Derrow v. Shields, Civ. A. No. 79-0316(R).
Decision Date | 17 January 1980 |
Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 79-0316(R). |
Citation | 482 F. Supp. 1144 |
Parties | Carroll D. DERROW, Plaintiff, v. Pleasant SHIELDS, Chairman Virginia Parole Board, Defendant. |
Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Virginia |
Carroll D. Derrow, pro se.
Linwood T. Wells, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Richmond, Va., for defendant.
Plaintiff, Carroll D. Derrow, a state inmate at the Floyd Correctional Unit, has brought this action pursuant to the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, asserting his entitlement to mandatory parole release as provided in § 53-251.3, Code of Virginia (1950), as amended. He contends that the Virginia Parole Board has miscalculated his mandatory parole release date and, in so doing, has denied him due process and equal protection of the law under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. The plaintiff seeks declaratory relief to compel his release and punitive and compensatory damages for each day of confinement beyond his mandatory release date. The initial issue confronting this court is whether a state prisoner in these circumstances, where his damages claim attacks the validity of his confinement, may immediately proceed under the Civil Rights Act or whether he must first exhaust his state court remedies before pursuing a section 1983 action. This question is addressed in two decisions of the United States Supreme Court, Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 93 S.Ct. 1827, 36 L.Ed.2d 439 (1973) and Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974).
In Preiser, three state prisoners brought suit under section 1983 alleging that state prison officials had deprived them of statutory good time in disciplinary hearings violative of due process and equal protection. They sought an injunction directing restoration of the lost credits, which would have resulted in their immediate release from incarceration.
The Supreme Court began its analysis by noting that the traditional scope of habeas corpus encompasses an attack on the legality of confinement and an attempt to secure release from it. 411 U.S. at 484, 93 S.Ct. 1827. Since, in these suits, wrongful deprivation of good time credits would have rendered confinement illegal as of the prisoners' conditional-release date, and since the relief sought, if granted, would have resulted in immediate release from custody, the suits fell "squarely within the traditional scope of habeas corpus." Id. at 487, 93 S.Ct. at 1835. The Court further stated that any attack on the fact or duration of confinement, even if it would result only in a reduction of the detention period rather than immediate release, would be sufficient to bring a suit within the core of habeas corpus.1Id. The majority then proceeded to find that the specific statutory directive2 requiring exhaustion of state remedies in federal habeas corpus petitions indicated a legislative intent to make habeas corpus, with its attendant exhaustion requirement, the exclusive method of challenging the validity of confinement, notwithstanding the more general terms of section 1983. Id. at 489-490, 93 S.Ct. 1827. To decide otherwise, the court reasoned, would permit circumvention of the exhaustion mandate of section 2254(b) and thereby undermine the integrity of habeas corpus. Id.
Drawing on the elastic definition of comity enunciated in Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669 (1971), the Court rejected the argument that principles of exhaustion grounded in comity were applicable to state judicial and not administrative actions and found the concept to have "as much relevance in areas of particular state administrative concern as it does where state judicial action is being attacked." 411 U.S. at 491, 93 S.Ct. at 1837. The Court concluded that, especially in relation to the administration of state prisons, where the state's involvement is pervasive, the policy of comity underlying the exhaustion requirement demands that state remedies be pursued prior to seeking release in federal court. Id. at 492, 93 S.Ct. 1827.
Although the respondents in Preiser were not seeking damages, the Court stated in dictum that when a state prisoner requests damages in a section 1983 action he is attacking something other than the fact or duration of his confinement, and he is seeking something other than his release. Id. at 494, 93 S.Ct. 1827. Therefore, such a suit would not fall within the core of habeas corpus, and exhaustion of state remedies would not be necessary before resort to a federal forum. Id.
It was this dictum that the court incorporated into its holding in Wolff v. McDonnell. There a state prisoner brought a class action alleging inter alia that prison disciplinary proceedings violated procedural due process. He sought various forms of relief including restoration of good time and damages for the deprivation of his constitutional right to procedural due process.
Writing for the majority, Justice White found restoration of good time credits without prior exhaustion of state remedies to be forbidden by Preiser. 418 U.S. at 554, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 2974. He noted, however, that "the complaint also sought damages; and Preiser expressly contemplated that claims properly brought under section 1983 could go forward while actual restoration of good-time credits is sought in state proceedings." Id. The Court concluded, therefore, that McDonnell's damage claim was properly before the district court, which could determine the validity of the challenged procedures. Id. at 555, 94 S.Ct. 2963. Moreover, the district court was authorized to grant a declaratory judgment as a predicate to a damage award and, as an ancillary remedy, where otherwise proper, a prospective injunction barring future enforcement of invalid prison regulations. Id. However, the district court was specifically prohibited from ordering the actual restoration of good time already cancelled. Id.
The leading case dealing with the Preiser-Wolff issue in the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is Bradford v. Weinstein, 519 F.2d 728 (4th Cir. 1974). In that case, the named plaintiffs, disclaiming that the purpose of their suit was to effect their release or to shorten the duration of their confinement, sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for themselves and other inmates similarly situated in the North Carolina correctional system asserting that the proceedings in which they were denied parole did not comport with due process requirements. The Court of Appeals, noting that the plaintiff's suit did not attack the fact or duration of their incarceration, found that this was not a case where the alleged constitutional violations were close to the core of habeas corpus or "`as close to the core of habeas corpus as an attack on the prisoner's conviction,' as discussed and defined in Preiser." 519 F.2d at 733-734. The Court thus concluded that Preiser did not preclude a civil rights action challenging the constitutionality of parole hearing procedures and held that Wolff authorized a suit for damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 without the need for exhaustion of state judicial remedies. Id. at 734-735.
Wolff and Bradford clearly mandate that a section 1983 suit challenging institutionalized practices alleged to be constitutionally defective may proceed without exhaustion. However, neither of these cases provide binding precedent in a situation where, as here, the resolution of the civil rights action will necessarily determine the validity or invalidity of the inmate's state confinement. The question remains an open one in this judicial circuit.3 Although the federal courts are split on the issue, it appears to this court that Preiser and Wolff provide authority for a conclusion that exhaustion is required in such circumstances.
In Preiser, the Court rested its holding on an analysis of the scope of habeas corpus, which was defined in terms of issues alone rather than issues and remedies.4 After finding that an attack on the fact or duration of confinement fell squarely within the "core of habeas corpus," Id. at 487, 93 S.Ct. 1827, the Court concluded that Congress had determined that habeas corpus is the appropriate remedy for state prisoners in such instances and that specific determination must override the general terms of section 1983.5 Id. at 490, 93 S.Ct. 1827. Therefore, whenever a state prisoner's attack falls within the core of habeas corpus, the writ of habeas corpus is the exclusive initial remedy and exhaustion of state judicial remedies is mandatory.
Although Wolff specifically permitted a damages claim to go forward without exhaustion, it is entirely consistent with issue-oriented approach enunciated in Preiser. While Wolff is unclear as to whether the loss of good time credits could be claimed as an element of a damages recovery, we do not believe the Court so intended. See Fulford v. Klein, 529 F.2d 377, 381 (5th Cir. 1976); aff'd en banc, 550 F.2d 342 (5th Cir. 1977). From the Supreme Court's delineation of permissible and impermissible uses of the district court's injunctive and declaratory powers on remand, we conclude that the Court authorized the district court to examine the constitutionality of the state prison procedure, and to award damages which were incidental to an invalid proceeding. Since the district court was expressly forbidden to enter an injunction concerning the merits of the issue before the state administrative body, the proper length of confinement, it follows as a matter of logic that damages could be awarded by the district court only incident to the invalid process itself—not to recompense the effect such a proceeding may have had on the length or legality of the plaintiff's confinement.6 It is thus apparent that the Court in Wolff focused on the issue involved rather than the remedy sought.
Accordingly, on our reading of Wolff and Preiser, we adopt the position of the Court of Appeals for the...
To continue reading
Request your trial-
Holsey v. Bass
... ... Civ. No. W-81-1831 ... United States District Court, D. Maryland ... In Derrow v. Shields, 482 F.Supp. 1144 (W.D.Va.1980), a prisoner, without ... ...
-
Johnson v. Muncy
... ... constitutional claim at trial and on appeal," citing to Slayton ); Derrow v. Shields, 482 F.Supp. 1144, 1149 (W.D.Va.1980) (characterizing Slayton ... ...
- United States v. Chawla
-
Hanson v. Heckel
... ... required, "initial and exclusive remedy" lies in habeas corpus); Derrow v. Shields, 482 F.Supp. 1144, 1149 (W.D.Va.1980) (whenever a state ... ...