Magluta v. Samples, No. 03-11667.

• Decision Date: 08 July 2004
• Docket Number: No. 03-11667.
• Citation: 375 F.3d 1269
• Parties: Salvador MAGLUTA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. F.P. Sam SAMPLES, Michael W. Garrett, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

375 F.3d 1269

Salvador MAGLUTA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. F.P. Sam SAMPLES, Michael W. Garrett, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 03-11667.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

July 8, 2004.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Neil M. Schuster, Miami, FL, for Magluta.

R. Craig Green, Robert M. Loeb, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Civ. Div., App. Staff, Washington, DC, Robert David Powell, Atlanta, GA, for Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

Before ANDERSON, BARKETT and RONEY, Circuit Judges.

ANDERSON, Circuit Judge:

Salvador Magluta appeals from the order of the district court dismissing his Bivens¹ action against four officials employed by the Federal Bureau of Prisons ("Bureau") pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.

All of Magluta's claims in the instant Bivens action relate to the conditions of his confinement as a pretrial detainee at the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia ("USP Atlanta"). The centerpiece of his First Amended Complaint ("Complaint"), and the only claim which we will discuss at length in this opinion,² is his Fifth Amendment due process claim. The Complaint alleges that he was placed in administrative detention — the "hole" — in conditions constituting solitary confinement for more than five hundred days in USP Atlanta while he was awaiting trial in South Florida. Magluta alleges that this lengthy and harsh pretrial detention was done at the direction of and with the knowledge of the four named defendants, F.P. Sam Samples (Regional Director of the United States Bureau of Prisons, Southeast Regional Office), Michael W. Garrett (Deputy Regional Director of the United States Bureau of Prisons, Southeast Regional Office), Fred Stock (Warden of USP Atlanta), and Michael Bell (Associate Warden of USP Atlanta). Magluta further alleges that this lengthy and harsh pretrial detention at the hands of the defendants violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment in two distinct ways. First, Magluta alleges that the harsh conditions while he was a pretrial detainee were solely for the purpose of punishment in violation of his Fifth Amendment due process rights, citing Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979). Second, Magluta alleges that 28 C.F.R. § 541.22, which governs the Bureau's placement and review of inmates in administrative detention, creates a protected liberty interest, and that his placement and continued confinement in administrative detention — in the absence of the notice, hearings, and assorted reviews § 541.22 requires — violated his procedural due process rights under the Fifth Amendment.

The district court granted the defendants' 12(b)(6) motion with respect to the Bell v. Wolfish claim of intentional punishment of a pretrial detainee, concluding that Magluta had failed to allege facts to show that his detention in solitary confinement was imposed as punishment. With respect to the procedural due process claim premised upon § 541.22, the district court, without determining whether § 541.22 created a protected liberty interest, dismissed the claim, concluding that the defendants were entitled to qualified immunity because it was not clearly established at the time of the events in the instant case that § 541.22 entitled a pretrial detainee to due process under the Fifth Amendment. For the reasons set forth below, the order of the district court is affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded.

I. BACKGROUND

Magluta was indicted by a grand jury in the Southern District of Florida in April 1991 on twenty-four drug trafficking and conspiracy charges. Magluta was arrested in October 1991 and placed in federal custody. Prior to his trial and eventual acquittal in 1996, Magluta was held in three different federal facilities — first in Miami, then in Talledega, and later at USP Atlanta.

Magluta filed the instant Bivens action in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia in 1994 during his pretrial detention at USP Atlanta, and the case has been progressing through the federal courts ever since. Initially, the action was stayed in the district court in Georgia pending the outcome of Magluta's criminal trial in Florida. When Magluta was acquitted of all the drug trafficking and conspiracy charges in early 1996, the stay in the Bivens action was lifted by the district court. However, around the time the stay was lifted, Magluta was indicted in the Southern District of Florida for passport fraud. Magluta was released on bond, and near the end of his February 1997 trial on that charge, failed to appear in court. An arrest warrant was issued for Magluta, and he was convicted in his absence on February 7, 1997.

On March 25, 1997, while Magluta was still a fugitive, the district court in Georgia granted the defendants' motion to dismiss the instant Bivens action citing the fugitive disentitlement doctrine. When Magluta was recaptured in April 1997, he filed a notice of appeal from the district court's order. On appeal, we reversed the district court's order of dismissal and remanded the case, concluding that the fugitive disentitlement doctrine was not appropriately applied because there was "no nexus between Magluta's fugitive status and his Bivens action." Magluta v. Samples, 162 F.3d 662, 664 (11th Cir. 1998).

On remand, the district court once again dismissed Magluta's Bivens action, this time on Rule 12(b)(6) grounds, citing failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. On July 13, 2001, we vacated the district court's dismissal and again remanded, stating that Magluta's Original Complaint ("Original Complaint") was a "quintessential `shotgun' pleading of the kind we have condemned repeatedly," but determining that the appropriate disposition was still to remand with instruction that the district court require Magluta to replead his claims so that his Complaint would comply with the "short and plain statement of the claim" requirement of Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Magluta v. Samples, 256 F.3d 1282, 1284 (11th Cir.2001).

After our second remand, Magluta filed his Complaint on November 21, 2001. The defendants again brought a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), and the district court again granted the defendants' motion on March 4, 2003. Magluta timely appealed, and we now address the appropriateness of the district court's March 4, 2003 dismissal.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

We review a dismissal for failure to state a claim pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) de novo. Hawthorne v. Mac Adjustment, Inc., 140 F.3d 1367, 1370 (11th Cir.1998). We accept the facts of the complaint as true and view them in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Id. Dismissal pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) is not appropriate "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." Magluta v. Samples, 256 F.3d at 1283-84 (quoting Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 102, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957)).

We review the district court's grant of qualified immunity de novo to the extent the appeal concerns pure issues of law, including whether the underlying law governing official conduct was clearly established. Smith v. Mattox, 127 F.3d 1416, 1418 (11th Cir.1997).

III. DISCUSSION

A. Punishment of a Pretrial Detainee

Magluta's first argument on appeal is that the district court erred in granting the defendants' motion to dismiss because the Complaint alleges that the harsh conditions of pretrial detention described were for the purpose of punishment and were not justified by any legitimate governmental objectives.

Due process requires that a pretrial detainee not be punished prior to a lawful conviction. Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. at 535, 99 S.Ct. at 1872; McMillian v. Johnson, 88 F.3d 1554, 1564 (11th Cir. 1996), amended by, 101 F.3d 1363 (11th Cir.1996). However, the government may detain individuals to ensure their presence at trial and may subject them to the conditions and restrictions of the detention facility so long as those conditions and restrictions do not amount to punishment. Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. at 536-37, 99 S.Ct. at 1873. The determination of whether a condition of pretrial detention amounts to punishment turns on whether the condition is imposed for the purpose of punishment or whether it is incident to some legitimate government purpose. Id. at 538, 99 S.Ct. at 1873; McMillian, 88 F.3d at 1564. An intent to punish on the part of detention facility officials is sufficient to show unconstitutional pretrial punishment. Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. at 538, 99 S.Ct. at 1873-74; McMillian, 88 F.3d at 1564. Further, "if a restriction or condition is not reasonably related to a legitimate goal — if it is arbitrary or purposeless — a court permissibly may infer that the purpose of the governmental action is punishment[.]" Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. at 539, 99 S.Ct. at 1874.

In dismissing Magluta's due process claim based upon Bell v. Wolfish, the district court found that Magluta had failed to allege facts to show that the conditions of his confinement were imposed as a punishment. The district court specifically stated:

There is no indication that the detention was arbitrary or purposeless; indeed, the record reflects that Plaintiff was placed in administrative detention because he and his co-defendants were under investigation for at least four separate escape plots. See Original Complaint ¶ 194 (quoting habeas hearing testimony of Defendant Garrett). Thus, the Court may not infer that the purpose of the detention was punitive. Plaintiff has therefore failed to establish that his administrative detention constitutes punishment and thus has failed to allege that he has a protected liberty interest under the Fifth Amendment itself giving rise to a due...