Sickles v. Campbell County, Kentucky

• Decision Date: 05 September 2007
• Docket Number: No. 06-6055.,06-6055.
• Citation: 501 F.3d 726
• Parties: Calvin SICKLES et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CAMPBELL COUNTY, KENTUCKY; Kenton County, Kentucky, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

501 F.3d 726

Calvin SICKLES et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CAMPBELL COUNTY, KENTUCKY; Kenton County, Kentucky, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 06-6055.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: July 17, 2007.

Decided and Filed: September 5, 2007.

ARGUED: Stephen R. Felson, Newman & Meeks Co., LPA, Cincinnati, Ohio, for Appellants. Jason V. Reed, Edmondson, Guenther & Rylee, Covington, Kentucky, Jeffrey C. Mando, Adams, Stepner, Woltermann & Dusing, Covington, Kentucky, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Stephen R. Felson, Robert B. Newman, Newman & Meeks Co., LPA, Cincinnati, Ohio, for Appellants. Jason V. Reed, Edmondson, Guenther & Rylee, Covington, Kentucky, Jeffrey C. Mando, Adams, Stepner, Woltermann & Dusing, Covington, Kentucky, for Appellees.

Before: GIBBONS and SUTTON, Circuit Judges; BECKWITH, Chief District Judge.^*

OPINION

SUTTON, Circuit Judge.

May a municipal jail, consistent with the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, withhold a portion of an inmate's canteen-account funds in order to cover the costs of booking, room and board without providing the inmate with a hearing before it withholds the money? Yes, we hold, and accordingly we affirm the district court's rejection of this claim and two others.

I.

The municipal jails in Campbell County and Kenton County, Kentucky, require individuals who are arrested and jailed to surrender any property found on them. To ensure the return of these possessions, a municipal officer logs any property surrendered to the jail upon intake and places the items in storage. The counties treat cash differently. Each county deposits any cash into the inmate's canteen account, an account that the inmate may use to purchase goods from the commissary while in jail.

Friends and relatives also may contribute to an inmate's canteen account. In Kenton County, the jail will accept a money order, which the jail credits to the inmate's canteen account. In Campbell County, the municipal jail does the same, though it permits inmates to decline the money order; in addition, it permits a donor to charge a gift to his credit card through a third-party company, which then forwards the funds to the county jail. In both counties, a computer program tracks the funds deposited in each inmate's account.

Neither county grants inmates instant access to all funds deposited in their accounts. When Campbell County incarcerates an individual, it automatically withholds a fee—once $20, now $30—from the inmate's canteen account to cover the costs of booking and arraignment. See Ky.Rev. Stat. § 441.265(6). Both counties assess inmates a room-and-board fee—$20 a day in Campbell County, $5 a day in Kenton County—for each night they spend in the county jail. Campbell County withholds up to one quarter of any monetary gifts to the inmate to cover these fees as well as up to a quarter of any funds remaining in an inmate's canteen account at the end of each day. Kenton County recovers per diem fees by withholding up to one half of any funds given to an inmate as well as up to one half of any funds remaining in an inmate's canteen account at the end of the week. Kenton County does not charge inmates with a booking fee ($30) until it releases them.

In 2003, the Kenton County jail housed Aretta Baughn's son. Because she knew about the county's canteen-account policies, the first time she sent her son a gift she made the money order out to a state inmate incarcerated with her son to avoid any withholding of funds. See Ky.Rev. Stat. § 441.265(8) ("No per diem shall be charged to any prisoner . . . that the Department of Corrections is financially responsible for housing."). She later directly sent to her son six additional money orders ranging from $10 to $100 in amount.

In January 2005, Campbell County officers arrested Aisha Abdulrahim's husband and held him in the municipal jail. She has sent him three money orders a month since then, and county officials have "confiscate[d] not less than 25% of the amount transmitted to her husband" each time. JA 36.

In early 2005, Campbell County held Cheryl Lightfoot's son in its municipal jail. While her son was there, Lightfoot sent him at least three money orders of $40 each, as well as several others in smaller amounts. She "tried to keep it at least 40 each time, because [she] knew [the county] would take a certain amount out" each time. JA 133.

On March 5, 2005, Campbell County officers arrested Calvin Sickles for public intoxication and disorderly conduct. Sickles was carrying $128 in cash at the time, so Campbell County credited that amount to his canteen account less a $20 booking fee. On March 7, Sickles pleaded guilty to both charges. The state court sentenced him to two years of conditional discharge and ordered him to "[p]ay the cost of proceeding herein." Doc. 24, Ex. 2. When Sickles was discharged on March 16, Campbell County withheld his $20 booking fee.

On April 7, 2005, Campbell County officers arrested Chad Hensley for criminal possession of a forged prescription. Over the course of the next six weeks, a relative delivered nine money orders to the municipal jail, totaling $320. Hensley endorsed each of these money orders, knowing that the county would withhold part of each deposit to cover per-diem and booking fees. By the time Hensley was released on bond on May 27, he had accrued $1,032 in fees, and the county had withheld $110.27 to offset the fees.

On May 17, 2005, Sickles filed this § 1983 action in federal court, seeking (1) a declaration that Campbell County's deduction policy violated the Due Process Clause and (2) damages. On May 31, Lightfoot, Abdulrahim and Hensley filed a similar § 1983 action against Campbell County, and, on June 7, Baughn filed a similar § 1983 action against Kenton County. The district court consolidated all three matters. After hearing cross-motions on the issue, the district court granted summary judgment to the counties on all claims.

II.

A.

Sickles and Hensley challenge Campbell County's withholding policy. In doing so, they do not contend that the Federal Constitution prohibits the county from requiring inmates to share some of the costs of incarceration; they instead argue that the policy violates the Due Process Clause because the county takes the funds from the inmate's account without a predeprivation hearing. We disagree.

This challenge, like most procedural due process claims, raises two questions: Do the claimants have a liberty or property interest that the county policy affects? And, if so, what process is due? See Ky. Dep't of Corr. v. Thompson, 490 U.S. 454, 460, 109 S.Ct. 1904, 104 L.Ed.2d 506 (1989). The inquiries are "flexible" and contextual in nature, "call[ing] for such procedural protections as the particular situation demands." Greenholtz v. Inmates of the Neb. Penal & Corr. Complex, 442 U.S. 1, 12-13, 99 S.Ct. 2100, 60 L.Ed.2d 668 (1979). As to the first question, Sickles and Hensley both have a property stake in the application of the procedures—Sickles in the money withheld from him upon his arrival at the jail and Hensley in the money given to him and withheld by the county.

In addressing what process is due, we balance "[1] the private interest that will be affected by the official action; ... [2] the risk of an erroneous deprivation[;] ... [3] the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and ... [4] the Government's interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirement would entail." Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 335, 96 S.Ct. 893, 47 L.Ed.2d 18 (1976). "The ultimate balance involves a determination as to when, under our constitutional system, judicial-type procedures must be imposed upon administrative action to assure fairness." Id. at 348, 96 S.Ct. 893.

Gauged by these four factors, this claim falls short. First, the "private interest[s]" at issue are small in absolute and relative terms, totaling $20 in Sickles' case and $110.27 in Hensley's. The private stakes at issue thus do not begin to approach the kinds of government conduct that have required a predeprivation hearing, such as a limitation on the "historic" "right to maintain control over [one's] home," United States v. James Daniel Good Real Prop., 510 U.S. 43, 53-54, 114 S.Ct. 492, 126 L.Ed.2d 490 (1993), or the termination of government benefits, which for many people are "the very means by which to live," Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254, 264, 90 S.Ct. 1011, 25 L.Ed.2d 287 (1970).

Second, the risk of erroneous deprivation is minor. The withholding of funds involves elementary accounting that has little risk of error and is non-discretionary. One officer logs in all deposits to an inmate's account; another logs in all purchases from the commissary; and the computer calculates on a regular basis what funds, if any, need to be withheld from the inmate's account to cover booking and room-and-board fees. See Slade v. Hampton Roads Reg'l Jail, 407 F.3d 243, 253-54 (4th Cir.2005) ("The daily deduction of the charge from the prisoner's account is a ministerial matter with no discretion and minimal risk of error."); Tillman v. Lebanon County Corr. Facility, 221 F.3d 410, 422 (3d Cir.2000) ("The assessments ... involve routine matters of accounting, with low risk of error."); see also Taylor v. Sebelius, 189 Fed.Appx. 752, 761 (10th Cir. 2006) (noting a low risk of erroneous deprivation when "the collection of supervision fees is totally automated and is controlled by a comprehensive computer program").

Third, for many of the same reasons that the withholding poses little risk of error, the potential benefits of other safeguards— including a pre-deprivation hearing— are few. Errors, to be sure, may arise in any human enterprise, even one involving computers, but the simplicity of the calculations and the lack of discretion in making the withholdings renders improbable the...