Ray v. Rockefeller

• Decision Date: 11 January 1973
• Docket Number: No. 71-CV-488.,71-CV-488.
• Citation: 352 F. Supp. 750
• Parties: Essex RAY, also known as Dim Mak et al., Plaintiffs, v. Nelson A. ROCKEFELLER, Governor of the State of New York, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of New York

352 F. Supp. 750

Essex RAY, also known as Dim Mak et al., Plaintiffs, v. Nelson A. ROCKEFELLER, Governor of the State of New York, et al., Defendants.

No. 71-CV-488.

United States District Court, N. D. New York.

January 11, 1973.

William E. Hellerstein, Richard A. Greenberg, William A. Nelson, The Legal Aid Society Prisoners' Rights Project, New York City, Jethro M. Eisenstein, New York University Law School, New York City, of counsel, for plaintiffs.

Louis J. Lefkowitz, Atty. Gen. of State of New York, Albany, N. Y., Timothy F. O'Brien, Jack W. Hoffman, Asst. Attys. Gen., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM-DECISION and ORDER

JAMES T. FOLEY, District Judge.

The above-named plaintiffs are State prisoners confined in the Clinton Correctional Facility located at Dannemora, New York after their convictions of varied criminal violations of New York criminal laws. The complaint was filed November 15, 1971, and was prepared in its form and content by the Prisoners' Rights Project lawyers of the New York City Legal Aid Society. I do not know the time this special group was formed but it is my first contact with it after twenty-four years of steady contact with State prisoner applications from the substantial number of them confined in the three maximum security facilities located in this Northern District of New York. Jurisdiction is based upon the customary civil rights statutes that are invoked routinely and knowledgeably by the State prisoners themselves in their individual filing of numerous pro se civil rights claims. Such complaint procedures in recent years have become the popular one in filings by State prisoners for every imaginable type of grievance in the New York Federal District Courts. (See Rodriguez v. McGinnis (in banc-2 Cir.), 456 F.2d 79, at 86 (Lumbard, C. J. dissenting). This present complaint differs from the continuous and numerous ones filed in that class action status is sought by its allegations. The grievances set forth in the complaint, in separate portions, cover the gamut of prisoner grievances that are very familiar to the Judges of this District Court and usually are confined to one or two when individually filed. In the complaint, Part IV, paragraph 15, Statement of Claim, which is followed by the allegation of the particularized conduct, allegedly violative of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, states expressly that the particularized allegations that follow are made upon information and belief.

One specific in this lawyer class pleading that stands out and always tends, in my opinion, to portend a sense of exaggeration is the demand of One Million Five Hundred Thousand ($1,500,000.00) Dollars to be accorded the individual plaintiffs for compensatory and punitive damages. I am not sure whether that amount is the aggregate for all named plaintiffs or for each individually. It seems fair inference to assume that demands for these amounts of money must tend to exacerbate the tension recognized by those with any experience in previous suits between inmates and correction officers. As a matter of interest, it should be noted that Attorney Hellerstein stated in "Legal Notes and Viewpoints—Remedies in Prisoners' Rights Litigation, Practicing Law Institute Bulletin, Vol. 9, October 13, 1972, Issue—"6. A Note on Damages in Jail Suits: . . . However, the amount of recovery may be limited to compensatory damages, which in most cases will not be great . . .". The authority for this caution and the further discussion of strategy on damage requests in jail suits is Hellerstein & Shapiro, Prison Crisis Litigation, 21 Buff.L.Rev. 643, 655-656 (1972). Some support for amounts much below a million dollars in demands could be found in Wright v. McMann (N.D.N.Y.), 321 F.Supp. 127, in which I awarded $1500.00 compensatory damages, and was affirmed in that regard as to sufficiency and inexcessiveness in (2 Cir.) 460 F.2d 126, cert. den. 409 U.S. 885, 93 S.Ct. 115, 34 L.Ed.2d 141, 1972.

Be that as it may, and it is of little importance, because the Judges of this District Court here always considered the prisoners civil rights claims conscientiously with full understanding that many of the extravagant damage amounts are those of lay persons untrained in the law and with no practical experience in litigation, and are asserted mostly for shock value against State and prison officials and correction officers. As noted above, the complaint was filed on November 15, 1971, and I allowed it to be done in forma pauperis and permitted the plaintiffs leave to proceed in forma pauperis in the prosecution of their action. It is unusual to do so, but it is important to discuss several events that transpired in my first contact with the legal aid lawyers from New York City that preceded the formal filing of the complaint in November 1971.

My office records show that on October 29, 1971, Attorneys Greenberg and Nelson came to my Chambers in Albany from the Legal Aid Society of New York City. Neither was admitted to practice in this District Court, and their presentation directly to me of an order to show cause and temporary restraining order was violative of an express order of this Court that such applications were to be filed in the Clerk's office at Utica. However, they painted such a picture of horrors, savagery and brutality going on at Special Housing Unit 14, at the Clinton Correctional Facility, I decided it important to hear them out immediately although frankly I sensed proneness on their part to believe without further check the stories of prison inmates who at times have a tendency to exaggerate. Special Housing Unit 14 was well known to me because it was the exact segregation unit that I learned about in detail from considerable testimony about its make-up and cell conditions and wrote at length about in Wright v. McMann (N. D.N.Y.), 321 F.Supp. 127 (1970). In that decision (pp. 135-136) I noted that changes and improvements had taken place in this segregation building, and this finding was affirmed and vindicated in the opinion of Judge Lumbard which affirmed in the main my rulings below, and noted new statutes and rules of New York that corrected the treatment and living conditions that were unfortunately contrary to humane standards for prison confinement even in the segregation unit that may be maintained legally for internal administrative disciplinary purposes. (Wright v. McMann, 460 F.2d at p. 131). While in my Chambers, there were two or three telephone calls which I allowed in my presence to another Legal Aid lawyer, whom I believed was at the Clinton Correctional Facility itself. It turned out later, I believe, that it was Professor Eisenstein who was in a grill or restaurant near the prison and wanted to talk to me on the telephone about his problem of seeing inmates. I refused to talk to him on the telephone because that would be a new custom for servicing the problems of State prisoners and lawyers that I did not want to inaugurate. In accord with settled case law of the Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, I had the Attorney General's office notified of the application to be made for the extraordinary temporary relief. (Arvida Corporation v. Sugarman, 2 Cir., 259 F.2d 428; Austin v. Altman, 2 Cir., 332 F.2d 273, 275). My records show that after a hearing in Chambers from 3:30 p.m. to 5:10 p.m., I denied the temporary restraining order which was featured in my judgment by its extraordinary request to have the plaintiffs taken by the United States Marshals into federal custody or for me to select and direct federal monitors to be stationed continuously in Special Housing Unit 14. I did sign the order to show cause and made it returnable November 15, 1971, and refused to allow the proposed complaint offered at that time to be filed in forma pauperis. One of the reasons for this is the Clerk's office is at Utica, approximately 100 miles away, and it is his function to file and process the complaint and summonses.

At that time, I did notice that the lead plaintiff was Robert Kareem Clarke who was involved in hearings before Judge Port in March 1971, concerning the Auburn disturbances. I shall file extracts of those minutes of those hearings to indicate the attitude of the plaintiffs in the courtroom and anteroom that led Judge Port to discontinue the hearings. (Ct.Ex. 1.) Later, the lead plaintiff in the complaint was changed to Essex Ray, different from Clarke, and of course that created confusion in our record keeping. It must be kept in mind that October 29, 1971, was not long after the Attica tragedy of September 9, 1971. I was conscious by communications from the facilities throughout the District and the media that the prison system of New York was going through the worst of times, turbulent and dreadful, and undergoing intensive examination by high State officials who were working around the clock to restore order not only at Attica but throughout the entire correctional system. I was not inclined to intrude without better showing into the management of the State system in those precarious days. I realize that I had to rely on my own perception and judgment gained from years of experience in these matters, and there did not seem to be any reliable support for the lawyers charges and their assumptions of fierce on-going brutality by correction officers. At the time, the legal aid lawyers complained that the long ride from New York City fatigued them, and they when they arrived at Clinton, they had to wait an hour to see the inmates. Neither of these grievances impressed me because constitutionally I was concerned about cruel and unusual treatment of prisoners not lawyers.

A hearing was held in Albany before me commencing on February 22, 1972. It resulted in a record of 840 pages and due to the delay in the transcription of minutes, I have read through again every page of this record. It is fascinating reading as always, and I recommend it to the several Commissions, Bar...