Sims v. Shapiro

Background

Nathaniel Sims filed this action without a lawyer against Jack Shapiro and Cindy Katz. He alleged that, after a confrontation with Shapiro at a train station on April 11, 2023, he was arrested on April 19, 2023, for allegedly robbing Shapiro. Sims claimed Shapiro committed perjury, causing his arrest and conviction, and that Katz testified in a way that supported Shapiro’s account. Sims also alleged that he was assaulted by unknown inmates while detained at Rikers Island and that he lost his mother’s ashes when his apartment was taken away. He sought $10 million.

The court had granted Sims permission to proceed without prepaying the filing fee. It therefore screened the complaint under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, which requires dismissal of a prisoner’s complaint if it is frivolous, fails to state a claim, seeks money from an immune defendant, or otherwise falls within the statute’s dismissal grounds.

Civil-rights claims and witness immunity

The court treated Sims’s constitutional allegations as claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a statute allowing claims for violations of federal rights by persons acting under state authority. The court did not decide whether Shapiro and Katz were state actors. Instead, it assumed that they could be treated as state actors and held that Sims still failed to state a claim.

The court ruled that witnesses have absolute immunity from damages claims under Section 1983 based on their testimony, even when the testimony is allegedly false. Because Sims’s claims against Shapiro and Katz arose from their alleged statements or testimony, the court dismissed those claims under the witness-immunity provision of the prisoner-screening statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(iii).

Challenge to the conviction

To the extent Sims sought to invalidate his conviction, the court held that Section 1983 was not the proper vehicle. A state prisoner must instead seek that relief through a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, the federal procedure for challenging a state conviction. The court declined to treat Sims’s complaint as such a petition because the complaint did not show that he had exhausted available state remedies. The court stated that a petition challenging the conviction should be filed in the Southern District of New York because Sims was convicted in New York County.

State-law claims and disposition

After dismissing the federal claims, the court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction—the federal court’s authority to hear related state-law claims—over any claims concerning the loss or destruction of property. The court dismissed the complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(iii), directed the Clerk of Court to enter judgment, and stated that Sims could file a new action concerning alleged constitutional violations during his detention at Rikers Island. Any such action would need the filing fee or a new request to proceed without prepayment, along with a prisoner authorization.

Judge Laura Taylor Swain also certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without prepaying the appellate filing fee.