Haley v. Troy
| Decision Date | 02 February 1972 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 70-61. |
| Citation | 338 F. Supp. 794 |
| Parties | Thurman J. HALEY et al., Plaintiffs, v. Jerome P. TROY, Justice of the Municipal Court of the Dorchester District. Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts |
COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED
Michael L. Altman, R. Peter Anderson, Boston Legal Assistance Project, Dorchester, Mass., for plaintiffs.
Walter H. Mayo, III, Charles K. Mone, Asst. Atty. Gens., Boston, Mass., for defendant.
This is a civil rights action brought by three persons, who receive public assistance under the public welfare laws of Massachusetts, seeking injunctive and declaratory relief against Jerome P. Troy, a justice of the Municipal Court of the Dorchester District. Jurisdiction of the court is alleged under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and 28 U.S.C. §§ 2201, 2202. It is also alleged that this is a class action. The plaintiffs' claim is that defendant in his conduct and practices as a justice of the Dorchester court maliciously and purposefully acted outside the scope of his authority and jurisdiction to coerce, intimidate, harass and discriminate against welfare recipients and to interfere with their federal statutory rights in violation of the first, fourth, fifth, eighth, ninth and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution.
The gist of the complaint may be stated as follows. It has been defendant's repeated practice to attempt to redetermine the eligibility of welfare recipients for the receipt of public assistance. It has been his repeated practice to harass, intimidate, humiliate and discriminate against welfare recipients by: (a) inquiring of women "who come in contact" with the court whether they are welfare recipients, and, if they are, telling them they are required to sign a criminal nonsupport complaint against their husbands or the fathers of their children; (b) informing female welfare recipients that unless they sign nonsupport complaints the Department of Public Welfare will terminate their welfare benefits; (c) attempting to humiliate welfare recipients by asking them questions about their family life and their sexual behavior; (d) ordering welfare recipients to reimburse money to the Department of Public Welfare; (e) prosecuting as well as judging cases of criminal nonsupport against defendants who are welfare recipients; (f) convicting welfare recipients of nonsupport without any factual basis; and (g) ordering welfare recipients to tell the Department of Public Welfare to terminate their welfare benefits. Persons who are not welfare recipients who appear in the Dorchester court are not subject to such practices. Recipients of public assistance are deprived of equal protection of the laws when they become involved in any proceeding before the Dorchester court by defendant treating them differently than all others before the court, who are not recipients of public assistance.
The case came on to be heard by the court without a jury on the testimony of witnesses called by plaintiffs, the deposition of the chief probation officer of the Dorchester court, admissions of fact by defendant, and interrogatories to defendant and his answers thereto. The defendant did not otherwise appear as a witness at the trial. This memorandum contains the findings and rulings of the court, Rule 52, Fed.R.Civ.P.
At the trial of this case no evidence was offered of inquiries by defendant addressed to welfare recipients about their "sexual behavior", nor was any reliable evidence offered of defendant's convicting welfare recipients of nonsupport "without any factual basis". These allegations of the complaint are without foundation.
When the defendant became the presiding justice of the Dorchester court in 1962, it was the practice to refer each applicant for a nonsupport complaint to the probation officer who would, if there was venue of the case, attempt to work out the support problem without resort to criminal proceedings. In this informal proceeding efforts were made to bring husband and wife together in the probation office, to advise the husband concerning the support laws, to encourage him to provide support, to provide family counselling when appropriate, and to seek hospitalization or assistance from AA (Alcoholics Anonymous), if alcohol was a problem. The object of the informal proceeding was to prevent embarrassment to husband and wife and, if feasible, to keep the family together. The procedure extended also to cases of nonsupport against fathers of illegitimate children. The informal procedure was encouraged by the chief justice of the Massachusetts District Courts. Most of the cases handled by the informal procedure were adjusted without the issuance of criminal complaints.
About a year following his appointment as presiding justice, the defendant instructed probation officers attached to the court to discontinue the informal adjustment procedure in cases of applicants who were receiving public assistance. Such applicants were referred to the clerk of the court who determined whether a criminal complaint would issue. If the complaint issued, the case would be tried to the court. Denial of the opportunity for consideration under the informal procedure to all such applicants deprived them of the benefits which accrued from the procedure. This practice of discriminating against welfare recipients continued until late 1969.
The informal procedure was itself discontinued in all nonsupport cases in late 1969. Since that time, all nonsupport cases, whether or not the applicant for the complaint is a welfare recipient, have been handled by the police, and in each case a determination is made by the clerk of the court whether a complaint is to issue. The discontinuance of the informal procedure was ordered by the chief probation officer because he was of the opinion there was doubtful legal authority for probation officers to adjust any case brought to the court. There is no present intention on the part of the defendant or the chief probation officer to reinstitute the informal procedure.
There was evidence that defendant entered orders for bail in varying amounts in nonsupport cases. It is the contention of the plaintiffs that the defendant maliciously and purposefully discriminated against recipients of public assistance by setting money bail in their cases in higher amounts than in other nonsupport cases. There is no persuasive evidence that the defendant engaged in such conduct or practice. Plaintiffs introduced evidence from a study of bail in the Massachusetts District Courts by the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights under Law which revealed that money bail was consistently higher in the Dorchester District Court than in other district courts for all categories of offenses. There was no evidence from this study, however, of any discrimination by the defendant between welfare recipients and others in the setting of bail. There was no showing either that the variations in the amount of bail were not accounted for by defendant's considering facts relevant to pretrial release, or that the defendant imposed unreasonable conditions for pretrial release in the nonsupport cases of welfare recipients. Plaintiffs' contentions rest on the observations of a probation officer, who was not present in court observing defendant's conduct in all nonsupport cases when bail was set, who had made no study of such cases, who offered no relevant facts on the issue of pretrial release in the cases he observed, but who had, nevertheless, formed the impression that bail set by defendant appeared higher in those cases involving welfare recipients. The court finds that plaintiffs fail to show malicious and purposeful discrimination by defendant against welfare recipients in his conduct or practices in setting bail.
From time to time the defendant directed women appearing before the court in other matters to sign criminal nonsupport complaints against husbands or fathers of their children. Such directions were given to plaintiff Eleanor C. Haley, when she appeared in the juvenile session of the court for the purpose of observing proceedings against two of her juvenile children; to plaintiff Mary Brothers, when she appeared as defendant in a summary process proceeding in the court; to one Sylvia Williams, when she appeared as defendant in the court to answer to a complaint that she gave a false name to a police officer. All these women were welfare recipients. Defendant gave similar directions to other women, also recipients of public assistance. But it is clear he also gave similar directions to women who were not recipients of public assistance. Putting to one side at this time questions of the legality and propriety of the defendant's orders, it was shown that in certain instances probation officers advised the defendant the nonsupport complaints should not issue. Defendant usually followed the probation officers' advice. Furthermore, not all women ordered to sign a criminal nonsupport complaint complied with defendant's orders. There was no evidence of any repeated or regular practice or policy on the part of the defendant to single out women recipients of public assistance. There is abundant evidence to show it was his practice or policy to make such orders when he suspected that a woman or her children were not being supported by her husband whether or not she was a welfare recipient. There were more women who were recipients of welfare than nonrecipients ordered to sign complaints, but these differences did not result from systematic discrimination by defendant against welfare recipients.
In certain instances defendant instructed probation officers to write letters to the Massachusetts Department of Public Welfare when a woman welfare recipient refused to sign a nonsupport complaint or refused to testify in an illegitimacy proceeding. Copies of these letters were sent to members of the...
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