Adam Keith Waldman v. Alabama Prison CommissionerAdam Keith Waldman v. Alabama Prison Commissioner
Limestone CF Warden, Limestone CF—Inmate Trust Fund, Harvest, AL, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
Bart Gregory Harmon, Alabama Department of Corrections, Legal Division, William Glenn Parker, Jr., Office of the Governor, Andrew Lynn Brasher, Luther J. Strange, III, Alabama Attorney General’s Office, Montgomery, AL, for Defendants-Appellees.
Before TJOFLAT, FAY and MARCUS, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Adam Waldman, an Alabama prisoner proceeding pro se, appeals the District Court’s dismissal of his complaint under
I.
In September 2005, Waldman was convicted in Alabama state court of first-degree robbery, first-degree attempted assault, and first-degree kidnapping of a minor, all under Alabama law. He was sentenced to two life sentences plus an additional ten years. Waldman argues, and Appellees do not contest, that his crime did not involve sexual conduct with the child he abducted. Rather, he claims that the trial record shows that he abducted the child in order to obtain a ransom or use the child as a shield or hostage. Nevertheless, Alabama law includes first and second-degree kidnapping of a minor in its list of “sex offenses” under ASORCNA.
Under ASORCNA, every adult sex offender, regardless of when his crimes were committed or when his duty to register arose, must register specified personal information in each county that he intends to reside, work, or attend school. See
Moreover, ASORCNA and a predecessor provision enacted in 2005 make persons convicted of “sex offenses” ineligible for parole. See
Pursuant to ASORCNA, the ADOC adopted a classification manual that classifies inmates according to the type of offense of which they were convicted. The ADOC classification manual prescribes that inmates who have been convicted of a sex offense should receive an “S” suffix added to their inmate number.1 It also renders them ineligible for minimum custody, which means they must necessarily be made ineligible for work release and other early-release programs as well. Waldman also contends that, due to his “S” classification, he is forced to attend classes or group therapy sessions for sex offenders in prison. The manual requires
Waldman contends that prison officials classified him as a sex offender pursuant to the ADOC manual in May 2013, many years after his confinement began. He alleges that those officials failed to observe the ADOC classification manual’s 24-hour notice requirement before doing so. After failing to obtain relief by protesting the classification to prison officials, Waldman brought this lawsuit pro se, filing a verified complaint under
Before Waldman served process, a Magistrate Judge entered a report and recommendation (R & R) recommending that the District Court dismiss the complaint under
II.
We review de novo a district court’s sua sponte dismissal for failure to state a claim for relief under
Under
We review each of Waldman’s arguments sequentially. We find that the District Court did not err in dismissing Wald-
a. Procedural Due Process
The Due Process Clause protects against deprivations of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
We conclude that the District Court did not err when it dismissed Waldman’s procedural due process claim for failure to state a claim. Waldman’s procedural due process claim rests on three arguments: (1) in classifying him as a sex offender pursuant to ASORCNA and the ADOC classification manual, prison officials deprived him of a liberty interest by triggering post-release conditions, (2) prison officials failed to afford him the process he was owed by failing to follow the classification manual’s notice requirements, and (3) in classifying him as a sex offender pursuant to ASORCNA and the ADOC classification manual, prison officials deprived him of a liberty interest by changing the conditions of his confinement. We address those arguments in order.
First, insofar as Waldman challenges ASORCNA’s post-release restrictions, such as the travel restriction, that challenge is not ripe. To determine whether a claim is ripe, we must weigh two factors: “(1) the hardship to the parties of withholding court consideration; and (2) the fitness of the issues for judicial review.” Id. at 1290. As part of the first factor, we ask whether the plaintiff “has suffered injury or come into immediate danger of suffering injury.” Id. A merely speculative threat of injury is insufficient. Id.
Here, there is no indication that Waldman is due to be released at any point in the foreseeable future. See id. at 1290. Waldman was sentenced to two life sentences and an additional ten years. The first of ASORCNA’s post-release conditions, the notification requirement, does not attach until 30 days prior to an inmate’s release. Id. Thus, with respect to any post-release conditions that might be imposed on him, the threat of injury is merely speculative at this point.
Next, to the extent that Waldman challenges ADOC officials’ application of the notice requirements in the ADOC classification manual, his claim is barred by the Eleventh Amendment. Such a challenge is not a procedural due process challenge—it is a claim that state officials violated state law in carrying out their official responsibilities. Claims of that nature are barred by the Eleventh Amendment, even when, as here, they are brought into federal court as pendent claims coupled with suits raising federal questions. Pennhurst State Sch. and Hosp. v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 120-21, 104 S.Ct. 900, 918, 79 L.Ed.2d 67 (1984). We thus lack jurisdiction to consider that claim.
As to Waldman’s challenge to his inmate classification as a sex offender under the ADOC classification manual, Waldman does not have a liberty interest in not being classified as a sex offender, because he was convicted of a sex offense under Alabama law. Waldman cites our decision in Kirby to support his argument that he
We concluded that Edmond had a liberty interest in not being branded as a sex offender because the classification altered the conditions of confinement so severely that it essentially exceeded the sentence imposed by the court. Id. at 1288, 1291. We thus held that an “inmate who has never been convicted of a sex crime is entitled to due process before the state declares him to be a sex offender.” Id. We then remanded the case to the district court to determine whether Alabama provided Edmond with enough pre-classification process to satisfy the Constitution. Id.
The facts in Kirby reveal a critical distinction: the challenger in that case was never convicted of a crime that was classified by law as a sex offense. In contrast, in this case, Waldman was convicted of a crime that was statutorily categorized under Alabama law as a sex offense at the time of his conviction and has remained so ever since. Although the Alabama legislature did not enact ASORCNA until 2011, six years after Waldman’s conviction, ASORCNA’s predecessor statute had, since 1998, also classified kidnapping of a minor as a sex offense. See
Indeed, because first-degree kidnapping counted as a sex offense under Alabama law when Waldman was convicted, our decision in United States v. Veal, 322 F.3d 1275 (11th Cir. 2003) (per curiam), controls in this case. In Veal, we held that a federal prisoner convicted of transporting or shipping child pornography was properly subject to a special condition of supervised release requiring that he register with the appropriate State Sexual Offender Registration Agency upon release. Id. at 1278. Although Veal argued that both the record and his personal history in no way demonstrated that he had had sexual contact with children, we concluded that his reliance on Kirby was misplaced because he pled guilty to a federal offense that was categorized as a sex crime under federal law at the time of his conviction. Id. Thus, we concluded that no further process was owed him before he was classified as a sex offender. Id.
We therefore conclude that since Waldman was convicted of a crime that constituted a sex offense under Alabama law at the time of his conviction, he was not entitled to any additional process before being classified as a sex offender by prison officials. The District Court therefore did not err in finding that Waldman failed to raise a cognizable procedural due process claim.3
b. Substantive Due Process
We now turn to Waldman’s substantive due process claim. A violation of substantive due process occurs when an individual’s fundamental rights are infringed, regardless of the fairness of the procedure. McKinney v. Pate, 20 F.3d 1550, 1556 (11th Cir. 1994) (en banc). The Fourteenth Amendment forbids the government from infringing fundamental liberty interests at all, unless the infringement is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest. Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 721, 117 S.Ct. 2258, 2268, 138 L.Ed.2d 772 (1997). Analysis of a substantive due process claim must begin by crafting a careful description of the asserted right. Doe v. Moore, 410 F.3d 1337, 1343 (11th Cir. 2005). Then, we must determine whether the asserted right is “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition, and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty, such that neither liberty nor justice would exist if they were sacrificed.” Id. (quotations omitted) (quoting Glucksberg, 521 U.S. at 720-21, 117 S.Ct. at 2268). We have previously concluded, in the context of Florida’s sex offender registration statute, that the right of a sex offender to refuse subsequent registration of his or her personal information with state law enforcement and prevent publication of that information on the state sex offender website is not “deeply rooted.” Id. at 1345. We noted that a state’s publication of truthful information that is already available to the public does not infringe the fundamental constitutional rights of liberty and privacy. Id.
Where a fundamental liberty interest does not exist, substantive due process nonetheless protects against the arbitrary and oppressive exercise of government power. See Cnty. of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 845-46, 118 S.Ct. 1708, 1716, 140 L.Ed.2d 1043 (1998). Executive action is arbitrary in a constitutional sense when it “shocks the conscience.” Id. at 846, 118 S.Ct. at 1717. Only the most egregious conduct is sufficiently arbitrary to constitute a substantive due process violation. Tinker v. Beasley, 429 F.3d 1324, 1328 (11th Cir. 2005) (per curiam). For example, conduct designed to injure someone in a fashion that is not justified by any
Here, the District Court did not err when it dismissed Waldman’s substantive due process claim. To the extent that Waldman challenges ASORCNA’s post-conviction conditions, that challenge is not ripe for the same reasons discussed above. See Veal, 322 F.3d at 1278; Kirby, 195 F.3d at 1289. With respect to the prison conditions imposed by the classification, those conditions do not infringe any fundamental rights, and such conditions do not shock the conscience. We have already determined that sex offender registration laws do not infringe upon fundamental rights, and the same reasoning applies to inmate classification. See Moore, 410 F.3d at 1344-45. Moreover, although Waldman’s offense did not involve sexual contact with a minor, the prison conditions imposed on him, like the requirement that he attend sex offender classes or therapy and his ineligibility for work release, further the goal of protecting children and are not so egregious as to “shock the conscience.” Waldman was convicted of kidnapping a minor, and he admits that he did so for ransom or to use the child as a shield; he can hardly argue that the State shocks the conscience by imposing restrictions on his release in the name of protecting children. See Tinker, 429 F.3d at 1328 (stating that conduct must be not be justifiable by any government interest in order to rise to the “conscience shocking” level necessary to amount to a substantive due process violation).
In sum, we conclude that the District Court did not err in concluding that Waldman did not raise a cognizable substantive due process claim.
c. Ex Post Facto Clause
The Ex Post Facto Clause prohibits imposition of laws that punish acts that were not punishable when committed, or laws that increase the punishment for an act after that act has been done. United States v. W.B.H., 664 F.3d 848, 852 (11th Cir. 2011). The ex post facto bar applies only to criminal laws, however, not to civil regulatory regimes. Id.
Here, we consider Waldman’s arguments sequentially and conclude that the District Court did not err in dismissing his ex post facto claim. First, with respect to his challenge of ASORCNA’s post-release conditions like the travel restriction, that challenge is not ripe for the same reasons already discussed. See Veal, 322 F.3d at 1278; Kirby, 195 F.3d at 1289.
Next, with respect to his argument that the classification renders him ineligible for parole and thus changes the original terms of his sentence, Waldman has sued the wrong defendants and therefore lacks standing to make that challenge in this case. In order to establish standing, a plaintiff must show that (1) there is an “injury in fact,” (2) the injury is causally traceable to the defendant, and (3) the plaintiff’s injury can be redressed by a favorable decision. Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-61, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 2136, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992). Else, the case is not a “case or controversy” under Article III and federal courts lack jurisdiction over it. Id. at 560, 112 S.Ct. at 2136.
The officials named in Waldman’s suit do not set the standards for parole eligibility, nor does the ADOC classification manual. Rather, ASORCNA does. See
Finally, with respect to his argument that the prison conditions imposed on him as a result of his classification constitute ex post facto punishment, the District Court did not err in finding that he did not state a valid ex post facto claim. Although Waldman’s classification was changed years after his incarceration began, he did not allege that the ADOC classification manual changed the classification protocol previously in place. Even assuming it did, the manual simply changed the State’s classification protocol to reflect longstanding Alabama statutory law, which classified child kidnapping as a “sex offense” years before Waldman’s conviction. He thus cannot argue that his reclassification punished previously unpunishable conduct, or that it increased a preexisting punishment.
In any event, Waldman concedes that the ADOC classification manual was implemented pursuant to ASORCNA, and ASORCNA’s stated purpose is civil, not punitive, in nature. See
To show that a regulatory scheme with a stated civil purpose is so punitive as to rise to the level of an ex post facto violation, we consider primarily five factors: whether the scheme “has been regarded in our history and traditions as a punishment”; whether it “imposes an affirmative disability or restraint”; whether it “promotes the traditional aims of punishment”; whether it “has a rational connection to a nonpunitive purpose”; and whether it “is excessive with respect to [its stated] purpose.” Id. at 97, 123 S.Ct. at 1149.
Here, taken as true, none of the allegations in Waldman’s complaint would provide the “clearest proof” necessary to override the presumption that Alabama’s stated civil intent to protect children is actually punitive. See Windwalker v. Governor of Ala., 579 Fed.Appx. 769, 772 (11th Cir. 2014) (per curiam) (concluding ASORCNA’s post-release restrictions are rationally connected with its stated civil purpose to protect minors). Since any challenge to ASORCNA’s post-release requirements are not ripe in this case, we must review only the confinement conditions imposed by the ADOC classification manual.
With respect to those confinement conditions, examination of the above factors reveals that many of them cut against Waldman. We specifically note the factor the Supreme Court has identified as the most “significant” one in the ex post facto analysis: rational connection. Smith, 538 U.S. at 102, 123 S.Ct. at 1140. Here, a rational connection clearly exists between Alabama’s stated goal of protecting minors
III.
For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that Waldman did not state a cognizable claim upon which relief could be granted. Therefore, the District Court did not abuse its discretion in dismissing his claim.
AFFIRMED in part and DISMISSED in part for lack of jurisdiction.