary hearing and petitioner’s filing of the petition was a substantial delay. He also argued that even if the delay was substantial, “the delay was caused by the significant and numerous impediments place by [CDCR] impeding [his] ability to conduct legal research and pursue his petition. Petitioner has indicated that he was barred from law library access from the end of 2019 until the middle of 2023, and there has been no denial of this fact. Further, he had been transferred numerous times between custodial institutions, there is no denial of this fact. When he was provided sufficient access to law library resources until July of 2023, Petitioner began to work diligently on his petition and filed in May of 2024.” The court ordered the parties to appear for an evidentiary hearing. Testimony at the Evidentiary hearing Officer Ben Parrish testified: Officer Parrish works in the ISU at HDSP as an evidence officer. As of September 2025 he had been in that assignment for about eight years. His duties include going to court “a lot,” bringing evidence to and from court, and bringing evidence to and from the DOJ laboratory. He is also in charge of the evidence room at HDSP and chains of custody of evidence. 6  The ISU deals with felonies committed on prison grounds. There are about 15 officers and five supervisors in the ISU, with different duties. In addition to Parrish, there is one other evidence officer, which was true in 2020. When HDSP staff discover suspected narcotics, someone calls the ISU. The ISU officer processes the evidence, takes it back to the ISU, and secures it in the evidence room. As part of the process, staff do a field test on the substance. When an inmate accepts the positive results of a field test (makes a field test waiver) after being Mirandized, the RVR process can begin immediately. If an inmate does not accept a positive field test result, the RVR process will not begin until HDSP gets the controlled substance back from the DOJ laboratory. This is because the field test results do not hold the same weight as a positive result from the DOJ absent a waiver from the inmate. The ISU prepares the evidence to go to the DOJ laboratory and delivers it. The laboratory HDSP uses is in Redding, California, about a two-and-one-half hour drive away. Officer Parrish and his evidence partner need to make the five-hour round trip to personally deliver suspected controlled substances, because you cannot mail them. Once a suspected controlled substance is dropped off at the laboratory, HDSP is “kind of at the mercy of DOJ. CDCR is kind of put on the back-burner [sic.] .... [S]treet cases ... get processed before us .... So, it can be anywhere from two months to six months ... for results to come back.” The DOJ laboratory does not notify HDSP staff when a substance has been tested and a report completed. Parrish testified that he finds out a laboratory report is completed when he travels to the laboratory to drop off new specimens and pick up specimens that have already been tested. They know the testing is complete at this point because, “[w]hatever we’re picking up we know is complete.” Once the evidence officers pick up a tested specimen, they bring it back to the office, check it back into the evidence room, generate a chronology report stating the date they traveled to the lab and picked up the substance, and print out the DOJ laboratory 7 report from the portal. HDSP treats the date of pickup and report-printing as the date of discovery. They notify staff responsible for drafting the RVR. There is no written policy regarding how often evidence officers travel to the DOJ laboratory, and Parrish believes it is left to the discretion of the evidence officers. From some time before Parrish became an evidence officer until the time of the hearing, HDSP evidence officers have been making the trip once a month. They feel “like that was a reasonable amount of time to make that trip down there and process everything.” This is because they only take approximately 10 items for testing a month, and given the time commitment the run takes, and evidence officers’ other duties, it is “not practical for [them] to do that every … day.” A run is very time consuming. Between the drive and paperwork that ensues upon return from the trips, Officer Parrish accrues overtime with every run. HDSP evidence officers do not get a physical lab report when they retrieve the tested substance from DOJ. All the officers do at the lab is a “chain of custody” exchange where they pick up the specimen. Evidence officers retrieve the laboratory results by going onto a bureau of forensic sciences web page. They do this after they have the “physical evidence” (tested substance) back in their custody. According to Parrish, once a laboratory report is completed, HDSP staff could go to the portal and retrieve it anytime—for example here they could have retrieved it on April 2, 2020, or any date thereafter. But they, “don’t have the controlled substance ... back in our custody, so [they] don’t generate that report until [they] have it back in CDCR custody.” Parrish agreed that he believes the date of discovery is when he gets the physical evidence back, not the date of the confirming laboratory report. The only ISU staff members that handle the evidence, and the only ones that would generate a copy of the laboratory results, are the evidence officers. 8  Officer Parrish believes the substance must be back in CDCR custody to author the RVR, because that “has just been the directive from [his] supervisors within the ISU office, that those are not authored until [HDSP has] it back in [their] physical custody. [He does not] check that website until it’s back. [He does not] even log into it until [they] receive [the] evidence back.” When the trial court asked Parrish if he has a routine of regularly checking the web portal to see if any results are ready, he responded he only checks when he makes the trip and brings a specimen back. He admitted that this means that if there is a specimen that has been tested that was not brought back or “missed” on the prior run, he would not know it had a two-month-old report until he checked online after the trip when he retrieved the specimen. Parrish testified he can look for test results for specimens he has delivered to the DOJ laboratory “any time” he wants. How long this check would take depends on how many specimens there are at the DOJ laboratory. He said it would not take long to look up 10 specimens. When the court pressed for a more specific answer, he said, “the number ten is a little distracting because I know I said I take about ten [at] a time, give or take, but sometimes they take months to test this stuff, so it piles up. So, technically, we could have 20, 30, 40, I don’t know how many there, in any given amount of time. But I would say a half hour.” Parrish agreed with the trial court assessment that if he spent a half hour once a week checking the web portal, he would know what was ready from the past week without waiting until the end of the month to get the results. Supplemental Briefing and Final Order At the close of the hearing, the trial court stated that it was satisfied that it was not unreasonable for HDSP personnel to make a once-a-month trip to the laboratory to deliver and collect physical evidence. However, the court continued to have questions regarding HDSP’s practices regarding the retrieval of test results and why if, 9 “information is out there on the website and can be obtained in just a matter of minutes” that practice was not being done. The court gave the parties the option to submit supplemental briefs and declarations to answer these questions. With its supplemental briefing, CDCR filed the declaration of a Criminalist Manager who works for the Bureau of Forensic Services division of the DOJ in Redding. He said that upon finishing of testing for narcotics, including required reviews, a report is automatically generated and uploaded to the web portal for access by the requesting agency. He confirmed the Redding facility does not provide its client agencies notice when a report is available, and the client needs to access the report on the portal by providing the agency name, the report number, or the name of the person attached to the tested evidence. He stated that client agencies must arrange for a return of their tested evidence by shipping or in-person pickup once testing is complete. “The Redding facility is not equipped for long-term storage of narcotics.” In its final order, the trial court concluded that under the facts of this case, given the substantial distance between HDSP and the DOJ laboratory, once-monthly visits to the lab “to personally secure and deliver dangerous substances are sufficient to establish that the policy is neither clearly erroneous nor unauthorized.” However, the trial court took issue with HDSP’s practice of not checking the web portal for results until it retrieved the tested substance. The court noted that the evidence showed a review of the portal for all samples currently submitted would take “no more than half an hour ... and can be done at anytime, but is not. Respondent offers no explanation of why this practice constitutes reasonable diligence in their investigation and delivery of the RVR to an inmate.” The court did not accept CDCR’s argument that the laboratory results and physical evidence needed to be received for the time limits to give an inmate notice come into play to ensure due process and the integrity of the chain of custody of the evidence. The court 10 noted an absence of citation to statute, regulation, or department policy to support this position. The court found the argument that section 3320, subdivision (m), of title 15 of the California Code of Regulations supports this position unpersuasive, because (1) the RVR in this case does not reflect the disposition of the tested substance; and (2) nothing in the regulation indicates the disposition requires current presence at the institution. The court also concluded that physical presence of the substance at the institution was not essential to establishing the reliability of evidence used to try the inmate or a complete chain of custody. The court also reasoned that if the substance was needed for the hearing, the 30-day time period after the RVR issues in which a facility has to bring a hearing coupled with the 15 days from discovery to issue a notice left ample time for HDSP to retrieve test results in a weekly portal check, give notice based on those results, retrieve the specimen in one of their monthly runs, and hold a timely hearing. The court concluded, “[r]espondent’s policy of requiring the presence of the controlled substance,” before checking for results, “and thus deliberately delaying acceptance of the completed lab report is not justified by any legitimate institutional need or concern and violates the requirements of Penal Code § 2932(c)(1) and petitioner’s right to timely proceedings under both that code and the CCR.” CDCR appealed. We denied CDCR’s petition for a writ of supersedeas to stay the trial court’s order. DISCUSSION I Timeliness CDCR relies on several cases finding that, absent a showing of good cause or a limited exception, a petition for writ of habeas corpus must be filed without substantial delay. (Robinson v. Lewis (2020) 9 Cal.5th 883, 897-898; In re Reno (2012) 55 Cal.4th 428, 459-460; In re Robbins (1998) 18 Cal.4th 770, 780; Harris, supra, 5 Cal.4th at p. 11 842, overruled, in part, on other grounds by Shalabi v. City of Fontana, supra, 11 Cal.5th at p. 855; In re Clark (1993) 5 Cal.4th 750, 783-785; In re Hampton 48 Cal.App.5th 463, 474-476.) However, these cases all involve attacks on trial court convictions and sentences. (Robinson, at p. 890 [“Someone who wishes to challenge a state judgment of conviction by filing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in state court must present each claim in a timely fashion”]; Reno, at p. 444 [challenged conviction and death sentence]; Robbins, at p. 779 [same]; Harris, at p. 823 [challenged convictions of second degree murder, attempted murder, and robbery]; Clark, at p. 759 [challenged conviction and death sentence]; Hampton, at pp. 468-469 [challenged conviction for second degree murder].) Courts have not “strictly applied” the rules regarding timeliness “and their limited exceptions to cases in which the habeas corpus petition does not attempt to collaterally attack the petitioner’s conviction or sentence. (See In re Espinoza (2011) 192 Cal.App.4th 97 [] [petition challenging prison policies regarding visitation]; In re Burdan (2008) 169 Cal.App.4th 18 [] [petition challenging parole decision].)” (Gomez v. Superior Court (2012) 54 Cal.4th 293, 309.) “In [In re] Sanders[ (1999) 21 Cal.4th 697], the high court explained the rationale for requiring a prompt petition” in the context of a capital case: “ ‘By requiring that such challenges be made reasonably promptly, we vindicate society’s interest in the finality of its criminal judgments, as well as the public’s interest “in the orderly and reasonably prompt implementation of its laws.” [Citation.] Such timeliness rules serve other salutary interests as well. Requiring a prisoner to file his or her challenge promptly helps ensure that possibly vital evidence will not be lost through the passage of time or the fading of memories. In addition, we cannot overestimate the value of the psychological repose that may come for the victim, or the surviving family and friends of the victim, generated by the knowledge the ordeal is finally over.’ (In re Sanders, supra, at p. 703.)” (In re Burdan, supra, 169 Cal.App.4th at p. 31.) 12  The same considerations do not apply here, where the finality of the conviction is not at issue, and the one who faces the most potential prejudice from the delay is the petitioner, who risks not having his case considered before the time he might benefit from restoration of his custody credits. (See In re Burdan, supra, 169 Cal.App.4th at p. 31.) Additionally, even if the standard were to apply, petitioner stated a valid reason for much of his delay: he lacked meaningful library access for most of the four years that elapsed. (See In re Robbins, supra, 18 Cal.4th at p. 780 [“A petitioner must allege, with specificity, facts showing when information offered in support of the claim was obtained, and that the information neither was known, nor reasonably should have been known, at any earlier time” and has the burden to establish an absence of substantial delay, good cause for the delay, or an exception applies].) Under the circumstances here, petitioner’s nine month delay after he regained access to a law library in filing his petition was not unreasonable. CDCR has not demonstrated the trial court erred in allowing this case to proceed to the merits. II CDCR’s Diligence in Conducting the Investigation CDCR argues that the trial court erred in concluding it (vis a vis HDSP staff) (1) did not exercise reasonable diligence in investigating petitioner’s disciplinary charges; and (2) deliberately delayed the receipt of laboratory test results by waiting until it collected the specimen to check for results on the web portal. We agree. “With respect to mixed questions of law and fact, this court reviews the trial court’s application of law to fact under a deferential clearly erroneous standard if the inquiry is predominantly factual. But when the application of law to fact is predominantly legal ... this court’s review is de novo. ... These basic principles of appellate review apply to an appeal from an order granting a petition for habeas corpus 13 after an evidentiary hearing.” (In re Collins (2001) 86 Cal.App.4th 1176, 1181.) Here, we consider whether largely undisputed facts support the trial court’s application of section 2932(c)(1)(A)’s requirement that CDCR “us[e] reasonable diligence to investigate.” Accordingly, de novo review is appropriate. “ ‘We give great deference to the interpretation of a statute by an administrative body authorized to promulgate regulations to promote its purposes, unless that interpretation is clearly erroneous. [Citations.]’ (In re Kelly (1983) 33 Cal.3d 267, 277 [].) ‘The contemporaneous administrative construction of a statute by an administrative agency charged with its enforcement and interpretation is entitled to great weight unless it is clearly erroneous or unauthorized. [Citations.]’ (Rivera v. City of Fresno (1971) 6 Cal.3d 132, 140 [].) When an administrative agency is construing a controlling statute, the ‘appropriate mode of review ... is one in which the judiciary, although taking ultimate responsibility for the construction of the statute, accords great weight and respect to the administrative construction. (See, e.g., Davis, Administrative Law Treatise (2d ed., 1980 pocket supp.) § 29.01-1.)’ (International Business Machines v. State Bd. of Equalization (1980) 26 Cal.3d 923, 931, fn. 7 [].)” (Semons, supra, 208 Cal.App.3d at p. 1028.) Here, the trial court found, and no one disputes, that HDSP’s ISU practice of delivering and retrieving substances from the DOJ laboratory once a month is reasonably diligent. The trial court took issue, however, with HDSP’s practice of “delaying acceptance of the completed lab report” until staff retrieves the tested substance from the laboratory. To support its finding that this practice does not satisfy section 2932(c)(1)(A)’s reasonable diligence requirement, the trial court cited a footnote from Semons. In the footnote, the Semons court clarified that though it allowed CDCR’s interpretation of section 2932(c)(1)(A) that treated the date positive laboratory results were received as the date of discovery, “[b]y this determination we do not in any way condone deliberate delay in the obtaining of toxicological reports. It may be that if an actual pattern and 14 practice of unreasonable delay were shown, injunctive relief would be appropriate.” (Semons, supra, 208 Cal.App.3d at p. 1029, fn. 11.) Section 2932(c)(1)(A) requires reasonable diligence, not perfection or even best practices. (See People v. Andrade (2015) 238 Cal.App.4th 1274, 1293 [when construing another statute, stating the reasonable diligence is essentially due diligence, and that due diligence requires reasonable efforts, not perfection]; see also, People v. Gomez (2025) 115 Cal.App.5th 943, 958-960.) The question before us is not whether HDSP’s procedures in obtaining laboratory testing and laboratory reports in controlled substance cases could have been quicker; rather it is whether the procedure the prison used was reasonable under the circumstances. Here, Officer Parrish testified about a host of duties—including frequent court appearances—that he and his fellow evidence officer carry out. While taking half an hour to check to see if 10 pending tests have finally reached the portal may not seem particularly inconvenient, HDSP’s policy of waiting until it knows a report is ready because the lab has released the specimen is a reasonable one. First, using this practice staff can be certain that if an inmate demands an opportunity to arrange for testing of the substance, that substance is, in fact, available. Second, a half-hour weekly check of the portal adds up to 26 hours, or around three workdays, a year to check and see if results are available. Using the practice they have in place, staff knows the results are available by the time they go to the web portal to obtain the laboratory reports. Consequently, HDSP staff only checks for each report once, rather than every week until the report happens to be ready. Third, the time between when a report is ready and when HDSP will obtain it under their current practice is not particularly significant. Here that was 27 days. Given that it typically takes between two and six months (approximately 60 and 180 days) to complete tests, HDSP’s practice of obtaining the lab results only following its monthly 15 trip to the laboratory does not significantly add to the amount of time it might take from the date a substance is found to the date it issues an RVR. Fourth, section 3320, subdivision (m), of title 15 of the California Code of Regulations requires a hearing official to “record the disposition of the item or substance in the disposition section of the RVR.” Given the nature of the substances at issue, this is a critical step to ensuring a tested substance has been safely controlled or disposed of. Here, the lab is not equipped to store narcotics long-term, and after DOJ tests a substance it requires HDSP to pick it up. Waiting to check the portal until the substance is retrieved from the laboratory enables HDSP staff to ensure both that the final RVR can state the disposition and that the disposition is achieved using a secure chain of custody. That the hearing officer here failed to record the disposition does not change the fact that the ISU procedures used here served to meet the regulation’s requirement. To ensure the substance has been safely controlled by the time the final RVR is prepared, evidence officers need to have retrieved the substance. In short, HDSP’s practice is reasonably diligent, particularly given staff’s own understanding of the day-to-day press of business at the facility and the regulatory requirements that govern the RVR process. For the same reasons, we find HDSP’s practices did not amount to deliberate delay of the investigation, under the facts of this case. Due, in part, to a lack of notice from the laboratory that the lab testing results were available through the portal, HDSP staff did not know that test results were available before they retrieved the tested specimens from the laboratory. That they might have known sooner is not the test for reasonableness; the law does not require that the institution obtain the results as soon as possible. The delay was neither unreasonable under the circumstances here nor did it demonstrate a deliberate delay of the disciplinary process. 16  DISPOSITION We reverse the order of the trial court and remand with direction to issue a new order in accordance with this decision. /s/ HULL, J. We concur: /s/ EARL, P. J. /s/ ROBIE, J. 17