Linares v. Annucci

Background

Jorge L. Linares, proceeding without a lawyer and without paying the filing fee, brought this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. That statute provides a method for seeking relief when a state official violates rights protected by the Constitution or federal law. Linares alleged that sixteen individual defendants denied his parole applications in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of due process.

Linares asserted two claims. First, he sought a declaration that New York law created a protected liberty interest in parole. Second, he alleged that three parole denials—in June 2019, November 2019, and June 2020—violated due process because the decisions did not comply with New York statutes and regulations. The November 2019 and June 2020 decisions were later vacated by the Parole Board’s Appeals Unit, which ordered new interviews. The opinion states that it contains no further information about the result of the second new interview.

Personal Involvement

The court held that Linares did not adequately allege that Anthony Annucci and Tina M. Stanford were personally involved in a constitutional violation. Linares relied on their supervisory positions and a theory that supervisors should be responsible for subordinates’ conduct. The court rejected that theory because § 1983 does not impose liability solely because someone is a supervisor.

The court also dismissed claims against Walter W. Smith, Marc Coppola, Erik Berliner, Caryne Demosthenes, Michael Corley, and Elsie Segarra. Linares identified them as Parole Board members but did not explain how any of them personally caused a violation of his due-process rights.

First Claim: Declaratory Relief

The court dismissed Linares’s first claim because a declaratory judgment is a remedy, not an independent legal claim. The court explained that such relief must be connected to a plausible underlying claim.

Second Claim: Due Process

For a procedural due-process claim, a plaintiff generally must identify a protected liberty interest and show that the defendants deprived him of it without adequate procedures. The court held that New York’s parole scheme does not give a typical prisoner a legitimate expectation of release. The Parole Board retains discretion to deny parole even when it considers required statutory factors, rehabilitation, release plans, and risk-assessment scores.

The court nevertheless recognized that New York prisoners have a limited federally protected interest in not being denied parole for constitutionally arbitrary or impermissible reasons. The court concluded that Linares did not plausibly allege that his parole denials met that standard. His assertions that officials ignored submissions, denied him access to a letter, predetermined the outcomes, or used unconstitutional procedures were too conclusory. The court also noted that Linares did not allege that he requested a lawyer and that there is no right to counsel during a parole interview.

The court further held that relying on the seriousness of Linares’s crimes was permissible because state law requires consideration of that factor. The parole decisions also showed that the Board considered Linares’s rehabilitation and positive conduct, even though it gave those matters less weight than other factors.

The Appeals Unit had found that the November 2019 and June 2020 decisions did not properly explain departures from Linares’s COMPAS risk scores and ordered new interviews. The court assumed for purposes of its analysis that the Board violated state regulations, but held that a state-law violation alone does not establish a federal due-process violation. The court concluded that the corrective process provided Linares all the process the Constitution required.

Disposition

The court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss. It dismissed the amended complaint with prejudice because amendment would be futile, directed the clerk to terminate the pending motion, mailed the order to Linares, and closed the case.