Bullock v. Miller

670 F.Supp.3d 866

Duante BULLOCK, Plaintiff, v. Helen MILLER,¹ in her official capacity as Chair of the Iowa Board of Parole;the Iowa Board of Parole; Sean Crawford,Individually and in his official capacity as Associate Warden of Treatment with the Iowa Department of Corrections;Beth Skinner, in her official capacity as Director of the Iowa Department of Corrections;and the Iowa Department of Corrections, Jointly and severally, Defendants.

4:20-cv-00238

United States District Court, S.D. Iowa, Central Division

Signed April 26, 2023

Blake Parker, Parker Law Office PLLC, Waukee, IA, for Plaintiff.

John R. Lundquist, Attorney General of Iowa, Des Moines, IA, for Defendants Helen Miller, Iowa Board of Parole.

Andrew Duffelmeyer, Attorney General of Iowa, Des Moines, IA, Nicholas E. Siefert, Iowa Department of Justice, Des Moines, IA, for Defendants Sean Crawford, Beth Skinner, Iowa Department of Corrections.

ORDER

ROBERT W. PRATT, Judge

Before the Court are Defendants' Motions for Summary Judgment. ECF Nos. 28, 29. Defendants Sean Crawford, Beth Skinner, and the Iowa Department of Corrections (IDOC) jointly filed their Motion, ECF No. 28, and are collectively referred to as Defendant IDOC. Defendants Helen Miller and the Iowa Board of Parole (IBOP) also jointly filed their Motion, ECF No. 29, and are collectively referred to as Defendant IBOP. Plaintiff filed a response in opposition to Defendants' Motions. ECF No. 32. Defendants replied. ECF Nos. 33, 34, 35, 36. Plaintiff submitted supplemental authority on the issue of mootness, ECF No. 47, as raised by Defendant IDOC in its Motion, ECF No. 28. The Court heard oral argument on Defendants' Motions. See ECF No. 48. At the conclusion of oral argument, the parties moved for entry of a stay of proceedings due to the potentially dispositive effect of the Eighth Circuit's ruling in Brown v. Precythe, 14 F.4th 808 (8th Cir. 2021), vacated, 46 F.4th 879 (8th Cir. 2022). See ECF No. 49. Following the Eighth Circuit's en banc decision on August 30, 2022, see Brown, 46 F.4th 879, Plaintiff moved to lift the stay in this case and requested additional briefing on the impact of Brown on his pending claims, see ECF Nos. 52, 53. The Court lifted its stay and the parties have submitted supplemental briefing responsive to the holding in Brown. See ECF Nos. 55, 56, 57, 58. The matter is fully submitted.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Plaintiff was originally sentenced to mandatory life in prison without the possibility of parole for crimes he committed when he was sixteen years old, including first-degree kidnapping, in violation of Iowa Code section 710.2; second-degree sexual abuse, in violation of Iowa Code section 709.3; and first-degree burglary, in violation of Iowa Code section 713.3. See ECF No. 20 ¶¶ 22-24; State v. Bullock, No. FECR001942 (Iowa Dist. Ct., Apr. 5, 2002); State v. Bullock, No. FECR002831 (Iowa Dist. Ct., Aug. 15, 2003). He has since been resentenced to an indeterminate sentence of life with the possibility of parole, in accordance with State v. Ragland, 836 N.W.2d 107 (Iowa 2013), and State v. Lyle, 854 N.W.2d 378 (Iowa 2014), which held that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles are unconstitutional given the U.S. Supreme Court's rulings in Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48, 130 S.Ct. 2011, 176 L.Ed.2d 825 (2010), and Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 132 S.Ct. 2455, 183 L.Ed.2d 407 (2012). See ECF No. 20 ¶ 26. Plaintiff is currently serving his prison sentence at the Fort Dodge Correctional Facility. See Offender Info., Iowa Dep't of Corrections, https://doc.iowa.gov/offender/view/1147686 (last visited Apr. 24, 2023).²

Plaintiff previously filed a civil-rights complaint in federal district court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging the IBOP violated his guarantee of due process and his rights against cruel and unusual punishment under the state and federal constitutions by denying him release on parole in 2015, 2016, and 2017. See Bullock v. Hodges, No. 4:17-cv-00192, ECF No. 14 at 2-4 (S.D. Iowa Aug. 28, 2018). Plaintiff argued the IBOP implemented policies and procedures that failed to provide him a meaningful opportunity for parole eligibility, in contravention of Graham and analogous state caselaw. See id., ECF Nos. 8, 12. Specifically, Plaintiff alleged that the IBOP refused to enroll him in the Sex Offender Treatment Program (SOTP), which is a requirement prior to consideration for release on parole by the IBOP. See id., ECF No. 8. The merits of his argument were never decided because the action was dismissed under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to exhaust his administrative appeal remedy with the IBOP. See id., ECF No. 14 at 6.

Plaintiff now returns to federal court having fully exhausted his administrative remedies by appealing the IBOP denials of his release on parole in 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021, and receiving a final decision. See ECF No. 20 ¶ 6; ECF No. 29-2 ¶ 17; Iowa Admin. Code § 205-15.3; Iowa Code chapter 17A. Plaintiff, in his First Amended Complaint, seeks declaratory and injunctive relief against Defendants under § 1983 for their alleged deprivation of his federal right against cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment (Counts One and Five); analogous state right against cruel and unusual punishment under article 1, section 17 of the Iowa Constitution (Counts Two and Six); federal due-process right under the Fourteenth Amendment (Counts Three and Seven); and analogous state due-process right under article 1, section 9 of the Iowa Constitution (Counts Four and Eight). ECF No. 20.

Plaintiff challenges Defendants' procedures as applied to him, which he alleges stand in the way of his realistic and meaningful opportunity to be released on parole. He claims the IDOC deprived him of SOTP—which he received in February 2021—leading to the "catch 22" of being denied parole by Defendant IBOP for lack of SOTP completion. Plaintiff also challenges the October 2019 SOTP criteria developed by the IDOC for placing juvenile lifers in SOTP, which was used to deny him earlier SOTP participation. See ECF No. 32-5 at 91 (recommending several requirements, including having served ten years with no major reports for past twenty-four months). Next, Plaintiff asserts that the IDOC has deprived him of a tentative discharge date (TDD), which is required before he may become eligible for a federal Second Chance Pell Grant or college coursework at Iowa Central Community College, and other vocational opportunities allegedly needed to demonstrate his maturity and rehabilitation. According to Plaintiff, the IDOC consistently relies on criteria—e.g., requiring a TDD before getting on the SOTP waitlist—which he will never be able to obtain as a juvenile lifer. Plaintiff also alleges that he has been unjustly deprived of earned-time credit as a result, which generally reduces an inmate's determinate prison term. See Iowa Code § 903A.2.

Plaintiff further challenges IDOC policy number OP-SOP-04 as applied to him. He claims the IDOC has failed to respond to his requests for a civil-commitment hearing under policy number OP-SOP-04 and the Sexually Violent Predator Act, Iowa Code chapter 229A.³ He thus argues OP-SOP-04 is arbitrary, capricious, and lacks enforceable standards. Plaintiff claims that enforcement of OP-SOP-04 stands in the way of the IBOP granting him gradual release.

Finally, he argues the above opportunities are all necessary to his realistic and meaningful opportunity to be released on parole. And according to Plaintiff, Defendants have unreasonably delayed or withheld the above opportunities from him, which he believes is cruel and unusual punishment without any legitimate penological purpose. He argues that, to make matters worse, Defendant IBOP has provided him zero transparency, as well as zero opportunity for personal participation in or adequate notice of annual parole-review proceedings. He also believes the IBOP has failed to adequately consider his youth, maturity, and lack of realistic access to rehabilitative programming in denying him parole.

Plaintiff acknowledges in supplemental briefing that Brown disposes of his federal claims grounded in the due-process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment under Counts Three and Seven.⁴ See ECF No. 57 at 3. In Brown, the Eighth Circuit concluded "inmates have no liberty interest in release from prison before expiration of their valid sentences." 46 F.4th at 890 (citing Greenholtz v. Inmates of Neb. Penal & Corr. Complex, 442 U.S. 1, 7, 99 S.Ct. 2100, 60 L.Ed.2d 668 (1979)); Gale v. Moore, 763 F.2d 341, 343 (8th Cir. 1985) (per curiam). And "[w]ithout a cognizable liberty interest, the inmates' due process claim necessarily fails." Id. Thus, the Court grants Defendants' Motions for summary judgment on Plaintiff's federal due-process claims under Counts Three and Seven.

Yet, Plaintiff contends that his state and federal cruel-and-unusual-punishment claims (Counts One, Two, Five, and Six) and his state due-process claims (Counts Four and Eight) remain viable despite the Eighth Circuit's ruling in Brown. Plaintiff argues that Defendants must be enjoined from precluding him from any meaningful opportunity to obtain release. Plaintiff also seeks declaratory relief from the Court ordering that Defendants' policies and practices have denied him a meaningful opportunity for release on parole, in violation of his constitutional rights. Plaintiff further demands an order stating that Defendant IDOC must provide him a meaningful opportunity for reclassification review or a civil-commitment hearing so that he may qualify for release, and Defendants must also implement policies and procedures guaranteeing him that right.

II. LEGAL STANDARD

Defendants have contemporaneously filed Motions for Summary Judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56 with respect to all claims against them. ECF Nos. 28, 29. Rule 56(a) provides, "A party may move for summary judgment,...