Angola v. Civiletti

Decision Date06 January 1981
Docket NumberD,No. 312,312
Citation666 F.2d 1
PartiesBibi ANGOLA (former name Beatrice Watson), Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Benjamin R. CIVILETTI, Attorney General of the United States; William H. Webster, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Neil J. Welch, Assistant Director in charge of the New York Office, Federal Bureau of Investigation; Joseph MacFarlane, Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of the New York Office, Federal Bureau of Investigation; and Ronald W. Butkiewicz; Edward Peterson and Robert Cordier, Special Agents, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Defendants-Appellees. ocket 80-6120.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

William M. Kunstler, New York City (Margaret L. Ratner, Randolph McLaughlin and Michael D. Ratner, New York City, and C. Vernon Mason, New York City, on brief), for plaintiff-appellant.

Thomas D. Warren, Asst. U.S. Atty., New York City (John S. Martin, Jr., U.S. Atty., and Peter C. Salerno, Asst. U.S. Atty., New York City, on brief), for defendants-appellees.

Before TIMBERS and NEWMAN, Circuit Judges, and PORT, Senior District Judge. *

TIMBERS, Circuit Judge:

Appellant Bibi Angola appeals from a judgment entered in the Southern District of New York, Whitman Knapp, District Judge, dismissing her complaint seeking injunctive and declaratory relief against alleged violations of her constitutional rights by government officials. The sole and narrow issue on appeal is the legal sufficiency of the complaint. We hold, for the reasons stated below, that the complaint, as amplified at a hearing before Judge Knapp and by affidavits, was sufficient.

Appellant commenced this action against Benjamin R. Civiletti, United States Attorney General, William H. Webster, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (the Bureau), and five employees of the Bureau, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against certain past and future acts of defendants claimed to violate her constitutional rights and those of her associates. All defendants were sued in their official capacities only. The district court denied appellant's motion for a preliminary injunction and dismissed her complaint in an opinion dated June 2, 1980. From the judgment entered thereon on June 12, 1980, appellant has appealed. The case is properly before us as an appeal from a final judgment of a district court within our federal question jurisdiction. 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291, 1339 (1976).

I.

The facts as alleged and the proceedings in the district court may be briefly summarized. Appellant claims that the Bureau's interest in her and its actions complained of stem from her close relationship with one Assata Shakur, a/k/a Joanne Chesimard, and Richard Dhoruba Moore. Ms. Shakur is a convicted felon who escaped from a New Jersey prison on November 2, 1979. The United States District Court for the District of New Jersey issued a warrant for her arrest on November 3, 1979. Mr. Moore has sued the Bureau, along with other defendants, in a civil rights action pending in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The complaint, as amplified by the supporting affidavits and the claims of counsel at the hearing before Judge Knapp, alleges that conduct of agents of the Bureau has impaired appellant's enjoyment of her constitutional rights. The alleged conduct consists of several discrete occurrences: an agent forced his way into her apartment and terrorized her son in the course of an attempt to question her about Assata Shakur and others; the agent threatened to damage her future career as a lawyer if she did not cooperate in the investigation; the agent attempted to question her outside her apartment; other agents have visited, threatened, and harassed her and have attempted to interrogate and harass her relatives; agents have repeatedly slashed her automobile tires; and agents broke into the apartment of one of her friends, Ms. Adelona, at night, shortly after appellant had visited there, and terrorized her friend and others in the apartment building. Appellant alleges that all of these actions were committed against her, either directly or indirectly, for the purpose of coercing her into cooperating with the Bureau. She seeks a declaratory judgment that the alleged actions are unlawful and an injunction to prevent similar actions in the future.

Appellees have not answered the complaint. There has been no discovery. Appellees did file affidavits of two Bureau employees, one of whom is named as a defendant in this action. One affidavit alleges that in its attempt to locate Ms. Shakur the Bureau has attempted to contact all of her known associates. The second affidavit recounts the affiant's version of his visit to appellant's home on the date stated by appellant as the date when the alleged break-in and terrorism occurred. While this second affidavit disputes some of appellant's contentions concerning events at her home, neither affidavit makes any denial of the events alleged to have occurred at Ms. Adelona's apartment. Appellees also filed a Memorandum in Opposition to Plaintiff's Motion for a Preliminary Injunction. The Memorandum contains no additional factual response to the complaint.

The district court issued an order to show cause why an injunction should not issue. At the hearing on the order to show cause, the parties stipulated that the hearing would constitute the final hearing on appellant's request for injunctive relief. The district court heard oral argument by counsel but refused to order an evidentiary hearing, stating that appellant had failed to make out a prima facie case. The district court, viewing the factual allegations in the light of appellant's claim of damage to her associational rights, held that there was no basis for inferring that the alleged unconstitutional actions taken by the Bureau against appellant's friends were "directed" at or in any way related to appellant.

We view appellant's factual allegations from a somewhat different legal perspective. In our view appellant has adequately stated a claim for violation of her right not to be coerced, by tactics of intimidation or harassment, into cooperating with law enforcement efforts. Since our approach to this case differs from the one primarily relied on by the parties and by the district court, we shall state initially the issue which they apparently regarded as controlling.

II.

Appellant's claim of violation of her associational rights consists of four elements: first, that the Bureau took illegal actions against at least one of her friends; second,...

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