Hay v. Waldron, 86-2025

• Decision Date: 22 December 1987
• Docket Number: No. 86-2025,86-2025
• Citation: 834 F.2d 481
• Parties: Herbert Darrell HAY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. George P. WALDRON, et al., Defendants-Appellees. Summary Calendar.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 481

834 F.2d 481

Herbert Darrell HAY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. George P. WALDRON, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 86-2025

Summary Calendar.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

Dec. 22, 1987.

Herbert D. Hay, pro se.

Gabriel G. Quintanilla, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jim Mattox, Atty. Gen., Austin, Tex., for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

Before REAVLEY, RANDALL and JOLLY, Circuit Judges.

RANDALL, Circuit Judge:

Herbert Darrell Hay, a pro se plaintiff and Texas Department of Corrections inmate, appeals the district court's denial of preliminary injunctive relief in his section 1983 action. Hay's two motions for injunctive relief alleged that the Texas Department of Corrections' strip search procedures for administrative segregation inmates, an inmate classification which included Hay, violates the fourth amendment to the United States Constitution. Hay further alleged that the defendants, a group consisting of Texas Department of Corrections employees and administrators, applied the prison system's strip search procedures and other prison policies discriminatorily to Hay and to potential witnesses in his civil rights lawsuit in retaliation for Hay's filing of the suit and in violation of the comprehensive, remedial injunctive decree issued in Ruiz v. Estelle, 503 F.Supp. 1265 (S.D.Tex.1980), aff'd in part and vacated in part, 679 F.2d 1115 (5th Cir.), amended in part and vacated in part, 688 F.2d 266 (5th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1042, 103 S.Ct. 1438, 75 L.Ed.2d 795 (1983).

Because we find no abuse of discretion in the district court's denial of injunctive relief with respect to the constitutionality of the Texas Department of Corrections' strip search procedures for administrative segregation inmates, we uphold the ruling of the district court on that issue. However, we reverse the district court's denial of injunctive relief with respect to the issue of retaliatory or discriminatory application of the strip search procedures and other prison policies. We remand that issue for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion.

I.

Appellant Hay is a "special needs" inmate housed in the Psychiatric Treatment Center of the Beto II Unit, Texas Department of Corrections ("TDC"). While housed in TDC's Goree Unit in 1984, Hay filed the section 1983 action which underlies this interlocutory appeal and which challenges TDC policies denying him access to other mentally disturbed inmates for the rendering of "mutual legal assistance." Ancillary to the section 1983 action, Hay filed two motions for preliminary injunctive relief--the first on July 17, 1984 and the second on January 25, 1985. Hay's initial motion for injunctive relief alleged an unspecified violation of the injunctive decree in Ruiz v. Estelle and made other sweeping allegations. ¹ The second motion requested a court order directing defendants to respond to the first motion, alleged an increase in retaliatory harassment, and requested that the strip searching of all administrative protection inmates be halted or, alternatively, that Hay and his witnesses be exempted from the strip search procedures. The motions were set for hearing on June 26, 1985.

On June 17, 1985, Hay submitted a list of twelve inmate witnesses and requested the court to issue writs of habeas corpus ad testificandum. Hay also submitted a list of eleven TDC employees and administrators to be subpoenaed as witnesses. Additionally, on June 21, 1985, Hay filed a motion for "Amended Specific Relief If Preliminary Injunction Granted," which restated many of Hay's claims under the two motions for injunctive relief and which detailed additional requests for relief. ²

At the hearing before a United States magistrate on June 26, 1985, Hay's testimony served to clarify and condense his labyrinthine pro se pleadings into two substantive pleas for relief: First, Hay sought to enjoin TDC's strip search procedures for administrative segregation inmates ("the Strip Search Policy") as violative of the fourth amendment. ³ Second, Hay sought to enjoin retaliatory or discriminatory application of the Strip Search Policy and other prison policies to himself and to inmates who are potential witnesses in his civil rights action.

At the hearing, the defendants presented three witnesses who testified regarding TDC's adoption and implementation of the Strip Search Policy. However, the retaliation issue was not litigated. The defendants presented no evidence on retaliation in response to Hay's testimony and, in fact, they argued that retaliatory application of TDC policies was not raised properly by Hay's motions for injunctive relief. ⁴ None of Hay's requested witnesses, whether inmate or TDC employee, was present to testify since the magistrate had not issued writs or subpoenas to compel attendance. At the close of the hearing and in response to Hay's request for an opportunity to present his witnesses, the magistrate noted that the hearing had not addressed the retaliation issue. ⁵ The magistrate further indicated he would take "under advisement" Hay's requests to present witnesses and to set a hearing date for the remaining "motion" for injunctive relief. ⁶

On September 5, 1985, the magistrate issued recommendations and findings of fact. In addition to recommending the denial of Hay's motion to enjoin the Strip Search Policy, the magistrate made findings regarding Hay's retaliation claim. Specifically, the magistrate found "no evidence that the [Strip Search Policy] was applied differently for segregation inmates at Goree" and "no evidence that the [Strip Search Policy] was applied to Plaintiff Hay in a discriminatory manner as opposed to other inmates in protective detention." On December 3, 1985, the magistrate dismissed Hay's June 17 Motion for the Production of Witnesses as moot, noting that the June 26, 1985 hearing already had been held. No other hearing date was set. Finally, on December 9, 1985, the district court adopted the findings and recommendations of the magistrate and denied both of Hay's motions for injunctive relief.

II.

On appeal, Hay argues three points. First, Hay alleges that the magistrate should have applied a "least restrictive means" test or should have imposed a "probable cause" standard in balancing the state's security need for the Strip Search Policy against inmates' privacy rights. Second, Hay challenges the magistrate's denial of injunctive relief (i) without a hearing on the issue of discriminatory enforcement of prison policies and (ii) without securing the testimony of Hay's requested witnesses. Finally, Hay asserts that the district court failed to make a de novo review of the magistrate's findings as is required under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 636(b)(1). We review seriatim the points raised by Hay, with our inquiry focusing first on whether the magistrate applied the law correctly in denying injunctive relief with respect to the Strip Search Policy itself. ⁷

The law is well-settled that the grant or denial of injunctive relief rests in the sound discretion of the trial court. We will not overturn the decision of the trial court absent an abuse of discretion. Lindsay v. City of San Antonio, 821 F.2d 1103, 1107 (5th Cir.1987); United States v. LULAC, 793 F.2d 636, 642 (5th Cir.1986); Lubbock Civil Liberties Union v. Lubbock Indep. School Dist., 669 F.2d 1038, 1049 (5th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1155, 103 S.Ct. 800, 74 L.Ed.2d 1003 (1983). Of course, we will review the magistrate's discretionary rulings in light of the four prerequisites that a plaintiff must show to obtain preliminary injunctive relief:

(1) a substantial likelihood of success on the merits;

(2) a substantial threat of irreparable injury if the injunction is not granted;

(3) an evaluation that the threatened injury to the plaintiff outweighs the threatened injury the injunction may cause the defendant; and

(4) a determination that the injunction does not disserve public interest.

Lindsay, 821 F.2d at 1107; LULAC, 793 F.2d at 642. These four prerequisites to injunctive relief are mixed questions of law and fact; we must uphold subsidiary factual findings unless clearly erroneous, but conclusions of law and the ultimate application of the law to the facts are freely reviewable. LULAC, 793 F.2d at 642. Moreover, we add the caveat that injunctive relief in the form of "superintending federal injunctive decrees directing state officials" is an extraordinary remedy. Morrow v. Harwell, 768 F.2d 619, 627 (5th Cir.1985). Such relief is "appropriate only when constitutional violations have been shown and when state officials are demonstrably unlikely to implement the required changes without its spur." Id. (emphasis in original). Thus, in reviewing the propriety of injunctive relief in the case before us, our analysis must also reflect a sensitivity towards principles of federalism--specifically, that in cases implicating state/federal relations, federal courts ought not to intrude into state affairs any more than is necessary. Id. at 627-28; see Rizzo v. Goode, 423 U.S. 362, 379, 96 S.Ct. 598, 608, 46 L.Ed.2d 561 (1976).

In this case, Hay failed the first prong of the four-pronged preliminary injunction rubric. The magistrate determined that the Strip Search Policy did not contravene the fourth amendment and that Hay's claim, therefore, would fail on the merits. Hay challenges the magistrate's determination on two grounds: First, as a point of law, Hay argues that the magistrate should have applied a "least restrictive means" test in balancing the state's security needs against the inmates' privacy interests. Second, again as a point of law, Hay asserts that, because no probable cause exists to strip search administrative segregation inmates, the Strip Search Policy is not reasonably related to bona fide penalogical security objectives and must fail the reasonableness test of the fourth amendment. We...