Richardson v. Steffa

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
Filed 1/14/97
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT
LUBERT G. RICHARDSON,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v. No. 95-1447
(D.C. No. 95-S-896)
TRACY STEFFA; GENE (D. Colo.)
BRASSFIELD; TED SANZA; FIRST
UNKNOWN RESPONDENT;
SECOND UNKNOWN
RESPONDENT; THIRD UNKNOWN
RESPONDENT; FOURTH
UNKNOWN RESPONDENT; AND
UNKNOWN RESPONDENT; all
defendants sued in their individual
capacities and in their official
capacities,
Defendants-Appellees.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before BALDOCK and BRISCOE, Circuit Judges, and LUNGSTRUM, ** District
Judge.
*
This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the
doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. The court
generally disfavors the citation of orders and judgments; nevertheless, an order
and judgment may be cited under the terms and conditions of 10th Cir. R. 36.3.
**
Honorable John W. Lungstrum, District Judge, United States District Court
for the District of Kansas, sitting by designation.
After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist the determination of
this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a); 10th Cir. R. 34.1.9. The case is therefore
ordered submitted without oral argument.
Plaintiff Lubert Richardson brought this action, which he asserted raised
only civil rights claims, alleging injury resulting from his removal from a
community corrections program and imprisonment under the custody of the
Colorado Department of Corrections (DOC). The district court construed
plaintiff’s complaint as seeking both civil rights and habeas corpus relief. The
court dismissed the civil rights claims as frivolous under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(d) and
dismissed the habeas corpus claim for failure to exhaust state remedies. Plaintiff
appeals. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.
In 1993, plaintiff pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of a controlled
substance and was sentenced to a term of eight years in a community corrections
program. In his complaint, plaintiff stated that under the community corrections
program, he was able to work in the Denver community at good jobs, travel about
the community unescorted, and maintain business and social contacts. After
plaintiff had been in the program for some time, 1 a program administrator
allegedly learned of a threatening telephone call made by plaintiff and had him
1
It is unclear from the record whether plaintiff resided in a program facility
or elsewhere.
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transferred to the custody of the county sheriff and jailed. The Denver
Community Corrections Board then rejected plaintiff from community
corrections, and plaintiff was resentenced by the state court to imprisonment
under the custody of the DOC.
Plaintiff’s first three claims are closely related and essentially challenge the
constitutionality of the Colorado statutes allowing an offender to be rejected from
community corrections after acceptance and confined in a county jail, and then
allowing the court to resentence the offender to imprisonment without an
additional hearing. Under Colorado’s community corrections program, Colo. Rev.
Stat. §§ 17-27-101 to 108 (1996 Cum. Supp.), “[a] community corrections board
has the authority to reject after acceptance the placement of any offender in a
community corrections program” within the board’s jurisdiction. § 17-27-103(7).
Program administrators have authority to reject and terminate the placement of
any offender who violates conditions or guidelines of the program or of the
offender’s placement. § 17-27-104(5). When a program administrator has “cause
to believe that an offender . . . has violated any rule or condition of such
offender’s placement,” the administrator may order the offender transferred to the
county sheriff, and the offender shall be held without bond. § 17-27-104(6).
Either the board or referring agency must provide an administrative review
process, § 17-27-104(5), including written notice to the offender of the decision
to reject and terminate placement and a method for informal review of the
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termination and rejection, § 17-27-102(1). If an offender is rejected after
acceptance in a community corrections program, “the court may resentence the
offender without any further hearing so long as the offender’s sentence does not
exceed the sentence which was originally imposed upon the offender.” § 17-27-
105(e). “The sentencing court is not required to provide the offender with an
evidentiary hearing pertaining to the rejection of placement in a community
corrections program prior to resentencing.” § 17-27-105(g).
The crux of plaintiff’s claims is that he has a constitutionally protected
liberty interest in not being regressed from community corrections placement to
DOC custody and that this liberty interest was denied without due process. In his
complaint, he stated he was rejected from the program and resentenced without
any hearing or other opportunity to be heard and without assistance of counsel.
He argues that the community corrections program is similar to parole and
therefore subject to similar due process protections. See Morissey v. Brewer, 408
U.S. 471, 481-84 (1972).
The district court held that plaintiff’s regression from community
corrections to the DOC was a classification matter entrusted to prison
administrators and that the constitution does not provide a right to any particular
classification. See, e.g., Montayne v. Haymes, 427 U.S. 236, 242 (1976);
Templeman v. Gunter, 16 F.3d 367, 369 (10th Cir. 1994). The court also found
that to the extent Colo. Rev. Stat. § 17-27-103(7) created a constitutionally
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protected liberty interest in remaining in community corrections, plaintiff
“appears to have received a sufficient administrative review process.” District
court’s September 21, 1995 order at 6. The court upheld the constitutionality of
the Colorado statutes on the general basis that they support the government’s
strong interest in being able to classify offenders in “custodial confinement”
quickly and efficiently. Id. at 9. 2
Plaintiff also raised two other claims. The district court rejected plaintiff’s
conspiracy claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3) on the basis that he had not alleged
he was a member of a protected class. Plaintiff’s fifth claim is that the state
breached his plea agreement, which allegedly prohibited his being sentenced to
imprisonment. The court concluded that this was essentially a contract claim
under state law and declined to exercise its supplemental jurisdiction over this
claim. Finally, the court found that part of the nature of the relief plaintiff
sought--to be placed again in a community corrections program--may affect the
2
We note that the Colorado Supreme Court has held that the community
corrections statutes do not create a liberty interest protected by due process rights.
People v. Wilhite, 817 P.2d 1017, 1021-22 (Colo. 1991)(“[B]ecause the statute
very clearly gives the community corrections facility discretion to reject the
defendant before or after acceptance for any or no reason[,] . . . there is no right
or justifiable expectation [of remaining in the program] created by state
law. . . .”). The court also upheld, against an equal protection challenge, a court’s
ability to resentence an offender after rejection without an evidentiary hearing.
Id. at 1022-23. The Colorado Court of Appeals has held that despite the lack of a
right to an evidentiary hearing, an offender does have a due process right to
counsel on resentencing. People v. Lippoldt, 902 P.2d 852, 853 (Colo. Ct. App.
1995), appeal dismissed as moot, 915 P.2d 1334 (1996).
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length of his confinement and that his sole federal remedy was therefore habeas
corpus. Because plaintiff failed to allege whether he had exhausted his state
remedies, the court dismissed this portion of the complaint.
In Harper v. Young, 64 F.3d 563 (10th Cir. 1995), cert. granted, 116 S. Ct.
1846 (1996), an opinion issued after the district court’s ruling in this case, we
examined an Oklahoma pre-parole program that bears some similarity to
Colorado’s community corrections program. We described the Oklahoma
program as follows:
Although remaining in the “constructive custody” of the Department
of Corrections, those in the Program work and reside beyond the
confines of a state penal institution and are thus free to enjoy most of
the benefits of a normal existence. In return, a program participant
must agree to abide by restrictions similar to those placed upon a
parolee. Violation of a condition may result in termination from the
Program and a return to incarceration.
Id. at 565 (footnote omitted). The petitioner in Harper had been removed from
the program and reincarcerated without being granted any type of hearing. Id. at
564. He petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus on the basis that he had been
denied his liberty without due process.
This court agreed that the petitioner had a liberty interest in remaining in
the program, created not by any state statute, but rather one that was inherent in
the constitution and thus protected by the due process clause. Id. at 566. “A
liberty interest inherent in the Constitution arises when a prisoner has acquired a
substantial, although conditional, freedom such that the loss of liberty entailed
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[by its revocation] is a serious deprivation requiring that the [prisoner] be
accorded due process.” Id. (alterations in original; quotations omitted).
[T]he dispositive characteristic that marks the point at which the Due
Process Clause itself implies a liberty interest . . . is the fact of
release from incarceration. The liberty associated with a life outside
the walls of a penal facility dwarfs that available to an inmate. It is
the freedom to be gainfully employed, to be with family and friends,
and to form the other enduring attachments of normal life. It is the
ability to reside in a home of one's own, without bars or fences or
bonds, beyond the immediate authority of guards or wardens. The
passage outside the walls of a prison does not simply alter the degree
of confinement; rather, it works a fundamental change in the kind of
confinement, a transformation that signals the existence of an
inherent liberty interest and necessitates the full panoply of
procedural protections outlined in Morrissey.
Id.,(citation and quotations omitted).
We need not address at this time whether the Colorado community
corrections program is subject to the same due process protections as the
Oklahoma program in Harper. For present purposes, we conclude only that the
two programs are similar enough that we cannot say plaintiff’s claims are based
on “an indisputably meritless legal theory,” Green v. Seymour, 59 F.3d 1073,
1077 (10th Cir. 1995)(quotation omitted), and subject to dismissal under
§ 1915(d). We therefore conclude that the district court abused its discretion, see
Green, 59 F.3d at 1077, in dismissing plaintiff’s civil rights claims under
§ 1915(d).
Plaintiff’s civil rights claims necessarily implicate the legality of his
rejection from community corrections and subsequent incarceration. Thus, before
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plaintiff may pursue his civil rights claims, he must first obtain appropriate relief
invalidating his rejection and incarceration in a state or federal habeas corpus
proceeding. See Heck v. Humphrey, 114 S. Ct. 2364, 2372 (1994). Thus,
plaintiff’s civil rights claims should be dismissed without prejudice to allow
plaintiff to first obtain the relief required by Heck. 3
We VACATE that portion of the district court’s order dismissing plaintiff’s
claims under § 1915(d), and REMAND the case to the district court with
instructions to dismiss the case without prejudice.
ENTERED FOR THE COURT
PER CURIAM
3
Plaintiff has already tried to challenge his rejection and incarceration
through a petition for writ of habeas corpus, but the district court dismissed the
petition because it concluded plaintiff should exhaust the state remedies available
at least for his breach-of-plea-agreement claim. Richardson v. Zavaras, No.
95-S-626, slip op. at 5-6 (D. Colo. Aug. 18, 1995). (This is similar to the
approach the court took to the portion of plaintiff’s complaint in this case that it
construed as seeking habeas relief.) The court implied that because of recent
Colorado Supreme Court cases upholding the statutes governing rejection and
resentencing, exhaustion of plaintiff’s challenges to these statutes and his due
process claims would be futile under Goodwin v. Oklahoma, 923 F.2d 156, 158
(10th Cir. 1991). Slip op. at 3-6. Plaintiff did not appeal this decision, and he
admits that his state court action is proceeding, albeit slowly. Appellant’s Br. at
7-E.
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Baldock, Circuit Judge, concurring:
Because I believe much of the court’s analysis unnecessary to its resolution
of this appeal, I concur in the result only. The court first concludes after lengthy
analysis that the district court should not have dismissed Plaintiff’s § 1983 claims
as frivolous under § 1915(d). The court then concludes in one final paragraph,
however, that under Heck v. Humphrey, 114 S. Ct. 2364 (1994), Plaintiff may not
pursue his § 1983 claims unless and until he obtains “appropriate relief” in a
habeas proceeding, because under Heck, a claim for damages based upon a
conviction or sentence that has not been invalidated “is not cognizable under §
1983.” Id. at 2372. I would simply say the district court should not have reached
the merits of Plaintiff’s § 1983 claims because under Heck, they are not yet
cognizable.
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