Porter v. Coughlin

• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit
• Writing for the Court: Sotomayor
• Citation: Porter v. Coughlin, 421 F.3d 141 (2nd Cir. 2005)
• Decision Date: 31 August 2005
• Docket Number: Docket No. 03-0273.
• Parties: Andre PORTER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Thomas A. COUGHLIN, III, Commissioner, New York State Department of Correctional Services; Frank E. Irvin, Superintendent, Wende Correctional; Walter, Acting Captain, Wende Correctional; Donald Selsky, Commissioner Designee, Director of Disciplinary Hearing; John P. Keane, Superintendent of Sing Sing Correctional Facility, Defendants-Appellees.

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421 F.3d 141

Andre PORTER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Thomas A. COUGHLIN, III, Commissioner, New York State Department of Correctional Services; Frank E. Irvin, Superintendent, Wende Correctional; Walter, Acting Captain, Wende Correctional; Donald Selsky, Commissioner Designee, Director of Disciplinary Hearing; John P. Keane, Superintendent of Sing Sing Correctional Facility, Defendants-Appellees.

Docket No. 03-0273.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Submitted: May 9, 2005.

Decided: August 31, 2005.

Hugh M. Russ III (Patrick J. Long, on the brief), Hodgson Russ LLP, Buffalo, NY, for plaintiff-appellant.

Marlene O. Tuczinski, Assistant Solicitor General (Eliot Spitzer, Attorney General of the State of New York, Peter H. Schiff, of counsel), Albany, NY, for defendants-appellees.

Before: SOTOMAYOR and B.D. PARKER,^* Circuit Judges.

SOTOMAYOR, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff-appellant Andre Porter ("Porter") appeals from an order and judgment of the United States District Court for the Western District of New York (Curtin, J.), entered on September 3, 2003. The order denied Porter's motion for reconsideration of a prior order, entered May 7, 1997, that dismissed his double jeopardy claim, brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, relating to a prison disciplinary proceeding based on a criminal conviction. We hold that Hudson v. United States, 522 U.S. 93, 118 S.Ct. 488, 139 L.Ed.2d 450 (1997), does not affect this Circuit's pre-Hudson conclusion in United States v. Hernandez-Fundora, 58 F.3d 802 (2d Cir.1995), that criminal prosecutions and prison disciplinary proceedings based on the same conduct do not implicate double jeopardy concerns.

BACKGROUND

In 1991, Andre Porter participated in a prison riot at the Southport Correctional Facility in Chemung County, New York. After the riot, the prison held a Tier III disciplinary hearing,¹ based on a misbehavior report charging Porter with rioting and engaging in violent conduct. Porter was found guilty and ordered confined to three years in a Special Housing Unit (SHU). The determination was affirmed on administrative appeal in 1991, but later annulled in 1993 by the Appellate Division, Third Department, on the grounds that the hearing officer had not provided certain documents to Porter. See Matter of Porter v. Cuomo, 191 A.D.2d 852, 853, 594 N.Y.S.2d 857 (3d Dep't 1993) (reviewing administrative determination under N.Y. C.P.L.R. §§ 7801-7806 ("Article 78")). The matter was remitted "for further proceedings not inconsistent with this Court's decision." Id. at 854, 594 N.Y.S.2d 857.

In 1992, before the Third Department's annulment of the disciplinary determination, a Chemung County grand jury indicted Porter for the Penal Law offense of "promoting prison contraband," based on allegations that he had possessed a handmade knife during the riot. N.Y. Penal Law § 205.25. Following a trial, Porter was convicted, and on December 22, 1992, the state court sentenced him to an additional three to six years of incarceration. The judgment was affirmed on appeal. See People v. Porter, 220 A.D.2d 884, 632 N.Y.S.2d 336 (3d Dep't 1995), lv. denied, 87 N.Y.2d 1023, 644 N.Y.S.2d 157, 666 N.E.2d 1071 (1996).

In 1993, after the Third Department had annulled the 1991 disciplinary determination, and after Porter's conviction by the Chemung County Court, prison officials held another Tier III disciplinary proceeding. A new misbehavior report charged Porter with violating Rule 1.00 of the Department of Correctional Services (DOCS) Standards of Inmate Behavior. Rule 1.00 as it stood then provided in relevant part:

All Penal Law offenses are prohibited and may be referred to law enforcement agencies for prosecution through the courts. In addition, departmental sanctions may be imposed for criminal behavior.

N.Y. Comp Codes R. & Regs. tit. 7, § 270.2(A) (1993). The misbehavior report for the 1992 proceeding included the allegation that:

[o]n December 1, 1992, Inmate Porter was indicted for the crime of Promoting Prison Contraband 1 (Indictment # 92-95). Inmate Porter was subsequently found guilty of the charge by verdict and received 3-0-0-/6-0-0 years sentence on December 22, 1992 by order of the Chemung County Court.

At the 1993 Tier III hearing on the new misbehavior report, Acting Captain Walter explained several times that the subject of the misbehavior report was the 1992 criminal conviction in Chemung County Court, not the events of the prison riot at Southhold. Following the hearing, Porter was found guilty of violating Rule 1.00 and was ordered confined in SHU for five years. Captain Walker stated:

As to the disposition, I find you guilty of the charge signed into the report . . . Statement of Evidence relied upon is a written report of Correction Counselor Mecca on the guilty verdict rendered by the Chemung County Court for promoting prison contraband first degree. This disposition is given to impress you of the seriousness of your act. This disposition will impress upon you the fact that conduct such as this will not be tolerated, and serve as a deterrent for future misconduct.

The disposition was later reduced to three years.

Porter challenged the 1993 disciplinary determination in Supreme Court, Erie County, claiming, inter alia, that DOCS violated his right against double jeopardy by disciplining him for violating Rule 1.00. The Appellate Division, Fourth Department, confirmed the second determination and held that this disciplinary sanction "[did] not raise double jeopardy concerns." Matter of Porter v. Irvin, 206 A.D.2d 925, 925, 615 N.Y.S.2d 953 (4th Dep't) (citing People v. Rivera, 189 A.D.2d 920, 592 N.Y.S.2d 482 (3d Dep't 1993)), lv. denied, 84 N.Y.2d 810 (1994).

In 1995, Porter filed a pro se complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against DOCS employees relating to his confinement in SHU, alleging, inter alia, violations of his rights under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, as well as violations of state law. Defendants moved for summary judgment in September 1996, asserting qualified immunity and an absence of triable issues of fact. On May 7, 1997, the district court granted partial summary judgment to defendants, dismissing all claims relevant to this appeal. In passing, the district court noted that the disciplinary proceeding sanctioning Porter for his criminal conviction did not raise any double jeopardy concerns, because "[t]he hearing was not an opportunity for plaintiff to reargue the merits of the underlying charge. The prison officials had the opportunity to impose their own penalty on plaintiff for his involvement in the Southport riot without implicating double jeopardy." Porter v. Coughlin, 964 F.Supp. 97, 103 (W.D.N.Y.1997).

The court appointed counsel for Porter in January 2000 to pursue his remaining claims. Defendants again moved for summary judgment in 2001, and while the summary judgment motion was pending, Porter sought permission to file a motion for reconsideration of the May 7, 1997 judgment, which he characterized as "dismissing the double jeopardy claim."² Porter argued that in light of Hudson v. United States, decided shortly before his motion, the law of double jeopardy had changed in Porter's favor. The district court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment and denied Porter's motion for reconsideration of the May 7, 1997 judgment. Porter v. Selsky, 287 F.Supp.2d 180 (W.D.N.Y.2003). The court held that Hudson did not undermine the correctness of its judgment with respect to Porter's double jeopardy claim. Id. at 189-90. The district court reasoned that Hudson has not altered the "traditional rule that prison disciplinary sanctions do not trigger the protections of the double jeopardy clause," but observed that our Court "has not substantively weighed in on the issue" since Hudson was decided. Id. at 190.

This timely appeal followed.

DISCUSSION

We review de novo the district court's grant of summary judgment. See Mack v. Otis Elevator Co., 326 F.3d 116, 119 (2d Cir.2003), cert. denied, 540 U.S. 1016, 124 S.Ct. 562, 157 L.Ed.2d 428 (2003). The Fifth Amendment's Double Jeopardy Clause provides that no person shall "be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb." The clause protects individuals from three types of violations: (1) a second prosecution after acquittal for the same offense, (2) a second prosecution after conviction for the same offense, and (3) multiple punishments for the same offense. United States v. Lopez, 356 F.3d 463, 467 (2d Cir.2004).

In United States v. Halper, 490 U.S. 435, 109 S.Ct. 1892, 104 L.Ed.2d 487 (1989), the Supreme Court addressed the issue of "whether and under what circumstances a civil penalty may constitute punishment for the purpose of the Double Jeopardy Clause." Id. at 446, 109 S.Ct. 1892. The Halper Court held that a civil fine could constitute "punishment" for double jeopardy purposes, notwithstanding the civil penalty label, where there was a "tremendous disparity" between the civil penalty and the government's actual damages. Id. at 449, 452, 109 S.Ct. 1892. Where "the civil penalty sought in the subsequent proceeding bears no rational relation to the goal of compensating the Government for its loss," id. at 449, 109 S.Ct. 1892, the civil sanction "may not fairly be characterized as remedial, but only as a deterrent or retribution." Id.

In United States v. Hernandez-Fundora, 58 F.3d 802 (2d Cir.1995), this Court declined to extend Halper's analysis to sanctions imposed in a prison disciplinary proceeding. In that case, defendant Hernandez-Fundora broke a fellow inmate's jaw by striking him in the face. Id. at 804. Based on the assault, the prison placed him in disciplinary segregation in the SHU for at least forty-five days. Id. at 805. Several months later, a grand jury indicted Hernandez-Fundora for assault based on the incident, and a jury subsequently returned a guilty verdict. Id. at 805. Hernandez-Fundora challenged the...