Janan v. TrammellJanan v. Trammell
The plaintiffs, Marcel Janan and her children, Ray, George and Brenda Janan, appeal the district court‘s dismissal of their action brought under
The district court dismissed the action under
In evaluating the propriety of a dismissal under
The Janans’ complaint alleges that on February 26, 1976, Scruggs was sentenced by a Tennessee state court to a term of ten years for armed robbery. He was first paroled on October 8, 1980. Ten days later, Scruggs robbed a store. On this offense, Scruggs was found guilty of grand larceny and was sentenced to a new three-year term. On April 14, 1983, Scruggs was again paroled. The Janans claim that two weeks later, a police officer told defendant McClain that Scruggs had made threats upon a police officer‘s wife and was therefore in violation of his parole and that he also had violated his parole by failing to report to McClain. According to complaint, no effort was made to apprehend Scruggs. On June 9, 1983, while in the company of a Tennessee prison escapee, Scruggs travelled to Florida and, apparently without provocation, killed Janan.
The Janans claim that the release of Scruggs in April of 1983 was “an act of gross negligence” because it was not in accordance with Tennessee Code section 40-28-123(a). That section provides in pertinent part:
If any prisoner be convicted in this state of a felony, committed while on parole from a state prison or workhouse, he shall serve the remainder of his sentence, under which he was paroled, or such part of that sentence, as the board may determine before he commences serving the sentence affixed while on parole.
Because the Tennessee statute did not require that Scruggs be released and because Scruggs served no additional prison time on his ten-year sentence nor did he serve the complete three-year sentence, there is at least an argument that under these facts the release might have been negligent or even grossly negligent.
The Supreme Court has recently addressed the issue of negligence as a basis for section 1983 actions in Daniels v. Williams, --- U.S. ----, 106 S.Ct. 662, 88 L.Ed.2d 662 (1986). The Court held that due process “is simply not implicated by a negligent act of an official causing unintended loss of or injury to life, liberty or property.” Id., 106 S.Ct. at 663 (emphasis in original). However, the Court, in a footnote, stated that the case before them provided it “no occasion to consider whether something less than intentional conduct, such as recklessness or ‘gross negligence,’ is enough to trigger the protections of the Due Process Clause.” Id. at 667 n. 3. In their complaint, the Janans have alleged “gross negligence.” This action may very well be one intended to be controlled by Daniels. However, because we are reviewing a 12(b)(6) dismissal and because we hold that this action is precluded under Martinez, we decline to deal with the amorphous issues of where on the spectrum of degrees of negligence this case falls and whether that amount of negligence is sufficiently close to the “mere negligence” end of the spectrum so as to be precluded by Daniels.
Even if the actions of the defendants were improper, the Janans’ claim does not establish a deprivation of Paul Janan‘s constitutional rights under
Her life was taken by the parolee five months after his release. He was in no sense an agent of the parole board.... Further, the parole board was not aware that appellants’ decedent, as distinguished from the public at large, faced any special danger.
444 U.S. at 285, 100 S.Ct. at 559 (footnote and citations omitted). The Court concluded that the death was “too remote a consequence of the parole officers’ action to hold them responsible under the federal civil rights law.” Id.
Clearly, Scruggs was not a state officer and could not be said to be acting under color of state law. See Jones v. Phyfer, 761 F.2d 642, 644 (11th Cir.1985). However, the Janans argue that Martinez is distinguishable because five months passed between the release and the murder whereas less than two months passed between Scruggs’ release and Janan‘s murder. We do not believe that the Supreme Court intended to provide us with a due process timetable such that a five-month gap does not deprive one of due process rights while a two-month gap automatically does. We decline to place such weight on the temporal factor. Rather, the proper analysis is whether a special relationship exists between the criminal and the victim or between the victim and the state or whether there is some showing that the victim, as distinguished from the public at large, faces a special danger by the parolee‘s release. In so holding, we follow other circuits that have held that absent a special relationship between the criminal and the victim or the victim and the state, no due process violation can occur. Jones v. Phyfer, 761 F.2d 642 (11th Cir.1985); Fox v. Custis, 712 F.2d 84 (4th Cir.1983); Humann v. Wilson, 696 F.2d 783 (10th Cir.1983); Bowers v. DeVito, 686 F.2d 616 (7th Cir.1982).
As the Seventh Circuit stated in Bowers, “there is no constitutional right to be protected by the state against being murdered by criminals or madmen.” Bowers, 686 F.2d at 618. In Bowers, a criminal, convicted or aggravated battery with a knife, was diagnosed as a “schizophrenic in remission.” A year later he killed a woman with a knife and was found not guilty by reason of insanity. Five years later he was released and one year after that he killed another person. The court stated that there was no section 1983 action against the parole board unless they knew that the release placed a certain person in special danger. Id. at 618.
The Janans have in no way claimed that the parole board or McClain or Bradley had any specific responsibility to Paul Janan. Nor have they claimed that Janan was in some way related to Scruggs such that the defendants should have known that Scruggs release or his possible parole violation would endanger Janan. Janan was simply a member of the public at large. Therefore, the Janans have failed to establish the special relationship required to invoke the due process protection of the fourteenth amendment.
We affirm.