Hurd v. Dist. of Columbia
| Docket Number | Civil Action 15-666 (JDB) |
| Decision Date | 15 December 2023 |
| Parties | MICHAEL D. HURD, JR., Plaintiff, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Columbia |
In this long-running litigation, Michael D. Hurd, Jr. alleges that the District of Columbia (the “District”) violated his Fifth Amendment due process rights when it reincarcerated him without a hearing in 2011 for unserved misdemeanor sentences. On July 25, 2023, the Court granted the District's renewed motion for summary judgment as to Hurd's substantive due process claim but denied it as to Hurd's procedural due process claim. See Hurd v District of Columbia, Civ. A. No. 15-666 (JDB), 2023 WL 4744056, at *20 (D.D.C. July 25, 2023) [ECF No. 76] (“SJ Op.”). The District now moves for partial reconsideration of that decision under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b). The District contends that the damages theory offered by Hurd and relied on by the Court in its earlier opinion-that a pre-deprivation hearing would have revealed that Hurd was entitled to have time-served credit applied to each of his misdemeanor sentences- contradicts the established facts of the case and is wrong as a matter of law.
For the reasons that follow, the Court concludes that reconsideration is warranted, that Hurd cannot rely on a time-served credit theory of damages, and that Hurd's alternative damages theories are also flawed. The Court will thus grant the District's motion for reconsideration and grant summary judgment in the District's favor on all claims.
The Court assumes familiarity with the factual and procedural history set forth in its prior opinion, see SJ Op. at *1-5 and so will recount the facts and procedural history only briefly with an emphasis on information relevant to the instant motion.[1]
I. Factual Background
On September 21, 2006, Judge Holeman of the D.C. Superior Court sentenced Hurd (following revocation of probation) on five counts: carrying a pistol without a license (Count Two) possession of a prohibited weapon (Count Three), two counts of possession of an unregistered firearm (Counts Four and Five), and possession of cocaine (Count Six). See SJ Op. at *1-2; Ex. 3 to Def.'s Renewed Mot. for Summ. J. (“Mot. for Summ. J.”) [ECF No. 65-5] (“Dist. Ex. 3”) (criminal judgment dated September 21, 2006). Count Two was a felony; the other four counts were misdemeanors. See SJ Op. at *1-2. Judge Holeman imposed a sentence of 42 months' imprisonment: 15 months on Count Two (followed by 3 years of supervised release), 12 months on Count Three, and 5 months on each of Counts Four, Five, and Six, all to run consecutively. Dist Ex. 3. The judgment listed “Credit For Time Served” next to the sentence on each count. Id. Prior to this sentencing, Hurd had spent 97 days in custody: 95 days following his arrest and 2 days on the initial, largely suspended sentence for which Hurd was on probation. See SJ Op. at *1-2.[2]
“The normal practice at the time was for felony time to be served in the federal prison and misdemeanor time to be served in the D.C. Jail.” Id. at *3 (cleaned up) (internal quotation marks omitted). Hurd served his sentence on the felony count in federal prison but was then released on July 18, 2007, to begin his term of supervised release rather than transferred to the D.C. Jail. Id. at *2. At the time of his release, he had not yet served prison time on his four misdemeanor sentences (totaling 27 months). Id. Hurd's three-year term of supervised release ended on July 18, 2010. Id. at *3.
On September 20, 2011, Hurd pleaded guilty to possession of a controlled substance in D.C. Superior Court and was sentenced to nine days' incarceration to be served over the course of three weekends at D.C. Jail. Id. On October 2, while performing a “release clearance process” at the conclusion of Hurd's second weekend of incarceration, a D.C. Department of Corrections (“DOC”) employee discovered that Hurd had never been returned to D.C. Jail to serve his previous four misdemeanor sentences. Id. DOC staff thus informed Hurd that he still had 27 months to serve on his 2006 sentences and would not be released. Id. at *4. DOC staff declined to give Hurd a hearing. Id.
On November 16, 2011, Hurd-through counsel-filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in D.C. Superior Court. See Ex. 18 to Mot. for Summ. J. [ECF No. 65-20] (“Dist. Ex. 18”) (habeas petition); SJ Op. at *4. Judge Holeman held a hearing on Hurd's petition on July 27, 2012. See SJ Op. at *4; Ex. 12 to Mot. for Summ. J. [ECF No. 65-14] (“Dist. Ex. 12”) (hearing transcript). At the hearing, Hurd argued, inter alia, that (1) he was entitled to credit for the time he had spent at liberty, (2) his reincarceration violated his due process rights, and (3) the DOC lacked authority to “impose [its own] sentence” by reincarcerating him. See, e.g., Dist. Ex. 12 at 7-10, 40. Judge Holeman denied the petition for a writ of habeas corpus and remanded Hurd to serve the remainder of his sentence, noting that “the [DOC] will be within its purview to calculate what that [remaining] time is.” Id. at 80. Hurd appealed. Ex. 3 to Pl.'s Opp'n to Def.s Mot. for Summ. J. (“Opp'n to Mot. for Summ. J.”) [ECF No. 66-5] at 4 (Superior Court docket).
Hurd was released from DOC custody on September 30, 2013. SJ Op. at *4. On December 18, 2013, the D.C. Court of Appeals dismissed Hurd's appeal as moot given his release. Ex. 24 to Opp'n to Mot. for Summ. J. [ECF No. 66-26] (order).
II. Procedural History
Hurd sued the District in May 2015 under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the District's actions violated his due process rights. SJ Op. at *5. The case has been up to the D.C. Circuit twice on appeal and was reassigned to this Court in February 2022 upon the prior district judge's retirement. See id.
The most recent round of summary judgment briefing involved whether the District violated Hurd's procedural and substantive due process rights.[3]The parties also devoted significant briefing to the damages awardable for such violations. See Mot. for Summ. J. [ECF No. 65] at 20-21; Opp'n to Mot. for Summ. J. [ECF No. 66] at 30-36; Def.'s Reply in Supp. of Mot. for Summ. J. [ECF No. 68] (“MSJ Reply”) at 15-18; Pl.'s Proposed Surreply in Opp'n to Mot. for Summ. J. [ECF No. 77] (“Pl.'s Surreply”) at 1-7; Def.'s Opp'n to Mot. for Sur-Reply [ECF No. 74] (“Def.'s Resp. to Surreply”) at 1-8.
Hurd contended, as relevant here, that the District violated his right to procedural due process and that “[w]ith th[at] . . . violation having been shown, the District is responsible for the resulting damages ‘unless [it] shows they would have occurred regardless.'” Opp'n to Mot. for Summ. J. at 30 (quoting Thompson v. District of Columbia, 832 F.3d 339, 346 (D.C. Cir. 2016)).
That question of damages “boil[ed] down to a determination of whether there was any time left for Mr. Hurd to serve on the 2006 sentence.” Id. at 31; see also Id. (). Hurd advanced three theories of damages, all based on alleged over-incarceration: (1) his July 2007 release was the result of a deliberate decision by the Parole Commission that ended his sentence, (2) he was entitled to credit for time served on each misdemeanor count, such that his remaining sentence was roughly 14 months rather than 27 months,[4] and (3) his sentence continued to run while on release and thus had been served in full by the time of his reincarceration. See id. at 31-36. A pre-deprivation hearing, he suggests, would have permitted him to raise these arguments and either avoid reincarceration entirely or at least receive a shorter sentence. See, e.g., id. at 31.
The District pushed back on each of these theories, arguing that Hurd had failed to advance a viable damages theory and that this failure was fatal to his procedural due process claim. MSJ Reply at 15; see id. at 15-18. As to Hurd's time-served credit theory, the District primarily responded that it should not be entertained because it was “a new claim that has not been pleaded or, at the least, a new theory that has never been pursued.” Id. at 17. The parties further addressed Hurd's three theories of damages in a surreply and opposition thereto. See Pl.'s Surreply; Def.'s Resp. to Surreply.
The Court granted the District's motion for summary judgment as to Hurd's substantive due process claim but denied it as to Hurd's procedural due process claim. See SJ Op. at *20. On the procedural due process claim, the Court concluded that the undisputed facts “show that Hurd had a protected liberty interest in his continued freedom” and that “the District has not met its burden of showing . . . that [it] was justified in forgoing a pre-deprivation hearing.” Id. at *8, *10. The Court then accepted Hurd's time-served credit theory of damages. It first concluded that this theory was “within the contours of [Hurd's] complaint” and that the District had not “demonstrated the requisite prejudice to foreclose consideration of it.” Id. at *12. On the theory's merits, the Court reasoned that, despite Judge Holeman's denial of Hurd's habeas petition, “[i]t is possible that [given different circumstances] the outcome of the hearing would have been different” and that, “[h]ad [the time-served credit] argument been raised and accepted at a pre-deprivation hearing, Hurd would have spent over a year less time incarcerated than he did.” Id. The Court noted that applying time-served credit to consecutive sentences was “illogical,” but concluded that the “clear language” of the 2006 judgment...
To continue reading
Request your trial