DEVAR HURD, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. STACEY FREDENBURGH, IN HER INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY, Defendant-Appellee.
Docket No. 19-3482
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
August Term 2020 (Argued: November 18, 2020 | Decided: January 12, 2021)
19-3482 Hurd v. Fredenburgh
Before: WALKER, KATZMANN, WESLEY, Circuit Judges.
Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Matsumoto, J.), dismissing the complaint for failure to state a claim.
Because of errors in his sentencing calculation, Plaintiff-Appellant Devar Hurd was incarcerated for almost a year past the date on which state law mandated his release. Hurd sued Defendant-Appellee Stacey Fredenburgh, a New York State prison official, alleging that she violated his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights by keeping him imprisoned based upon those errors. The district court concluded that Hurd‘s alleged injury was not cognizable under either constitutional provision and, in the alternative, that Fredenburgh was entitled to qualified immunity.
We agree with the district court that the complaint should be dismissed, but agree with its reasoning only in part. Cоntrary to the district court‘s determination, we hold that Hurd alleged a harm of constitutional magnitude under the Eighth Amendment because New York State lacked authority to detain him past his mandatory conditional release date. We also hold that Hurd had a liberty interest in his right to conditional release protected by the Fourteenth Amendment‘s substantive due process clause, and the district court erred in concluding otherwise. But because neither of these rights was clearly established before today, Fredenburgh is entitled to qualified immunity for any responsibility she may have had for Hurd‘s prolonged detention.
Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.
JACOB LOUP (Joel B. Rudin, on the brief), Law Offices of Joel B. Rudin, P.C., New York, NY, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
LINDA FANG, Assistant Solicitor General (Barbara D. Underwood, Solicitor General, Anisha S. Dasgupta, Deputy Solicitor General, on the brief), for Letitia James, Attorney General of the State of New York, New York, NY, for Defendant-Appellee.
Devar Hurd was charged in a single state indiсtment with nine misdemeanors and one felony, which took three trials to resolve. He remained in local custody throughout the lengthy trial process. Hurd received a sentence specific to each conviction, but those sentences merged into one by operation of New York law. When Hurd was transferred into state custody to serve what became his single felony sentence, his credit for time already served and good behavior entitled him to immediate release. But Hurd was not released from state custody for nearly a year. He contends this prolonged incarceration violated his rights under the Eighth Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment‘s substantive due process clause.
BACKGROUND1
Devar Hurd was arrested in July 2013 and indicted for seven counts of misdemeanor criminal contempt in the second
Hurd‘s first trial in December 2014 ended in a mistrial. At his retrial in October 2015, the jury convicted Hurd of the nine misdemeanor counts; the state court declared a mistrial on the felony. The state court imposed a set of definite sentences for the misdemeanors ranging from 90 days to one year each, to run consecutive to the others, in the custody of NYCDOC. Under New York law, however, because the aggregate term of these definite sentences exceeded two years, Hurd‘s term of imprisonment on the misdemeanor counts was сapped at two years. See
Hurd faced another retrial on the felony count in March 2016; the jury convicted him of stalking in the second degree. The state court sentenced Hurd to an indeterminate sentence with a minimum of one-and-one-third years and a maximum of four years, to be served in the custody of the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (“DOCCS“). Because the state court did not specify the manner in which Hurd‘s felony sentence was to run, New York law mandated that it would run concurrently with his two-year sentence on the misdemeanors. See
Hurd would not have to serve four full years in prison after his sentence was imposed, however. New York law provides that аny sentence “shall be credited with and diminished by the amount of time the person spent in custody prior to the commencement of such sentence as a result of the charge that culminated in the sentence.”
Thus, Hurd was entitled to credit against his maximum four-year “state sentence” for all the time he spent in NYCDOC custody from his arrest in July 2013 to his transfer to DOCCS custody in April 2016.
New York law also provides for “good-time credit,” whereby an inmate “may receive time allowance against the term or maximum term of his or her sentence . . . for good behavior . . . .”
The New York Court of Appeals has referred to a conditional release date as “the statutorily mandated release date, calculated by applying both his good behavior time and his jail time, or time served awaiting trial.” Eiseman v. New York, 70 N.Y.2d 175, 180 (1987) (Kaye, J.) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Thus, conditional release under New York law is unlike parole, which is a discretionary decision reserved to the judgment of the parole board. As then- Judge Kaye‘s explanation suggests, conditional release is a mathematical concept: an inmate will have completed their term of imprisonment when (1) the number of pre- and post-trial custody days served, plus (2) the
Hurd was transferred from NYCDOC custody into DOCCS custody in April 2016. Whenever an inmate is transferred from local to state custody, the local jurisdiction must calculate the inmate‘s jail-time credit and provide DOCCS with a certified record of that credit. See
Assuming his good-time credit would be approved, the combination of his jail-time credit and good-time credit gave Hurd a conditional release date of March 17, 2016—pre-dating his transfer into DOCCS custody. This conditional release date was reflected on the Legal Date Computation. Thus, at the time of his arrival in state custody, Hurd “was told that he was eligible to be immediately released.” J.A. 17. DOCCS approved Hurd‘s good-time credit on April 19, 2016, at which point he satisfied the statutory requirements entitling him to conditional release.
DOCCS Inmate Records Coordinator Stacey Fredenburgh began to process Hurd‘s release documents. Hurd‘s complaint sets out a series of interactions between Fredenburgh and NYCDOC all centered around verifying the correct computation of his local jail-time credit. Without identifying a reason for any animus towards him, Hurd alleges that Fredenburgh and NYCDOC employees—most notably Principal Administrative Assоciate for NYCDOC‘s Legal Division, Edwin Felicien—“agreed to reduce Mr. Hurd‘s jail-time credit so that he would not be released.” J.A. 17. Between April and June 2016, Felicien sent Fredenburgh four amended JTCs, each of which reflected a different, and much lower, jail-time credit than the 996 days reflected in the original JTC. It is undisputed that each of these revised JTCs was wrong. The last amended JTC credited Hurd with 508 days of jail-time credit. As a result, DOCCS no longer considered Hurd eligible for conditional release; Hurd remained in prison.
Hurd pursued the official grievance process, filed two notices of claim, and lodged informal letter complaints to prison officials, including Fredenburgh, protesting that he was being held past his conditional release date. Fredenburgh responded in a letter to Hurd, telling him “that she could do nothing to address his concerns and that he must contact ‘Rikers Island‘” (an apparent reference to NYCDOC). J.A. 19. DOCCS took no other action in response to Hurd‘s complaints.
Finally, Hurd‘s counsel contacted NYCDOC‘s legal department on March 20, 2017. Three days later, NYCDOC sent an amended JTC crediting Hurd with the original 996 days of jail-time credit. DOCCS released Hurd on March 30, 2017—11 months and 11 days after the date on which he was entitled to immediate release.
Hurd filed the instant lawsuit under
Hurd also filed a state law false imprisonment claim in New York‘s Court of Claims. Two weeks after the district court dismissed Hurd‘s § 1983 complaint, the Court of Claims granted summary judgment for the State, concluding that Fredenburgh acted reasonably considering her state law obligations and that Hurd‘s prolonged detention was attributable to the City‘s errors only.2
The Court of Claims noted that NYCDOC has the obligation under
The Court of Claims concluded that, although “Fredenburgh‘s actions may have resulted in DOCCS receiving incorrect information, . . . her actions were reasonable at the time.” Add. 35. It reasoned that the City‘s errors caused Hurd‘s prolonged detention, and Hurd‘s proper recourse was against the City, not the State. Hurd did not appeal the decision.
Hurd did appeal the dismissal of his federal complaint.
DISCUSSION
We review de novo a district court‘s decision granting a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, including on qualified immunity grounds. See Hernandez v. United States, 939 F.3d 191, 198 (2d Cir. 2019); Charles W. v. Maul, 214 F.3d 350, 356 (2d Cir. 2000). In conducting our review, we “accept as true all factual allegations and draw from them all reasonable inferences; but we are not required to credit conclusory allegations or legal conclusions couched as factual allegations.” Hernandez, 939 F.3d at 198 (citation omitted).
The crux of both of Hurd‘s constitutional arguments is that “[o]n April 19, 2016, Hurd had enough jail-time credit and approved good-time credit to make his conditional release from prison mandatory under state law. However, Fredenburgh worked with an official of [NYCDOC] to reduce Hurd‘s jail-time credit so that he would not be released on his mandatory
After finding that Hurd failed to state a claim for violations of his Eighth or Fourteenth Amendment rights, the district court concluded in the alternative that Fredenburgh was entitled to qualified immunity. We agree with the district court‘s latter determination, but we disagree with its conclusions that Hurd did not plausibly allege harm to either his Eighth or Fourteenth Amendment rights.3
I. Eighth Amendment
“A plaintiff asserting an Eighth Amendment claim pursuant to
To satisfy the first requirement, a plaintiff must plead “a harm of a magnitude that violates a person‘s eighth amendment rights.” Calhoun v. N.Y. State Div. of Parole Officers, 999 F.2d 647, 654 (2d Cir. 1993) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). “The Eighth Amendment[] . . . proscribes more than physically barbarous punishments. It prohibits penalties that arе grossly disproportionate to the offense, as well as those that transgress today‘s broad and idealistic concepts of dignity, civilized standards, humanity, and decency.” Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678, 685 (1978) (internal quotation marks, alteration, and citations omitted).
The constitutional claim is not measured by the punishment alone, for “an Eighth Amendment violation typically requires a state of mind that is the equivalent of criminal recklessness.” Francis, 942 F.3d at 150 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). “This standard requires that only the deliberate infliction of punishment, and not an ordinary lack of due care for prisoner interests or safety, lead to liability.” Id. (alteration and citation omitted). Under this standard, prison officials can be found “deliberately indifferent to their own clerical errors on the basis of
The district court concluded that Hurd failed to allege a harm of constitutional magnitude because he was released before his maximum sentence expired. We disagree. The Eighth Amendment prohibits “the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain,” including punishments that are “totally without penological justification.” Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 173, 183 (1976). There is no penological justification for incarceration beyond a mandatory release date because “any deterrent and retributive purposes served by [the inmate‘s] time in jail were fulfilled as of that date.” See Sample v. Diecks, 885 F.2d 1099, 1108 (3d Cir. 1989).
“Next to bodily security, freedom of choice and movement has the highest place in the spectrum of values recognized by our Constitution.” Id. at 1109. For that reason, unauthorized detention of just one day past an inmate‘s mandatory release date qualifies as a harm of constitutional magnitude under the first prong of the Eighth Amendment analysis.4 Hurd‘s unauthorized imprisonment for
almost one year certainly qualifies under that standard. See id. (“Detention for a significant period beyond the term of one‘s sentence inflicts a harm of a magnitude [recognized under the Eighth Amendment].“).
It matters not that Hurd was detained past his statutory conditional release date as opposed to the expiration of the maximum sentence imposed on him by the sentencing judge. By using the word “shall,” New York chose to make conditional release mandatory upon the approval of good-time credit and the inmate‘s request for release. See
In effect, Hurd‘s conditional release date became the operative date on which his maximum term of imprisonment expired. Once Hurd met the statutory requirements for conditional release, his release from prison was mandatory under state law. Fredenburgh does not dispute that DOCCS had no authority to keep Hurd incarcerated past his conditional release date for the crimes of which
constitutional violation only where that harm is deliberately inflicted—avoids the arbitrary task of distinguishing between the permissible and impermissible length of unauthorized detention under the Constitution. Moreover, it reflects the notion that freedom from unlawful restraint is a right so core to our understanding of liberty that suffering even one day of unlawful detention is a harm recognized by the Constitution.
he was convicted and sentenced. Even assuming the State could impose some supervisory conditions
That does not mean Hurd suffered a violation of his Eighth Amendment rights, however. Nor does it mean an inmate whose release is not processed on their conditional release date is entitled to damages under § 1983. Far from it. If a period of prolonged detention results from discretionary decisions made in good faith, mistake, or processing or other administrative delays, as opposed to the deliberate indifference of prison officials, then there is no Eighth Amendment
liability. The deliberate indifference prong will do most of the work under these and similar circumstances, as “[t]he degree tо which a harm is ‘unnecessary’ in the sense of being unjustified by the exigencies of prison administration will affect the state-of-mind requirement a plaintiff must meet to demonstrate that a particular prison official violated the eighth amendment.” Sample, 885 F.2d at 1109.
To that end, the district court concluded that “Fredenburgh‘s alleged conduct is troublesome and would certainly satisfy deliberate indifference if not willfulness, as [Hurd] alleges Fredenburgh agreed with Felicien to keep [Hurd] incarcerated past his conditional release date.” J.A. 57. Fredenburgh argues that collateral estoppel applies here because of the Court of Claims’ finding that she acted reasonably under the circumstances, and that Hurd is therefore precluded from arguing that Fredenburgh acted with deliberate indifference.
Regardless of the Court of Claims’ decision, we arе skeptical that Fredenburgh—whom Hurd failed to demonstrate has any authority or duty to change an erroneous JTC from the City—can be deliberately indifferent to any harm suffered because of that error. There must be “a causal connection between the official‘s response to the problem and the infliction of the unjustified detention,” Sample, 885 F.2d at 1110, and if Fredenburgh could not do anything about Hurd‘s prolonged detention as a matter of law, then any deliberate indifference on her part would likely be irrelevant.
For example, in this case, Hurd cites to no authority or factual allegations establishing that Fredenburgh had an obligation under New York law or DOCCS policy to confirm the accuracy of the JTCs she received. Nor is it clear how Fredenburgh would or could have accomplished that, given that
We acknowledge that Hurd‘s allegations do not concern only Fredenburgh‘s ability to change his jail-time credit but also her alleged conduct in agreeing to create the erroneous JTCs to keep Hurd in prison in the first plaсe. As the district court concluded, such allegations could amount to deliberate indifference. We need not resolve this issue. Nor do we reach the issue of whether the Court of Claims’ reasonableness finding has preclusive effect here. Because it was not clearly established that prolonged detention past one‘s mandatory conditional release date constitutes a harm of constitutional magnitude under the Eighth Amendment, Fredenburgh is entitled to qualified immunity on Hurd‘s claim. Before addressing that point, however, we turn to Hurd‘s Fourteenth Amendment argument.
II. Fourteenth Amendment
The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees “more than fair process“; it “cover[s] a substantive sphere as well, barring certain government actions regardless of the fairness of the procedures used to implement them.” Cnty. of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 840 (1998) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).
“Substantive due process rights safeguard persons against the government‘s exercise of power without any reasonable justification in the service of a legitimate governmental objective.” Southerland v. City of New York, 680 F.3d 127, 151 (2d Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
“The first step in substantive due process analysis is to identify the constitutional right at stake.” Kaluczky v. City of White Plains, 57 F.3d 202, 211 (2d Cir. 1995). Next, the plaintiff “must demonstrate that the state action was so egregious, so outrageous, that it may fairly be said to shock the contemporary conscience.” Southerland, 680 F.3d at 151–52 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). “The interference with the plaintiff‘s protected right must be so shocking, arbitrary, and egregious that the Due Process Clause would not countenance it even were it accompanied by full procedural protection.” Id. at 152 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
The district court rejected Hurd‘s substantive due process claim, concluding that he lacked a cognizable liberty interest in conditional release because it is a state-created right. We disagree.
The district court reasoned that conditional release “is clearly a state-created right, as the Supreme Court has held that conditional release is not protected by the Constitution.” J.A. 51. Although “[t]here is no right under the Federal Constitution to be conditionally released before the expiration of a valid sentence,” Swarthout v. Cooke, 562 U.S. 216, 220 (2011), that does not establish that state inmates lack a liberty interest in conditional release where the state has created a statutory mechanism providing for mandatory conditional release for eligible inmates. It means only that an inmate has no constitutional right to demand or
expect conditional release where the incarcerating authority
Because “[f]reedom from bodily restraint has аlways been at the core of the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause from arbitrary governmental action[,] . . . commitment for any purpose constitutes a significant deprivation of liberty that requires due process protection.” Foucha v. Louisiana, 504 U.S. 71, 80 (1992) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted); see also Davis v. Hall, 375 F.3d 703, 712 (8th Cir. 2004) (noting that individuals have a “protected liberty interest in being free from wrongful, prolonged incarceration“). Inmates eligible for mandatory conditional release are not limited to the confines of procedural due process in protecting that right. Cf. Swarthout, 562 U.S. at 220. They also are entitled to substantive due process protection against egregious and arbitrary government interference.
Substantive due process protects rights that are rooted in the principles of ordered liberty. Freedom from unlawful restraint is exactly that. Hurd remained in prison for almost one year while the State lacked any authority to further detain him. Because New York‘s conditional release scheme is mandatory, there is no meaningful difference in Hurd‘s liberty interest in release from prison at the expiration of his maximum sentence and conditional release when he became entitled to an earlier release date. Once Hurd‘s good-time credit was approved, the expiration date of his maximum term of imprisonment and his “conditional” release date were one and the same for substantive due process purposes.
It is of no moment that conditional release is a state-created right. Although many state-created rights are not recognized under the substantive due process clause, state-created rights that trigger core constitutional interests arе entitled to its protection. Cf. Local 342, Long Island Pub. Serv. Emps. v. Town Bd. of Town of Huntington, 31 F.3d 1191, 1196 (2d Cir. 1994) (explaining that the substantive due process clause does not protect “simple, state-law contractual rights, without more“). It is the nature of the right, not just its origin, that matters. Conditional release under New York law is not akin to a state-created right of contract; it is a state-created right of mandatory release from prison, preventing unlawful continued physical restraint. Cf. Harrah Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Martin, 440 U.S. 194, 198 (1979) (“[I]nterest[s] entitled to protection as a matter of substantive due process [must] resembl[e] the individual‘s freedom of choice with respect to certain basic matters of procreation, marriage, and family life.” (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)); see also Local 342, 31 F.3d at 1196 (substantive due process protects rights that are “so vital that neither liberty nor justicе would exist
Fredenburgh‘s error is considered at the second step of the substantive due process analysis—the nature of the alleged interference with Hurd‘s liberty interest. Specifically, we must determine whether Fredenburgh‘s conduct was egregious and shocking to the conscience.
The district court reasoned that, “if true, [Hurd‘s] allegations that Fredenburgh intentionally took actions to keep [Hurd] imprisoned without justification might shock the judicial conscience . . . .” J.A. 52. Here, too, Fredenburgh argues that collateral estоppel applies because of the Court of Claims’ finding that she acted reasonably under the circumstances, which precludes any finding in this case that her conduct satisfied the high standard for a substantive due process violation. Again, we need not reach this issue, because it was not clearly established that Hurd had a liberty interest in his mandatory conditional release at the time of the sentencing miscalculations.
III. Clearly Established Law
“Government actors are entitled to qualified immunity insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” Okin v. Vill. of Cornwall-On-Hudson Police Dep‘t, 577 F.3d 415, 432–33 (2d Cir. 2009) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). “The relevant, dispositive inquiry in determining whether a right is clearly established is whether it would be clear to a reasonable officer that his conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted.” Id. at 433 (citation omitted). “The principle of qualified immunity ensures that before they are subjected to suit, officers are on notice their conduct is unlawful.” Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
Fredenburgh is entitled to qualified immunity under this standard. It was not clearly established during the period of Hurd‘s prolonged detention that an inmate suffers harm of a constitutional magnitude under the
Hurd nevertheless urges us to find that these rights were clearly established because they follow from existing precedent. For his
Sample concerned Pennsylvania inmate Joseph Sample, who was granted bail pending a new trial after his life sentence was vacated on appeal. 885 F.2d at 1102. The senior records officer at a Pittsburgh detention facility was instructed to determine whether Sample could be released; the officer erroneously informed authorities that Sample still had time left on another sentence. Id. Sample served nine extra months in prison as a result. Id. at 1102–03.
Because of his authority and job responsibilities, the records officer‘s error rendered him liable under the
To be sure, Sample сlearly established that “imprisonment beyond one‘s term constitutes punishment within the meaning of the eighth amendment.” 885 F.2d at 1108. But it did not establish that the
Calhoun concerned New York inmate Bennie Calhoun, who was sentenced to a maximum term of six years, released on parole, arrested for a parole violation with two months left on the maximum term, and reincarcerated on a finding of probable cause for the parole violation. 999 F.2d at 650. The parole board declared Calhoun a “delinquent,” meaning the time between his arrest and reincarceration—in this case, five days—was added to his maximum sentence. Id. at 650–51. New York law entitled Calhoun to a final parole revocation hearing to determine his guilt on the parole violation, but his amended maximum sentence expired before this hearing could take place, and Calhoun was administratively discharged. Id. He sued based on this prolonged incarceration of five days. Id. at 651–52.
We focused on Calhoun‘s due process claim—that he was sentenced based on a parole violation charge, rather than any finding of guilt. Id. at 652–54. But in a single paragraph, we noted (again, as a descriptive matter) that five extra days in prison does not satisfy the constitutional harm prong of the
Sudler concerned New York inmates who were sentenced to felony state prison terms, released on parole, convicted of misdemeanor parole violations, sentenced to concurrent sentences in City custody for those parole violations, and denied “parole jail-time credit” by prison officials upon their transfer back into state custody to complete their original sentence terms. 689 F.3d at 162–65. By denying the inmates credit for the time served on their misdemeanor parole violations against their felony prison terms, the prison officials effectively imposed consecutive sentences and prolonged the terms of the inmates’ sentences, without an order from the sentencing judges.
We held that the prison officials were entitled to qualified immunity because it was not clearly established that an inmate‘s procedural due process rights are violated when an administrator alters a sentence imposed by the court. Id. at 174–77. After introducing the inmates’ due process theory, we noted in a footnote that “[w]e have suggested in the past, and other courts within and without this Circuit have held, that detention beyond that authorized by law may violate the
Francis concerned New York inmate Byran Francis, who was sentencеd in state court to serve time concurrent with a federal sentence yet to be imposed, contrary to New York law. 942 F.3d at 131–35. The subsequently imposed federal sentence was not ordered to run concurrently with the previously imposed state sentence. Id. at 132. After Francis commenced his federal sentence, DOCCS officials realized the state court‘s error, determined of their own accord that Francis‘s sentences were consecutive, and requested the federal authorities transfer him back to state custody at the completion of his federal sentence, without seeking clarification or providing Francis an opportunity to be heard. Id. at 134–36. Upon release from federal custody into state custody, Francis sought resentencing in state court and was released four months later. Id. at 136–37.
We held that this violated the Francis‘s procedural due process rights. Id. at 141–45. The officials were entitled to qualified immunity, however, because the specific procedural protections to which we found Francis entitled were not clearly established before that decision. Id. at 148–49. By contrast, we declined to reach the merits of Francis‘s
We acknowledged in Francis that “[n]o case establishes that these four months of additional incarceration, although of serious dimension, crossed the threshold of
Although these courts hinted at the outcome in this case, our legal conclusion was not manifest. Each case concerns detention beyond an inmate‘s maximum sentence. Before today, we have never held that an inmate suffers a constitutional harm under the
As for his substantive due process claim, Hurd admits that no dеcision has held that imprisonment past a mandatory conditional release date violates the
We disagree. The substantive due process analysis differs from procedural due process; and it is not the case that one must follow from the other. And for the same reasons that our precedents do not dictate the outcome of his
Fredenburgh is therefore entitled to qualified immunity on Hurd‘s
CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated above, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.