Jubilee v. Horn

• Decision Date: 22 August 1997
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. 96-3818.
• Citation: 975 F.Supp. 761
• Parties: Dennis JUBILEE, Plaintiff, v. Martin HORN, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania

975 F.Supp. 761

Dennis JUBILEE, Plaintiff, v. Martin HORN, et al., Defendants.

Civil Action No. 96-3818.

United States District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania.

August 22, 1997.

Dennis D. Jubilee, Graterford, PA, pro se.

John O.J. Shellenberger, John G. Knorr, III, Office of Atty. Gen., Philadelphia, PA, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM

JOYNER, District Judge.

Plaintiff Dennis Jubilee ("Plaintiff"), a pro se litigant, is a prisoner at the Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution at Graterford ("SCIG"). Defendants are numerous officials and employees of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections ("DOC") and Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole (the "Board"). Plaintiff instituted this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action alleging that Defendants' parole procedures violated his rights under the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. Plaintiff seeks monetary damages.

On December 10, 1996, we entered an Order dismissing this action in its entirety with prejudice. On December 23, 1996, Plaintiff filed a Motion to Alter or Amend Judgment. That motion, taken together with a supporting memorandum filed on January 22, 1997, sought reconsideration of our December 10 Order, leave to file an amended Complaint containing three additional claims, and the appointment of counsel. On April 7, 1997, we granted reconsideration in part by reinstating Plaintiff's substantive due process and equal protection claims. 959 F.Supp. 276 (E.D.Pa.1997)(hereinafter the "April 7 Memorandum"). We also denied Plaintiff's second and third requests without prejudice. Id.

Defendants filed their Answer to the Complaint on April 28, 1997. On May 23, 1997 Defendants moved for judgment on the pleadings pursuant to Rule 12(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure claiming qualified immunity from this suit. Plaintiff filed his response on July 7, 1997, pursuant to an enlargement of time granted by this Court. We resolve this motion today.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiff alleges the following facts. On November 14, 1994, Plaintiff was returned to SCIG for violating the curfew provisions of his parole. After a hearing, the Board recommitted Plaintiff for twelve months for the technical violation and set reparole eligibility for on or after November 14, 1995. On or about October 30, 1995, the Board notified Plaintiff that it was suspending the reparoling portion of this directive and was going to review Plaintiff's reparole eligibility status once again. This second reparole review process began in December 1995 and was not completed until July 1996 because Defendants intentionally delayed processing paper-work and completing other procedures necessary for reparole consideration. Further, prison officials purposefully sent the Board inaccurate information to consider in reviewing Plaintiff's reparole eligibility. At the conclusion of this second reparole review, the Board set no new reparole eligibility date, ordered Plaintiff to participate in various treatment programs, and set a review date of his reparole status for July 1997.

DISCUSSION

I. Legal Standards

A motion for judgment on the pleadings pursuant to Rule 12(c) is treated under the same standard as a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6). DeBraun v. Meissner, 958 F.Supp. 227, 229 (E.D.Pa.1997). We accept all well-pleaded allegations in the complaint as true and draw all inferences in Plaintiff's favor. Pennsylvania Nurses Association v. Pennsylvania State Education Association, 90 F.3d 797, 799-800 (3d Cir. 1996), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 117 S.Ct. 947, 136 L.Ed.2d 835 (1997). We may grant the motion only if Plaintiff has alleged no set of facts which would entitle him to relief. DeBraun, 958 F.Supp. at 229.

Defendants seek judgment on the pleadings based on the doctrine of qualified immunity. In Harlow v. Fitzgerald, the Supreme Court defined the doctrine as follows: "government officials performing discretionary functions generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). The Court later clarified this objective test by explaining that "to defeat qualified immunity it is not sufficient that the right at issue be clearly established as a general matter. Rather, the question is whether a reasonable public official would know that his or her specific conduct violated clearly established rights." Grant v. City of Pittsburgh, 98 F.3d 116, 121 (3d Cir.1996) (citing Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 636-37, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3037-38, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987)) (emphasis in original). The relevant legal principles must be clearly established at the time the official acted and the "contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right." Anderson, 483 U.S. at 640, 107 S.Ct. at 3039; see also Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 341, 106 S.Ct. 1092, 1096, 89 L.Ed.2d 271 (1986) (qualified immunity protects "all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law").

Lacking a clear statement from the Supreme Court regarding "what nature of precedents are necessary to constitute a `clearly established' right," Lattany v. Four Unknown U.S. Marshals, 845 F.Supp. 262, 266 n. 4 (E.D.Pa.1994), the Third Circuit has "adopted a broad view of what constitutes an established right of which a reasonable person would have known...." Stoneking v. Bradford Area School District, 882 F.2d 720, 726 (3d Cir.1989) (quoting Sourbeer v. Robinson, 791 F.2d 1094, 1103 (3d Cir.1986)). It is not necessary that there have been precedent directly on point when the official acted. Di-Joseph v. City of Philadelphia, 953 F.Supp. 602, 606 (E.D.Pa.1997). Rather, there must be "some but not precise factual correspondence between relevant precedents and the conduct at issue." In re City of Philadelphia Litig., 49 F.3d 945, 970 (3d Cir.) (quoting People of Three Mile Island v. Nuclear Regulatory Comm'rs, 747 F.2d 139, 144 (3d Cir. 1984)), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 116 S.Ct. 176, 133 L.Ed.2d 116 (1995); see also DiJoseph, 953 F.Supp. at 606 (quoting same).

Finally, because qualified immunity is an "immunity from suit rather than a mere defense to liability," the issue must be decided as early as possible in the litigation. Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 526, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 2815-16, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985)(emphasis in original). We therefore endeavor to resolve the issue at this point even before any discovery has been exchanged in this matter. Id.

II. Application of the Standards to this Case

A. Substantive Due Process

In our April 7 Memorandum, we first reaffirmed our initial ruling that Plaintiff had failed to make out a procedural due process claim because "a prisoner has no right to be released before the expiration of a valid sentence arising under either the Constitution itself or Pennsylvania law." 959 F.Supp. at 279 (citing cases). We also held, however, that despite the absence of a protected liberty interest in parole Plaintiff had stated a substantive due process claim by alleging the arbitrary and capricious application of Defendants' parole procedures.¹ The precise question now before us with respect to this claim whether a reasonable public official would know that the specific alleged conduct—the intentional delay in processing Plaintiff's reparole review and the consideration of inaccurate information in deciding his reparole status — violated clearly established rights under the Due Process Clause. See Grant, 98 F.3d at 121.

In holding that Plaintiff had stated a substantive due process claim, we relied primarily on the decision of the panel majority in Block v. Potter, 631 F.2d 233 (3d Cir.1980). See 959 F.Supp. at 279. Block involved the habeas corpus petition of a Virgin Islands prisoner whose parole application had been denied on the grounds that "a person like Block who had enjoyed the social advantages of financial security, a college and post-graduate education and professional employment, should be treated more harshly than the `typical Virgin Islands parole applicant.'" Id. at 235. The majority began its analysis by recognizing that the petitioner had no liberty interest in parole release. Id. (citing Greenholtz v. Inmates of Nebraska Penal & Correctional Complex, 442 U.S. 1, 99 S.Ct. 2100, 60 L.Ed.2d 668 (1979)). The majority reasoned, however, that Greenholtz did not "contravene the time-honored principle that `the touchstone of due process is protection of the individual against arbitrary action of government.'" Block, 631 F.2d at 235 (quoting Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 558, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 2975-76, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974)). Thus, after noting the "fundamental due process limitation against capricious decision-making," the majority held that

[e]ven if a state statute does not give rise to a liberty interest in parole release under Greenholtz, once a state institutes a parole system all prisoners have a liberty interest flowing directly from the due process clause in not being denied parole for arbitrary or constitutionally impermissible reasons. Consequently, in alleging that the [Board of Parole] acted arbitrarily by basing its decision on impermissible grounds, we believe that Block has stated a valid due process claim that this Court must resolve.

Id. at 236. We then noted in our April 7 Memorandum that the Third Circuit reaffirmed this holding in Burkett v. Love, 89 F.3d 135 (3d Cir.1996), in which the panel majority quoted the Block majority's language that "[a] legislative grant of discretion does not amount to a license for arbitrary behavior." See 959 F.Supp. at 280 (quoting Burkett, 89 F.3d at 139 (quoting Block, 631 F.2d at 236)).

In the motion before the Court, Defendants argue strenuously that Plaintiff "cannot pursue a substantive due process...