Marhone v. Cassel

Background

Pro se Plaintiff Conrad Marhone moved for reconsideration or reargument of the court’s August 31, 2018 opinion, which had granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss in part. The earlier opinion dismissed Marhone’s claims concerning retaliation, denial of a religious diet, inadequate clothing, the length of his confinement in the security housing unit, and lost property because he had not fully exhausted his administrative remedies. It also dismissed claims against certain defendants for failure to allege their personal involvement, including an Eighth Amendment claim concerning transfer to another correctional facility, and dismissed Marhone’s Fourteenth Amendment due-process claims. The court denied the motion to dismiss as to Marhone’s Eighth Amendment claim concerning excessive noise and light in the security housing unit.

Reconsideration Standard

Under Local Civil Rule 6.3, reconsideration is reserved for matters the court overlooked, an intervening change in controlling law, newly available evidence, clear error, or the need to prevent serious injustice. Newly discovered evidence must be genuinely new or unavailable despite reasonable diligence, and it must be important enough that it probably would have changed the result. A reconsideration motion is not a vehicle for presenting arguments that could have been raised earlier.

Although Marhone filed his motion more than 20 months after the original opinion, the court did not treat it as untimely because it was based on claimed newly discovered evidence.

Evidence Offered

Marhone relied on five affidavits from current or former inmates housed in the security housing unit at Shawangunk Correctional Facility, an affidavit from Mack Moton, and disciplinary-hearing recordings and transcripts.

The court held that the disciplinary-hearing materials were not newly discovered. The hearing occurred in or around June 2013, Marhone participated in it, his complaint described it, and the court had considered allegations about it when deciding the earlier motion to dismiss.

The court treated the five inmate affidavits as newly discovered. It was not clear that Marhone could not have obtained them earlier, but the defendants had not argued that he failed to act diligently, and the court was reluctant to require ordinary diligence from inmates seeking affidavits from other inmates.

Materiality and Ruling

The five affidavits supported Marhone’s existing claim that excessive light and noise in the Shawangunk security housing unit created an unreasonable risk of serious harm. They did not support reconsideration of the claims previously dismissed. They did not establish exhaustion of the retaliation claim, show that defendants other than Defendant Smith were personally involved in the claims, or address whether confinement in the security housing unit imposed an atypical burden on Marhone’s liberty interest.

The Moton affidavit likewise did not establish that Marhone had exhausted his retaliation claim. The court also rejected arguments about exhaustion that were based on theories Marhone could have raised in opposition to the original motion to dismiss rather than on newly discovered evidence.

Judge Nelson S. Roman therefore denied Marhone’s motion for reconsideration. The clerk was directed to mail Marhone a copy of the opinion and order and record proof of service on the docket.