U.S. ex rel. Sero v. Preiser

• Decision Date: 14 April 1975
• Docket Number: No. 299,D,299
• Parties: UNITED STATES ex rel. Lois SERO et al., Petitioners-Appellees, v. Peter PREISER et al., Respondents-appellants. ocket 74-1944.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

Page 1115

506 F.2d 1115

UNITED STATES ex rel. Lois SERO et al., Petitioners-Appellees, v. Peter PREISER et al., Respondents-appellants.

No. 299, Docket 74-1944.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued Oct. 11, 1974.

Decided Nov. 6, 1974, Certiorari Denied April 14, 1975, See

95 S.Ct. 1587.

Ralph L. McMurry, New York City, (Louis J. Lefkowitz, Atty. Gen., on the brief, Samuel A. Hirshowitz, New York City, of counsel), for respondents-appellants.

Herman Schwartz, Amherst, N.Y. (Edward I. Koren, Amherst, N.Y., Elizabeth B. DuBois, Michael E. Smith, New York City, on the brief), for petitioners-appellees.

Before KAUFMAN, Chief Judge, and SMITH and TIMBERS, Circuit Judges.

IRVING R. KAUFMAN, Chief Judge:

This class action presents important procedural questions regarding the present scope of what once was termed 'the most celebrated writ in the English law.' Blackstone, Commentaries, Bk. III, 129. It also calls upon us to decide the more pressing human problem of the proper treatment to be afforded young adults sentenced under a New York statute, subsequently repealed, to four year reformatory terms after conviction for misdemeanors for which adults receive maximum terms of one year or less. The district court, after five opinions and more than two years of litigation, granted writs of habeas corpus ordering release or resentencing of all those serving reformatory sentences under New York Penal Law Article 75. For the reasons elaborated below, we affirm in part, and remand in part.

I.

Until very recently, New York provided a special sentence of imprisonment for most young adults, aged 16 to 21, regardless of the nature of the crimes they had committed. These youths would be given terms of unspecified duration, to terminate either upon discharge on parole, or after service of four years of confinement. N.Y. Penal Law, McKinney's Consol. Laws, c. 40, 75.00, 75.10 (McKinney 1967). Sentences were to be served in youth rehabilitation facilities (reformatories), which the Correction Law distinguished from state prisons. N.Y. Correction Law, McKinney's Consol. Laws, c. 43, 314 (McKinney 1968). See also id. 315. The purpose of this reformatory sentence was 'to provide education, moral guidance and vocational training for young offenders,' and to achieve this end the Department of Correction and the State Board of Parole employed special resources. Reformatories had special schools and shops, and parole officers working with young adult offenders had specialized caseloads. Thus, although the maximum terms that could be imposed upon adults for class A and class B misdemeanors were one year and three months respectively, N.Y. Penal Law 70.15 (McKinney 1967), the special four year reformatory sentence was thought to be justified as a means to effect the unique rehabilitative goals envisioned for young adults. Practice Commentary to N.Y. Penal Law 75.10 (McKinney 1967).

In 1970, the Correction Law was amended to abolish the distinction between reformatories and prisons. All institutions became correctional facilities, 'used for the purpose of providing places of confinement and programs of treatment for persons in the custody of the department.' N.Y. Correction Law Article 4 (70(2)) (McKinney Supp. 1974-75), replacing, inter alia, N.Y. Correction Law Articles 3-A, 3-B, 4, 5, 12A (McKinney 1968). Thereafter, inmates serving reformatory sentences as well as other prisoners could be assigned to any of New York's correctional facilities, where the two groups would work, sleep, eat, and spend recreation time together. The statutory scheme no longer provided young adults with educational or vocational training different from that offered adult prisoners; those serving reformatory sentences also became subject to the same regulations and disciplinary sanctions as older inmates. The commendable goal was to afford young adult offenders, and indeed all prisoners, treatment in accordance with the rehabilitative aims of the New York Correction Law, see N.Y. Correction Law 70(2); (McKinney Supp. 1974-75); 7 N.Y.C.R.R. 250.2(a) (1970).

After the 1970 reform of the Correction Law, Lois Sero, Vanessa Carney, and Rita Varner, inmates of the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, began this action under the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. 1983 (1970), requesting the convening of a three-judge court, permission to proceed as a class action, and a declaratory judgment that the four year reformatory sentencing scheme, N.Y. Penal Law 75.00, 75.10, was unconstitutional. ¹ They claimed that the challenged sections violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by authorizing a term of confinement for reformatory-sentenced misdemeanants which was substantially longer than that provided for adults by N.Y. Penal Law 70.15, since unique rehabilitative treatment was no longer provided to young adult inmates. The district court allowed the action to proceed on behalf of the class of reformatory-sentenced misdemeanants, Sero v. Oswald, 351 F.Supp. 522 (S.D.N.Y.1972), and directed that the issue be submitted to a three-judge court, Sero v. Oswald, 355 F.Supp. 1231 (S.D.N.Y.1973). After extensive discovery and argument of the case before the three-judge court, however, the Supreme Court decided, in Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 93 S.Ct. 1827, 36 L.Ed.2d 439 (1973), that a challenge to the fact or duration of confinement could not be brought under 1983. Accordingly, the three-judge court was dissolved, and the case was remanded to Judge Lasker for disposition as a petition for habeas corpus. The district judge allowed the case to continue as a class action, United States ex rel. Sero v. Preiser, 372 F.Supp. 660 (S.D.N.Y.1974). ²

Shortly after the petitioning class had moved for summary judgment, the four-year reformatory sentence provisions of N.Y. Penal Law Article 75 were prospectively repealed, N.Y. Laws 1974, ch. 652, 7. The bill calling for repeal was sponsored and drafted by the Department of Corrections. A memorandum submitted by Deputy Commissioner William C. Donnino to the State Assembly explained its purpose:

This bill is a logical culmination of the restructuring of the State correctional system which was commenced by the legislature in 1970 when it created the Department of Correctional Services and abolished the distinction between reformatories and State prisons.

As provided by the 1970 legislation, Article 4 of the Correction Law mandates that every institution operated by the Department of Correctional Services for the confinement of inmates . . . shall be a correctional facility maintained for the purpose of providing places of confinement and treatment with the objective of assisting inmates to live as law abiding citizens. Correctional facilities are classified by functions, such as residential treatment facilities, general confinement facilities and work release facilities. Individuals, regardless of the type of sentence they are serving, are confined in institutions best suited to their needs. For purposes of confinement, treatment, education and vocational training, persons serving reformatory or indeterminate sentences are treated in accordance with rehabilitative goals rather than the type of sentence they are serving. Since reformatories as well as the special purposes they historically served no longer exist, there is no longer a need for reformatory sentences.

Moreover, the sentence is unfair in that it treats young adults . . . more harshly than adults.

This memorandum was submitted on the motion for summary judgment, and upon this and other grounds, Judge Lasker granted writs of habeas corpus to the class. United States ex rel. Sero v. Preiser, 377 F.Supp. 463 (S.D.N.Y.1974). ³ He found that, although longer sentences could, under some circumstances, be imposed on young offenders without violating the Constitution, New York's extended detention of the petitioning class ran afoul of the equal protection clause. He reasoned that since the treatment received by young adults, as well as all other conditions of custody, were the same as those afforded adult misdemeanants, any basis for longer periods of incarceration had disappeared. Thus, the court ordered the unconditional discharge of those who had already served adult-length terms, and provided for resentencing within thirty days of those who had not. ⁴ Thereafter, this court denied a stay of the order of release but granted the respondents' motion for an expedited appeal. We required, however, that those discharged report their addresses monthly to the releasing institution or parole office. By September 3, 1974, more than 500 members of the class had either been freed from correctional facilities or parole, or were in the process of being resentenced.

II.

Although this case presents a number of difficult procedural problems, resolution of several of those questions will be assisted by a more exact understanding of the nature of the petitioners' substantive claim. Consequently we shall turn directly to the merits of the constitutional issue. The circumstances upon which the class relies in charging a denial of equal protection are relatively uncomplicated. Although the four-year reformatory sentence provisions of New York Penal Law Article 75 were prospectively repealed this year, each member of the class was sentenced under that Article to a term substantially in excess of the adult penalty for the same misdemeanor. And while prior to the 1970 reform of the Correction Law these extended sentences would have been served in reformatories, the petitioners claim that the treatment they now receive, as well as all other conditions of their custody, are identical to those afforded adult misdemeanants. It is the combination of these two factors to which they point as a deprivation of their fourteenth amendment rights.

We state preliminarily that neither of the conditions relied upon, considered separately, would entitle the class...