Pressly v. Gregory
| Decision Date | 21 October 1987 |
| Docket Number | 86-7413,Nos. 86-7412,s. 86-7412 |
| Parties | Francis Hunter PRESSLY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. H.H. GREGORY; S. Hedgepeth; James P. Rogers, Sled (S. Carolina); Unknown Sled Agent; C.E. Parrish, Deputy Sheriff; T.G. Royster, Deputy Sheriff; J.E. Keeton, Deputy Sheriff; T.E. Wilkinson, Deputy Sheriff, Defendants-Appellees. Francis Hunter PRESSLY, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. James P. ROGERS, SLED (S. Carolina); Unknown SLED Agent, Defendants-Appellants, and H.H. Gregory; S. Hedgepeth; C.E. Parrish, Deputy Sheriff; T.G. Royster, Deputy Sheriff; J.E. Keeton, Deputy Sheriff; T.E. Wilkinson, Deputy Sheriff, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Ward L. Thomas, Third Year Law Student (Professor Stephen A. Saltzburg, Supervising Atty., University of Virginia School of Law; Jessica A. Ginsburg, Third Year Law Student on brief), for plaintiff-appellant.
Gerard P. Rowe (Williams, Worrell, Kelly & Greer, P.C. on brief); Linwood T. Wells, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen.; (James W. Hopper; Gardner, Moss and Harper, on brief), for defendants-appellees.
Before RUSSELL, WIDENER, and HALL, Circuit Judges.
Francis Hunter Pressly, a South Carolina inmate, brought a civil action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 against two Virginia state magistrates and six law enforcement officers from Virginia and South Carolina. Pressly alleged that his involuntary transfer from a Virginia prison to a South Carolina penal institution violated his constitutional right to due process and was accomplished with recourse to constitutionally excessive force. In this consolidated appeal and cross-appeal, Pressly now challenges an order of the district court granting summary judgment in favor of the defendants with regard to a portion of his complaint and dismissing the remainder of the action without prejudice. Two of the defendant police officers cross-appeal the district court's refusal to dismiss the entire action with prejudice. We affirm in part, vacate in part, and remand.
In 1978, Pressly began serving a state sentence for robbery and forgery in Virginia. While serving that sentence, he was transported to South Carolina in 1979 pursuant to the Interstate Agreement on Detainers to face criminal charges pending in that state. After pleading guilty in South Carolina to a number of felonies, including armed robbery, forgery, and possession of an unlawful weapon, Pressly was sentenced to several terms of imprisonment. The South Carolina sentences, totalling twenty years, were to run concurrently with the Virginia sentence. Pressly was then returned to Virginia to resume the service of his sentence in that state.
On April 23, 1985, Pressly was scheduled to be released from the Powhatan Correctional Center after completing the Virginia sentence. On that date, John P. Rogers and Terry D. King, 1 agents of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division ("SLED"), arrived at the prison to transport Pressly to South Carolina. Pressly, however, objected to being taken into custody by the SLED agents, contending that he could not be transferred to South Carolina to complete his sentence in that state unless he was first extradited pursuant to the terms of the Virginia Uniform Criminal Extradition Act ("UCEA"), Virginia Code Secs. 19.2-85 et seq.
Ignoring Pressly's objections, Rogers and King began the process of transporting him to South Carolina. On the evening of April 23, 1985, the two SLED agents and their prisoner stopped for the night at the Mecklenburg County Jail in Boydton, Virginia. Rogers and King appeared before a state magistrate, H.H. Gregory, and requested that Pressly be housed overnight in the jail. Pressly again asserted that he was being extradited against his will and in violation of Virginia law. After a private conference with agent Rogers, magistrate Gregory ordered Pressly held overnight in the county jail.
On the following morning at approximately 7:00 a.m., Pressly requested that deputy sheriff C.E. Parish take him before another magistrate, Sally Hedgepeth, to contest the validity of the alleged extradition by the SLED agents. Instead, Parish took Pressly to the jail booking room where agent Rogers was waiting. Despite being told by deputy sheriff T.G. Royster that magistrate Hedgepeth had declined to hear his allegations, Pressly refused to sign for his belongings or to leave voluntarily until he was taken before the magistrate. At that point, agent Rogers attempted to handcuff his prisoner. Pressly now admits that he resisted the efforts to place him under restraint.
In the face of Pressly's resistance, Rogers requested the assistance of the four deputy sheriffs present in the booking room, Parish, Royster, J.E. Keeton and T.E. Wilkinson. Pressly later alleged that the officers fell on him "en masse" and beat him although he was offering only passive resistance. With the aid of the deputy sheriffs, Rogers placed Pressly in four-point restraints. Agents Rogers and King then resumed their trip to South Carolina where Pressly is currently incarcerated.
In February of 1985, prior to his release from Powhatan, Pressly had filed a pro se petition for a writ of habeas corpus in federal district court in South Carolina challenging South Carolina's right to take him into custody. The petition was pending before the court at the time that Pressly was transported to South Carolina. He then amended the petition to include his allegations of improper extradition as a basis for habeas relief. On June 27, 1985, the district court dismissed the petition on the merits. On appeal, however, this Court in an unpublished opinion, Francis Hunter Pressly v. Attorney General of South Carolina, 786 F.2d 1156 (4th Cir.1986), vacated the district court's judgment and remanded with instructions to dismiss the petition without prejudice for failure to exhaust available state remedies.
On April 21, 1986, Pressly filed in district court in the Eastern District of Virginia, the civil action that is the subject of the instant appeal. In his complaint, Pressly sought damages pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 for the violation of his due process rights stemming from his forcible transfer to South Carolina. Pressly also alleged injuries supposedly suffered during the unjustified assault upon him by the deputy county sheriffs and the SLED agents at the Mecklenburg County Jail. Named as defendants were the two Virginia magistrates, Gregory and Hedgepeth, the two SLED agents who transported Pressly and the four Virginia deputy sheriffs who assisted in restraining Pressly at the Mecklenburg County Jail.
In response to a motion presented by defendants Gregory and Hedgepeth, the district court dismissed the claims against them on the basis of absolute judicial immunity. The court also granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants on Pressly's excessive force claim. Finally, the district court declined to exercise jurisdiction over Pressly's allegation of illegal extradition. The court concluded that while the same due process claim was pending in South Carolina state courts in connection with Pressly's unexhausted habeas petition, comity required that it abstain from considering the issue in a separate civil action. Accordingly, the district court dismissed the due process claim without prejudice. This appeal and cross-appeal followed.
On appeal, Pressly contends that the district court erred by refusing to address his due process claim on the merits. He argues that the violation of the Virginia version of the UCEA during his transfer was clear and that the state courts in South Carolina are unlikely to provide an extradited prisoner with redress for an alleged denial of due process predicated upon another state's statute. In Pressly's view, abstention is not appropriate when a civil action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 provides the only avenue for available relief. Pressly also contends that Gregory was not entitled to judicial immunity because the magistrate was not performing a proper judicial act when he committed Pressly to overnight incarceration in the Mecklenburg County Jail. Finally, Pressly contends that there are material questions of fact regarding the degree of force inflicted upon him at the Virginia jail that preclude the entry of summary judgment on the issue of intentional infliction of constitutionally excessive force.
In their cross-appeal, the defendant law enforcement officers agree that the district court was not required for reasons of comity to abstain from deciding Pressly's due process claim. They contend, however, that Pressly's transfer was an administrative matter, and not an extradition within the meaning of the Virginia UCEA. The cross-appellants further argue that any allegations based upon the procedural requirements of the UCEA are frivolous. We agree that Pressly's entire action should be dismissed although for reasons somewhat different than those advanced by either the court below or the cross-appellants.
As an initial matter, we see no error in the district court's disposition of Pressly's claim against magistrate Gregory. 2 As judicial officers, magistrates are entitled to absolute immunity for acts performed in their judicial capacity. Timmerman v. Brown, 528 F.2d 811 (4th Cir.1975). That immunity is vitiated only when the judicial officer acts in the clear absence of all jurisdiction....
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