Tamatrice Williams v. City of Sherwood ( 2020 )


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  •                  United States Court of Appeals
    For the Eighth Circuit
    ___________________________
    No. 18-2982
    ___________________________
    Tamatrice Williams
    lllllllllllllllllllllPlaintiff - Appellant
    v.
    City of Sherwood
    lllllllllllllllllllllDefendant - Appellee
    ____________
    Appeal from United States District Court
    for the Eastern District of Arkansas - Little Rock
    ____________
    Submitted: December 10, 2019
    Filed: January 28, 2020
    ____________
    Before ERICKSON, ARNOLD, and KOBES, Circuit Judges.
    ____________
    ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.
    More than two decades ago, Tamatrice Williams wrote four checks on
    insufficient funds in violation of Arkansas law. See 
    Ark. Code Ann. § 5-37-302
    (a).
    She alleges that, as a result, she got "caught in a never-ending cycle of court
    proceedings" over the next twenty years in the Sherwood District Court, which
    resulted in numerous fines, arrests, and days in jail. She sued the City of Sherwood
    under 
    42 U.S.C. § 1983
    , claiming that it had jailed her without inquiring into whether
    she had the means to pay the fines imposed and without appointing counsel for her.
    The district court1 dismissed Williams's claims on the ground that a judgment in her
    favor "would necessarily imply the invalidity of h[er] conviction or sentence," see
    Heck v. Humphrey, 
    512 U.S. 477
    , 487 (1994), and Williams appeals. Reviewing de
    novo, see Mick v. Raines, 
    883 F.3d 1075
    , 1078 (8th Cir. 2018), we affirm, though on
    a different ground. See Duffner v. City of St. Peters, 
    930 F.3d 973
    , 976 (8th Cir.
    2019).
    At this stage we accept the factual allegations in the complaint as true and view
    them in a light most favorable to Williams. See Barton v. Taber, 
    820 F.3d 958
    , 963
    (8th Cir. 2016). According to Williams, she and others lined up for cattle-call
    appearances before the judge of what was called the hot-check division of the
    Sherwood District Court. Some defendants faced new charges while others appeared
    for periodic "review hearings" to update their progress in making payments toward
    previously imposed fines. Proceedings were closed to the public, including family and
    friends. To be allowed inside the courtroom, defendants had to sign forms waiving
    representation by counsel.
    Williams asserts in her complaint that the city "treated each review hearing
    based on [a] prior conviction as an opportunity to open a new, separate, stand-alone
    criminal case, thereby purportedly authorizing the court to impose new and
    duplicative court costs, fines, and fees on the same hot check defendant." So when
    someone failed to appear for a review hearing or failed to make payments toward a
    fine, the city would issue an arrest warrant and open a new criminal case, which
    allowed the city to impose fines above and beyond the statutory limit for a hot-check
    conviction. The city's police department, according to Williams, carried out the arrest
    1
    The Honorable James M. Moody Jr., United States District Judge for the
    Eastern District of Arkansas.
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    warrants by tracking down defendants and ordering them to make payments on the
    spot or be taken to jail.
    Williams alleges that there was no inquiry into whether defendants had the
    ability to pay the fines imposed. Instead, when defendants fell behind on payments,
    the judge would order them jailed for up to 120 days or until outstanding debts were
    paid. Williams maintains that fines and fees made up a significant portion of the city's
    revenue.
    Williams also maintains that she and her family paid several thousand dollars
    in fines and that she has been taken to jail in front of her young children on several
    occasions: She estimates she has been arrested eight different times and spent 160
    days in jail. Williams escaped the debt cycle when the judge released her from her
    outstanding obligations to the city a mere two days after a putative class action was
    filed against the city and the judge involving the same practices that Williams
    challenges here. See Dade v. City of Sherwood, 4:16-CV-602-JM-JJV. The judge and
    the city eventually settled the Dade lawsuit, agreeing, among other things, to inquire
    into a person's ability to pay fines, to provide clearer advice on the right to counsel,
    and to maintain publicly accessible video recordings of the proceedings in the hot-
    check court. In the settlement agreement the city agreed to be bound only to the
    extent it employs someone, or there is a city official, who has any involvement or
    control over the complained-of practices.
    In Granda v. City of St. Louis, the plaintiff sued the City of St. Louis and a
    municipal judge after the judge jailed her for her daughter's truancy. 
    472 F.3d 565
    ,
    566 (8th Cir. 2007). After the case was dismissed, the plaintiff argued on appeal that
    the city was liable for the judge's decision because the judge was the final municipal
    policymaker regarding truancy matters. We explained, however, that even though the
    mayor appointed the judge, who was required by ordinance to report data to the
    mayor about ordinance violations and confer with city officials about ordinance
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    enforcement, the judge was not a final municipal policymaker, if he was a municipal
    policymaker at all. 
    Id.
     at 568–69. We explained that the municipal court was a
    division of the state circuit court, where decisions of the municipal court could be
    reviewed. We also emphasized that the judge's jailing of the plaintiff "was a judicial
    decision made in a case that came before [the judge] on a court docket," and the
    plaintiff failed to cite a single case where a municipality had been held liable for such
    a decision. 
    Id. at 569
    .
    Williams's claims are somewhat different though not meaningfully so. Her
    counsel explained two important features of Williams's case at oral argument. First,
    despite occasionally broader language in her complaint, Williams's counsel said she
    was asserting that her constitutional rights were violated on account of an
    unconstitutional municipal policy, not a custom or practice. A claim against a
    municipality under § 1983 is sustainable only if there is alleged a constitutional
    violation "committed pursuant to an official custom, policy, or practice of the city."
    See id. at 568. Second, Williams's counsel was careful to emphasize that Williams
    was not alleging that the judge was the final policymaker here; instead, Williams
    alleges that the city council and mayor were the final policymakers and that the judge
    was merely an agent carrying out the city's unconstitutional policies.
    We fail to see how this can be, at least in regard to judicial actions taken by a
    judge like the one in this case. We recognize that the city paid the judge's salary and
    funded the Sherwood District Court. But the judicial decisions of a duly elected judge
    are not the kind of decisions that expose municipalities to § 1983 liability. Neither the
    city council nor the mayor has the power to set judicial policy for Arkansas district
    court judges or the power to ratify their judicial decisions, even if the city's
    "policymakers knew of the judge's conduct and approved of it." See DeLeon v. City
    of Haltom City, 
    106 F. App'x 909
    , 911 (5th Cir. 2004). Or as another circuit court has
    held, "[a] municipality cannot be liable for judicial conduct it lacks the power to
    require, control, or remedy, even if that conduct parallels or appears entangled with
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    the desires of the municipality." Eggar v. City of Livingston, 
    40 F.3d 312
    , 316 (9th
    Cir. 1994).
    Another difficulty with Williams's claims is that she merely speculates vaguely
    and conclusorily that the city council and mayor had developed unconstitutional
    policies. The only possible marker of a municipal policy that Williams identifies in
    her complaint is a city ordinance that created a position at the judge's request to help
    with serving the warrants associated with the hot-check court and thereby help bring
    in revenue. But such an ordinance demonstrates merely that events occurring in the
    court "parallel[ed] or appears entangled with the desires of the municipality," see 
    id.,
    or that the city knew of and approved of the judge's conduct. See DeLeon, 106 F.
    App'x at 911. Critically, at no point does Williams identify an ordinance or other
    municipal action whereby the city directs someone to commit an act that is a
    constitutional violation or, with deliberate indifference to known or obvious
    consequences, directs someone to take an action that leads to a violation of
    constitutional rights. See Hollingsworth v. City of St. Ann, 
    800 F.3d 985
    , 992 (8th Cir.
    2015). Williams has not alleged that city policymakers deliberately set itself on a
    course that would lead to her constitutional rights being violated. See Szabla v. City
    of Brooklyn Park, 
    486 F.3d 385
    , 390 (8th Cir. 2007) (en banc).
    Instead, Williams relies on conclusory assertions that the city council and
    mayor somehow created some unspoken policy and tasked the judge with carrying it
    out. But as another circuit recently explained in a case containing similar conclusory
    allegations, "any connection between the judicial acts and the [city officials] is too
    chimerical to be maintained." McCullough v. Finley, 
    907 F.3d 1324
    , 1335 (11th Cir.
    2018). To the extent Williams argues that, by agreeing to act as an agent for the city,
    the judge and city necessarily conspired to violate constitutional rights, we do not
    think the allegations of any such conspiracy are specific enough to survive a motion
    to dismiss. See Johnson v. Perdue, 
    862 F.3d 712
    , 718 (8th Cir. 2017); Marti v. City
    of Maplewood, 
    57 F.3d 680
    , 685 (8th Cir. 1995). Vague allegations of a conspiracy
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    to violate constitutional rights do not plausibly support a claim. See McCullough, 907
    F.3d at 1334–35.
    We find it insignificant that the city had previously settled the Dade lawsuit,
    a fact that at first glance seems to implicate the city in the goings-on in the hot-check
    court. But litigants settle lawsuits for a variety of reasons, especially when they are
    political actors sometimes subject to public pressure to act in a certain way. At no
    point did the city admit that it had devised, or was responsible for, an unconstitutional
    policy; in fact, the settlement agreement indicates to the contrary.
    We therefore uphold the district court's dismissal of Williams's claims about
    the court's failure to inquire into her indigency and failure to appoint counsel, along
    with her related, derivative claims about the practices in the Sherwood District Court.
    Affirmed.
    ______________________________
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