Uviles v. City of New York
| Decision Date | 05 May 2023 |
| Docket Number | 19-cv-3911 (BMC) |
| Parties | JOEL UVILES, on behalf of himself and all others similarly situated, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF NEW YORK and ANTHONY J. ANNUCCI, Acting Commissioner for the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, in his official capacity, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York |
Due to a combination of administrative errors, plaintiff was held in custody on a parole warrant for 17 days longer than he should have been. Contending that the policies and practices of the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (“State Parole”) and the New York City Department of Corrections (“City Corrections”) caused his overdetention, he has brought this putative class action for false imprisonment under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Monell v. Dep't of Soc. Svcs of the City of New York, 436 U.S. 658 (1978), seeking injunctive relief against State Parole and injunctive relief and damages against City Corrections.
Plaintiff State Parole, and City Corrections have each moved for summary judgment. State Parole's motion is granted because, among other reasons, plaintiff seeks only prospective injunctive relief against it and since he is no longer in custody or on parole, that claim is moot. City Corrections' motion is granted because its policy and practice do not violate the Constitution. This means plaintiff's motion necessarily is denied.
On or about December 21, 2017, plaintiff began his parole supervision after serving time on a prior conviction. On May 22, 2018, he incurred a fresh arrest by New York City police officers on a domestic relations matter involving an alleged assault.
State Parole received notice of the arrest that same day, and a parole officer, Johnny Ortiz, conferred with the NYPD arresting officer. Parole Officer Ortiz then passed on what he had learned to Senior Parole Officer Scanlon (first name not given by the parties), and SPO Scanlon issued a parole warrant based on the underlying criminal charges. (That is the alleged criminal conduct, if true, would have also constituted a parole violation.) State Parole sent copies of the warrant to the precinct out of which the arresting NYPD officer worked, and to the arraignment part of the Brooklyn Criminal Court, the court in which plaintiff had been charged.
Plaintiff was arraigned in Brooklyn Criminal Court on May 23, 2018 on both felony and misdemeanor charges of assault and robbery. The court set a $7500 cash bail that plaintiff was unable to post. He was then sent to Rikers Island and thus came into the custody of City Corrections.
On May 25, 2018, plaintiff appeared in court again. The court dismissed the felony charges and reduced plaintiff's bail on the remaining misdemeanor charges to $2,500 cash and a $1,500 bond.
Plaintiff's Parole Officer, Legenda von Evans, was on vacation at the time of plaintiff's arrest. After returning from vacation on June 4, 2018, she began an investigation into the alleged parole violation. Plaintiff was not served with a Violation of Release Report (“VORR”), which details the charges against him, or a Notice of Violation, which schedules a preliminary parole revocation proceeding and gives the parolee the option to waive that proceeding.
On June 7, 2018, SPO Hogan prepared paperwork recommending that plaintiff not be declared delinquent and that the parole warrant be lifted, writing that although Parole Officer Ortiz had issued a warrant for a parole violation on the date of plaintiff's arrest on the criminal charges, plaintiff
The “required timeframe” referred to N.Y. Exec. Law § 259-i(3). That statute provides that within 15 days from the date of execution of a parole warrant, State Parole must give the parolee a Notice of Violation or a VORR, and, unless waived, hold a preliminary hearing (also called a “probable cause” hearing) on the parole violation. (The statute also requires a final hearing on the parole violation within 90 days of execution.) Plaintiff had not been served with either of these documents and had not been given the opportunity to proceed with or waive a preliminary hearing. If one counts 15 days from the date the parole violation was lodged with City Corrections on May 23rd, plaintiff should have had his preliminary hearing, as calculated by his parole officer, on or before June 7, 2018.
SPO Hogan forwarded the paperwork to the Parole Violator's Unit for submission to the Board of Parole to recommend dropping the parole violation charges and lifting the parole warrant. State regulations require three Commissioners of the Board of Parole to sign off on such a recommendation before the violation charges are dropped and the warrant is vacated. New York Corrections and Community Supervision, Directive, Community Supervision Reconvocation Process, VII(E) (Aug. 6, 2018).
Plaintiff made bail on the criminal charges on or about June 12, 2018. However, he was not released from Rikers Island because he continued to be held on the parole warrant. At that point, plaintiff, his family, and his attorneys called and emailed State Parole and City Corrections more than once trying to get him released. They were told variously that the necessary person to sign off for State Parole was on vacation or that there was a mix-up with the paperwork. In response to these efforts, City Corrections officers tried informally to get State Parole to lift the warrant, but they could not release plaintiff, or at least believed they could not release plaintiff, until State Parole had in fact lifted the warrant.
On June 26th, staff from the Board of Parole advised Parole Officer Von Evans and Supervising Parole Officer Hogan that the recommendation package they had submitted was incomplete. To dismiss the parole violation charge and vacate the warrant, the Board still needed a VORR, whether a timely hearing had been held or not. SPO Hogan sent the VORR to the Board that same day. Three days later, on June 29th, the three Board of Parole members signed off, and plaintiff was released. The Brooklyn Criminal Court dismissed the criminal charges against him some months later.
Plaintiff commenced this action on July 8, 2019. He seeks declaratory and injunctive relief on behalf of a class under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments against State Parole, through its Acting Commissioner of State Corrections, Anthony J. Annuci, “declaring unlawful and enjoining” the State's “policies, customs, and practices authorizing incarceration of parolees without valid parole warrants and adherence to the legal and constitutional requirements for alleged parole violations.”[1]He seeks that same relief against the City, plus damages for the period of his wrongful imprisonment.
Discovery closed at the end of March 2021. In early April 2021, in accordance with this Court's individual practice rules, each party - plaintiff, State Parole, and City Corrections -sought leave to move for summary judgment. Plaintiff also requested leave to move for class certification.
The Court held a premotion conference on April 15, 2021. The parties discussed with the Court the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed motions, and then the Court turned to scheduling motion dates. In view of the number of issues and arguments that the parties wanted to raise on summary judgment, the Court inquired of plaintiff whether it might be advisable to defer the class certification motion until the determination of the summary judgment motions. The following discussion on that issue occurred:
The summary judgment motions were fully submitted on June 5, 2021. Those are the subject of this decision.
By the time the motions were submitted, plaintiff was no longer on parole, as his term ended on January 11, 2021 without further incident.
Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides that summary judgment is warranted where the “movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(a). A genuine dispute exists “if the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the non-moving party.” Anderson v Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986). A fact is material if it “might affect the outcome of the suit under the governing law.” Id.
Once the moving party has met its burden, the opposing party Caldarola v. Calabrese, 298 F.3d 156, 160 (2d Cir. 2002) (quoting Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 586-87 (1986)). “Bald assertions or conjecture unsupported by evidence are insufficient to overcome a motion for summary...
To continue reading
Request your trial