Opinion
1:22-CV-10537 (JHR) (SDA)
05-05-2023
Alexander Williams, Jr., Plaintiff, v. City of New York, et al., Defendants.
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
STEWART D. AARON, UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE.
TO THE HONORABLE JENNIFER H. REARDEN, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE:
Pending before the Court are the motions of pro se Plaintiff Alexander Williams, Jr. (“Plaintiff” or “Williams”) for a temporary restraining order (“TRO”) and a preliminary injunction seeking to discontinue his twenty-three-hour lock-in, fed-in status pursuant to a Judicial Lockdown Order (“JLO”) entered by the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of Kings (“Kings County Supreme Court”), on January 2, 2019. (See Pl's. TRO Mot., ECF No. 6; Pl.'s Combined Mot., ECF No. 16.) For the reasons set forth below, I respectfully recommend that Plaintiff's motions be DENIED.
Plaintiff initially had sought other forms of relief in his motions, regarding access to a Torah and the medical care provided to him, but the relief sought in his recently filed letter is limited to his twenty-three hour lock-in, fed-in status. (See Pl.'s 5/2/23 Ltr., ECF No. 41.) In any event, Plaintiff has been provided access to a Torah (see City Ltr. Resp., ECF No. 40), and he has not made any showing that would warrant any injunctive relief regarding his medical care.
BACKGROUND
Williams, a pretrial detainee currently housed at the George R. Vierno Center (“GRVC”) on Rikers Island, is awaiting trial in Kings County Supreme Court on second degree murder charges. (See JLO, ECF No. 6, at PDF pp. 21-22.) His trial currently is scheduled to commence on May 8, 2023. (City Ltr. Resp. at 2.)
The Court notes that Plaintiff's motions for injunctive relief may become moot if, following trial, the JLO is lifted.
On January 2, 2019, the Kings County Supreme Court entered the JLO against Williams because, inter alia, the “Court ha[d] been presented with clear and convincing evidence that the defendant ha[d] solicited the aid of other persons to threaten, intimidate, and cause serious physical injury or death to witnesses.” (See JLO.) Because of the JLO, Plaintiff is subject to GRVC Command Level Order 370.20 (the “CLO”) which provides, inter alia, that the inmates housed in court-ordered lockdown status shall be in “[t]wenty-three (23) hour lock-in, fed-in status[.]” (CLO, Pl.'s Combined Mot. Ex. C, ECF No. 16, at PDF p. 24.)
Thereafter, among other lawsuits he filed in this Court, Williams filed a lawsuit on February 5, 2021 asserting, inter alia, claims relating to the JLO and his resulting conditions of confinement. See Williams v. City of New York, No. 21-CV-01083 (PGG) (KHP), 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 140969, at *7 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 5, 2022). On December 7, 2022, Williams filed this lawsuit, which raises similar claims arising from his confinement at GRVC. (See Third Am. Compl., ECF No. 36.) In the motions now before the Court, Williams seeks a TRO and a preliminary injunction discontinuing his twenty-three hour lock-in, fed-in status.
A list of the other lawsuits filed by Williams in this Court is contained in the City's Letter Response. (See City Ltr. Resp. at 2 n.1.)
Williams recently settled this prior lawsuit, without obtaining any injunctive relief relating to his twenty-three-hour lock-in, fed-in status. (Pl.'s 5/2/23 Ltr. at 5.)
On March 17, 2023, the Court entered an Order finding that Plaintiff had not met the standards for an ex parte TRO, and deferred ruling until Defendants had appeared. (3/17/23 Order, ECF No. 25.) On April 18, 2023, the New York City Law Department entered an appearance on behalf of Defendants The City of New York (the “City”) and Mayor Eric Adams. (Not. of Appearance, ECF No. 35.) Thereafter, pursuant to a schedule set by the Court (see 4/18/23 Order, ECF No. 37), on April 28, 2023, the City filed a response in opposition to Plaintiff's motions for injunctive relief (see City Ltr. Resp.), and on May 2, 2023, Plaintiff filed his reply to the City's opposition. (See Pl.'s 5/2/23 Ltr.)
LEGAL STANDARDS
“It is well established that in this Circuit the standard for an entry of a TRO is the same as for a preliminary injunction.” Andino v. Fischer, 555 F.Supp.2d 418, 419 (S.D.N.Y. 2008) (citations omitted). “Generally, to obtain a preliminary injunction, a party must demonstrate ‘(1) irreparable harm in the absence of the injunction and (2) either (a) a likelihood of success on the merits or (b) sufficiently serious questions going to the merits to make them a fair grounds for litigation and a balance of hardships tipping decidedly in the movant's favor.'” Id. (citing MyWebGrocer, L.L.C. v. Hometown Info., Inc., 375 F.3d 190, 192 (2d Cir. 2004)). Where, as here, the moving party seeks an injunction “that will affect government action taken in the public interest pursuant to a statutory or regulatory scheme, the injunction should be granted only if the moving party meets the more rigorous likelihood-of-success standard.” Wright v. Giuliani, 230 F.3d 543, 547 (2d Cir. 2000) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). A TRO, like a preliminary injunction, is “never awarded as of right,” Winter v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 24 (2008), and whether to grant such relief “rests in the sound discretion of the district court[.]” JSG Trading Corp. v. Tray-Wrap, Inc., 917 F.2d 75, 79 (2d Cir. 1990); see also Am. C.L. Union v. Clapper, 804 F.3d 617, 622 (2d Cir. 2015) (“A preliminary injunction is an equitable remedy and an act of discretion by the court.”).
DISCUSSION
The Court, in its discretion, recommends that Plaintiff's motions be denied. First, to the extent Plaintiff's request for injunctive relief is a challenge to the JLO itself, any such challenge should be brought to the Kings County Supreme Court, or to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, not this Court. See Kaufman v. Kaye, 466 F.3d 83, 86 (2d Cir. 2006) (“[I]n our federal system, a federal court, ‘anxious though it may be to vindicate and protect federal rights and federal interests, always endeavors to do so in ways that will not unduly interfere with the legitimate activities of the States.” (citing Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 44 (1971))); see also O'Shea v. Littleton, 414 U.S. 488, 500 (1974) (“an injunction aimed at controlling or preventing the occurrence of specific events that might take place in the course of future state criminal trials” would lead to federal interference in state judicial proceedings that Younger was designed to prevent).
To the extent Plaintiff brings a constitutional challenge to his twenty-three hour lock-in and feed-in status resulting from the JLO (see generally Pl.'s TRO Mot. & Pl.'s Combined Mot.), the Court finds that he has not shown a likelihood of success on the merits to justify the extraordinary relief he seeks. “Because pretrial detainees have not been convicted of any crime, the Due Process Clause [of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution] ‘forbids subjecting [them] to punitive restrictions or conditions' of confinement.” Hunter v. City of New York, No. 10-CV-03532 (RA), 2015 WL 5697218, at *8 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 28, 2015) (quoting Turkmen v. Hasty, 789 F.3d 218, 237 (2d Cir. 2015)) (judgment reversed in part, vacated in part, on other grounds, sub nom. Ziglar v. Abassi, 582 U.S. 120 (2017)). To establish a substantive due process violation, a pretrial detainee must establish “that [d]efendants, (1) with punitive intent, (2) personally engaged in conduct that caused the challenged conditions of confinement.” Turkmen, 789 F.3d at 238. Punitive intent can be established either by “‘an expressed intent to punish'” or “if the challenged conditions were ‘not reasonably related to a legitimate goal-if [they were] arbitrary or purposeless.'” Id. (quoting Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 538-39 (1979)). Thus, “in the absence of an expressed intent to punish, a pretrial detainee can nevertheless prevail by showing that the actions are not ‘rationally related to a legitimate nonpunitive governmental purpose' or that the actions ‘appear excessive in relation to that purpose.'” Anduze v. City of New York, No. 21-CV-00519 (PGG) (KHP), 2022 WL 4586967, at *18 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 8, 2022), report and recommendation adopted, 2022 WL 4547420 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 29, 2022) (quoting Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 576 U.S. 389, 398 (2015)).
The Court notes that in his Third Amended Complaint (“TAC”), rather than challenge the CLO itself, Plaintiff appears to challenge violations of the CLO, such as instances where he was not provided one hour of recreation. (See, e.g., TAC, ECF No. 36, at PDF pp. 81-83, 89, 103.) To the extent Plaintiff seeks injunctive relief unrelated to the claims in the TAC, such relief should be denied. See Williams v. City of New York, No. 19-CV-3347 (LJL) (JLC) ECF No. 125 (citing Al-Bukhari v. Semple, 2019 WL 859264, at *3 (D. Conn. Feb. 22, 2019) (it is “inappropriate for the court to grant a request for injunctive relief that is unrelated to the claims and the defendants in the complaint”) (denying injunctive relief).
In the present case, Plaintiff is unlikely to be able to establish punitive intent. Courts in this district have rejected similar challenges to conditions of confinement pursuant to court orders such as the JLO. See Hunter, 2015 WL 5697218, at *8-9 (granting summary judgment when no evidence confinement was intended to punish plaintiff or imposed for any purpose other than complying with state court lockdown order) (citing Brown v. Doe, No. 13-CV-08409, 2014 WL 5461815 (S.D.N.Y. Oct.28, 2014) (pretrial detainee could not state claim that conditions of confinement violated substantive due process when imposed to enforce court order). Moreover, Plaintiff is unlikely to be able to show that the CLO's mandate regarding the twenty-three hour lock-in and feed-in requirement is overbroad and inconsistent with the goal of the CLO. See Hunter, 2015 WL 5697218, at *5, 10 (finding conditions in plaintiff's housing unit, including twenty-four-hour lock-in, feed-in status, “reasonably related” to “legitimate goal” of complying with state court lockdown order); cf. Williams, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 140969, *78-79 (denying motion to dismiss substantive due process claim based on placement in enhanced restraints while exercising when “unclear” how such restraints “necessary to achieve the mandate of the State Court's Lockdown Order”).
In his motions for injunctive relief, Plaintiff also argues that the twenty-three hour lock-in and feed-in requirement violates the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement Act. (See Pl.'s TRO Mot. at PDF pp. 1-2; Pl.'s Combined Mot. at 1-2.) However, Plaintiff has not established a likelihood of success on his Section 1983 claims on that basis. Cf. Anduze, 2022 WL 4586967, at *8 (violation of prison standards set by state law did not “standing alone, establish a violation of a federally guaranteed right for purposes of Section 1983”).
Although Defendants assert that “Plaintiff's housing area is subject to a state of emergency such that such that the Act has no meaningful impact on plaintiff's confinement” (see City Ltr. Resp at 3 (citing emergency orders)), it is not clear to the Court that those orders, which refer to GRVC housing area 2B, apply to Plaintiff's current housing unit. (See Pl.'s 5/2/23 Ltr., ¶ 17 (stating that he currently is housed in unit 1a).)
The Court need not, and does not, address any procedural due process claim. To establish a procedural due process claim, “a plaintiff must establish (1) that he possessed a liberty interest and (2) that the defendant(s) deprived him of that interest as a result of insufficient process.” Giano v. Selsky, 238 F.3d 223, 225 (2d Cir. 2001). Although Plaintiff states in his reply to Defendants' opposition that he was denied a hearing (Pl.'s 5/2/23 Ltr., ¶ 17), the allegations in the TAC relate to the process in state court, which the Court finds are tantamount to a challenge to the JLO itself. (See TAC at PDF p. 111-12.)
CONCLUSION
For the reasons set forth above, I respectfully recommend that Plaintiff's motions for injunctive relief (ECF Nos. 6 & 16) be DENIED.
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NOTICE OF PROCEDURE FOR FILING OBJECTIONS TO THIS REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
The parties shall have fourteen (14) days (including weekends and holidays) from service of this Report and Recommendation to file written objections pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1) and Rule 72(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. See also Fed.R.Civ.P. 6(a), (d) (adding three additional days when service is made under Fed.R.Civ.P. 5(b)(2)(C), (D) or (F)). A party may respond to another party's objections within fourteen days after being served with a copy. Fed.R.Civ.P. 72(b)(2). Such objections, and any response to objections, shall be filed with the Clerk of the Court. See 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1); Fed.R.Civ.P. 6(a), 6(d), 72(b). Any requests for an extension of time for filing objections must be addressed to Judge Rearden.
FAILURE TO OBJECT WITHIN FOURTEEN (14) DAYS WILL RESULT IN A WAIVER OF OBJECTIONS AND WILL PRECLUDE APPELLATE REVIEW. See 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1); Fed.R.Civ.P. 6(a), 6(d), 72(b); Thomas v. Arn, 474 U.S. 140 (1985).