Giarratano v. Johnson

Decision Date16 October 2006
Docket NumberNo. 2:06CV00004.,2:06CV00004.
Citation456 F.Supp.2d 747
PartiesJoseph M. GIARRATANO, Plaintiff, v. Gene JOHNSON, director of the Virginia Department of Corrections, et al., Defendants.
CourtU.S. District Court — Western District of Virginia

Rebecca Glenberg, American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia Foundation, Inc., Richmond, VA, Steven D. Rosenfield, and R. Frazier Solsberry, Charlottesville, VA, for Plaintiff.

Mark R. Davis, Senior Assistant Attorney General of Virginia, Richmond, VA, for Defendants.

OPINION

JONES, Chief Judge.

In this action arising under 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983 (West 2003), the issue is whether the statutory exclusion of prisoners from making requests for public records under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act ("VFOIA") is constitutional. I find the prisoner exclusion provision of the VFOIA constitutional on its face and as applied to the plaintiff's request for public documents. Accordingly, I will grant the defendants' Motion to Dismiss.

I

Joseph M. Giarratano, an inmate in the custody of the Virginia Department of Corrections ("VDOC"), raises facial and as-applied challenges to the VFOIA under the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment and under the First Amendment. The defendants have moved to dismiss under Feder, al Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim.

In accord with familiar principles, in determining the Motion to Dismiss I will accept as true the allegations of the Complaint.

In 1996 the plaintiff was diagnosed with chronic hepatitis C, a blood borne, infectious, viral disease. He informally requested from the medical department at Red Onion State Prison copies at his expense of the prison treatment protocols for inmates with hepatitis C. The plaintiff alleges that he requested the materials to make informed decisions regarding his health and to aid in any litigation arising from VDOC's treatment of his condition. The plaintiff believes that the requested materials would be helpful in evaluating whether he has a viable claim under the Eighth Amendment for the manner in which VDOC has treated his illness during his incarceration. The informal request was denied by prison officials.

Following the initial denial, the plaintiff filed a formal request under VFOIA seeking the same information previously requested. In part, the VFOIA gives citizens the right of ready access to all public records held by the State and its officers and employees. See Va.Code Ann. §§ 2.2-3700 through 3704 (2005).

The State may deny access to a public record only by invoking one of the narrowly drawn exemptions enumerated by the statute. However, section 2.2-3703(C) excludes all persons incarcerated in any state, local, or federal correctional facility from enjoying any of the rights afforded under VFOIA to make requests for public records.1 Accordingly, VDOC officials again refused to provide the requested materials, even though under VFOIA such materials would otherwise be available to persons who were not incarcerated. The plaintiff next filed a grievance with defendant Tracy S. Ray, warden of Red Onion State Prison, requesting access to the treatment protocols for inmates with hepatitis C. After the grievance was denied on June 30, 2005, the plaintiff initiated the present suit in this court against the director of VDOC and the warden.

The Motion to Dismiss has been fully briefed and argued and is ripe for decision.

II

At this stage of the proceedings, "[t]he issue is not whether a plaintiff will ultimately prevail but whether the claimant is entitled to offer evidence to support the claims." Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 236, 94 S.Ct. 1683, 40 L.Ed.2d 90 (1974). A motion to dismiss pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) may be granted only if, accepting the allegations in the complaint as true and viewing them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, the plaintiff can prove no set of facts that would entitle him to relief. See Conley v Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957).

The plaintiff makes a facial challenge and as-applied challenges to the prisoner exclusion provision of the VFOIA. A facial challenge attacks the constitutionality of the statute in all situations while an as applied challenge consists of a challenge to the statute's application only to the party before the court. See Fisher v. King, 232 F.3d 391, 395 n. 4 (4th Cir.2000).

A. THE FACIAL CHALLENGE.

The plaintiff, contends that the exclusion of prisoners from accessing public records under VFOIA violates the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection.

The exclusion is presumptively valid. "Laws are presumed to be constitutional under the equal protection clause for the simple reason that classification is the very essence of the art of legislation." Moss v. Clark, 886 F.2d 686, 689 (4th Cir.1989) (citation omitted). The challenged classification need only be rationally related to a legitimate state interest unless it violates a fundamental right or is drawn upon a suspect classification such as race, religion, or gender. City of New Orleans v. Dukes, 427 U.S. 297, 303, 96 S.Ct. 2513, 49 L.Ed.2d 511 (1976).

"Prisoners are not a suspect class." Roller v. Gunn, 107 F.3d 227, 233 (4th Cir.1997). Nor is the status of incarceration an immutable characteristic. Moss, 886 F.2d at 690. Therefore, the VFOIA prisoner exclusion must be reviewed under the rational basis standard.

Under this deferential standard, the plaintiff holds the burden of disproving the existence of every conceivable basis which might support the legislation. Mitchell v. Comm'r of the Soc. Sec. Admin., 182 F.3d 272, 274 (4th Cir.1999). I find that the plaintiff cannot meet this burden because there are a variety of rational reasons for excluding prisoners from access to public records under VFOIA.2 In passing this exclusion, the Virginia General Assembly could have believed that inmates are intrinsically prone to abuse the VFOIA request provisions and that such frivolous requests would unduly burden state resources.

The plaintiff asserts that this court must determine whether in fact prisoners are prone to filing frivolous VFOIA requests and that he be given a chance to prove prisoners do not make frivolous requests at a higher rate than members of the, general public. This assertion confuses the level of deference due to the legislature in this instance. Under rational basis review, the State has no obligation to produce evidence to support the rationality of the statute and may rely entirely on rational speculation unsupported by any evidence dence or empirical data. See FCC v. Beach Commc'ns, Inc., 508 U.S. 307, 315, 113 S.Ct. 2096, 124 L.Ed.2d 211 (1993). Furthermore, the legislature is not required to articulate any purpose or rationale in support of its legislation. See Nordlinger v. Hahn, 505 U.S. 1, 15, 112 S.Ct. 2326, 120 L.Ed.2d 1 (1992).

The proper question is whether the legislature could have conceivably believed that the exclusion of prisoners from making VFOIA requests would eliminate frivolous and burdensome VFOIA requests and not whether this court could determine that the exclusion of prisoners in fact accomplishes that purpose. "[E]qual protection [analysis] is not a license for courts to judge the wisdom, fairness, or logic of legislative choices." Beach Commc'ns, Inc., 508 U.S. at 313, 113 S.Ct. 2096. Therefore, contrary to the plaintiffs assertions, I need not determine whether in fact prisoners are more prone to abuse VFOIA.

The Virginia General Assembly could have reasonably believed excluding prisoners from accessing public records would conserve state resources and prevent frivolous requests. As such, the prisoner exclusion provision of VFOIA survives rational basis review.

There are other reasons why the legislature may have believed it rational to exclude prisoners from the ability to access public records under VFOIA. The legislature could have thought that inmates have less of a need to access public records because their confinement greatly limits the amount of contact they have with state government. "[C]ertain privileges and rights must necessarily be limited in the prison context." Johnson v. California, 543 U.S. 499, 510, 125 S.Ct. 1141, 160 L.Ed.2d 949 (2005) (citing O'Lone v. Estate of Shabazz, 482 U.S. 342, 348, 107 S.Ct. 2400, 96 L.Ed.2d 282 (1987)) ("`Lawful incarceration brings about the necessary withdrawal or limitation of many privileges and rights, a retraction justified by the considerations underlying our penal system.'") (quoting Price v. Johnston, 334 U.S. 266, 285, 68 S.Ct. 1049, 92 L.Ed. 1356 (1948)).3

The status of incarceration inevitably restricts prisoners in a variety of ways in comparison with the general public, including the interaction they have with most state agencies and departments. Therefore, it is rational to restrict their access to public records to correspond with their reduced need for such information.

Because the plaintiff has failed to allege any set of facts that would indicate the classification at issue violates any fundamental rights, is irrational, or otherwise fails to serve a legitimate state interest, his equal protection claim must fail.

B. THE AS-APPLIED CHALLENGES.

The plaintiff also contends that even if the prisoner exclusion is constitutional on its face, as applied to his specific request for the VDOC hepatitis C treatment protocols the exclusion violates the Equal Protection Clause. The plaintiff believes that because he has not filed a frivolous request for information or used a request to harass a government official there is no rational basis for refusing his request for the hepatitis C treatment protocols. Even assuming the request at issue is not frivolous or motivated by an inappropriate purpose, the prisoner exclusion provision does not deny equal protection to the plaintiff because it precludes access to the hepatitis C treatment...

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8 cases
  • Giarratano v. Johnson
    • United States
    • United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (4th Circuit)
    • March 25, 2008
    ...to determine whether Virginia's statutory exclusion of prisoners from making FOIA requests is constitutional. See Giarratano v. Johnson, 456 F.Supp.2d 747 (W.D.Va. 2006). The court held that, on its face and as applied to Giarratano's individual request, the prisoner exclusion provision of ......
  • U.S. v. Hinen
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Western District of Virginia
    • May 12, 2007
    ...all situations while an as-applied challenge attacks the statute's application only to the party before the court. Giarratano v. Johnson, 456 F.Supp.2d 747, 750 (W.D.Va.2006). The defendant first argues that as applied to him — a sex offender convicted before July 27, 2006 — SORNA is uncons......
  • Boppre v. Overman, A-15-1135.
    • United States
    • Court of Appeals of Nebraska
    • November 22, 2016
    ...Nebraska public records statutes, as they currently exist, do not limit Boppre's access to such records. But, see, Giarratano v. Johnson, 456 F. Supp. 2d 747 (W.D. Va. 2006), aff'd, 521 F.3d 298 (4th Cir. 2008) (statutory exclusion of prisoners from making requests for public records under ......
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    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — District of South Carolina
    • November 22, 2011
    ...(1977). This right "sounds in both the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment." Giarratano v. Johnson, 456 F.Supp. 2d 747, 752 (4th Cir. 2006) (citing Bill Johnson's Restaurants v. NLRB, 461 U.S. 731 (1983) and Wolff v. McDonald, 418 U.S. 539 (1974)). The Six......
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