Nikolic v. Decker
- Laura Swain
- 1:19-cv-06047
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Nikolic v. Decker, Judge Swain denied Dejan Nikolic’s release request because he showed neither substantial claims nor circumstances requiring bail.
The ruling affected Dejan Nikolic’s request for release from detention while his reconsideration motion was pending; the court denied that request.
What happened
In Nikolic v. Decker, Dejan Nikolic asked the court to release him while his challenge to his detention was pending, citing the COVID-19 health crisis. The court had already denied that challenge and entered judgment for the respondents.
Nikolic argued that the court could release people who are challenging their detention and that his medical condition created extraordinary circumstances. The court found that he had not shown a strong claim or that release was needed to make his requested remedy—an individualized bond hearing—effective.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain denied Nikolic’s letter request for release. The court also said that a new constitutional challenge to the failure to release him would need to be raised in a separate petition.
The detailed version
- Nikolic v. Decker · No. 1:19-cv-06047
- Laura Swain
- Mar. 19, 2020
Background
Dejan Nikolic asked the court for immediate release from detention during the COVID-19 health crisis. He relied on a federal court’s inherent authority to release a habeas petitioner on bail. A habeas petitioner is someone asking the court to review the legality of the person’s custody.
Before this request, the court had denied Nikolic’s habeas petition and entered judgment for the respondents. Nikolic had also filed a motion asking the court to reconsider that decision. His underlying challenge concerned the continued detention and whether he was entitled to an individualized bond hearing under the Due Process Clause.
Legal Standard
The court explained that bail for a habeas petitioner is available only in unusual cases. The petitioner must show both that the habeas petition raises substantial claims and that extraordinary circumstances make bail necessary to make the requested habeas remedy effective.
Court’s Analysis
The court found that Nikolic had not shown substantial claims. He did not explain how he met the strict standard for reconsideration and largely repeated arguments from his earlier motion. The court also noted that he did not challenge certain conclusions supporting the earlier decision, including that his defenses to removal had been rejected by an immigration judge and that his civil immigration detention was consistent with the time he had spent in prison for crimes making him removable. The court said those conclusions alone could support finding that detention without an individualized bond hearing did not violate due process.
The court also found that Nikolic had not shown that extraordinary circumstances made bail necessary to make the habeas remedy effective. Although he asserted that complications related to his medical condition created extraordinary circumstances, the release he sought in the letter request was the same relief he sought through his motion for reconsideration. The court therefore concluded that he could still receive the requested relief through the reconsideration process and could not bypass the procedural requirements for that process by making a separate letter request for bail.
In a footnote, the court noted that Nikolic had asserted for the first time in his reply that the failure to release him despite the risk of severe illness or death from COVID-19 was unconstitutional. The court said that a reply supporting a letter request for bail was not the proper way to raise that claim and that he would need to file a separate petition to challenge it.
Disposition
Judge Laura Taylor Swain denied Nikolic’s letter request for release and resolved docket entry 25.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.