Jacobs v. Ramirez

• Decision Date: 01 March 2005
• Docket Number: Docket No. 04-3820.
• Citation: 400 F.3d 105
• Parties: Alonzo JACOBS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. H. RAMIREZ, Parole Officer, R. Mroczeck, Parole Counselor, Santiago, Senior Parole Officer, E. Fisher, Assist. Senior Parole Officer, etc., al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

400 F.3d 105

Alonzo JACOBS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. H. RAMIREZ, Parole Officer, R. Mroczeck, Parole Counselor, Santiago, Senior Parole Officer, E. Fisher, Assist. Senior Parole Officer, etc., al., Defendants-Appellees.

Docket No. 04-3820.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued: February 16, 2005.

Decided: March 1, 2005.

Alonzo Jacobs, pro se, Bronx, NY, plaintiff-appellant.

No appearance for defendants-appellees.

Before: OAKES, KEARSE, and SACK, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM.

Pro se plaintiff Alonzo Jacobs, a parolee under the supervision of the New York State Division of Parole, appeals from the district court's sua sponte dismissal of his complaint pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(b)(ii) for failure to state a claim on which relief may be granted. The complaint, which seeks monetary damages pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleges that the defendant parole officers violated Jacobs's civil rights by paroling him to his mother's unsafe and unsanitary residence, refusing his request to relocate to a homeless shelter, refusing to assist him in obtaining employment through the Division of Parole Job Placement/Referral Program, and coercing him to sign a sex offender registration form upon his release from prison even though Jacobs was not convicted of a sex offense. The district court concluded that Jacobs did not allege a violation of any right protected by the United States Constitution or by federal law inasmuch as there is no constitutional right to parole, the requirement for sex offenders to register has been upheld as constitutional, and the failure of a state official to comply with a state job placement program for parolees does not rise to the level of a violation of a federal right.

This court reviews de novo the district court's dismissal of a complaint for failure to state a claim, taking all the allegations in the complaint as true and drawing all inferences in the plaintiff's favor. See Shakur v. Selsky, 391 F.3d 106, 112 (2d Cir.2004). "The settled rule is that a complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief." Id. (quoting McEachin v. McGuinnis, 357 F.3d 197, 200 (2d Cir.2004) (internal quotation marks omitted)). "Further, when the plaintiff proceeds pro se, as in this case, a court is obliged to construe his pleadings liberally, particularly when they allege civil rights violations." Id. at 113 (quoting McEachin, 357 F.3d at 200 (internal quotation marks omitted)).

Applying this forgiving standard, we cannot say that Jacobs has failed to state a claim that his placement in an allegedly uninhabitable home violated the state's affirmative duty to "assume some responsibility for his safety and general well-being" while he remained under its supervision and subject to the restrictions of parole. DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dep't of Soc. Servs., 489 U.S. 189, 200, 109 S.Ct. 998, 103 L.Ed.2d 249 (1989) (emphasis added). "[W]hen the State by the affirmative exercise of its power so restrains an individual's liberty that it renders him unable to care for himself, and at the same time fails to provide for his basic human needs — e.g., food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and reasonable safety — it transgresses the substantive limits on state action set by the ... Due Process Clause." Id.

DeShaney itself rejected the notion of a state-created duty in the context of that case because the plaintiff had been released from the state's physical custody. See id. at 201, 109 S.Ct. 998 ("[T]he State does not become the permanent guarantor of an individual's safety by having once offered him shelter."). Other courts have suggested, however, that the state does maintain some, if very limited, duties in the context of a prisoner's release from custody. See, e.g., Lugo v. Senkowski, 114 F.Supp.2d 111, 115 (N.D.N.Y.2000) ("The State has a duty to provide medical services for an outgoing prisoner who is receiving continuing treatment at the time of his release for the period of time reasonably necessary for him to obtain treatment `on his own behalf.'") (quoting Wakefield v. Thompson, 177 F.3d 1160, 1164 (9th Cir.1999)). But see Bright v. Westmoreland County, 380 F.3d 729, 736-37 (3d Cir.2004) (rejecting a Section 1983 claim by the father of a murder victim that the state "should have taken the affirmative step of arresting and/or incarcerating [the murderer] for an alleged probation violation" before the murder, because the state has no "continuing duty" to prevent a parolee "from ever committing any other crime").

A parolee, although not in the state's physical custody, is nonetheless in its legal custody, and his or her freedom of movement, while not as restricted as that of an incarcerated prisoner, is nonetheless somewhat curtailed. Cf. Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 482, 92 S.Ct. 2593, 33 L.Ed.2d 484 (1972) ("Though the State properly subjects [a parolee] to many restrictions not applicable to other citizens his condition is very different from that of confinement in a prison."). Accordingly, because the limitations imposed by the state are minimal, so too are the duties it assumes. See DeShaney, 489 U.S. at 200, 109 S.Ct. 998 ("The affirmative duty to protect arises not from the State's knowledge of the individual's predicament or from its expressions of intent to help him, but from the limitation which it has imposed on his freedom to act on his own behalf."). In this case, for example, Jacobs himself chose his mother's home as the residence to...