Manning v. Caldwell

• Decision Date: 09 August 2018
• Docket Number: No. 17-1320,17-1320
• Citation: 900 F.3d 139
• Parties: Bryan MANNING; Ryan Williams; Richard Deckerhoff; Richard Eugene Walls, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Donald CALDWELL, Commonwealth’s Attorney for the City of Roanoke ; Michael Nehemiah Herring, Commonwealth’s Attorney for the City of Richmond, Defendants-Appellees, National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, Amicus Supporting Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

900 F.3d 139

Bryan MANNING; Ryan Williams; Richard Deckerhoff; Richard Eugene Walls, Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v. Donald CALDWELL, Commonwealth’s Attorney for the City of Roanoke ; Michael Nehemiah Herring, Commonwealth’s Attorney for the City of Richmond, Defendants-Appellees,National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, Amicus Supporting Appellant.

No. 17-1320

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: January 24, 2018

Decided: August 9, 2018

ARGUED: Jonathan Lee Marcus, SKADDEN, ARPS, SLATE, MEAGHER & FLOM, LLP, Washington, D.C., for Appellants. Trevor Stephen Cox, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF VIRGINIA, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Mark D. Young, Maureen A. Donley, Donald P. Salzman, Theodore M. Kneller, Shekida A. Smith, Daniel B. O’Connell, SKADDEN, ARPS, SLATE, MEAGHER, & FLOM, LLP, Washington, D.C.; Mary Frances Charlton, Angela Ciolfi, Elaine Poon, LEGAL AID JUSTICE CENTER, Charlottesville, Virginia, for Appellants. Mark R. Herring, Attorney General, Matthew R. McGuire, Assistant Solicitor General, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF VIRGINIA, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellees. Eric S. Tars, NATIONAL LAW CENTER ON HOMELESSNESS & POVERTY, Washington, D.C.; Richard P. Bress, Andrew D. Prins, George C. Chipev, Ryan C. Grover, LATHAM & WATKINS LLP, Washington, D.C., for Amicus Curiae.

Before WILKINSON, NIEMEYER, and MOTZ, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Wilkinson wrote the opinion, in which Judge Niemeyer joined. Judge Motz wrote an opinion concurring in the judgment.

WILKINSON, Circuit Judge:

Virginia law criminalizes the possession, purchase, or consumption of alcohol by someone who has been interdicted by a Virginia court. Interdiction is a civil order designating that a person is a "habitual drunkard" or has been convicted of driving while intoxicated. In this case, a group of homeless people suffering from alcoholism challenged the constitutionality of Virginia’s interdiction statute under the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on criminalizing status, and the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of Due Process and Equal Protection. The district court dismissed the suit, concluding that the statutory scheme criminalizes acts rather than status, affords adequate process, and implicates no suspect class. We agree with appellants that states must tread carefully to avoid criminalizing status. But for the reasons that follow, we affirm.

I.

Virginia regulates the consumption, purchase, manufacture, and sale of alcohol through a series of interconnecting provisions found in Title 4.1 of the Virginia Code.

Under § 4.1-333, a Virginia court may, "after a hearing upon due notice," issue a civil interdiction order to any person who "has been convicted of driving any automobile, truck, motorcycle, engine or train while intoxicated or has shown himself to be an habitual drunkard."

An interdicted person is subject to several restrictions on his conduct. Section 4.1-322 makes it a Class 1 misdemeanor for an interdicted person to "possess any alcoholic beverages" or to "be drunk in public" in violation of another statutory provision. Section 4.1-305 similarly makes it a Class 1 misdemeanor for an interdicted person (or someone under 21 years of age) to "consume, purchase or possess, or attempt to consume, purchase or possess, any alcoholic beverage," except in certain statutorily exempt circumstances such as the use of medicines containing alcohol.

In Virginia, a Class 1 misdemeanor is punishable by "confinement in jail for not more than twelve months and a fine of not more than $2,500, either or both." Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-11 (2014). Any defendant charged with a Class 1 misdemeanor must be informed of his right to counsel, and "shall be allowed a reasonable opportunity to employ counsel," or, if indigent, to obtain court-appointed counsel. Va. Code Ann. §§ 19.2-157, 19.2-159 (2015).

Appellants are four homeless men who were interdicted and later prosecuted for using or possessing alcohol. Bryan Manning was interdicted on October 5, 2010, in the Circuit Court for the City of Roanoke. Ryan Williams was interdicted on February 7, 2012, in the Circuit Court for the City of Roanoke. Richard Deckerhoff was interdicted on August 21, 2009, in the Circuit Court for the City of Petersburg. And Richard Eugene Walls was interdicted on June 12, 2012, in the Circuit Court for the City of Richmond. Each has been prosecuted at least eleven times for violating the alcohol restrictions resulting from his interdiction order.

Appellants filed suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia. The complaint, brought on behalf of a putative class of "all persons in Virginia who are homeless and who suffer from alcoholism," sought declaratory and injunctive relief against Roanoke Commonwealth’s Attorney Donald Caldwell, Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney Michael Herring, and "all Virginia Commonwealth’s Attorneys with the authority to enforce the Interdiction Statute against homeless individuals suffering from alcoholism." J.A. 28, 30. It alleged that Virginia Code §§ 4.1-333, 4.1-305, and 4.1-322 imposed cruel and unusual punishment by criminalizing the status of alcohol addiction

; deprived plaintiffs of Due Process by converting the first step of a criminal proceeding into a civil proceeding; and violated Equal Protection by treating homeless alcoholics differently from non-homeless alcoholics.

The district court dismissed the suit for failure to state a claim. With regard to the Eighth Amendment challenge, the court concluded that possession or consumption of alcohol "is an act, regardless of whether that possession or consumption is in public or in the confines of [one’s] own home," and therefore the statute’s application to plaintiffs did not criminalize their status. J.A. 83. As to the Due Process claim, the court was "not convinced that plaintiffs have pled facts demonstrating that the civil interdiction hearings deprive them of their physical liberty," and therefore found no constitutional defect in the process afforded by the statute. Id. at 85. Finally, with regard to the Equal Protection claim, the court found no discriminatory intent, no fundamental right, and no protected class to outweigh the Commonwealth’s legitimate interest in discouraging alcohol abuse.

This appeal followed. We review de novo a district court’s grant of a motion to dismiss. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. v. Kolon Indus., Inc. , 637 F.3d 435, 440 (4th Cir. 2011).

II.

We first consider whether Virginia’s interdiction statute, § 4.1-333, qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment because it criminalizes appellants’ status as homeless alcoholics in violation of Robinson v. California , 370 U.S. 660, 82 S.Ct. 1417, 8 L.Ed.2d 758 (1962).

The Eighth Amendment states that "[e]xcessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." U.S. Const. Amend. VIII. In addition to "limit[ing] the kinds of punishment that can be imposed on those convicted of crimes," and "proscrib[ing] punishment grossly disproportionate to the severity of the crime," the Eighth Amendment also "imposes substantive limits on what can be made criminal and punished as such." Ingraham v. Wright , 430 U.S. 651, 667, 97 S.Ct. 1401, 51 L.Ed.2d 711 (1977).

In Robinson v. California , the Supreme Court recognized one such substantive limit by holding that states could not declare someone a criminal simply on account of his status. 370 U.S. at 666-67, 82 S.Ct. 1417, 8 L.Ed.2d 758 (1962). The Court was considering a California law that made it a misdemeanor "to be addicted to the use of narcotics." Id. at 660, 82 S.Ct. 1417 (citing Cal. Health and Safety Code § 11721 ). The statute did not require proof that an alleged drug addict had actually used or possessed drugs, but only that he was in fact a drug addict. Because a "person may be continuously guilty of this offense, whether or not he has ever used or possessed any narcotics within the State, and whether or not he has been guilty of any antisocial behavior there," the Court invalidated the California law as cruel and unusual punishment. Id. at 666, 82 S.Ct. 1417.

The Robinson court was careful to note that the "broad power of the State to regulate the narcotic drugs traffic within its borders" was not at issue. Id. at 664, 82 S.Ct. 1417. Indeed, a "State might impose criminal sanctions, for example, against the unauthorized manufacture, prescription, sale, purchase, or possession of narcotics" because those things constitute punishable conduct, not status. Id. The Court in Robinson thus considered and rejected the possibility that its holding could be read to prevent states from criminalizing the "purchase, sale, or possession" of contraband. Because the holding of Robinson is so emphatic on this point, it is worth quoting the relevant paragraph in full:

The broad power of the state to regulate the narcotic drug traffic within its borders is not here in issue. More than forty years ago, this Court explicitly recognized the validity of that power: There can be no question of the authority of the state in the exercise of its police power to regulate the administration, sale, prescription and use of dangerous and habitforming drugs. The right to exercise this power is so manifest in the interest of the public health and welfare, that it is unnecessary to enter upon a discussion of it beyond saying that it is too firmly established to be successfully called in question.

Id. at 664, 82 S.Ct. 1417 (quotations and alterations omitted).

The Supreme Court revisited the distinction between conduct and status in Powell v. Texas , 392 U.S. 514, 514, 88 S.Ct. 2145, 20 L.Ed.2d 1254 (1968). In that case, an alcoholic challenged the constitutionality of a Texas law prohibiting public drunkenness on the ground that his status as an addict compelled him to violate the statute. In a divided opinion, the Supreme Court upheld the Texas law. Id. A four-justice...