Mitchell v. Fishbein
| Decision Date | 03 August 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. 03-7454.,03-7454. |
| Citation | 377 F.3d 157 |
| Parties | Stephen T. MITCHELL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Harvey FISHBEIN, Chair of the Departmental Screening of the Supreme Court Panel of the Assigned Counsel Plan for New York County, in his personal and official capacity, Gerald Lebovits, Andrea Hirsch, Norman Reimer, Marvin Ray Raskin, Emily Olshansky, and Other Unknown Persons, Defendants-Appellees. Isabel ALICIA, George Golfinopoulous, and the City of New York, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, John G. Koeltl, J Stephen T. Mitchell pro se, New York, New York, Plaintiff-Appellant.
Robert H. Easton, Assistant Solicitor General, New York, New York (Eliot Spitzer, Attorney General of the State of New York, Michelle Aronowitz, Deputy Solicitor General, New York, New York, on the brief), for Defendants-Appellees.
Before: OAKES, KEARSE, and CABRANES, Circuit Judges.
Plaintiff pro se Stephen T. Mitchell, who was formerly certified to serve as court-appointed counsel for indigent defendants accused of felonies in New York State's First Judicial Department ("First Department"), appeals from so much of a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, John G. Koeltl, Judge, as dismissed his second amended complaint asserting claims under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981 and 1983 alleging that defendants-appellants, who were responsible for such certifications, terminated his certification and refused to recertify him because of his race and in retaliation for his complaints of racial discrimination. The district court dismissed those claims pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b) on the grounds (1) that the appointment of counsel is a judicial act and that the individual defendants were thus performing a function closely associated with the judicial process and hence were entitled to absolute immunity from Mitchell's claims for monetary relief, (2) that Mitchell failed to meet the requirements for injunctive relief under § 1983, and (3) that his claims for declaratory relief were inextricably intertwined with the merits of a state-court judgment and hence, pursuant to the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, were beyond a federal district court's subject matter jurisdiction. On appeal, Mitchell contends principally that the district court erred in viewing the individual defendants' functions as integrally related to the judicial process and in holding the Rooker-Feldman doctrine applicable. For the reasons that follow, we vacate the judgment and remand for further proceedings.
To the extent that Mitchell's second amended complaint ("Complaint") was dismissed for failure to state a claim on which relief can be granted, we accept as true the factual allegations of the Complaint and draw all reasonable inferences therefrom in his favor. To the extent that the Complaint was dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, we consider in addition matters outside the Complaint of which defendants asked the district court to take judicial notice, as well as other matters of law and public record governing the certification of attorneys who may be appointed to represent indigent defendants.
Mitchell is an African-American attorney licensed to practice law in New York State (the "State"). He has previously served as assigned counsel for indigent persons accused of felonies, in accordance with an assignment plan required by New York law.
State law, see N.Y. County Law art. 18-B ("Article 18-B"), requires
[t]he governing body of each county and the governing body of the city in which a county is wholly contained [to] place in operation throughout the county a plan for providing counsel to persons charged with a crime [for which a sentence of imprisonment is authorized] ... who are financially unable to obtain counsel.
N.Y. County Law § 722; see id. § 722-a. The municipality is required, inter alia, to compensate, at statutorily capped rates, attorneys assigned pursuant to such a plan. See id. §§ 722-b, 722-e.
The City of New York (the "City"), which encompasses the First Department and part of the State's Second Judicial Department ("Second Department"), has a plan that was adopted in 1965 by executive order of the City's Mayor, in cooperation with the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and five county bar associations (the "Bar Associations"), and was approved by the Judicial Conference of the State. Under the City's plan, its principal provider of legal services to indigent defendants is the Legal Aid Society; additional services are furnished by individual assigned attorneys who have been recommended pursuant to a joint undertaking by the Bar Associations (the "Assigned Counsel Plan" or the "Plan"). The Plan required each of the Bar Associations to prepare and certify a list of attorneys
who are admitted to practice in the State of New York and who, in the opinion of the bar association, which shall consider their experience in criminal practice, are competent to give adequate representation to defendants under Article 18-B of the County Law.
Assigned Counsel Plan art. II. The composite list of attorneys "designated by the bar association[s] as available for service in either the Supreme Court or the Criminal Court or both," id. art. II, § 1, is generally referred to as an "18-B Panel."
The Plan also authorizes the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court, First and Second Departments, to "promulgate such rules with respect to this Plan as they may deem necessary." Id. art. VIII. Rules and standards adopted by the Appellate Division First Department (the "Rules" or "Appellate Division 18-B Rules") regulate, inter alia, the selection, performance, and professional conduct of individual 18-B Panel attorneys. See N.Y. Comp.Codes R. & Regs. tit. 22, § 612.0 et seq. (adopted July 1, 1980). At the times pertinent to this action, an attorney seeking certification to the 18-B Panel for service in the New York Supreme Court — which has jurisdiction over felony cases — was required to have tried at least three felony matters. (See Complaint ¶ 7.) The Plan allows "the appropriate Appellate Division" to add an attorney to, or remove a previously certified attorney from, its 18-B Panel "at any time." Assigned Counsel Plan art. II, § 5. It also allows the Bar Associations to make additions to and deletions from their respective lists of approved attorneys periodically. See id. The Rules provide that the appointment of an attorney to an 18-B Panel is "for an indefinite term subject to recertification as directed by the justices of the Appellate Division, First Department." N.Y. Comp.Codes R. & Regs. tit. 22, § 612.2 (as amended, April 11, 1994).
In addition to adopting the above Rules, the Appellate Division First Department created a Central Screening Committee (the "Screening Committee" or "Committee") to screen all applications for 18-B Panel membership. See id. § 612.6(a) (as amended, April 11, 1994). The Rules provide that the members of the Committee may be chosen for three-year terms either "by the presidents of the [Bar A]ssociations or [by] the justices of the Appellate Division, First Department," id. § 612.4 (as amended, April 11, 1994); members' terms may be extended by the Appellate Division, see id. The Committee's bylaws, as approved by the Appellate Division, provide that, with respect to decisions on certification to the panel, "[t]he action of the Committee is final and non-appealable." Screening Committee Bylaw 2.7. Neither the bylaws nor the Appellate Division 18-B Rules make any provision for judicial review of a Committee decision.
Defendants-appellees are members of the Screening Committee, including the Committee's present Chair. They are self-described "volunteers" (Hearing Transcript, May 24, 2002 ("May Tr."), at 9) who are apparently entitled to representation and indemnification by the State under Public Officers Law § 17 (McKinney 2001), see Formal Opinion of the State Attorney General dated December 20, 1979, 1979 N.Y. Op. Att'y Gen. 71, 71-72, and are referred to hereafter as the
The Complaint alleges the following events. Mitchell began the practice of criminal law in approximately 1986. Between 1986 and 1989, he was an Assistant District Attorney in New York County. For nearly four years between 1991 and 1995, he was a member of the Kings County (Second Department) 18-B Supreme Court Panel. (See Complaint ¶ 5.) He was appointed to the New York County (First Department) 18-B Supreme Court Panel (or "the Panel") in 1995. (See id. ¶ 1.) By the spring of 1998, Mitchell had tried more than 20 felony matters to verdict, including three murder trials. (See id. ¶ 7.) He had also negotiated pleas in dozens of felony matters as lead counsel for indigent defendants. (See id. ¶ 9.) In addition, he had briefed and argued "at least two appeals [,] one" state and "the other" federal. (Id. ¶ 11.) During the period 1986-1998, Mitchell was never reprimanded for poor performance or misconduct with respect to his representation of an indigent client. His record of winning acquittals was "outstanding," and both his peers and the judges before whom he tried cases had high regard for his trial skills and experience. (Id. ¶ 8.)
Mitchell applied for recertification to the First Department 18-B Supreme Court Panel in 1997 or 1998. (See id. ¶ 16.) In addition to his professional activities, Mitchell had exhibited a deep commitment to the well-being of the African-American community (see id. ¶ 12), and in attachments to his application for recertification, and again in an interview with a Screening Committee member, Mitchell complained that the Plan's administration was infected...
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