Hurd v. Fredenburgh

• Decision Date: 12 January 2021
• Docket Number: August Term 2020,Docket No. 19-3482
• Parties: Devar HURD, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Stacey FREDENBURGH, in Her Individual Capacity, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

984 F.3d 1075

Devar HURD, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.Stacey FREDENBURGH, in Her Individual Capacity, Defendant-Appellee.^†

Docket No. 19-3482

August Term 2020

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued: November 18, 2020

Decided: January 12, 2021

JACOB LOUP (Joel B. Rudin, on the brief), Law Offices of Joel B. Rudin, P.C., New York, NY, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

LINDA FANG, Assistant Solicitor General (Barbara D. Underwood, Solicitor General, Anisha S. Dasgupta, Deputy Solicitor General, on the brief), for Letitia James, Attorney General of the State of New York, New York, NY, for Defendant-Appellee.

Before: WALKER, KATZMANN, WESLEY, Circuit Judges.

WESLEY, Circuit Judge:

Devar Hurd was charged in a single state indictment with nine misdemeanors and one felony, which took three trials to resolve. He remained in local custody throughout the lengthy trial process. Hurd received a sentence specific to each conviction, but those sentences merged into one by operation of New York law. When Hurd was transferred into state custody to serve what became his single felony sentence, his credit for time already served and good behavior entitled him to immediate release. But Hurd was not released from state custody for nearly a year. He contends this prolonged incarceration violated his rights under the Eighth Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment's substantive due process clause.

BACKGROUND¹

Devar Hurd was arrested in July 2013 and indicted for seven counts of misdemeanor criminal contempt in the second degree, one count of misdemeanor stalking in the fourth degree, one count of misdemeanor harassment in the first degree, and one count of felony stalking in the second degree. He was held in the custody of the New York City Department of Correction ("NYCDOC") following his arrest, where he remained during multiple trials on the indictment.

Hurd's first trial in December 2014 ended in a mistrial. At his retrial in October 2015, the jury convicted Hurd of the nine misdemeanor counts; the state court declared a mistrial on the felony. The state court imposed a set of definite sentences for the misdemeanors ranging from 90 days to one year each, to run consecutive to the others, in the custody of NYCDOC. Under New York law, however, because the aggregate term of these definite sentences exceeded two years, Hurd's term of imprisonment on the misdemeanor counts was capped at two years. See N.Y. Penal Law § 70.30(2)(b).

Hurd faced another retrial on the felony count in March 2016; the jury convicted him of stalking in the second degree. The state court sentenced Hurd to an indeterminate sentence with a minimum of one-and-one-third years and a maximum of four years, to be served in the custody of the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision ("DOCCS"). Because the state court did not specify the manner in which Hurd's felony sentence was to run, New York law mandated that it would run concurrently with his two-year sentence on the misdemeanors. See id. § 70.25(1)(a). Hurd's misdemeanor and felony sentences also merged by operation of New York law. See id. § 70.35. Thus, Hurd's maximum sentence on the indictment was four years.

Hurd would not have to serve four full years in prison after his sentence was imposed, however. New York law provides that any sentence "shall be credited with and diminished by the amount of time the person spent in custody prior to the commencement of such sentence as a result of the charge that culminated in the sentence." Id. § 70.30(3). This is known as "jail-time credit." Thus, Hurd was entitled to credit against his maximum four-year "state sentence" for all the time he spent in NYCDOC custody from his arrest in July 2013 to his transfer to DOCCS custody in April 2016.

New York law also provides for "good-time credit," whereby an inmate "may receive time allowance against the term or maximum term of his or her sentence ... for good behavior ...." N.Y. Corr. Law § 803(1)(a). Once good-time credit is approved, an inmate "shall , if he or she so requests, be conditionally released from the institution in which he or she is confined when the total good behavior time allowed to him or her ... is equal to the unserved portion of his or her term, maximum term or aggregate maximum term." N.Y. Penal Law § 70.40(1)(b) (emphasis added). This is known as the inmate's "conditional release date."

The New York Court of Appeals has referred to a conditional release date as "the statutorily mandated release date, calculated by applying both his good behavior time and his jail time, or time served awaiting trial." Eiseman v. New York , 70 N.Y.2d 175, 180, 518 N.Y.S.2d 608, 511 N.E.2d 1128 (1987) (Kaye, J. ) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Thus, conditional release under New York law is unlike parole, which is a discretionary decision reserved to the judgment of the parole board. As then-Judge Kaye's explanation suggests, conditional release is a mathematical concept: an inmate will have completed their term of imprisonment when (1) the number of pre- and post-trial custody days served, plus (2) the number of approved days earned for good behavior, equals the inmate's sentence term. By sheer calculation of days, the inmate has satisfied their term of imprisonment, and they are entitled to immediate release from prison.

Hurd was transferred from NYCDOC custody into DOCCS custody in April 2016. Whenever an inmate is transferred from local to state custody, the local jurisdiction must calculate the inmate's jail-time credit and provide DOCCS with a certified record of that credit. See N.Y. Corr. Law § 600-a. Accordingly, NYCDOC officials issued a "Jail Time Certification" ("JTC"), confirming that Hurd was entitled to 996 days of jail-time credit against his maximum four-year sentence. DOCCS officials also produced a "Legal Date Computation," indicating Hurd's eligibility for good-time credit of up to one year and four months and jail-time credit of two years, eight months, and 26 days.

Assuming his good-time credit would be approved, the combination of his jail-time credit and good-time credit gave Hurd a conditional release date of March 17, 2016—pre-dating his transfer into DOCCS custody. This conditional release date was reflected on the Legal Date Computation. Thus, at the time of his arrival in state custody, Hurd "was told that he was eligible to be immediately released." J.A. 17. DOCCS approved Hurd's good-time credit on April 19, 2016, at which point he satisfied the statutory requirements entitling him to conditional release.

DOCCS Inmate Records Coordinator Stacey Fredenburgh began to process Hurd's release documents. Hurd's complaint sets out a series of interactions between Fredenburgh and NYCDOC all centered around verifying the correct computation of his local jail-time credit. Without identifying a reason for any animus towards him, Hurd alleges that Fredenburgh and NYCDOC employees—most notably Principal Administrative Associate for NYCDOC's Legal Division, Edwin Felicien—"agreed to reduce Mr. Hurd's jail-time credit so that he would not be released." J.A. 17. Between April and June 2016, Felicien sent Fredenburgh four amended JTCs, each of which reflected a different, and much lower, jail-time credit than the 996 days reflected in the original JTC. It is undisputed that each of these revised JTCs was wrong. The last amended JTC credited Hurd with 508 days of jail-time credit. As a result, DOCCS no longer considered Hurd eligible for conditional release; Hurd remained in prison.

Hurd pursued the official grievance process, filed two notices of claim, and lodged informal letter complaints to prison officials, including Fredenburgh, protesting that he was being held past his conditional release date. Fredenburgh responded in a letter to Hurd, telling him "that she could do nothing to address his concerns and that he must contact ‘Rikers Island’ " (an apparent reference to NYCDOC). J.A. 19. DOCCS took no other action in response to Hurd's complaints.

Finally, Hurd's counsel contacted NYCDOC's legal department on March 20, 2017. Three days later, NYCDOC sent an amended JTC crediting Hurd with the original 996 days of jail-time credit. DOCCS released Hurd on March 30, 2017—11 months and 11 days after the date on which he was entitled to immediate release.

Hurd filed the instant lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against New York City (the "City"), an NYCDOC employee, and Fredenburgh for violating his rights under the Eighth Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment's substantive due process clause. Hurd settled with the City defendants. The district court thereafter granted Fredenburgh's motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim, holding that the prolonged imprisonment beyond Hurd's mandatory conditional release date was not a cognizable injury under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, and, in the alternative, that Fredenburgh was entitled to qualified immunity.

Hurd also filed a state law false imprisonment claim in New York's Court of Claims. Two weeks after the district court dismissed Hurd's § 1983 complaint, the Court of Claims granted summary judgment for the State, concluding that Fredenburgh acted reasonably considering her state law obligations and that Hurd's prolonged detention was attributable to the City's errors only.²

The Court of Claims noted that NYCDOC has the obligation under Penal Law § 600-a to send a JTC to DOCCS when an inmate is transferred from local to state custody. It noted further that the State "is bound by the jail time certifications it receives from local authorities and ‘may not add or subtract therefrom.’ " Add. 34 (quoting McLamb v. Fischer , 70 A.D.3d 1090, 1091, 895 N.Y.S.2d 223 (3d Dep't 2010) ); see also Torres v. Bennett , 271 A.D.2d 830, 831, 707 N.Y.S.2d 264 (3d Dep't 2000). Although the State "changed its policy in 2014 to take affirmative steps to review a local commitment order...