Adams v. Annucci

Background

Jerry Adams, proceeding without a lawyer, sued Anthony Annucci and Ann Marie T. Sullivan in their personal capacities under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a law allowing claims against state actors for certain constitutional violations. Adams alleged that officials required him to participate in a Sexual Offender Treatment Program (SOTP) without proper screening or a demonstrated treatment need. He alleged that officials imposed sanctions after he refused, including removing him from a food-service assignment, changing his single-room housing to a dorm setting, reducing his pay grade, and transferring him away from his family.

Adams also challenged a June 22, 2016 hearing before a Time Allowance Committee. He alleged that the hearing led to the loss of all his earned good-time credits, which he stated totaled 14 years and 28 days. He claimed that he received inadequate notice, was not told that the hearing concerned possible loss of credits, was not given a chance to defend himself properly, and faced a predetermined or biased decision. He sought monetary damages and injunctions restoring his prior status.

Rule 12(b)(6) analysis

The defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which tests whether a complaint alleges enough facts to state a legally plausible claim. The court generally treated the factual allegations as true and read Adams’s filings liberally because he was unrepresented.

The court applied the rule from Heck v. Humphrey and related cases that a prisoner generally cannot use a civil-rights lawsuit to obtain relief that would necessarily invalidate the duration of confinement or the loss of good-time credits, unless the underlying confinement or decision has been invalidated through another process. The court concluded that Adams’s claims challenging the loss of good-time credits, including related due-process and retaliation theories, would necessarily call the length of his confinement into question.

Rulings on the claims

The court granted the motion as to Adams’s First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment claims concerning the revocation of good-time credits and participation in the SOTP, concluding that those claims were barred by Heck. The court stated that this dismissal was without prejudice, because such claims could potentially be brought again if the relevant conviction or incarceration were later invalidated through one of the methods recognized by Heck.

The court also concluded that Adams’s claim that he was forced to participate in the SOTP failed on the merits. It interpreted New York Correction Law § 622 as requiring the program to be made available to certain inmates serving sentences for felony sex offenses, not as requiring the screening or medical-need showing Adams asserted. The court also noted that Adams alleged he ultimately consented to participate and had previously refused participation. It held that he had not shown a procedural or substantive due-process violation based on participation in the SOTP.

The court dismissed Adams’s Eighth Amendment claims in their entirety. It held that his allegations about SOTP participation did not describe treatment or conditions sufficiently serious to support a cruel-and-unusual-punishment claim, and that his reported headaches, pain, sleeplessness, stress, and anxiety were insufficient as alleged. It also held that the alleged changes to his job, housing, pay, and facility assignment did not establish an Eighth Amendment conditions-of-confinement claim. The claim concerning those additional sanctions was dismissed without prejudice.

The court dismissed without prejudice Adams’s due-process claims about procedural defects in the Time Allowance Committee hearing to the extent success would necessarily invalidate the loss of good-time credits. It separately held that the alleged failure to provide a signed final order did not state a constitutional violation because the report Adams received appeared to give reasons for the decision and the lack of a signature did not, by itself, violate the Constitution. The court stated that Adams could amend to allege procedural defects that would not necessarily invalidate the credit revocation, such as certain notice or opportunity-to-be-heard problems.

The court did not dismiss Adams’s Fourteenth Amendment claim concerning his alleged designation or stigmatization as a sex offender. The defendants had not addressed that claim in their motion, although the court noted that they could challenge it later.

The court dismissed without prejudice Adams’s First Amendment retaliation claim concerning the loss of good-time credits because success would necessarily undermine that loss. But it did not dismiss his separate retaliation claim alleging that Annucci imposed the additional sanctions because Adams refused to participate in the SOTP without due process. The defendants had not addressed that claim in their motion.

The court dismissed Adams’s Fifth Amendment claim with prejudice. It explained that the Fifth Amendment applies to the federal government, while Adams’s claims concerned state actors, and that this claim had already been considered in the earlier round of the case.

Disposition and next steps stated by the court

The court granted the motion to dismiss in part and denied it in part. The claims concerning sex-offender status and the additional sanctions allegedly imposed by Annucci were not dismissed. The Fifth Amendment claim was dismissed with prejudice. Certain First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment claims were dismissed without prejudice under Heck, and the Eighth Amendment claim concerning the additional sanctions and certain Fourteenth Amendment procedural claims were also dismissed without prejudice.

The court gave Adams 30 days to file a third amended complaint addressing the identified deficiencies. It stated that the new complaint would replace, rather than supplement, the earlier complaints and warned that failure to file on time might result in dismissal of the remaining claims with prejudice. The court did not address Adams’s state-law claims because the defendants had not addressed them, and it did not decide qualified immunity.