Duamutef v. Hollins

• Decision Date: 18 July 2002
• Docket Number: Docket No. 01-0041.
• Citation: 297 F.3d 108
• Parties: Duaut A. DUAMUTEF, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Melvin L. HOLLINS, Superintendent, and P. Almstead, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

297 F.3d 108

Duaut A. DUAMUTEF, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Melvin L. HOLLINS, Superintendent, and P. Almstead, Defendants-Appellants.

Docket No. 01-0041.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued: January 7, 2002.

Decided: July 18, 2002.

Duaut A. Duamutef, Fishkill Correctional Facility, Beacon, NY, pro se.

Marcus J. Mastracco, Assistant Solicitor General, State of New York, Albany, NY (Eliot Spitzer, Attorney General, Daniel Smirlock, Deputy Solicitor General, on the brief), for Defendants-Appellants.

Before: JACOBS, F.I. PARKER, and SOTOMAYOR, Circuit Judges.

SOTOMAYOR, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff, a prison inmate, brought this claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for damages against prison officials who he claims arbitrarily censored his mail in violation of his First Amendment rights when they placed a 30-day "mail watch" on him. Plaintiff has a history of disciplinary problems in the prison system and involvement in an organization that advocates the overthrow of the government and other "revolutionary" activity. Defendants' decision to institute the temporary mail watch was triggered by plaintiff's receipt through the mail of a book with the phrase "Blood in the Streets" as part of the title. The book, however, is about economics and is not of an inflammatory nature. The United States District Court for the Northern District of New York (Mordue, J.) denied defendants' motion for summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity. We reverse. In light of plaintiff's history and the urgent need to forestall security problems in correctional facilities, we hold that no rational jury could find that defendants' decision to institute a temporary mail watch was not reasonably related to legitimate penological interests. Therefore, there was no constitutional violation and, in any event, defendants are entitled to qualified immunity.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiff Duaut A. Duamutef was an inmate at the Oneida Correctional Facility, where defendants were administrators. Plaintiff brought suit, pro se, alleging that beginning on May 5, 1995, a "mail watch" was arbitrarily placed on his incoming and outgoing mail by defendants in retaliation for a grievance filed for inadequate medical treatment. The district court denied that claim. On appeal, this Court affirmed that decision but found that a liberal reading of the pro se complaint also revealed a First Amendment claim for arbitrary mail censorship. We therefore remanded for consideration of the latter claim. See Duamutef v. Hollins, 159 F.3d 1346, 1998 WL 537838 (2d Cir.1998) (unpublished table decision). On remand, the district court accepted briefs and evidentiary submissions. The court granted defendants' motion for summary judgment as to another defendant but denied summary judgment as to defendants Hollins and Almstead on the ground that questions of fact remained as to their motivations. Defendants Hollins and Almstead (hereinafter "defendants") filed a motion for reconsideration, arguing that they should be granted summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity. The district court denied the motion for reconsideration and defendants appeal the denial.

The facts relevant to this appeal are as follows. Plaintiff has a history of disciplinary problems and involvement in prohibited organizational activities within Department of Corrections facilities since 1985. In September 1985, plaintiff was found guilty of violating prison rules of conduct for having misappropriated a prison printing press to print fliers for distribution to inmates. The fliers concerned an organization devoted to the promotion of prisoners' rights and the concept of "overthrowing the government" and "creating violence and disorder" in society. Plaintiff was also subjected to disciplinary action in 1989 and 1990 for unauthorized organizational activities and demonstrations. Plaintiff was disciplined again in 1994 in connection with a charge that he had deliberately misaddressed mail containing correspondence advocating violent overthrow of the government — so that upon return of the mail from the post office, the correspondence would be seen by Department of Corrections personnel. Enclosed with the letter was an outline of the "New African Liberation Movement Platform and Agenda," which plaintiff has admitted to supporting and circulating. The document called for, among other things, (1) "the uprootment of western imperialism," (2) "the liberation of all political prisoners and prisoners of war held in the United States and across the nation," and (3) "revolutionary actions against those that oppress or participate in the oppression of the Black community." The document further stated: (1) "We believe that our people, as well as other colonized and oppressed people, will never be free until imperialism is completely and permanently destroyed and uprooted from planet earth," and (2) "We recognize no other authority than the authority of the revolution and the people."

In May 1995, prison mailroom staff opening general, non-privileged correspondence came across a publication addressed to plaintiff which contained the phrase "Blood in the Streets" in the title and had what the staff perceived as a "provocative tone." This discovery was brought to the attention of defendant Almstead, a corrections lieutenant with supervisory responsibilities, and in turn to defendant Hollins, the Superintendent of Oneida Correctional Facility. Almstead and Hollins contend that they were concerned about the security implications of the receipt of provocative materials by the inmate population. On May 5, 1995, in light of the allegedly inflammatory materials coupled with plaintiff's disciplinary history, defendant Hollins authorized a 30 day "mail watch" on all of plaintiff's incoming and outgoing mail.

Defendants have conceded for present purposes that the alleged subversive publication was, in fact, an economics book by James Dale Davidson and Sir William Rees Magg, entitled "Blood in the Streets: Investment Profits in a World Gone Mad." The back cover of the book credits Baron Nathan Rothschild as stating, "The time to buy is when blood is running in the streets." The book discusses an investment philosophy based on the "Rothschild Principle" of buying when prices are low and realizing profits in the "coming years" of "financial upheaval when blood will indeed `run in the streets.'" Plaintiff further claims, and defendants do not dispute, that the book is freely available through the general library system at several correctional facilities.

DISCUSSION

Plaintiff alleges that defendants violated his First Amendment rights when they unlawfully censored his mail by stopping, opening and reading all non-privileged correspondence. The district court denied defendants' motion for reconsideration of this issue, finding that defendants were not entitled to summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity. The district court acknowledged that the issue of qualified immunity is generally a question of law to be decided by the court. The court found, however, that even after defendants conceded that the allegedly inflammatory publication was in fact a harmless economics book, questions of fact remained. See Duamutef v. Hollins, 95-CV-0853, Memorandum Decision and Order, at 5 (N.D.N.Y. Feb. 5, 2001). Specifically, the district court found that the question of defendants' "motivation in ordering a mail watch on plaintiff is hotly contested." Id. (emphasis in original). The court stated, "The record in this case would permit a rational factfinder to infer that defendants undertook to open and read plaintiff's mail not because of a then clear and present security risk but, as plaintiff contends, because of his past history of illicit organizational behavior or some other factor unrelated to legitimate penological concerns." Id. at 5-6. The district court concluded that because "[t]he question of defendants' motivation in this case cannot be decided as a matter of law," id. at 6, defendants were not entitled to summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity. The court further held that "[a] jury could conclude that it was unreasonable for defendants to focus on the title of the controversial publication rather than its content and that plaintiff's previous unauthorized organizational activities were too remote in time to justify opening and reading his otherwise private mail." Id. We disagree.

The doctrine of qualified immunity shields government officials from liability for civil damages when 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, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). This doctrine "`strikes a balance between the need, on one hand, to hold responsible public officials exercising their power in a wholly unjustified manner and, on the other hand, to shield officials responsibly attempting to perform their public duties in good faith from having to explain their actions to the satisfaction of a jury.'" Poe v. Leonard, 282 F.3d 123, 131 (2d Cir.2002) (quoting Locurto v. Safir, 264 F.3d 154, 162-63 (2d Cir.2001)). "The `better approach to resolving' such claims is to first determine whether the plaintiffs have alleged a violation of a constitutional right, and then, if they have, to determine whether the right was clearly established at the time of the alleged violation." African Trade & Info. Ctr., Inc. v. Abromaitis, 294 F.3d 355, 359 (2d Cir.2002) (quoting County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 841 n. 5, 118 S.Ct. 1708, 140 L.Ed.2d 1043 (1998)). But cf. Horne v. Coughlin, 178 F.3d 603, 606-07 (2d Cir.1999) (holding that we may, in certain circumstances, decline to decide whether there was a constitutional violation where we conclude that the right was not clearly established at the relevant time). Therefore, before applying the qualified immunity standard, we...