Smith v. Edwards ( 2023 )

Case: 23-30634 Document: 00517007642 Page: 1 Date Filed: 12/19/2023
United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit
United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
FILED
____________
December 19, 2023
No. 23-30634 Lyle W. Cayce
____________ Clerk
Molly Smith, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated,
real party in interest Alex A.; Kenione Rogers, individually and on behalf
of all others similarly situated, real party in interest, Brian B., real party in
interest, Charles C.,
Plaintiffs—Appellees,
versus
John Bel Edwards, Governor; in his official capacity as
Governor of Louisiana; William Sommers, in his official
capacity as Deputy Secretary of the Office of Juvenile Justice; James M.
LeBlanc, in his official capacity as Secretary of the Louisiana Department of
Public Safety & Corrections,
Defendants—Appellants.
______________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Louisiana
USDC No. 3:22-CV-573
______________________________
Before Higginbotham, Stewart, and Wilson, Circuit Judges.
Cory T. Wilson, Circuit Judge:
Defendants, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards, Deputy Secretary
of the Office of Juvenile Justice William Sommers, and Secretary of the
Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections James M. LeBlanc,
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No. 23-30634
appeal the district court’s preliminary injunction ordering them to remove
juvenile offenders from Bridge City Center for Youth at West Feliciana
(BCCY-WF) and enjoining them from housing juveniles at BCCY-WF in the
future. But the injunction has automatically expired under the Prison
Litigation Reform Act (PLRA). See 18 U.S.C. § 3626(a)(2). So the appeal is
moot. Accordingly, we dismiss Defendants’ interlocutory appeal and vacate
the district court’s underlying order.
I.
The Office of Juvenile Justice (OJJ) is the Louisiana state agency
responsible for providing rehabilitative services to delinquent youth. La.
Stat. Ann. § 15:905(A). OJJ maintains five secure care facilities across
Louisiana to house juvenile offenders who cannot be housed with the general
youth population because of behavioral issues. Historically, those five
facilities have been sufficient. But beginning in 2021, OJJ experienced a
significant increase in the frequency and severity of serious incidents at the
facilities.
In May 2021, certain “high-risk” youths detained at one of the secure
care facilities destroyed a housing unit. Subsequently, OJJ transferred them
to a facility in Alabama, which they also destroyed. The youths were then
returned to Louisiana and redispersed among the five secure care facilities.
Upon their return, the offenders resumed their violent behavior, sparking
riots and staging escape attempts. After one successful escape, five of the
youths stole a truck and rammed it into a sheriff’s vehicle, while another
carjacked a vehicle, shooting and critically injuring the driver. These youths
also victimized other juveniles at the facilities, assaulted OJJ staff with
weapons, and caused tens of thousands of dollars in damage to the facilities
where they were housed. Louisiana’s secure care facilities were no longer
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capable of containing and rehabilitating these high-risk youths while
protecting other youths, facility staff, and the public.
After exploring different options, OJJ determined that a building
located on the campus of the Louisiana State Penitentiary (Angola) could be
modified to provide the necessary layout and infrastructure to house the
high-risk youths. This building eventually became BCCY-WF. It was
formerly used to house adult female inmates, and before that it was the death
row cell block.
In summer 2022, OJJ made necessary changes to the facility and
prepared to open BCCY-WF. Though located on Angola’s campus, BCCY-
WF is completely isolated from the adult prison complex, and the youths
have no interaction with the adult prisoners. Importantly, BCCY-WF was
intended to be a temporary solution: OJJ is constructing a new Transitional
Treatment Unit (TTU) that has the infrastructure to contain and treat high-
risk youth like those who were moved to BCCY-WF.
On July 19, 2022, Governor Edwards announced a plan to begin
moving some of the juveniles to BCCY-WF. Shortly thereafter, OJJ
informed Plaintiff Alex A. that he would be among those moved in the coming
weeks. On August 16, Alex A. filed an emergency Administrative Review
Procedure (ARP) application on behalf of himself and other similarly situated
youths, challenging OJJ’s decision to move juveniles to BCCY-WF. The
next day, after OJJ denied his emergency ARP, Alex A. filed a class-action
complaint on behalf of himself and a putative class of all youths in OJJ’s
custody subject to transfer to BCCY-WF. He sought a preliminary
injunction requiring OJJ to cease plans to transfer him and the other plaintiffs
to BCCY-WF.
After days of hearings, the district court denied Plaintiffs’ request for
a preliminary injunction in a 64-page order. See Alex A. ex rel Smith v.
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Edwards, No. 22-573, 2022 WL 4445499 (M.D. La. Sept. 23, 2022). In
concluding that there was not a substantial likelihood that moving the youths
to BCCY-WF would violate their constitutional rights, the district court
expressly relied on promises by Defendants that (1) the use of BCCY-WF
would be short term; (2) BCCY-WF would only be used for a small
population of youth; (3) the youths would not be isolated to their cells for
long periods of time; (4) their treatment at BCCY-WF would be rehabilitative
and therapeutic, not punitive; (5) BCCY-WF would be adequately staffed;
(6) the youths would have access to an appropriate education; (7) mental
health counselors would be available; and (8) the youths would receive
weekly individual counseling. Id. at *18–30; see Alex A. ex rel Smith v.
Edwards, No. 22-573, 2023 WL 5984280, at *1 (M.D. La. Sept. 14, 2023)
(Smith II).
Just under a year later, Plaintiffs filed a second motion for preliminary
injunction. They argued that OJJ was violating their constitutional rights by,
inter alia, confining them in cells for more than eight hours a day, not
providing adequate counseling and educational services, and improperly
using chemical spray and handcuffs. This time, the district court granted
their motion, finding that “[v]irtually every promise made [by OJJ] was
broken, causing severe and irreparable harm to the wards that [OJJ] is obliged
to help.” Smith II, 2023 WL 5984280, at *1. Accordingly, the district court
ordered OJJ to remove the youths from BCCY-WF and enjoined Defendants
from housing juveniles there in the future. Id. at *10. The district court
initially ruled from the bench on September 8, 2023, and entered its written
order on September 14.
Defendants filed a notice of appeal on September 13. The same day
they filed an emergency motion to stay the injunction pending appeal. But
on September 15, before we ruled on that motion, Defendants moved the
youths from BCCY-WF to the Jackson Parish Juvenile Facility in Jonesboro,
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Louisiana. In view of that development, we denied the motion to stay without
prejudice. We also set an expedited briefing schedule, with Defendants’
opening brief due October 27, Plaintiffs’ response due November 27, and
Defendants’ reply due December 1. We set the case for argument on
December 5, 2023.
In their opening brief, Defendants argued, inter alia, that Plaintiffs
failed to exhaust their administrative remedies before filing this action. They
contended that Alex A. could not “pre-exhaust” claims about a facility where
he was never housed and about conditions he never experienced. In their
response brief, Plaintiffs contested Defendants’ exhaustion argument.
Plaintiffs also argued that Defendants’ appeal was partially mooted when
Defendants moved the youths from BCCY-WF and would become fully moot
on December 7 when the preliminary injunction would expire under the
PLRA. Neither party raised mootness by operation of the PLRA before
November 27.1 In their reply brief, Defendants offered several grounds for
concluding that the appeal was not moot, regardless of the expiration of the
preliminary injunction. Beyond these threshold issues, the parties vigorously
contested the underlying merits of the district court’s order.
II.
We review a district court’s grant of a preliminary injunction under an
abuse-of-discretion standard. United States v. Billingsley, 615 F.3d 404, 408–
09 (5th Cir. 2010). But “a federal court may not rule on the merits of a case
without first determining its jurisdiction.” Daves v. Dallas County, 64 F.4th
616, 623 (5th Cir. 2023) (en banc). “Mootness is a jurisdictional matter
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1
Plaintiffs filed a motion to dismiss the appeal in part as moot after OJJ moved the
youths from BCCY-WF. But that motion did not address the expiration of the preliminary
injunction under the PLRA.
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which can be raised for the first time on appeal.” Brinsdon v. McAllen Indep.
Sch. Dist., 863 F.3d 338, 345 (5th Cir. 2017) (quoting Tex. Midstream Gas
Servs., LLC v. City of Grand Prairie, 608 F.3d 200, 204 (5th Cir. 2010)). “A
claim is moot when a case or controversy no longer exists between the
parties.” Id. (citing Bd. of Sch. Comm’rs v. Jacobs, 420 U.S. 128, 129 (1975)).
The PLRA allows a court to enter a preliminary injunction concerning
prison conditions in certain circumstances. 18 U.S.C. § 3626(a)(2). But the
statute makes clear that “[p]reliminary injunctive relief shall automatically
expire on the date that is 90 days after its entry,” unless the entering court
“finds that such relief is narrowly drawn, extends no further than necessary
to correct the violation of the Federal right, and is the least intrusive means
necessary to correct the violation of the Federal right.” Id. § 3626(a)(1)(A),
(a)(2).
In this case, the district court orally announced its preliminary
injunction ruling on September 8, 2023. And the district court has not made
the findings required by § 3626(a)(1)(A) to extend the injunction’s duration;
nor have Plaintiffs otherwise sought to extend it. Accordingly, the
preliminary injunction automatically expired on December 7, 2023—or,
crediting Defendants’ reasoning, on December 13, ninety days after the
district court entered the written order.2 “Generally, when an injunction
‘expires by its own terms,’ it is moot and ‘there is nothing to review.’” Yates
v. Collier, 677 F. App’x 915, 917 (5th Cir. 2017) (quoting Briggs & Stratton
Corp. v. Local 232, Int’l Union, Allied Indus. Workers of Am. (AFL-CIO), 36
F.3d 712, 713 (7th Cir. 1994)); see also Banks v. Booth, 3 F.4th 445, 447–49
(D.C. Cir. 2021) (finding that case was moot after preliminary injunction
_____________________
2
We need not decide whether the injunction expired on December 7 or December
13 because, regardless of the date of entry, Defendants’ appeal is now moot.
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expired under the PLRA); Ahlman v. Barnes, 20 F.4th 489, 493–95 (9th Cir.
2021) (same); United States v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 778 F.3d 1223, 1226–
30 (11th Cir. 2015) (same).
Defendants raise three counterpoints to Plaintiffs’ mootness
arguments. None serves to revivify this appeal. First, they contend that we
should address the issue of exhaustion before mootness. They assert that
courts have “leeway to choose among threshold grounds for denying
audience to a case on the merits.” Daves, 64 F.4th at 623 (quoting Sinochem
Int’l Co. v. Malaysia Int’l Shipping Corp., 549 U.S. 422, 431 (2007)).
Defendants are correct that there is “no mandatory sequencing of
jurisdictional issues.” Id. (quoting Sinochem, 549 U.S. at 431). However,
“the leeway granted by Sinochem is not boundless, but carefully
circumscribed to cases where [jurisdiction] is difficult to determine, and
dismissal on another threshold ground is clear.” Daves, 64 F.4th at 655
(Higginson, J., concurring) (internal quotations omitted); see also Sinochem,
549 U.S. at 436 (“[W]here subject-matter or personal jurisdiction is difficult
to determine, and forum non conveniens considerations weigh heavily in favor
of dismissal, the court properly takes the less burdensome course.”). Here,
the opposite is true: The jurisdictional question is relatively straightforward;
the exhaustion question, more difficult. The circumstances of this case
present nuanced questions about exhaustion, including whether a juvenile
who has been told he is being moved to an adult prison may exhaust
administrative remedies before actually being moved to that prison, and how
the OJJ’s ARP procedures bear on the timing of Plaintiffs’ filing suit. Better
to leave those questions for another day and “take[] the less burdensome
course,” which here is mootness. See Sinochem, 549 U.S. at 436.
Second, Defendants argue that the appeal is not moot because the
issue is capable of repetition but will evade review. See Shemwell v. City of
McKinney, 63 F.4th 480, 484 (5th Cir. 2023) (citing S. Pac. Terminal Co. v.
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Interstate Com. Comm’n, 219 U.S. 498, 515 (1911)). “Th[at] exception applies
when (1) ‘the challenged action is in its duration too short to be fully litigated
prior to cessation or expiration’ and (2) ‘there is a reasonable expectation
that the same complaining party will be subject to the same action again.’”
Id. (quoting Kingdomware Techs., Inc. v. United States, 579 U.S. 162, 170
(2016)). The exception only applies in “exceptional situations,” and
Defendants must prove both prongs to overcome mootness. Id. “If a court
finds that [a party] failed to meet [its] burden under either prong, it need not
address the other.” Id. at 484–85.
Defendants’ argument fails out of the gate because they have not
shown that any similar future injunction will evade review. Though a
preliminary injunction entered under the PLRA otherwise automatically
expires ninety days after entry, the injunction may be extended by the district
court if it makes the requisite findings. See 18 U.S.C. § 3626(a)(2). “There
is no basis for us to predict that if [Plaintiffs] seek[] a new preliminary
injunction, the district court . . . will decline to make the required need-
narrowness-intrusiveness findings or will refrain from finalizing its order.”
Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 778 F.3d at 1229. And in any event, ninety days is not in
itself necessarily too short a time fully to litigate a challenge to a PLRA
injunction. Had the parties raised the PLRA mootness issue in September
when Defendants filed their notice of appeal—or at least some time before
Plaintiffs first raised it in their November 27 brief—this court could have set
a more expedited briefing schedule and perhaps adjudicated the appeal before
the preliminary injunction expired. Regardless, Defendants fail to show that
any new injunction entered by the district court would evade review.
Defendants’ argument also fails to clear the second hurdle because it
is not clear that they will again be subject to the same action, i.e., that the
preliminary injunction is capable of repetition. Defendants complied with
the first part of the injunction when they removed the youths from BCCY-
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WF on September 15. As for OJJ’s ability to house youth at BCCY-WF in
the future, Defendants have expressed no present intent to send juveniles
back to BCCY-WF, and the pending construction of the new TTU raises
questions about whether BCCY-WF will ever need to be used again.
Basically, any new injunctive relief would be based on different facts and
potentially different law, and any challenge to such a ruling would constitute
a new controversy. And even if youth are again housed at BCCY-WF, there
is no indication on the present record they would be subject to the same
conditions found by the district court to be unconstitutional.
Finally, Defendants contend that even though the preliminary
injunction has expired, a live controversy remains because of Plaintiffs’
request for permanent injunctive relief pending in the district court. We do
not forecast what, if anything, remains to be done regarding the Plaintiffs’
claims in the district court given the mootness of the preliminary injunction
and given the events that have transpired on the ground since this appeal was
filed. Should the district court take further action in the underlying case
(ranging from a permanent injunction to dismissal of Plaintiffs’ action), we
cannot predict the parameters of that decision. And we need not do so:
Today’s case remains an interlocutory appeal of the district court’s
preliminary injunction, nothing more. Because the preliminary injunction
has expired, there is no remedy we can provide Defendants at this point.
Where this court is “unable to grant any remedy for an appellant, its opinion
would be merely advisory and it must dismiss the appeal as moot.” In re Blast
Energy Servs., Inc., 593 F.3d 418, 423 (5th Cir. 2010).
III.
Having concluded that this appeal is moot, we must address whether
to vacate the district court’s order. “[H]istorically, the established rule was
to vacate the judgment if the case became moot on appeal.” Staley v. Harris
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County, 485 F.3d 305, 310 (5th Cir. 2007). However, in U.S. Bancorp
Mortgage Co. v. Bonner Mall Partnership, 513 U.S. 18 (1994), “[t]he Supreme
Court made clear and emphasized that vacatur is an ‘extraordinary’ and
equitable remedy . . . to be determined on a case-by-case basis.” Staley, 485
F.3d at 310. One principal consideration “is whether the party seeking relief
from the judgment . . . caused the mootness by voluntary action.” Id.
(quoting U.S. Bancorp, 513 U.S. at 24). “Thus, for example, ‘vacatur must
be granted where mootness results from the unilateral action of the party who
prevailed in the [district] court.’” Id. (quoting U.S. Bancorp, 513 U.S. at 23).
The equitable principles espoused in U.S. Bancorp and recognized by
Staley apply in this case. Though Defendants complied with the preliminary
injunction by removing the youths from BCCY-WF, they did not cause
mootness by voluntary action. And though the injunction automatically
expired under the PLRA, Plaintiffs could have sought an extension to extend
its duration. See Yates, 677 F. App’x at 918. Having been “frustrated by the
vagaries of circumstance, [Defendants] ought not in fairness be forced to
acquiesce in the judgment.” Staley, 485 F.3d at 310 (quoting U.S. Bancorp,
513 U.S. at 25); see Yates, 677 F. App’x at 918; see also Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 778
F.3d at 1229–30. Accordingly, we vacate the district court’s order.
IV.
Based on the foregoing, we dismiss Defendants’ appeal as moot and
vacate the district court’s preliminary injunction.3
APPEAL DISMISSED; ORDER VACATED.
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3
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry et al., filed an opposed
motion for leave to file and amici curiae brief. That motion is GRANTED. The opposed
motion of Plaintiffs to strike portions of Defendants’ motion to stay is DENIED AS
MOOT.
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