Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's order granting a preliminary injunction in favor of Hartford and enjoining defendants, who are administrators and clerks at the Connecticut Superior Court, from enforcing a Connecticut statute that mandates automatic sealing of all judicial records and closure to the public of all court proceedings in criminal prosecutions of juvenile defendants transferred to the regular criminal docket.The court held that Public Act Number 19-187 is unconstitutional. The court concluded that the Courant has a qualified First Amendment right of access to criminal prosecutions of juveniles in regular criminal court. The court agreed with the district court that, for cases in criminal court, even those involving juvenile defendants, the "place and process" have historically been open to the public. Furthermore, public access plays a significant positive role in the functioning of the particular process in question. The court also concluded that the Act infringes on that right because it is not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest. Finally, the court concluded that the Courant has shown that all four requirements for a preliminary injunction have been met. View "Hartford Courant Co., LLC v. Carroll" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a Connecticut prisoner, filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that state correctional officials violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment by denying him a meaningful opportunity to exercise for six months. In this case, the alleged denial occurred when prison officials required him to wear full restraints when exercising in the prison yard. After a jury returned a verdict for plaintiff, the district court granted the Warden's motion for judgment as a matter of law on the basis that plaintiff's personal involvement was for too short a time to support an Eighth Amendment claim.The Second Circuit vacated the district court's entry of judgment as a matter of law, concluding that the evidence was sufficient to support the jury's findings that plaintiff was subjected to an Eighth Amendment violation. The court explained that there was sufficient evidence for the jury to find that the Warden had the requisite state of mind for the entire six-month period during which plaintiff was required to exercise in restraints when outside of his cell, not just the two weeks that the district court found; the jury's verdict was not based on "sheer surmise and conjecture," but on abundant circumstantial evidence from which a jury reasonably inferred that the Warden's actual knowledge of plaintiff's recreation status and the concomitant risk to plaintiff's health from being required to exercise in restraints; and the Warden's claims that there can be no Eighth Amendment violation are unavailing. The court also concluded that the Warden was liable for the Eighth Amendment violation, and that the Warden is not protected by qualified immunity where he knowingly violated plaintiff's clearly established right to meaningful exercise under the circumstances and lacked a sufficient justification for doing so. Accordingly, the court remanded for further proceedings. View "Edwards v. Quiros" on Justia Law

Former inmate Kotler sued prison officials, claiming that they planted a weapon in his housing area in retaliation for his activities on an inmate grievance committee. He also alleged violations of his due process rights in a disciplinary hearing over the incident. After a second remand, the district court dismissed Kotler’s due process claim as abandoned during prior appeals, and dismissed the alleged linchpin defendant, now-deceased Superintendent Donelli, finding that no one timely moved for substitution of Donelli’s successor after his death. A jury returned a defense verdict on Kotler’s retaliation claims.The Second Circuit affirmed in part and vacated in part. The dismissal of Donelli was proper; under FRCP 25(a), the 90-day deadline for a plaintiff to move to substitute a defendant is triggered by service of a notice on the plaintiff of the defendant’s death, regardless of whether that notice was also served upon the decedent’s successor or representative. The district court gave Kotler a fair trial on his retaliation claim. The court asked witnesses questions, limited Kotler’s questioning of a witness, and told Kotler to hurry up numerous times but in light of the entire record, the court’s questions were attempts to clarify and organize information. A supplemental jury instruction did not constitute fundamental error. Kotler did not abandon his due process claim during his previous appeals, so the district court erred in dismissing it. View "Kotler v. Jubert" on Justia Law

The Second Circuit held that the district court abused its discretion by denying plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction, holding that plaintiffs will likely succeed in showing that, as applied, the Dual Enrollment Program's "publicly funded" requirement violated their rights under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. In this case, A.H., her parents, and the Diocese filed suit against the Agency of Education after A.H.'s application for public funding to the program was denied solely because of her school's religious status.The court concluded that, in these circumstances, the State's reliance on the "publicly funded" requirement as a condition for program eligibility imposes a penalty on the free exercise of religion, because it forced Rice Memorial High School, a ministry of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington, to chose whether to participate in an otherwise available benefit program or remain a religious institution. At the same time, the requirement puts A.H.'s family to a choice between sending their child to a religious school or receiving benefits. In light of Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, 137 S. Ct. 2012, 2021 (2017), the court explained that the denial of a generally available benefit solely on account of religious identity can be justified only by a state interest of the highest order. In this case, the Agency has not identified any compelling interest that could survive strict scrutiny. The court also concluded that the remaining preliminary injunction factors favor a preliminary injunction. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's judgment and granted the motion for a preliminary injunction. View "A.H. v. French" on Justia Law

The Rockland County, New York school district is 65.7% white, 19.1% black, 10.7% Latino, and 3.3% Asian. In 2017-2018, 8,843 students attended public schools, while 29,279 students attended private schools, primarily Jewish yeshivas; 92% of public school students are black or Latino, while 98% of private-school students are white. School board candidates run for a specific seat in at-large elections; all eligible district voters vote in each race. Influential members of the private-school community have an informal slating process by which Board candidates are selected and promoted. An Orthodox Rabbi controls a slating organization that has secured victory for the white community’s preferred candidate in each contested election. Although the Organization has slated some successful minority candidates, minority voters did not prefer these candidates. Only those with connections to the Organization have been selected. When vetted, candidates were not asked about their policy views.The Second Circuit affirmed that the election system resulted in dilution of black and Latino votes, violating the Voting Rights Act, 52 U.S.C. 10301. The Act does not require a finding that racial motivations caused election results. The court properly relied on expert findings, that used data derived through Bayesian Improved Surname Geocoding rather than the traditional Citizen Voting Age Population data. The totality of the circumstances supports a finding of impermissible vote dilution, given the near-perfect correlation between race and school-type; the scant evidence that policy preferences caused election results; the blatant neglect of minority needs; the lack of minority-preferred election success; the white-dominated slating organization; and the District's bad faith throughout the litigation. View "Clerveaux v. East Ramapo Central School District" on Justia Law

On October 06, 2020, Governor Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order directing the New York State Department of Health to identify yellow, orange, and red "zones" based on the severity of COVID-19 outbreaks and imposing correspondingly severe restrictions on activity within each zone. Appellants, Agudath Israel and the Diocese, each challenged the executive order as a violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Appellants moved for injunctions pending appeal, which a divided motions panel of the Second Circuit denied. Appellants then sought injunctive relief from the Supreme Court, which granted writs of injunction prohibiting the Governor from enforcing the Order's 10- and 25-person capacity limits pending disposition of this appeal. The Supreme Court found that appellants were likely to succeed on the merits, applying strict scrutiny to the Order because it is not neutral on its face and imposes greater restrictions on religious activities than on other activities the Governor considers "essential."In light of the Supreme Court's decision, the Second Circuit held that the Order's regulation of "houses of worship" is subject to strict scrutiny and that its fixed capacity limits are not narrowly tailored to stem the spread of COVID-19. Therefore, appellants have established irreparable harm caused by the fixed capacity limits, and the public interest favors granting injunctive relief. As to the Diocese's appeal, the court reversed and remanded with directions for the district court to issue a preliminary injunction prohibiting the Governor from enforcing the Order's 10- and 25-person capacity limits. As to Agudath Israel's appeal, the court reversed in part and remanded for the issuance of a preliminary injunction as to those fixed capacity limits. The court also vacated the district court's denial of Agudath Israel's motion for a preliminary injunction as to the Order's 25 and 33 percent capacity limits, and remanded or the district court to determine in the first instance whether those limits should be enjoined in light of the Supreme Court's decision and this opinion. View "Agudath Israel of America v. Cuomo" on Justia Law

After plaintiff was sexually abused by three correctional officers during her incarceration at a correctional facility, she filed suit against eight prison supervisory officials alleging, inter alia, that they violated the Eighth Amendment through their deliberate indifference to the substantial risk of her sexual abuse by the three correctional officers. The district court applied the supervisory liability test in Colon v. Coughlin, 58 F.3d 865, 873 (2d Cir. 1995), and denied summary judgment and qualified immunity to Defendant Bachmann.The Second Circuit reversed, agreeing with Bachmann that the scope of supervisory liability for deliberate-indifference claims under the Eighth Amendment is not clearly established after Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009), which called the supervisory-liability test into question. The court held that after Iqbal, there is no special test for supervisory liability. Rather, a plaintiff must plead that each Government-official defendant, through the official's own individual actions, has violated the Constitution. The court also held that for deliberate-indifference claims under the Eighth Amendment against a prison supervisor, the plaintiff must plead and prove that the supervisor had subjective knowledge of a substantial risk of serious harm to an inmate and disregarded it. Finally, the court held that the pretrial record in this case does not support the inference that Bachmann had the required subjective knowledge that plaintiff was at a substantial risk of being sexually abused. The court remanded with instructions to enter summary judgment for Bachmann. View "Tangreti v. Bachmann" on Justia Law

The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the New York City Department of Education and a school principal in an action brought by plaintiff, alleging a claim of First Amendment retaliation and Title VII claims of a sex-based hostile work environment and retaliation.The court concluded that plaintiff's speech consisted of grievances about employment disputes that are not matters of public concern, and therefore his speech was not protected against retaliation by the First Amendment. Even if some of plaintiff's speech were so protected, the court concluded that the district court still would have been correct to grant qualified immunity to the principal. Furthermore, the district court correctly concluded that plaintiff's Monell claim against the Department of Education fails because the principal was not a policymaker, and thus plaintiff cannot identify any municipal policy that allegedly caused a constitutional violation. The court also concluded that summary judgment was properly granted on plaintiff's Title VII claims. The court explained that plaintiff's sex-based hostile work environment claim fails because the principal's actions were not sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the terms of plaintiff's employment. Finally, the retaliation claim also fails because there is insufficient evidence of a causal link between plaintiff's protected activity and the alleged retaliatory acts. View "Agosto v. New York City Department of Education" on Justia Law

The Second Circuit originally resolved the motions that are the subject of this opinion in an order entered November 9, 2020. Except in unusual circumstances, the court resolves such motions by order, not opinion. The court converted the original order and the dissent into opinions per the dissent's request.These appeals challenge Governor Andrew Cuomo's issuance of an executive order directing the New York State Department of Health to identify yellow, orange, and red "zones" based on the severity of COVID-19 outbreaks and imposing correspondingly severe restrictions on activity within each zone. Appellants, Agudath Israel and the Diocese, each challenged the executive order as a violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. After the district court denied appellants' motion for a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the order, appellants moved for emergency injunctions pending appeal and to expedite their appeals.Preliminarily, the Second Circuit concluded that Agudath Israel did not move first in the district court for an order granting an injunction while an appeal is pending before filing with this court its present motion for an injunction pending appeal. Rather, Agudath Israel moved for a preliminary injunction pending the district court’s final judgment. Furthermore, Agudath Israel has not explained or otherwise justified its failure to comply with the straightforward requirement of Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 8(a). Agudath Israel has also failed to demonstrate that moving first in the district court would be impracticable, or even futile, particularly in light of the fact that a full eleven days elapsed after the district court's ruling before Agudath Israel sought relief from this court. Therefore, the court denied Agudath Israel's motion for procedural reasons.The court also denied the Diocese's motion, concluding that appellants cannot clear the high bar necessary to obtain an injunction pending appeal. The court stated that, while it is true that the challenged order burdens appellants' religious practices, the order is not substantially underinclusive given its greater or equal impact on schools, restaurants, and comparable secular public gatherings. To the contrary, the executive order extends well beyond isolated groups of religious adherents to encompass both secular and religious conduct. View "Agudath Israel of America v. Cuomo" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against the county, the sheriff's department, and Defendant Foti and Santacroce, alleging claims in connection with Foti's alleged sexual harassment and sexual assault of female inmates at the Suffolk County Correctional Facility.Construing the evidence in the light most favorable to plaintiffs, the Second Circuit held that summary judgment on the Monell claim was unwarranted because there was sufficient evidence in the record to create a material issue of disputed fact as to whether supervisory officials at the Riverhead Facility consistently ignored Foti's widespread pattern of sexual assaults and sexual harassment of female inmates, such that it constructively supported the inference that policymakers, at the very least, had a custom or practice of acquiescing to Foti's sexual misconduct. The court vacated the district court's dismissal of Plaintiffs Lucente and Culoso's claims against Suffolk County and the individual defendants. In this case, there is evidence upon which the continuing violation doctrine can apply as to all of the 42 U.S.C. 1983 claims and there is evidence of sexual assault and/or sexual harassment by Foti against Lucente and Culoso within the limitations period. However, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment as to Plaintiff Viola's claims for failure to exhaust administrative remedies under the Prison Litigation Reform Act. The court remanded for further proceedings. View "Lucente v. County of Suffolk" on Justia Law