Jenkins v. Haubert

• Decision Date: 11 June 1999
• Docket Number: No. 98-2408,98-2408
• Citation: 179 F.3d 19
• Parties: Eric JENKINS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Lt. HAUBERT, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

Page 19

179 F.3d 19

Eric JENKINS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Lt. HAUBERT, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 98-2408.

United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit.

Argued Nov. 19, 1998.

Decided June 11, 1999.

David G. Hille, White & Case, New York, NY, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Michael B. Siller, Assistant Attorney General of the State of New York (Dennis Vacco, Attorney General of the State of New York, John W. McDonnell, Deputy Solicitor General, Michael S. Belohlavek, Assistant Attorney General, on the brief), New York, NY, for Defendant-Appellee.

Before: MINER, WALKER, and SACK, Circuit Judges.

JOHN M. WALKER, Jr., Circuit Judge:

Plaintiff-appellant Eric Jenkins, formerly an inmate in the custody of the New York State Department of Correctional Services ("DOCS"), appeals from the judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Mukasey, J.) dismissing his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action. In that action, Jenkins alleged that defendant-appellee Lieutenant Michael Haubert, an employee of DOCS, violated his constitutional right to procedural due process in the course of presiding over two separate disciplinary hearings.

Jenkins claimed that at the first hearing, on July 26, 1994, Haubert improperly denied his request to call four witnesses. At the hearing's conclusion, Haubert found Jenkins guilty and sentenced him to thirty days in keeplock, "a form of administrative segregation in which the inmate is confined to his cell, deprived of participation in normal prison routine, and denied contact with other inmates." Gittens v. LeFevre, 891 F.2d 38, 39 (2d Cir.1989) (citing N.Y. Comp.Codes R. & Regs. tit. 7, § 251-1.6). Jenkins unsuccessfully appealed the sentence to the prison superintendent. On August 14, 1994, Jenkins filed a claim in New York Supreme Court pursuant to New York CPLR Article 78, alleging that he was denied due process by Haubert's refusal to hear his witnesses.

Jenkin's Article 78 claim was pending when the second disciplinary hearing began on November 23, 1994. Jenkins requested a different hearing officer on the ground that Haubert would be biased against him on account of Jenkin's Article 78 proceeding, which named Haubert as a defendant. Haubert denied that request, found Jenkins guilty of the new charges, and again sentenced him to thirty days in keeplock. Jenkins unsuccessfully appealed this sentence to the prison superintendent, but did not file an Article 78 proceeding to challenge it. On November 28, 1994, the New York Supreme Court dismissed Jenkin's Article 78 claim. On July 21, 1995, Jenkins filed this § 1983 action in the district court.

In two separate opinions, the district court dismissed Jenkin's claims. In the first, the district court held that Jenkins was collaterally estopped from relitigating the claims arising out of the first disciplinary hearing on account of the state supreme court's dismissal of his Article 78 proceeding. See Jenkins v. Haubert, No. 95 Civ. 5453, 1996 WL 350685 (S.D.N.Y. June 26, 1996). In the second, the district court held that Jenkins' § 1983 claim arising out of the second hearing was not cognizable under the Supreme Court's decisions in Edwards v. Balisok, 520 U.S. 641, 117 S.Ct. 1584, 137 L.Ed.2d 906 (1997), and Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994). See Jenkins v. Haubert, No. 95 Civ. 5453, 1998 WL 148332 (S.D.N.Y. Mar.30, 1998). Jenkins appeals only from that portion of the judgment entered upon the second opinion.

DISCUSSION

We review the district court's dismissal of the complaint de novo, see Jaghory v. New York State Dep't of Educ., 131 F.3d 326, 329 (2d Cir.1997); Close v. New York, 125 F.3d 31, 35-36 (2d Cir.1997), and accept as true all material factual allegations in the complaint, see Shipping Fin. Servs. Corp. v. Drakos, 140 F.3d 129, 131 (2d Cir.1998).

The sole issue in this appeal is whether Heck and Edwards bar a § 1983 claim on facts such as these, where a prisoner (or former prisoner) alleges a constitutional violation arising out of the imposition of intra-prison disciplinary sanctions that have no effect on the duration of the prisoner's overall confinement. This is an open question in our circuit. We now hold that Heck and Edwards do not bar a § 1983 claim challenging the conditions of a prisoner's confinement where the prisoner is unable to challenge the conditions through a petition for federal habeas corpus. Accordingly, the district court incorrectly determined that Jenkin's § 1983 claim was not cognizable. We also hold, however, that the defendant in such an action may assert one or more affirmative defenses that can result in the dismissal of the plaintiff's claim. We therefore remand this case to give Haubert the opportunity to assert the availability of such defenses.

I. The Statutory Framework

As was true in Heck v. Humphrey, "[t]his case lies at the intersection of the two most fertile sources of federal-court prisoner litigation--the Civil Rights Act of 1871, Rev. Stat. § 1979, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and the federal habeas corpus statute, 28 U.S.C. § 2254." 512 U.S. at 480, 114 S.Ct. 2364. We begin by examining the two statutes.

A. Section 1983

Section 1983, the vehicle most often used by prisoners challenging the conditions of their confinement, provides:

Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in any action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.

42 U.S.C. § 1983. Section 1983, by its own terms, contains no requirement that state judicial remedies be exhausted.

The precursor of § 1983, § 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, was enacted at a time when "the Federal Government was clearly established as a guarantor of the basic federal rights of individuals against incursions by state power." Patsy v. Florida Bd. of Regents, 457 U.S. 496, 503, 102 S.Ct. 2557, 73 L.Ed.2d 172 (1982). Section 1983's purpose "was to interpose the federal courts between the States and the people, as guardians of the people's federal rights." Id. (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Citing this legislative purpose, the Supreme Court has consistently held that courts should not impose an exhaustion requirement on § 1983. See Patsy, 457 U.S. at 502, 512, 102 S.Ct. 2557.

B. The Habeas Corpus Statute

The federal habeas corpus statute, by contrast, explicitly requires exhaustion of state judicial remedies. Title 28 U.S.C. § 2254 provides in pertinent part:

An application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted unless it appears that ... the applicant has exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State; or there is an absence of available State corrective process; or circumstances exist that render such process ineffective to protect the rights of the applicant.

Id. § 2254(b) (emphasis added).

Thus, under § 2254(b), a prisoner who seeks release from state custody on account of a wrongful conviction must first exhaust state judicial remedies before filing a habeas petition in district court. See Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 489-92, 93 S.Ct. 1827, 36 L.Ed.2d 439 (1973). Such an action--"an attack by a person in custody upon the legality of that custody," id. at 484, 93 S.Ct. 1827--has long been considered the "heart" of habeas corpus. See id. at 498, 93 S.Ct. 1827; see also McCarthy v. Bronson, 500 U.S. 136, 141, 111 S.Ct. 1737, 114 L.Ed.2d 194 (1991). In upholding the exhaustion requirement, the Supreme Court has noted that any other course would violate Congress's intent to impose such a requirement, see Preiser, 411 U.S. at 489, 93 S.Ct. 1827, and frustrate considerations of federal-state comity that are at the root of the exhaustion requirement, see id. at 491, 93 S.Ct. 1827. The rule of exhaustion in federal habeas corpus actions preserves " 'a proper respect for state functions,' " id. at 491, 93 S.Ct. 1827 (quoting Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 44, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669 (1971)), by affording state courts the first opportunity to correct their own constitutional errors.

The Supreme Court has held that the exhaustion requirement applies not only to the heart of habeas cases, but also to cases in which a prisoner challenges the validity of administrative action internal to the prison system that affects the fact or length of the prisoner's confinement. See id. at 491-92, 93 S.Ct. 1827. The rationale for exhaustion in such cases remains the same:

[s]ince these internal problems of state prisons involve issues so peculiarly within state authority and expertise, the States have an important interest in not being bypassed in the correction of those problems. Moreover, because most potential litigation involving state prisoners arises on a day-to-day basis, it is most efficiently and properly handled by the state administrative bodies and state courts, which are, for the most part, familiar with the grievances of state prisoners and in a better physical and practical position to deal with those grievances.

Id. at 492, 93 S.Ct. 1827. Thus, where the fact or duration of a prisoner's confinement is at issue, § 1983 is unavailable, and only § 2254(b) with its exhaustion requirement may be employed.

However, many intra-prison administrative or disciplinary decisions that could result in deprivations in violation of the Constitution do not affect the fact or length of a prisoner's confinement. For example, such decisions could result in a prisoner's placement in solitary confinement or keeplock, as occurred in this case, or some other form of confinement more restrictive than...