Adams v. Jones, Civil Action No. 96-4377 (E.D. Pa. 3/30/1999)
| Decision Date | 30 March 1999 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 96-4377. |
| Parties | BARON K. ADAMS v. WILLIAM J. JONES, Parole Officer; ROBERT METHIE, Parole Officer; ALAN THOMPSON, Parole Officer. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania |
AND NOW, to wit, this 30th day of March, 1999, upon consideration of the Motion for Summary Judgment of Defendants William J. Jones, Robert Methie, and Alan Thompson (Document No. 65, filed June 23, 1998), and Plaintiff's Memorandum of Law and Objections to the Motion for Summary Judgment of Defendants William J. Jones, Robert Methie, and Alan Thompson (Document No. 68, filed July 17, 1998), for the reasons set forth in the accompanying Memorandum, IT IS ORDERED that the Motion for Summary Judgment of Defendants William J. Jones, Robert Methie, and Alan Thompson is GRANTED and Judgment is ENTERED in favor of defendants William J. Jones, Robert Methie, and Alan Thompson and against plaintiff. Baron K. Adams.
MEMORANDUMOn June 14, 1996, plaintiff Baron K. Adams filed a Complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in which he named as defendants Delaware County Prison Warden George Hill, plaintiff's former attorney Rolfe C. Marsh, and the Unknown Superintendent of the Delaware County Office of Adult Probation and Parole Services. In an Amended Complaint, filed May 12, 1997, plaintiff added Delaware County Office of Adult Probation and Parole Services Officers William J. Jones, James C. Costello, Robert Methie, and Alan Thompson as defendants.
The action against three of the named defendants has been dismissed — Rolfe Marsh, Esquire, by Order dated December 11, 1996 and, with the consent of all parties, James C. Costello and George Hill, by Order dated June 9, 1998. The Unknown Superintendent of Delaware County Office of Adult Probation and Parole Services was stricken as a defendant by Order dated June 11, 1997. The remaining defendants, William J. Jones, Robert Methie, and Alan Thompson, now move for summary judgment.
On January 8, 1990, plaintiff was sentenced to serve six (6) to twenty-four (24) months, less one day, at the Delaware County Prison for the crime of robbery. As part of the sentence plaintiff was ordered to pay an assessment of $770 for court costs and $1,200 in restitution, for a total of $1,970. Because plaintiff had been in custody from September 9, 1989, the effective date of his sentence was September 9, 1989. The minimum sentence expired on March 9, 1990; the maximum sentence expired on September 8, 1991.
Plaintiff was released on parole on March 9, 1990, and his parole was transferred for supervision purposes from the Delaware County Office of Adult Probation and Parole Services ("Delaware County Parole Office") to the Philadelphia County Department of Probation and Parole ("Philadelphia County Parole Office"). Under the terms and conditions of his parole, plaintiff was required to reside in Philadelphia with his mother and to actively seek employment, he was not to change his address or phone number without the written permission of his Parole Officer, Steven Miller of the Philadelphia County Parole Office, and he was required to pay the $1,970 in court costs and restitution directly to the Delaware County Court Financial Services Office.
On November 10, 1990, while still on parole, plaintiff was arrested in Scioto County, Ohio on a charge of robbery; he was sentenced to a term of incarceration of three (3) to ten (10) years after pleading guilty to that charge. Plaintiff states that some time after his arrest he called his mother and asked her to notify Mr. Miller of the arrest and of his location.
On June 25, 1991, while plaintiff was incarcerated in Ohio, the Delaware County Parole Office sent a letter to plaintiff's Philadelphia address regarding the payment of his outstanding costs and restitution, which were to be paid in full by September 8, 1991. Plaintiff was instructed in this letter to report to the Delaware County Office on July 11, 1991, to pay at least half of the court costs and restitution, and that a failure to do so would constitute a violation of his parole. This letter was returned to sender by the Post Office, which provided another address; a subsequent certified mailing to the new address was likewise returned to sender.
On September 4, 1991, defendant Jones and Officer James C. Costello of the Delaware County Parole Office prepared and filed a Request for Bench Warrant for plaintiff's arrest, citing plaintiff's failure to attend the July 11 meeting and his unauthorized absence from his designated Philadelphia address. Judge Clement J. McGovern issued a bench warrant on September 13, 1991. Because the Delaware County Parole Office had no knowledge of plaintiff's whereabouts, no detainer was lodged with the Ohio correctional system pursuant to this warrant.
After serving his time in Ohio, plaintiff was released on parole on January 24, 1994. He received an out-of-state parole and returned to his mother's home in Philadelphia. Before his release, however, the Ohio authorities ran checks to determine whether there were any outstanding warrants for plaintiff's arrest or "holders." Those checks disclosed no warrants or "holders."
In August of 1994, plaintiff was once again arrested in Delaware County on charges of robbery, simple assault, aggravated assault, and theft by unlawful taking. The arresting officer informed plaintiff that a Bench Warrant had been issued for him in September, 1991, and executed that warrant. A Gagnon I hearing1 was held on plaintiff's parole violation on or about August 31, 1994. At that hearing, plaintiff admitted to parole violations including failing to report as directed, failing to notify the Delaware County parole officer of a change of address, a new arrest, and failure to pay court costs and restitution. A Gagnon II Hearing was held on March 24, 1995, at which plaintiff was found guilty of parole violations and was sentenced to serve out the remainder of his sentence for the January 8, 1990 conviction, which amounted to approximately sixteen (16) months. In June, 1996, plaintiff was paroled from Delaware County Prison and returned to Ohio for a parole revocation hearing; plaintiff is presently an inmate in the Chillicothe Correctional Institution in Chillicothe, Ohio.
Plaintiff's Amended Complaint contains three counts under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. In Count I it is alleged that plaintiff's Eighth Amendment rights were violated when plaintiff, because of the "knowing and intelligent" deceptions allegedly engaged in by defendants William J. Jones, Robert Methie, and Alan Thompson, was subjected to a term of incarceration beyond that to which he had been sentenced. Plaintiff alleges in Count II that his Fourteenth Amendment rights to substantive and procedural due process were violated when defendants, Jones, Methie, and Thompson, acting with "deliberate indifference to a serious risk of harm" to plaintiff, allowed false charges to be brought against him and withheld information from the court considering plaintiff's parole violation. Finally, in Count III, plaintiff alleges that the holding of his parole revocation hearings outside of the time period allowed in the statutory framework, and his subsequent incarceration for an allegedly expired sentence, was the result of the withholding of "documentation" from the Gagnon hearing court by defendants, Jones, Methie, and Thompson, a deception which plaintiff alleges violated his Fourteenth Amendment rights.
As a result of the alleged violations of his constitutional rights, plaintiff seeks "general compensatory damages" in an unspecified amount, payments of costs in the amount of $34,275, punitive damages in the amount of $340,275, and unspecified "declaratory and injunctive" relief. On May 13, 1998, this Court denied the motions of defendants Jones, Methie, and Thompson to dismiss plaintiff's Amended Complaint.2
In the instant motion, defendants Jones, Methie, and Thompson move for summary judgment against plaintiff on the following grounds: (1) plaintiff has failed to establish that defendants violated his rights under the Eighth Amendment, because his detention was justified; (2) plaintiff has failed to establish that defendants violated his due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment, because he was accorded a speedy Parole Revocation Hearing as soon as defendants were aware of his location; and (3) defendants are entitled to qualified immunity because plaintiff has failed to show that defendants knowingly violated any of his rights which were clearly established at the time of the relevant conduct.
Defendants have filed a motion for summary judgment pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56. When reviewing a summary judgment motion, a court must grant the motion if it finds that the pleadings, together with depositions, admissions, answers, interrogatories, and affidavits present "no genuine issue of material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c). Because in this case the non-moving party bears the burden of proof at trial, the moving party need only show that there is a lack of any evidence to support the plaintiff's case. See Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323-25 (1986). Once a defendant demonstrates a lack of evidence, plaintiff may not rest on the complaint, but must come forward with facts sufficient for a jury to return a verdict in his favor. See Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 249 (1986). At that point the Court must determine whether there is "sufficient disagreement to require submission to a jury or whether [the evidence] is so one-sided that one party must prevail as a matter of law." Id. at 251-52. In doing so, Securities and Exchange...
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