Hazley v. Dooley

Glenn Kevin Hazley, Plaintiff, v. Becky Dooley and Kristi Cisar, Defendants.

File No. 16-cv-3935 (ECT/ECW)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF MINNESOTA

July 23, 2020

OPINION AND ORDER

Leland P. Abide, Kutak Rock LLP, Minneapolis, MN, and Karl L. Cambronne, Chestnut Cambronne PA, Minneapolis, MN, for Plaintiff Glenn Kevin Hazley.

Steven Forrest, Minnesota Attorney General's Office, St. Paul, MN, for Defendants Becky Dooley and Kristi Cisar.

If everything had gone according to plan, Plaintiff Glenn Kevin Hazley would have been a free man from about mid-May 2016 through at least July 20, 2016. Hazley was incarcerated at the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Moose Lake ("MCF-Moose Lake") when the Minnesota Court of Appeals determined in March 2016 that his sentence was unauthorized and remanded his criminal case to the district court for further proceedings. After remand, the Hennepin County district court set bail for Hazley, and he attempted to access funds in his inmate account to post bail and obtain release pending further district-court proceedings. Hazley filed this civil case alleging that three MCF-Moose Lake officials violated 42 U.S.C. § 1983 by depriving him of his Fourteenth Amendment liberty interest in "being able to post bail and be free on bail" after bail was set in the state district court. Hazley v. Roy, 378 F. Supp 3d 751, 757 (D. Minn. 2019); see also Mem. in Opp'n at 1 [ECF No. 125].¹ Based on these same facts, Hazley also alleges that Defendants committed the state-law tort of false imprisonment. Hazley's claims against one of these three officials, Tom Roy, were dismissed. Hazley, 378 F. Supp. 3d at 760. The two remaining officials, Defendants Kristi Cisar and Becky Dooley, seek summary judgment. ECF No. 113. Their motion will be granted because no reasonable juror could find on the record evidence that Cisar or Dooley's actions were deliberately indifferent, the threshold showing the law requires Hazley to make with respect to his substantive due process claims and, for practical purposes, his false imprisonment claim, also.

I

Many of the relevant facts are undisputed. On March 14, 2016, the Minnesota Court of Appeals reversed the sentence imposed for Hazley's conviction of third-degree burglary. State v. Hazley, No. A15-1418, 2016 WL 953051 (Minn. Ct. App. Mar. 14, 2016). The Court of Appeals remanded the case to the district court "to determine the appropriate lawful sentence." Id. at *2. On remand, the district court permitted Hazley to withdraw his guilty plea and set bail at $8,000 with conditions with an $800 cash alternative. Forrest Decl., Ex. 5 at 4, 8-9 [ECF No. 119-1 at 33, 37-38]. After bail was set, Hazley was returned to MCF-Moose Lake, and on May 10, 2016, he sent an "Offender Kite Form"—a handwritten communication on a pre-printed form—to MCF-Moose Lake's Inmate Accounts. Cisar Decl., ¶ 7, Ex. 3 [ECF No. 116-1 at 49]. In that form, Hazley wrote:

I would like to know how I can pay my bail (800.00) to Hennipen [sic] Cty. Courts. My case was overturned and the courts set my bail at 800.00$ [sic]. I'm waiting on the paperwork to be processed so I can be released but want to have my bail paid, because its [sic] my understanding that I will be given a debit card upon my release from here and I don't have anyone to take money off my card. Thats [sic] why I need to handle this matter right now. Please contact my caseworker if you have any questions about my status here at Moose Lake. Thank you very much for your help with this matter, it is greatly appreciated.

Id. The following day, Cisar, an accounting officer at MCF-Moose Lake's Inmate Accounts division, id. ¶¶ 1-2, responded, instructing Hazley to "[s]ubmit a voucher payable to the county for what you want sent/paid. Attach an addressed envelope. I will process the check, put it in the envelope and get it mailed out. Or, you can pay them with your debit card once you are released," id. ¶ 7, Ex. 3. The day after he received Cisar's response, May 12, Hazley sent a second Offender Kite Form to Cisar along with an offender voucher form and an addressed envelope, consistent with Cisar's instructions. Id. ¶¶ 11-12, Ex. 4 [ECF No. 116-1 at 50]. Hazley asked to be provided with "confirmation that funds were sent out." Id.

The Parties dispute whether Cisar actually followed through on Hazley's request and mailed the check to Hennepin County. In a declaration supporting her summary-judgment motion, Cisar testified that her "review of DOC records . . . suggest[s] that [she] timely and appropriately processed [Hazley's] request" and mailed an $800 check to Hennepin County Courts on May 13. Id. ¶ 12. Responding to Hazley's request for confirmation, Cisar wrote a short note to Hazley on May 13 that read simply: "Done today." Id., Ex. 4. According to Hazley, Cisar did not process his request in the normal course and did not mail the check. See Mem. in Opp'n at 8-14. Hazley bases this assertion on evidence showing that Hennepin County "had no record of ever receiving the check," see Abide Decl., Ex. A at 2 [ECF No. 126-1], that Hazley's criminal defense counsel was not able to locate the check despite "significant investigation," Forrest Decl., Ex. 9 at 3-4 [ECF No. 119-1 at 47-48], and that "Defendants were unable to produce a copy of the May 13 check," see Abide Decl., Ex. B at 2 [ECF No. 126-2]. May 13, 2016, the day Hazley's $800 bail check was to have been mailed, was a Friday. It seems the earliest Hennepin County could have received the check—and Hazley could have bailed out—would have been the following Monday, May 16.

After learning that Hennepin County evidently had not received his bail check, and after the district court denied his motion to reduce his bail, id., Ex. 9 at 8 [ECF No. 119-1 at 52], Hazley's attorney and sister requested that MCF-Moose Lake stop payment on the bail check. See Cisar Decl., Ex. 7 [ECF No. 116-2 at 1]. The requests made by Hazley's attorney and sister were not honored because, pursuant to policy, MCF-Moose Lake required Hazley personally—and not a third party acting on his behalf—to request that payment be stopped on a check issued on an inmate's account. Hazley Decl. ¶ 10 [ECF No. 127]. Hazley personally requested that payment be stopped and that remaining funds in his inmate account be returned to him, via mailing to his sister's address, in a letter dated June 21, 2016. Cisar Decl., Ex. 7. Cisar is uncertain when she received Hazley's June 21 request, but she processed the request on June 28, 2016. Id. ¶ 17, Exs. 7-10 [ECF No. 116- 2 at 1-5]. Hazley was tried and convicted of third-degree burglary following a bench trial that began July 20, 2016. See Forrest Decl., Ex. 10 [ECF No. 119-1 at 54-68].²

II

The familiar summary judgment standards govern consideration of the Defendants' motion. Summary judgment is warranted "if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). A fact is "material" only if its resolution might affect the outcome of the suit under the governing substantive law. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986). A dispute over a fact is "genuine" only if "the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party." Id. "The evidence of the non-movant is to be believed, and all justifiable inferences are to be drawn in his favor." Id. at 255.

"Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States . . . to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law[.]" 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides that "[n]o State . . . shall . . . deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1. "This provision contains a 'substantive component' that 'protects individual liberty against certain government actions regardless of the fairness of the procedures used to implement them.'" Schmidt v. Des Moines Pub. Schs., 655 F.3d 811, 816 (8th Cir. 2011) (quoting Collins v. City of Harker Heights, 503 U.S. 115, 125 (1992)). "To establish a violation, a plaintiff 'must demonstrate both that the official's conduct was conscience-shocking, and that the official violated one or more fundamental rights that are deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition, and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty, such that neither liberty nor justice would exist if they were sacrificed.'" Id. (quoting Norris v. Engles, 494 F.3d 634, 638 (8th Cir.2007)). "Because a wide variety of official conduct may cause injury, a court must first determine the level of culpability the § 1983 plaintiff must prove to establish that the defendant's conduct may be conscience shocking." Terrell v. Larson, 396 F.3d 975, 978 (8th Cir. 2005) (en banc). "Mere negligence is never sufficient. Proof of intent to harm is usually required, but in some cases, proof of deliberate indifference, an intermediate level of culpability, will satisfy this substantive due process threshold." Id. (citing Cnty. of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 848-49 (1998)). "When 'actual deliberation is practical,' establishing a substantive-due-process violation requires proof of deliberate indifference, rather than conscience-shocking conduct." Scott v. Baldwin, 720 F.3d 1034, 1036 (8th Cir. 2013) (quoting Terrell, 396 F.3d at 978).³

Two conclusions of law seem uncontroversial here. First, Hazley "had a constitutionally protected liberty interest in exercising his bail option, once bail had been set, sufficient to trigger substantive due process protection." Steele v. Cicchi, 855 F.3d 494, 502 (3d Cir. 2017). "Such a right emanates from the liberties ...