Greenwald v. Cantrell

675 F.Supp.3d 709

Kendra GREENWALD v. Latoya CANTRELL et al.

CIVIL ACTION NO: 22-2371

United States District Court, E.D. Louisiana

Signed June 5, 2023

Christopher F. Edmunds, Chris Edmunds Law Office, Metairie, LA, Evelyn Hsiao-Farn Chuang, New Orleans, LA, James Dalton Courson, Disability Rights Louisiana, New Orleans, LA, for Kendra Greenwald.

Kristen Alease Lee, City of New Orleans Law Department, New Orleans, LA, Michael J. Laughlin, New Orleans Office of Inspector General, New Orleans, LA, Churita H. Hansell, DOJ-USAO, New Orleans, LA, Corwin St. Raymond, Kevin C. Hill, New Orleans City Attorney's Office, New Orleans, LA, Donesia D. Turner, City of New Orleans, New Orleans, LA, for Latoya Cantrell, Shaun Ferguson.

Dawn Mire, Louisiana Department of Justice, Baton Rouge, LA, for Jeffrey M. Landry, Layne Barnum, James M. LeBlanc, Colonel Kevin W. Reeves, Lamar Davis.

SECTION "H"

ORDER AND REASONS

JANE TRICHE MILAZZO, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Before the Court are Defendants' Motions to Dismiss (Docs. 61, 67). For the following reasons, the Motion to Dismiss filed by Attorney General Jeffrey Landry; Deputy Superintendent of Louisiana State Police Chris Eskew; Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections James M. LeBlanc; and Superintendent of Louisiana State Police Lamar Davis is GRANTED IN PART. The Motion to Dismiss filed by Mayor of New Orleans Latoya Cantrell and Chief of New Orleans Police Department Shaun Ferguson is GRANTED.

BACKGROUND

In 2012, Plaintiff Kendra Greenwald was convicted of a sex offense and subsequently required to comply with the registration and notification mandates described in Louisiana's Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA). Plaintiff suffers from a seizure disorder that has become worse over time, caused brain damage that has diminished her intellectual ability, and caused short-term and long-term memory loss. Plaintiff alleges that her intellectual disability prevents her from complying with the onerous registration requirements of SORNA. Plaintiff has been arrested at least seven times for failing to comply with the requirements of SORNA. After her fourth arrest in July 2015 for failure to comply with the requirements of SORNA, the court ordered a competency evaluation and found Plaintiff to be an "unrestorable incompetent." Thereafter, Plaintiff was arrested three more times for failure to comply with SORNA and held in jail for several days each time.

Plaintiff now brings this suit in an effort to put an end to the ongoing cycle of arrest, imprisonment, release, and rearrest. Plaintiff brings § 1983 claims for violations of her procedural and substantive due process rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments and violation of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Plaintiff seeks both compensatory and injunctive relief against various state and city officials in their official capacities, including Attorney General Jeffrey Landry; Deputy Superintendent of Louisiana State Police Chris Eskew;¹ Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections James M. LeBlanc; Superintendent of Louisiana State Police Lamar Davis² (collectively, the "State Defendants"); Mayor of New Orleans Latoya Cantrell and Chief of New Orleans Police Department Shaun Ferguson (collectively, the "City Defendants").

The State Defendants and City Defendants have each separately moved for dismissal of Plaintiff's claims against them on various grounds. Each argue that Plaintiff has failed to state a claim under § 1983 for violations of her Fifth, Eighth, or Fourteenth Amendment rights. The State Defendants also move for dismissal of Plaintiff's claim for money damages and for dismissal of her claims against the Attorney General. The City Defendants argue that Plaintiff has failed to allege an unconstitutional policy promulgated by the City Defendants as required by Monell. This Court will consider each argument in turn.

LEGAL STANDARD

To survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, a plaintiff must plead enough facts "to state a claim for relief that is plausible on its face."³ A claim is "plausible on its face" when the pleaded facts allow the court to "draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged."⁴ A court must accept the complaint's factual allegations as true and must "draw all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff's favor."⁵ The court need not, however, accept as true legal conclusions couched as factual allegations.⁶ To be legally sufficient, a complaint must establish more than a "sheer possibility" that the plaintiff's claims are true.⁷ If it is apparent from the face of the complaint that an insurmountable bar to relief exists and the plaintiff is not entitled to relief, the court must dismiss the claim.⁸ The court's review is limited to the complaint and any documents attached to the motion to dismiss that are central to the claim and referenced by the complaint.⁹

LAW AND ANALYSIS

A. Claims for Money Damages

First, the State Defendants argue that Plaintiff cannot succeed on her § 1983 claim for money damages against them in their official capacities. Plaintiff does not dispute that the Eleventh Amendment bars claims for compensatory damages against the State Defendants in their official capacities.¹⁰ She argues, however, that her claims for nominal damages should not be dismissed because they provide prospective relief. The Supreme Court has rejected that argument. In Arizonans for Official English v. Arizona, the Supreme Court held that nominal damages were not available under § 1983 against a State.¹¹ Accordingly, Plaintiff's claims for nominal damages against the State Defendants in their official capacities are dismissed. However, Ex Parte Young provides an exception to Eleventh Amendment immunity "that allows private parties to bring suits for injunctive or declaratory relief against individual state officials acting in violation of federal law."¹² Therefore, Plaintiff's claims for injunctive relief may proceed.¹³

B. Claims against Attorney General Jeffrey Landry

Next, the State Defendants argue that the claims against Attorney General Jeffrey Landry should be dismissed because the Complaint does not allege any connection between the Attorney General and the relief sought. For the Ex Parte Young exception to Eleventh Amendment immunity to apply, "the state official, by virtue of his office, must have some connection with the enforcement of the [challenged] act, or else [the suit] is merely making him a party as a representative of the state, and thereby attempting to make the state a party."¹⁴ What constitutes a sufficient connection is not clear from Fifth Circuit jurisprudence.¹⁵ However, the Fifth Circuit has at times held that "[t]he required connection is not merely the general duty to see that the laws of the state are implemented, but the particular duty to enforce the statute in question and a demonstrated willingness to exercise that duty."¹⁶ The Fifth Circuit has also held that the requisite connection "requires some scintilla of 'enforcement' by the relevant state official with respect to the challenged law."¹⁷ " 'Enforcement' for Young purposes means 'compulsion or constraint.' "¹⁸

Plaintiff alleges that the Attorney General has a statutorily defined role in enforcing SORNA because he is required by state law to maintain a statewide Sexual Predator Apprehension Team ("SPAT"). SPAT is charge with targeting, monitoring, arresting, and assisting in the prosecution of sex offenders and violators of sexual offender registration requirements, as well as training local law enforcement to do the same.¹⁹ This Court finds the Attorney General's duty to maintain a team tasked with enforcing the sex offender registration requirements at issue here sufficient to create the requisite connection to enforcement required under Ex Parte Young.²⁰ Accordingly, the Court holds that Attorney General Jeffrey Landry is a proper party to this suit, and the request to dismiss the claims against him is denied.

C. Eighth Amendment Claims

All Defendants next argue that Plaintiff cannot succeed on her claim under the Eighth Amendment because the SORNA requirements are not "punishment." The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. A statute may violate this Amendment if it is punitive.²¹ Courts use an intents-effects test to determine whether a statute is punitive: " 'If the intention of the legislature was to impose punishment, that ends the inquiry'; but if the law was not intended to be punitive, the question becomes whether it is 'so punitive either in purpose or effect as to negate the State's intention to deem it civil.' "²² In Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, the Supreme Court identified factors for determining whether a statute is punitive:

Whether the sanction involves an affirmative disability or restraint, whether it has historically been regarded as punishment, whether it comes into play only on a finding of scienter, whether its operation will promote the traditional aims of punishment - retribution or deterrence, whether the behavior to which it applies is already a crime, whether an alternative purpose to which is may be connected is assignable for it, and whether it appears excessive in relation to the alternative purpose assigned.²³

" '[A] most significant factor' is whether the law has a 'rational connection to a nonpunitive purpose.' "²⁴ This inquiry "applies with equal force" in double jeopardy, Ex Post Facto Clause, and Eighth Amendment contexts.²⁵

Both the Fifth Circuit and the Supreme Court have found sex offender registration statutes to be non-punitive.²⁶ In Moore v. Avoyelles Correctional Center, the plaintiff argued that the retroactive application of the neighborhood notification requirement of Louisiana's SORNA violated the Ex Post Facto Clause because it imposed additional punishment that was not prescribed at the time the act was committed.²...