Counts v. Newhart

• Decision Date: 05 November 1996
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. 2:96cv101.
• Citation: 951 F.Supp. 579
• Parties: Shelby L. COUNTS, Plaintiff, v. John R. NEWHART, Sheriff, and Ron Angelone, Virginia Dep't of Corrections, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Virginia

951 F.Supp. 579

Shelby L. COUNTS, Plaintiff, v. John R. NEWHART, Sheriff, and Ron Angelone, Virginia Dep't of Corrections, Defendants.

Civil Action No. 2:96cv101.

United States District Court, E.D. Virginia, Norfolk Division.

November 5, 1996.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Shelby L. Counts, pro se.

Samuel L. Dumville, Virginia Beach, VA, for John Newhart.

Lance B. Leggitt, Attorney General's Office, Richmond, VA, for Ron Angelone.

OPINION AND ORDER

CLARKE, District Judge.

Plaintiff, a Virginia inmate, brings this pro se action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 to redress alleged violations of his constitutional rights. Plaintiff seeks monetary relief.¹ This matter comes before this Court on defendant Ron Angelone's motion to dismiss pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) and defendant John R. Newhart's motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) or in the alternative for summary judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56. In accordance with Roseboro v. Garrison, 528 F.2d 309 (4th Cir.1975), plaintiff was given an opportunity to respond to the motions by the defendants with any material that he wished to offer in rebuttal. For the reasons stated below, defendant Angelone's motion to dismiss is GRANTED and defendant Newhart's motion for summary judgment is GRANTED.

I. BACKGROUND

Plaintiff Shelby Counts is a Virginia inmate currently housed in a state correctional facility in Troutville, Virginia. Prior to that, Counts was housed in the Chesapeake City Jail awaiting transfer to a state institution. Counts brings this civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 challenging the conditions at the Chesapeake City Jail and the failure of the Virginia Department of Corrections ("VDOC") to transfer him to a state institution within the time frame specified under Virginia law.

Counts' conditions claim is directed at defendant John Newhart, Sheriff of the City of Chesapeake, Virginia. Counts alleges that Sheriff Newhart violated his constitutional rights because of inadequate conditions at the Chesapeake City Jail, the maintenance of an inadequate law library, and interference with the plaintiff's practice of religion.

According to Counts, the cell block in which he was housed was designed to hold ten inmates but regularly held twenty-seven to twenty-nine inmates. This cell block consisted of five cells and a day-room. Each cell, designed to hold two inmates, held three inmates, two sleeping in bunk beds and one sleeping on a mattress on the floor. The remaining inmates slept on mattresses on the floor of the day-room. Overall, Counts alleges that the Chesapeake City Jail holds between 500-525 inmates in a facility designed to hold 250.

Briefly stated, Counts also alleges that the overcrowding prevents the cleaning of cells because of resistance to cleaning by inmates; that the meal service at the jail is inadequate; that medical treatment and the medical screening of incoming inmates at the jail are inadequate; that the conditions at the jail promote the breeding of insects and other vermin; that the jail has inadequate staff to provide security; that the jail's rehabilitation programs are inadequate; and that the jail provides inadequate recreation by limiting recreation in the multipurpose gym and failing to maintain a fact-and-fiction library.

Counts also directs two other claims at Sheriff Newhart. Counts argues that the law library at the jail is inadequate, that the deputy in charge of the library refused to give legal advice to the inmates, and that he has not been provided with a paralegal. Lastly, Counts alleges that Sheriff Newhart has prevented him from properly practicing his religion.

Counts claims that these conditions at the Chesapeake City Jail have caused him to suffer a "constant, daily, 24 hour physical and mental stress, measured by an increase in suffering from headaches, nervousness, and stomach cramps ..."

Counts' claim against defendant Ron Angelone, Director of the VDOC, essentially states that Angelone has failed to enforce Virginia Code Section 53.1-20 which generally states that certain prisoners committed to the custody of the VDOC be transferred from local jail to the VDOC within sixty days of sentencing. Plaintiff argues that his detention in the Chesapeake City Jail for more than sixteen months was a violation of an interest created by Section 53.1-20 and protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.

II. DEFENDANT ANGELONE'S MOTION TO DISMISS

A. Standard for Dismissal for Failure to State a Claim

In construing a motion to dismiss, the facts alleged in plaintiffs' pro se complaint must be taken as true. Loe v. Armistead, 582 F.2d 1291, 1292 (4th Cir.1978), cert. denied, Moffitt v. Loe, 446 U.S. 928, 100 S.Ct. 1865, 64 L.Ed.2d 281 (1980). A pro se complaint, no matter how unartfully pleaded, must survive a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim "unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief." Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 521, 92 S.Ct. 594, 596, 30 L.Ed.2d 652 (1972) (per curiam). A pro se complaint involving civil rights issues should be liberally construed. Gordon v. Leeke, 574 F.2d 1147, 1151 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 970, 99 S.Ct. 464, 58 L.Ed.2d 431 (1978). Dismissal may be appropriate where the complaint contains a detailed description of underlying facts which fail to state a viable claim. Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 106-09, 97 S.Ct. 285, 292-94, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976). If the complaint is broad, dismissal for failure to state a claim is improper. Bolding v. Holshouser, 575 F.2d 461 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 837, 99 S.Ct. 121, 58 L.Ed.2d 133 (1978). Finally, if a pro se complaint contains a potentially cognizable claim, plaintiff should be allowed to particularize the claim. Coleman v. Peyton, 340 F.2d 603, 604 (4th Cir.1965).

B. Analysis

Counts argues that Virginia Code Section 53.1-20 requires that he have been transferred from the Chesapeake City Jail into the custody of the VDOC within sixty days of sentencing and that the failure to do is a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.² Angelone argues that this claim is not cognizable under Section 1983.³

1. Due Process

The Court will first analyze whether Counts has stated a claim under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In order for Counts to be able to litigate this violation of state law in federal court under Section 1983, Counts must demonstrate that the VDOC's failure to comply with state law amounts to a violation of an interest protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.

In Sandin v. Conner, ___ U.S. ___, 115 S.Ct. 2293, 132 L.Ed.2d 418 (1995), the Supreme Court revisited the analysis used to determine when a prisoner has alleged the violation of an interest protected by the Due Process Clause.⁴ Under Sandin, the "due process analysis begins with [Wolff v. McDonnell]." Sandin, ___ U.S. at ___, 115 S.Ct. at 2297. In Wolff, Nebraska prisoners claimed that it was a violation of their due process rights for prison officials to revoke good time credits without adequate procedures. Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974). The Supreme Court, however, held that although the Due Process Clause itself does not create a liberty interest in credit for good behavior, the statutory provision created a liberty interest in a "shortened prison sentence" which resulted from good time credits, credits which were revocable only if the prisoner was guilty of serious misconduct. Sandin, ___ U.S. at ___, 115 S.Ct. at 2297 (explaining the Wolff holding); Wolff, 418 U.S. at 557, 94 S.Ct. at 2975. The Wolff Court characterized this liberty interest as one of "real substance" and articulated minimum procedures necessary to reach a "mutual accommodation between institutional needs and objectives and the provisions of the Constitution." Wolff, 418 U.S. at 556, 94 S.Ct. at 2975.

In Sandin, a Hawaii inmate sued prison officials and the state of Hawaii, challenging the imposition of disciplinary segregation for misconduct. Here, the Supreme Court stated:

we recognize that States may under certain circumstances create liberty interests which are protected by the Due Process Clause. But these interests will be generally limited to freedom from restraint which, while not exceeding the sentence in such an unexpected manner as to give rise to protection by the Due Process Clause by its own force, nonetheless imposes atypical and significant hardship on the inmate in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life.

Sandin, ___ U.S. at ___, 115 S.Ct. at 2300 (citations omitted) (emphasis added). The Supreme Court recognized that although "prisoners do not shed all constitutional rights at the prison gate, ... lawful incarceration brings about the necessary withdrawal or limitation of many privileges and rights, a retraction justified by the considerations underlying our penal system." Id. (citations omitted). Because the Court found that a prisoner's discipline, inter alia, did not inevitably affect the duration of the prisoner's sentence, the Court held that segregated confinement "did not present the type of atypical, significant deprivation in which a state might conceivably create a liberty interest." Id. at ___, 115 S.Ct. at 2301.

Under the Sandin standard, any interest merely in the place of confinement rarely will be one protected by the Due Process Clause. In recognition of Sandin's admonition that "federal courts ought to afford appropriate deference and flexibility to state officials trying to manage a volatile environment," id. at ___, 115 S.Ct. at 2299, this Court finds that when litigating the place of confinement, the prisoner cannot rely upon state laws or regulations which amount to nothing more than procedural requirements for the management of state prisons and local jails. Such procedural...