Stewart v. Bailey

• Decision Date: 29 September 1993
• Docket Number: No. 92-6911,92-6911
• Citation: 7 F.3d 384
• Parties: John Wesley STEWART, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Randy BAILEY; Larry Huffman; Cindy S. Staton; Other John Does; Jerry P. Mitchell, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 384

7 F.3d 384

John Wesley STEWART, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Randy BAILEY; Larry Huffman; Cindy S. Staton; Other John

Does; Jerry P. Mitchell, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 92-6911.

United States Court of Appeals,

Fourth Circuit.

Argued June 8, 1993.

Decided Sept. 29, 1993.

Mark Mendelsohn, Third-Year Law Student, Harold J. Krent, Professor, Post-Conviction Assistance Project, University of Virginia School of Law, Charlottesville, VA, argued, for plaintiff-appellant.

Pamela Sargent, Asst. Atty. Gen., Richmond, VA, argued (Melissa Warner Scoggins, Gentry, Locke, Rakes & Moore, Roanoke, VA, on brief), for defendants-appellees.

OPINION

ERVIN, Chief Judge:

John Wesley Stewart, a Virginia prison inmate, brought this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 after prison officials permitted a sheriff's deputy to transport him to West Virginia on the authority of a writ of habeas corpus ad prosequendum issued by a West Virginia state court. Stewart claimed that the prison officials' failure to abide by Virginia's established statutory procedures for transferring prisoners into the custody of other jurisdictions for trial deprived him of due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court granted summary judgment and dismissed Stewart's action, holding as a matter of law that his complaint had failed to set forth a clearly established constitutional violation of which a reasonable person would have known, and that the responsible officials were therefore entitled to assert the defense of qualified immunity.

Because we conclude that the state statutes invoked by Stewart either do not embrace writs of habeas corpus ad prosequendum or do not establish the Fourteenth Amendment liberty interests he seeks to vindicate, we affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment and dismissal of his claims.

I

In 1990 John Wesley Stewart was incarcerated in the Augusta Correctional Center in Craigsville, Virginia. On August 23, 1990 a Raleigh County, West Virginia prosecuting attorney moved the Circuit Court of Raleigh County for an order requesting that Stewart be transported from the Augusta Correctional Center to Raleigh County, where he was scheduled to be tried on criminal charges the following month. Four days later a Raleigh County Circuit Court judge granted the prosecutor's motion and issued the requested order, which bade the Raleigh County Sheriff's Department to transport Stewart to West Virginia on September 6, 1990. The order provided that, upon conclusion of the proceedings against him in Raleigh County, Stewart would be returned to the Augusta Correctional Center by the Raleigh County Sheriff's Department.

On September 6, 1990, at 5:30 a.m., a Raleigh County sheriff's deputy appeared at the Augusta Correctional Center and produced the Raleigh County Circuit Court order requesting Stewart's release. Upon receiving the order, Augusta Correctional Center officials called the prison's records custodian, Cindy S. Staton, and requested authorization to release Stewart into the West Virginia officer's custody. Staton responded that Stewart could be released "if the papers appeared to be in order."

When Staton arrived at the prison later that morning, she discovered that the Raleigh County Circuit Court's order had not been presented to the Governor of Virginia for approval before Stewart's release into West Virginia's custody. Staton promptly informed the Raleigh County Sheriff's Department of the error. She stated that Stewart would have to be returned to the Augusta Correctional Center because the paperwork necessary for approving his release had not been completed.

After reaching Beckley, West Virginia, Stewart was held in the Raleigh County jail for a brief period pending the calling of his case in the Raleigh County Circuit Court. When his case came on for trial, Stewart was convicted of grand larceny and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment, the sentence to run concurrently with his Virginia sentence. On September 7, 1990, the following day, Raleigh County Sheriff's Department officials returned Stewart to the Augusta Correctional Center.

Eleven months later, on August 8, 1991, Stewart filed the instant three-count action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, contending that authorities at the Augusta Correctional Center (the "Virginia defendants") and employees of the Raleigh County Sheriff's Department (the "West Virginia defendants") violated rights secured him by the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment (1) by requesting and allowing his release without affording him the right to seek the Governor of Virginia's disapproval of the transfer of custody, see Va.Code Ann. § 53.1-208 (Michie 1991 & Supp.1993); (2) by failing to conduct an extradition proceeding pursuant to Virginia's version of the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act, see Va.Code Ann. §§ 19.2-85 to -118 (Michie 1990 & Supp.1993), before releasing him into the custody of West Virginia authorities; and (3) by failing to comply with the procedures prescribed in Virginia's version of the Interstate Agreement on Detainers, see Va.Code Ann. §§ 53.1-210 to -215 (Michie 1991 & Supp.1993), for transferring a state prisoner to another jurisdiction for trial. Stewart sought $85,280.00 in compensatory damages and $100,000.00 in exemplary and punitive damages from each defendant, plus costs and litigation expenses.

Upon motion the district court dismissed Stewart's action with respect to the West Virginia defendants for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted, pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). The court also granted the Virginia defendants' motion for summary judgment as a matter of law pursuant to Rule 56(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(b). In their motions all the defendants set up the defense of qualified immunity, contending that they procured Stewart's release in the reasonable, good-faith belief that their action was lawful. The district court reasoned (1) that the Raleigh County Circuit Court's order was not a "detainer" within the meaning of the Interstate Agreement on Detainers; (2) that if the Governor of Virginia had refused to disapprove Stewart's transfer into West Virginia custody, Stewart would have had no remedy; and (3) that Stewart had no right to due process in connection with the Agreement on Detainers. See Stewart v. Bailey, Civil Action No. 91-0559-R, slip op. at 3-6 (W.D.Va. Aug. 6, 1992) (mem.). The court held that Stewart's complaint had failed to set forth a clearly established constitutional violation of which a reasonable person would have known. Citing Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 815-16, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2736-37, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982), the court therefore concluded that the defendants were entitled to dismissal or summary judgment on grounds of qualified immunity. Stewart, Civil Action No. 91-0559-R, slip op. at 3.

This appeal followed.

II

Stewart's direct appeal presents three questions for decision. First, he contends that the defendants violated Virginia's version of the Interstate Agreement on Detainers, see Va.Code Ann. §§ 53.1-210 to -215 (Michie 1991 & Supp.1993), by denying him the right to contest West Virginia's request for temporary custody. This violation, Stewart maintains, denied him his right to due process as secured by the Fourteenth Amendment. Second, he argues that the defendants' violation of Virginia's version of the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act, see Va.Code Ann. §§ 19.2-85 to -118 (Michie 1990 & Supp.1993), deprived him of rights protected by the Extradition Clause of the Federal Constitution. See U.S. Const. art. IV, § 2, cl. 2. Third, he asserts that the defendants violated Va.Code Ann. § 53.1-208, thereby depriving him of a state-created liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Stewart urges that the district court erred by failing to recognize that relief could have been granted on his claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and that he was not precluded from recovery as a matter of law.

We consider Stewart's assignments of error seriatim. Because these assignments present pure questions of law, we review the district court's decision with respect to them de novo. See Jackson v. Kimel, 992 F.2d 1318, 1322 (4th Cir.1993) (stating that summary judgments granted pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 56 are reviewed de novo); Schatz v. Rosenberg, 943 F.2d 485, 489 (4th Cir.1991) cert. denied sub nom. Schatz v. Weinberg & Green, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 1475, 117 L.Ed.2d 619 (1992) (stating that dismissals for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) are reviewed de novo ).

III

First, we address Stewart's claim respecting the defendants' alleged violation of the Interstate Agreement on Detainers.

Enacted by forty-eight states, ¹ the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the United States, the Agreement on Detainers provides procedures by which a member state may obtain for trial a prisoner incarcerated in another member jurisdiction, and by which the prisoner may demand the speedy disposition of charges pending against him elsewhere. The Agreement is designed to protect prisoners and prisoner rehabilitation programs in two ways. First, it seeks to eliminate the uncertainty pending charges may create in the prisoner's mind by requiring prompt disposition of those charges. Second, the Agreement attempts to ensure that interruptions of the prisoner's incarceration are cut to a minimum, so that the prisoner's continuous physical presence in the sending jurisdiction's rehabilitative programs will be guaranteed. See Va.Code Ann. § 53.1-210, art. I (Michie 1991 & Supp.1993); United States v. Chico, 558 F.2d 1047, 1048-49 (2d Cir.1977), cert. denied, 436 U.S. 947, 98 S.Ct. 2850, 56 L.Ed.2d 788 (1978). ²

The provisions of the Agreement on...