Amaker v. Schiraldi ( 2020 )

17-3675
Amaker v. Schiraldi
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
SUMMARY ORDER
RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT.
CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS
PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE
PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT=S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A
SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY
MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE
(WITH THE NOTATION ASUMMARY ORDER@). A PARTY CITING TO A
SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT
REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.
At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit,
held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the
City of New York, on the 5th day of May, two thousand twenty.
PRESENT: BARRINGTON D. PARKER,
RICHARD J. SULLIVAN,
Circuit Judges,
KATHERINE POLK FAILLA,
District Judge. ∗
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ANTHONY D. AMAKER,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v. No. 17-3675-pr
VINCENT N. SCHIRALDI, NEW YORK CITY
DEPARTMENT OF PROBATION, ANNA
BERMUDEZ, NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT
OF PROBATION, GREG KUZIW, NEW YORK
∗
Judge Katherine Polk Failla, of the United States District Court for the Southern District
of New York, sitting by designation.
CITY DEPARTMENT OF PROBATION,
PATRICIA BRENNAN, NEW YORK CITY
DEPARTMENT OF PROBATION, TERENCE
TRACY, KAREN ARMSTRONG, NEW YORK
CITY DEPARTMENT OF PROBATION,
THERESA LIZZIO, NEW YORK CITY
DEPARTMENT OF PROBATION, RALPH
DIFIORE, NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF
PROBATION, SCOTT CHRISTIE, DANIELLE
GLEBOCKI, ENNIS COLLADO, ALVIN REED,
Defendants-Appellees.
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FOR APPELLANT: JONATHAN K. YOUNGWOOD, Simpson
Thacher & Bartlett LLP, New York, NY.
FOR APPELLEES: AMIT R. VORA, Assistant Solicitor
General (Barbara D. Underwood, Solicitor
General, Steven C. Wu, Deputy Solicitor
General, on the brief), for Letitia James,
Attorney General of the State of New York,
New York, NY, for Defendants-Appellees
Terence Tracy, Scott Christie, Danielle
Glebocki, Ennis Collado, Alvin Reed.
SUSAN PAULSON, Assistant Corporation
Counsel (Jane L. Gordon, on the brief), for
Zachary W. Carter, Corporation Counsel
of the City of New York, New York, NY,
for Defendants-Appellees Vincent N.
Schiraldi, Anna Bermudez, Greg Kuziw,
Patricia Brennan, Karen Armstrong,
Theresa Lizzio, Ralph DiFiore.
Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of New York (Amon, J.).
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UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED,
ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the judgment of the district court is
AFFIRMED.
Anthony Amaker appeals from a judgment of the district court (Amon, J.)
dismissing his pro se amended complaint for failure to state a claim. In granting
Amaker in forma pauperis status, we dismissed all of his appellate claims except
one – “his due process claim to have his correctional file free from any incorrect
prejudicial information that was relied on to deny parole.” Doc. No. 38. Now
represented by counsel, Amaker contends that Appellees’ “dogged and arbitrary
refusal” “to correct two primary falsehoods in his” presentence investigation
report (“PSR”) and Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative
Sanctions Risk and Need Assessment Report (“COMPAS”) “constitutes a
deprivation of [his] procedural due process right to a correctional file before the
parole board that is free of prejudicial, inaccurate information.” Amaker’s Br. at
18–19. Because we find that Amaker has failed to plausibly allege that the
purported inaccuracies in his correctional file are in fact errors, we affirm the
district court’s dismissal. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying
facts, procedural history, and issues on appeal, to which we refer only as necessary
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to explain our decision.
I.
Appellees urge us to dismiss Amaker’s appeal for several threshold reasons,
pressing that (1) his appeal was untimely; (2) his release on parole eliminates his
standing to seek prospective injunctive relief; (3) collateral estoppel bars his claim
that his institutional file contains prejudicial errors; and (4) Heck v. Humphrey, 512
U.S. 477 (1994), bars his claim for damages. Appellees, however, fail to
persuasively demonstrate that any of these theories require us to reject Amaker’s
claim without considering its merits.
First, Amaker’s October 24, 2017 notice of appeal was timely because it
satisfied the procedures set forth in Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(c) for
confined inmates filing appeals. Under Rule 4(c), a confined inmate’s appeal is
timely so long as it is deposited in the institution’s mail system before the deadline
for filing the appeal and it includes an accompanying declaration attesting to the
date of deposit. Amaker attached to his October 24 notice of appeal a sworn
declaration stating that he served the notice of appeal on that date, and therefore,
his appeal was timely.
Second, with respect to Appellees’ standing argument, we find Amaker has
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sufficiently identified concrete ways in which his inaccurate institutional file will
continue to impact him notwithstanding his release on parole, even in the absence
of his violating the terms of his parole or committing a new crime. Thus, at this
stage of the litigation, Amaker’s allegations that his inaccurate institutional file
will impact the conditions of his parole are sufficient to establish constitutional
standing to seek prospective injunctive relief. See, e.g., Marcavage v. City of New
York, 689 F.3d 98, 103 (2d Cir. 2012) (“To obtain prospective relief . . . a plaintiff must
show, inter alia, a sufficient likelihood that he [or she] will again be wronged in a
similar way.” (internal quotation marks omitted)).
Third, Amaker’s claim arising from an alleged deprivation of his procedural
due process right in having an accurate institutional file is not collaterally
estopped by his state court challenge to his 2015 parole denial. There are two
elements to collateral estoppel in New York – “First, the identical issue necessarily
must have been decided in the prior action and be decisive of the present action,
and second, the party to be precluded from relitigating the issue must have had a
full and fair opportunity to contest the prior determination.” Jenkins v. City of New
York, 478 F.3d 76, 85 (2d Cir. 2007) (internal quotation marks omitted). Here,
Appellees have failed to establish the first prong of this test. In the previous state
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court case, Amaker challenged the Parole Board’s ultimate determination, which
does not implicate the federal procedural due process claim at issue in this case.
Under New York law, a court will set aside a denial of parole only if the Parole
Board’s determination “evinced irrationality bordering on impropriety.” Goldberg
v. N.Y. State Bd. of Parole, 959 N.Y.S.2d 509, 511 (2d Dep’t 2013). The state court
had to decide only one issue to resolve that case, namely, whether the Parole Board
weighed each statutory factor in N.Y. Exec. Law § 259-i(2)(c). Therefore, the state
court’s analysis of the accuracy of Amaker’s institutional file was unnecessary to
the result, and consequently does not collaterally estop Amaker’s federal
constitutional claim at issue in this case.
Finally, we need not resolve the question left open in Poventud v. City of New
York, 750 F.3d 121 (2d Cir. 2014) (en banc) – “whether the Heck bar applies after an
inmate has been released from prison” – to decide this case in light of our
conclusion below that Amaker has failed to establish that his correctional file
contains the errors on which he premises his damages claims.
II.
Turning to the merits of Amaker’s procedural due process claim, we agree
with the district court that Amaker has failed to state a plausible claim for relief.
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Even assuming that Amaker could bring a federal due process claim based on
alleged inaccuracies in his correctional file – a question that we explicitly do not
resolve – Amaker has not plausibly alleged any errors.
“We review de novo a district court’s decision to dismiss a complaint
pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), accepting all factual allegations as true and drawing all
reasonable inferences in the plaintiff’s favor.” Crawford v. Cuomo, 796 F.3d 252, 256
(2d Cir. 2015). “To survive a 12(b)(6) motion, the complaint must contain factual
allegations that plausibly give rise to an entitlement to relief.” Id. We may “affirm
on any ground appearing in the record below.” MFS Sec. Corp. v. N.Y. Stock Exch.,
Inc., 277 F.3d 613, 617 (2d Cir. 2002).
On appeal, Amaker identifies two purported errors in his correctional file:
“(1) the erroneous classification of [his] 1979 Juvenile Offense as an adult
conviction and (2) the inclusion of five Tier III disciplinary sanctions in his
COMPAS report despite a court order mandating their expunction.” Amaker’s Br.
at 19. For his juvenile offense, he contends that the amended 2012 PSR erroneously
classified his juvenile offender first-degree manslaughter conviction by listing the
conviction under the “Adult Court” subsection of his “Previous Court Record,”
thereby suggesting that it was an adult conviction. He also maintains that the
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COMPAS report compounded this inaccuracy by answering the question “How
many prior murder/voluntary manslaughter offense arrests as an adult?” with “1.”
For the Tier III disciplinary infractions, he claims that the 2015 COMPAS report
erroneously lists five Tier III disciplinary infractions that a district court had
ordered expunged. Neither alleged error reflects any mistake.
First, for Amaker’s juvenile offense, under New York law, “juvenile
offender” refers to “juveniles between the ages of 13 and 15 who are charged with
certain enumerated, serious crimes of violence” and who are “prosecuted within
the adult criminal justice system.” Vega v. Bell, 47 N.Y.2d 543, 547 (1979); see also
N.Y. Penal Law § 10.00(18) (defining “juvenile offender”). Under New York’s
current statutory framework, “juvenile offenders will, as a general rule, be
prosecuted as adults” in the adult criminal justice system rather than in juvenile
court, and are considered “criminally responsible for their actions.” In re Raymond
G., 93 N.Y.2d 531, 536 (1999).
Therefore, because Amaker was deemed a “juvenile offender” (as opposed
to a juvenile delinquent) for his first-degree manslaughter conviction, and thus
prosecuted in the adult criminal justice system rather than in juvenile court, the
PSR accurately listed his conviction under the “Adult Court” subsection of his
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“Previous Court Record.” For the same reasons, the COMPAS report accurately
described him as having “1” “prior murder/voluntary manslaughter offense
arrest[] as an adult,” App’x at 204, since he was arrested for a charge that resulted
in his prosecution in the adult criminal justice system rather than in juvenile court
as a juvenile delinquent.1 Indeed, the COMPAS report further notes the distinction
by providing that Amaker had “0” “prior petitions or charges for a felony type
violent action as a juvenile delinquent” in Question 3, id., but that Amaker was
“15” when “arrested for a criminal offense as an adult or juvenile delinquent for
the very first time” in Question 15, id. at 205.
Second, Amaker is incorrect that the 2015 COMPAS report erroneously
includes the five expunged Tier III disciplinary infractions. The report lists “0”
Tier III infractions during the last two years of incarceration and does not state any
information about Tier III infractions before then. To the extent that Amaker
contends that the COMPAS report assigned him a high prison-misconduct score
because it erroneously factored into its algorithm the five expunged disciplinary
1
Our interpretation of this question is consistent with the New York State Department of
Corrections and Community Supervision’s interpretation. The Department explained in
denying Amaker’s administrative grievance regarding the COMPAS report’s answer to
this question that the question was intended to identify arrests for crimes where the
inmate was later “tried in an adult court and given an [a]dult conviction.” See App’x at
114.
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infractions, that allegation is entirely speculative. Amaker offers nothing beyond
mere conclusory claims that his numerous and severe past infractions – sixteen
Tier III infractions and approximately thirty Tier II infractions, including for
violent conduct, assaults on staff, and weapons possession – excluding the five
expunged infractions, would not be enough to generate a high prison-misconduct
score.
Accordingly, even assuming the existence of a federal due process right to
be free from any incorrect prejudicial information in a correctional file, Amaker’s
due process claim fails because he has not plausibly alleged that his parole file
contained any incorrect prejudicial information. We therefore agree with the
district court that Amaker has failed to state a plausible claim for relief.
III.
We have considered Amaker’s remaining contentions and conclude that
they are without merit. For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district
court is AFFIRMED.
FOR THE COURT:
Catherine O=Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court
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