Henderson v. Simms

• Citation: 223 F.3d 267
• Decision Date: 06 April 2000
• Docket Number: No. 99-1706,CA-99-949-S,99-1706
• Parties: (4th Cir. 2000) VINCENT HENDERSON; DARYELLE REXRODE; JOHN CALELLA, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. STUART O. SIMMS; RICHARD LANHAM, SR.; WILLIAM O. FILBERT, Defendants-Appellees. () Argued:
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (4th Circuit)

Page 267

223 F.3d 267 (4th Cir. 2000)

VINCENT HENDERSON; DARYELLE REXRODE; JOHN CALELLA, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. STUART O. SIMMS; RICHARD LANHAM, SR.; WILLIAM O. FILBERT, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 99-1706 (CA-99-949-S)

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

Argued: April 6, 2000

Decided: July 28, 2000

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore. Frederic N. Smalkin, District Judge.

COUNSEL ARGUED: Douglas R.M. Nazarian, HOGAN & HARTSON, L.L.P., Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellants. Andrew Howard Baida, Assistant Attorney General, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Ralph S. Tyler, HOGAN & HARTSON, L.L.P., Baltimore, Maryland; Eugene J. Yannon, Bowie, Maryland, for Appellants. J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Attorney General of Maryland, Lawrence P. Fletcher-Hill, Assistant Attorney General, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellees.

Before LUTTIG and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges, and Gerald Bruce LEE, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia, sitting by designation.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Williams wrote the opinion, in which Judge Luttig and Judge Lee joined.

OPINION

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge:

Appellants Vincent Henderson, Daryelle Rexrode, and John Calella filed a 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983 (West Supp. 1999) suit in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland against Appellees Stuart O. Simms, Richard A. Lanham, Sr., and William O. Filbert in their individual capacities. Appellants sought damages arising out of their summary arrests and re-incarceration, pursuant to retake warrants for escapees, following their release from incarceration on mandatory supervision. The district court dismissed Appellants' suit on the ground of qualified immunity, reasoning that Appellees did not violate Appellants' clearly established constitutional rights under the Fourth or Fourteenth Amendment. We hold that Appellees' arrests of Appellants pursuant to retake warrants for escapees did not violate Appellants' Fourth Amendment rights. We further hold that Appellees did not violate Appellants' Fourteenth Amendment rights in failing to provide Appellants a hearing to challenge their arrests and re-incarceration because Appellees reasonably thought that Appellants were mistakenly released prisoners with no cognizable interest in remaining at liberty. We therefore affirm the district court's dismissal of Appellants' complaint.

I.

Because this case is on appeal from a district court's order dismissing Appellants' complaint, we take the following facts as alleged in the complaint as true. See S.P. v. City of Takoma Park, 134 F.3d 260, 264 (4th Cir. 1998). Vincent Henderson, Daryelle Rexrode, and John Calella were convicted in Maryland state court of violating various provisions of the Maryland criminal law. All three served their respective criminal sentences, less deductions for diminution credits earned, and were released from incarceration on"mandatory supervision," a release status similar to parole. Henderson was released on July 7, 1997. Rexrode was released on March 28, 1996. Calella was released on December 11, 1995. Each complied with the terms of his release from the time of his release through the filing of the instant complaint.

On March 9, 1998, the Court of Appeals of Maryland decided the case of Beshears v. Wickes, 706 A.2d 608 (Md. 1998). Wickes involved the interpretation of the Maryland statutes governing the calculation of sentence diminution credits. Sometime between March 9, 1998 and May 1, 1998, state officials Stuart O. Simms, Richard A. Lanham, Sr., and William O. Filbert¹ decided that their understanding of the rule in Wickes should be applied to recalculate the statutory diminution credits of persons, including Appellants, who had been released prior to the decision in Wickes. Simms and Lanham, acting under color of state law, ordered that the release dates of Henderson, Rexrode, and Calella be recalculated. As a result of these recalculations, Simms and Lanham authorized and established new release dates for Appellants that fell far into the future.

Appellees then decided to implement their interpretation of Wickes by arresting and re-incarcerating previously released persons, such as Appellants, whose revised, post-Wickes release dates had not yet arrived. Acting pursuant to Md. Ann. Code art. 27,§ 682(d) (1996) (the Maryland retake-warrant statute),² Filbert executed and issued warrants for the arrests of Henderson, Rexrode, and Calella. The warrants were each titled "Retake Warrant for Arrest and Detention of Escaped Prisoner," although Appellees had actual knowledge that none of Appellants had in fact escaped. In fact, the warrant specifically noted that it was being issued "as a result of a court decision requiring a recalculation of the offender's term of confinement" and would expire on the revised date recalculated for that prisoner. (J.A. at 19.) Appellees, acting under color of state law, ordered that Appellants be arrested pursuant to the § 682(d) warrants issued and signed by Filbert.

Pursuant to these § 682(d) warrants, Appellees directed and caused armed police officers to arrest each Appellant at his home or place of work on or about May 1, 1998, and then had each incarcerated. Appellees did not afford Appellants a hearing (either pre-arrest or post-arrest) to challenge the basis or legitimacy of their arrests or incarceration. Following his arrest, on May 8, 1998, Henderson filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County. On May 14, the court granted the petition, denied Appellees' motion for a stay, and ordered Henderson released. On May 18, the Court of Appeals of Maryland granted Appellees' petition for certiorari review of the circuit court's order releasing Henderson and denied Appellees' motion for a stay. Appellees then released Rexrode and Calella from incarceration. Following briefing and argument, the Court of Appeals of Maryland affirmed the circuit court's grant of habeas relief to Henderson, on the ground that Appellees had misinterpreted the Court of Appeals's prior decision in Wickes. See Secretary, Dep't of Pub. Safety & Correctional Servs. v. Henderson, 718 A.2d 1150, 1157-58 (Md. 1998). As a result of Appellees' actions, Henderson was incarcerated from on or about May 1, 1998 to May 14, 1998 and Rexrode and Calella were incarcerated from on or about May 1, 1998 to May 18, 1998.

On April 6, 1999, Appellants filed suit under 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983 (West Supp. 1999) in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland seeking damages as a result of their arrests and re-incarceration. The complaint alleged that Appellees violated Appellants' clearly established rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments by arresting and re-incarcerating Appellants without probable cause and without a hearing following Appellees' determination that Appellants had been prematurely released from incarceration on mandatory supervision. Appellees filed a motion to dismiss. By memorandum opinion and order dated May 14, 1999, the district court granted Appellees' motion to dismiss the complaint in its entirety on the ground that Appellees were entitled to qualified immunity. The district court reasoned that Appellees' actions did not violate Appellants' clearly established procedural due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment because Appellees "reasonably could have believed that [Appellants] had no protected liberty interest that demanded pre-deprivation notice and a hearing" and did not violate Appellants' clearly established rights under the Fourth Amendment because Appellees "reasonably could have believed that escape from custody was the closest model for obtaining legal process to effect the retakes required by Maryland law, there being no statute of Maryland covering this unlikely situation." (J.A. at 117-18.) On May 19, 1999, Appellants filed a timely notice of appeal.

II.

Before us, Appellants make two arguments why the district court judgment should be reversed. First, Appellants argue that because Appellees knew that Appellants had not escaped, the retake warrants lacked probable cause and were invalid, and, therefore, Appellants' arrests violated their clearly established rights under the Fourth Amendment to be secure from unlawful arrest. Second, Appellants argue that because the Fourteenth Amendment has long required that a decision to revoke a former inmate's release status be accompanied by a corresponding opportunity to challenge the revocation, Appellees' denial of a hearing violated Appellants' clearly established rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. We review de novo a district court's grant of a motion to dismiss on the ground of qualified immunity. See S.P. v. City of Takoma Park, 134 F.3d 260, 265 (4th Cir. 1998).

"Qualified immunity is an accommodation by the courts to the conflicting concerns of, on one hand, government officials seeking freedom from personal monetary liability and harassing litigation and, on the other hand, injured persons seeking redress for the abuse of official power." Hodge v. Jones, 31 F.3d 157, 162 (4th Cir. 1994) (internal quotation marks omitted). To that end, qualified immunity protects government officials performing discretionary functions from liability for civil damages "insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). In determining whether a government official is entitled to qualified immunity, "we must (1) identify the right allegedly violated, (2) determine whether the constitutional right violated was clearly established at the time of the incident, and (3) evaluate whether a reasonable offic[ial] would have understood that the conduct at issue violated the clearly established right." S.P., 134 F.3d at 265. These steps...