McCullough v. Finley

• Decision Date: 29 October 2018
• Docket Number: No. 17-11554,17-11554
• Citation: 907 F.3d 1324
• Parties: Angela MCCULLOUGH, Marquita Johnson, Kenny Jones, Algi Edwards, Levon Agee, et al., on Behalf of themselves, Individually, and on Behalf of a Class of All Others Similarly Situated, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Ernest N. FINLEY, Jr., Chief of Police of the City of Montgomery, in his Individual and Official Capacities, Kevin Murphy, Former Chief of Police of the City of Montgomery, in his Individual and Official Capacities, Les Hayes, III, Former Presiding Judge of the Municipal Court of the City of Montgomery, in his Individual Capacity, Milton J. Westry, Presiding Judge of the Municipal Court of the City of Montgomery, in his Official Capacity, Todd Strange, Mayor of the City of Montgomery, in his Individual Capacity, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

907 F.3d 1324

Angela MCCULLOUGH, Marquita Johnson, Kenny Jones, Algi Edwards, Levon Agee, et al., on Behalf of themselves, Individually, and on Behalf of a Class of All Others Similarly Situated, Plaintiffs-Appellees,

v.Ernest N. FINLEY, Jr., Chief of Police of the City of Montgomery, in his Individual and Official Capacities, Kevin Murphy, Former Chief of Police of the City of Montgomery, in his Individual and Official Capacities, Les Hayes, III, Former Presiding Judge of the Municipal Court of the City of Montgomery, in his Individual Capacity, Milton J. Westry, Presiding Judge of the Municipal Court of the City of Montgomery, in his Official Capacity, Todd Strange, Mayor of the City of Montgomery, in his Individual Capacity, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 17-11554

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

October 29, 2018

Martha Irene Morgan, Morgan Law Office, Cottondale, AL, Henry Sanders, Faya Rose Toure, Chestnut Sanders & Sanders, LLC, Selma, AL, for Plaintiffs-Appellees.

Richard Hamilton Gill, Shannon L. Holliday, Robert D. Segall, Joel Thomas Caldwell, Copeland Franco, Miland Fredrick Simpler, III, Edward Hamilton Wilson, Jr., Ball Ball Matthews & Novak, PA, Montgomery, AL, Robert Bernard Harwood, Jr., Rosen Harwood, PA, Tuscaloosa, AL, for Defendants-Appellants.

Andrew Lynn Brasher, Alabama Attorney General's Office, Montgomery, AL, for Amicus Curiae State of Alabama.

Ed R. Haden, Balch & Bingham, LLP, Birmingham, AL, for Amici Curiae State of Alabama, Alabama Municipal Insurance Corporation, Alabama League of Municipalities, Georgia Municipal Association, Inc.

Before WILLIAM PRYOR and MARTIN, Circuit Judges, and VRATIL,^* District Judge.

WILLIAM PRYOR, Circuit Judge:

This appeal requires us to decide whether two municipal judges enjoy absolute judicial immunity and a mayor and two police chiefs enjoy qualified immunity from a complaint alleging claims of peonage and false imprisonment. Several residents of Montgomery, Alabama, who were sentenced by the municipal court for traffic violations, sued officials of the City of Montgomery for allegedly operating a scheme to raise revenue by jailing indigent offenders for their failures to pay fines and court costs. The indigent jailees allege that the current and former presiding municipal-court judges, the mayor, and the current and former chiefs of police oversaw this scheme. The judges, mayor, and chiefs asserted various immunities and moved to dismiss the complaint. The district court denied their motions. We reverse and remand.

I. BACKGROUND

Angela McCullough, Marquita Johnson, Kenny Jones, Algi Edwards, Levon Agee, Adrian Floyd, Hassan Caldwell, Devron James, Ashley Scott, and Christopher Mooney filed a complaint on behalf of a proposed class of indigent jailees alleging that the City of Montgomery created a "modern day debtors' prison." The complaint alleges that the City aggressively collected fines and court costs owed by individuals for various offenses, typically traffic tickets. But indigent offenders, who could not afford to pay their fines, were forced to sit-out the fines in jail by earning a credit of $50 a day.

The jailees allege that, while in jail, they were forced to participate in a work program, which allowed them to reduce their time in jail by working for an additional credit of $25 a day. The jailees describe the work program as a "forced labor policy" because they were allegedly threatened with more unlawful jail time if they refused to work. For example, McCullough alleges that she was forced to stand suicide watch over an inmate infected with hepatitis C. Edwards alleges that he was forced to clean jail cells and pick up trash. And Johnson alleges that she was forced to wash police cars and clean courtrooms.

The jailees allege that the City increased municipal revenue by collecting fines owed to the City, jailing indigent offenders who failed to pay their fines, and coercing their labor while in jail. As evidence of the scheme’s success, the jailees allege that, in contrast with the City of Huntsville, the City of Montgomery raised more than three times in fines and more than 15 times in court costs. And the jailees allege that one investigative reporter, after observing the Montgomery Municipal Court for a day, described the City as a "debt-collecting machine."

The jailees allege that this scheme originates from the top echelon of the municipal government. The alleged architects of the scheme are Judge Westry, the current presiding judge of the Montgomery Municipal Court; Judge Hayes, the former presiding judge of the Montgomery Municipal Court; Mayor Strange, the mayor of Montgomery; Chief Finley, the current chief of police; and Chief Murphy, the former chief of police. These officials allegedly devised an "extortionate scheme" to increase municipal revenue through "illegal policies, practices or customs," but the complaint fails to describe any specific policies other than the judges' policy of stacking tickets, where they treated each ticket as a separate case with its own fines and court costs.

The complaint fails to allege any particular facts to describe the individual role that the judges, mayor, or chiefs played in the scheme. Instead, the complaint groups the officials together when it alleges that the judges, mayor, and chiefs ordered jailees to sit-out their fines in jail. The complaint alleges that the judges, mayor, and chiefs collectively failed to provide meaningful hearings on indigency, alternatives to jailing, and adequate access to counsel. It also alleges that the judges, mayor, and chiefs "systematically and repeatedly fail[ed] to advise" jailees of their rights. And it alleges the judges, mayor, and chiefs maintained the work program to force jailees to work to reduce their fines.

The jailees allege that the judges, mayor, and chiefs are "individually liable for their acts or omissions challenged in this case," but the complaint fails to allege individual acts that each took to further the scheme. The allegations instead describe, in general terms, the judges' and mayor’s regular duties of supervising their respective branches of government. And the complaint alleges that the mayor, as head of the municipal government, used the fines collected from the municipal court to finance the City’s budget. The complaint also fails to allege the chiefs' duties or when either chief was in office.

The jailees filed their complaint against the City of Montgomery; Judicial Correction Services, the private probation company used by the City; the judges; the mayor; and the chiefs. After the jailees amended their complaint, all the defendants moved to dismiss. The defendants asserted several immunity defenses and argued that the complaint failed to state a claim. The jailees voluntarily dismissed several of their claims. The district court then denied the defendants' motions in part.

The City, the judges, the mayor, and the chiefs appealed. This Court ruled that we lacked jurisdiction to hear the City’s interlocutory appeal. But we also ruled that we have jurisdiction over the individual defendants' appeal of the denial of their alleged immunities.

Because we dismissed the City’s appeal, only two counts of the complaint remain relevant to this appeal. In the first count, the jailees allege that the judges, mayor, and chiefs violated federal anti-peonage statutes, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1589, 1595, which prohibit forced labor by coercive means. The work program, according to the jailees, is forced labor because the City forced them to work to reduce their fines under threats of more unlawful jail time. The jailees also allege that the judges, mayor, and chiefs administered and benefitted from their forced labor. The remaining allegations in this count quote the texts of the anti-peonage statutes and name the defendants in reference to the statutes' legal elements. In the second count, the jailees allege that the judges, mayor, and chiefs falsely imprisoned the jailees by unlawfully depriving them of their liberty for their failure to pay fines. The jailees contend that this false imprisonment violates, among other provisions, the Alabama Constitution’s prohibition "[t]hat no person shall be imprisoned for debt." Ala. Const. Art. I, § 20. And the complaint alleges that the judges, mayor, and chiefs acted beyond their authority, in bad faith, or under a mistaken interpretation of the law.

II. JURISDICTION AND STANDARD OF REVIEW

This Court has jurisdiction over "final decisions of the district courts of the United States," 28 U.S.C. § 1291. "[A] district court’s denial of a motion to dismiss ordinarily is not a ‘final decision.’ " Carollo v. Boria , 833 F.3d 1322, 1327 (11th Cir. 2016) (alteration adopted) (quoting In re Hubbard , 803 F.3d 1298, 1305 (11th Cir. 2015) ). But a district court’s denial of "qualified immunity at the motion-to-dismiss stage of a proceeding is a ‘final decision’ within the meaning of [ section] 1291." Ashcroft v. Iqbal , 556 U.S. 662, 671–72, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (citation omitted). For the same reason, a defendant may immediately appeal a denial of absolute judicial immunity, Roland v. Phillips , 19 F.3d 552, 555 (11th Cir. 1994), and a denial of state-agent immunity under Alabama law, Grider v. City of Auburn , 618 F.3d 1240, 1253 n.18 (11th Cir. 2010) (citing Sheth v. Webster , 145 F.3d 1231, 1238 (11th Cir. 1998) ).

When we review a denial of official immunity, we also review the sufficiency of the complaint because whether it states a claim is "both ‘inextricably intertwined with’ and ‘directly implicated by’ " the immunity defense. Iqbal , 556 U.S. at 673, 129 S.Ct. 1937 (citations omitted). A complaint is sufficient if it alleges "enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly , 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007). "It is established law in this circuit that the Twombly – Iqbal plausibility standard applies equally to" a...