Edwards v. Cofield et al
Filing
116
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER: It is therefore ORDERED that Plaintiff's Motion for Reconsideration (Doc. # 99 ) is DENIED. On another note, it is further ORDERED that the motion to substitute party (Doc. # 109 ) is GRANTED. The Clerk of the Court is DIRECTED to substitute Amy Newsome for Clay Tinney as Defendant pursuant to Rule 25(d) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Signed by Chief Judge William Keith Watkins on 8/28/2018. (kh, )
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF ALABAMA
EASTERN DIVISION
KANDACE KAY EDWARDS,
Plaintiff,
v.
DAVID COFIELD, et al.,
Defendants.
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CASE NO. 3:17-CV-321-WKW
[WO]
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
In its March 21, 2018, Memorandum Opinion and Order (Doc. # 97), the court
denied both Plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction (Doc. # 4) and
Defendants’ motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction (Doc. # 67).
Before the court is Plaintiff’s Motion for Reconsideration (Doc. # 99) of the denial
of her motion for a preliminary injunction. The Motion for Reconsideration is due
to be denied.
I. STANDARD OF REVIEW
A district court has “plenary power” over its interlocutory orders. Toole v.
Baxter Healthcare Corp., 235 F.3d 1307, 1315 (11th Cir. 2000) (citation omitted).
When reviewing an interlocutory decision, “the district court is not bound by the
strict standards for altering or amending a judgment encompassed in Federal Rules
of Civil Procedure 59(e) and 60(b).” Fye v. Okla. Corp. Comm’n, 516 F.3d 1217,
1223 n.2 (10th Cir. 2008). So a district court may reconsider an interlocutory ruling
“for any reason it deems sufficient.” Canaday v. Household Retail Servs., Inc., 119
F. Supp. 2d 1258, 1260 (M.D. Ala. 2000).
Because the motion for reconsideration concerns the ruling on Plaintiff’s
motion for a preliminary injunction, the former is properly evaluated under the
preliminary injunction standard. The Memorandum Opinion and Order outlined the
preliminary injunction standard. (Doc. # 97, at 13–14.)
II. DISCUSSION
A.
The court will not reconsider its denial of Plaintiff’s motion for a
preliminary injunction with respect to her first claim because rationalbasis review is sufficient and because the new standing bond order
survives rational-basis review.
Plaintiff argues that the court erred when it did not apply “heightened
scrutiny” to her Fourteenth Amendment claim in Count One. But under the Eleventh
Circuit’s recent opinion in Walker v. City of Calhoun, ___ F.3d ___, 2018 WL
4000252 (11th Cir. Aug. 22, 2018), the new standing bond order need only pass
rational-basis review. The new standing bond order survives that level of scrutiny.
1.
Rational-basis review is the appropriate level of scrutiny.
In Count One, Plaintiff challenges a wealth-based classification. According
to Plaintiff, the new standing bond order divides arrestees into two classes. The first
class — which, according to Plaintiff, is the class against which the new standing
bond order discriminates — consists of arrestees detained until a bond hearing
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because they are unable to post a secured money bond in the amount listed in the
bond schedule. The second class consists of arrestees who are able to post a secured
money bond in the amount listed in the bond schedule and can obtain their release
upon posting.
Although wealth-based classifications are generally subject to rational-basis
review, Plaintiff asserts that this wealth-based classification is subject to “heightened
scrutiny” based on the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in San Antonio Independent
School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 17 (1973). In Rodriguez, the Court
observed that it had subjected wealth-based classifications to heightened scrutiny
when “the class discriminated against” met two criteria: (1) “because of their
impecunity they were completely unable to pay for some desired benefit”; and (2)
“as a consequence, they sustained an absolute deprivation of a meaningful
opportunity to enjoy that benefit.” Id. at 20; see id. at 18–23.
Plaintiff’s class of arrestees who cannot post a secured money bond meets the
first Rodriguez criterion. By definition, those arrestees are “completely unable to
pay” for any amount of pretrial release. Id. at 20. But as the Eleventh Circuit
explained in Walker, indigent arrestees (such as Plaintiff) do not suffer an “absolute
deprivation” of pretrial release. 2018 WL 4000252, at *10. “Rather, they must
merely wait some appropriate amount of time to receive the same [pretrial release]
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as the more affluent. . . . Such scheme does not trigger heightened scrutiny under
the Supreme Court’s equal protection jurisprudence.” Id.
2.
The new standing bond order survives rational-basis review.
Because Plaintiff’s arguments were premised on the application of
“heightened scrutiny,” she has (understandably) failed to show that the new standing
bond order’s wealth-based classification fails under rational-basis review. She did
cite one case that involved rational-basis review: State v. Blake, 642 So. 2d 959
(Ala. 1994) (per curiam). She summarized Blake as follows:
In State v. Blake, the Alabama Supreme Court struck down a state
statute that allowed for indigent arrestees to be held for 72 hours solely
because they could not afford monetary payments to secure their release
prior to their first appearance. The Court held that there was no rational
basis for detaining an indigent defendant for 72 hours while releasing
those defendants who could obtain release by cash bail, a bail bond, or
property bond.
(Doc. # 4, at 11.) But there is a key difference between the statute at issue in Blake
and the new standing bond order. The former required indigent defendants who
could not “obtain release by cash bail, bail bond, or property bail” to “remain
incarcerated for a minimum of three days, and perhaps longer, before being able to
obtain judicial public bail.” Blake, 642 So. 2d at 968 (emphasis added). Under the
new standing bond order, by contrast, arrestees who are unable to obtain release by
posting a secured money bond must be “released on an unsecured appearance bond”
if they do not receive a bond hearing within seventy-two hours of arrest. (Doc. # 67-
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1, at 14–15.) The Blake court’s analysis of a seventy-two-hour minimum has little
(if any) bearing on the proper analysis of the new standing bond order’s seventytwo-hour maximum.
Plaintiff’s citations to Blake are as close as she gets to arguing that the new
standing bond order fails under rational-basis review. Defendants have also offered
sufficient justifications for the new standing bond order for it to survive rationalbasis review. Therefore, Plaintiff has not demonstrated that she has a substantial
likelihood of success on the merits of Count One.
B.
Plaintiff still has not shown a substantial likelihood of success on the
merits of her due process claims.
With respect to her due process claims in Count Two, Plaintiff’s arguments in
support of her Motion for Reconsideration are also unpersuasive.
Plaintiff is incorrect that strict scrutiny applies. In arguing that it does, she
once again misreads the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in United States v. Salerno,
481 U.S. 739 (1987). Read in isolation, Plaintiff’s briefing would leave the reader
with the erroneous understanding that Salerno is a part of the Court’s fundamental
rights jurisprudence. She selectively quotes Salerno for the proposition that “it is a
‘“general rule” of substantive due process that the government may not detain a
person prior to a judgement of guilt in a criminal trial’ because ‘the interest in liberty’
is ‘fundamental.’” (Doc. # 105, at 7 (quoting Salerno, 481 U.S. at 749–50).) The
Salerno Court did concede that “general rule.” 481 U.S. at 749. But the Court also
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noted that there are a “number of exceptions to the rule,” and it emphasized “the
well-established authority of the government, in special circumstances, to restrain
individuals’ liberty prior to or even without criminal trial and conviction.” Id.
Plaintiff also cites Salerno for the proposition that “[i]nfringement of th[e]
right to pretrial liberty is subject to strict scrutiny,” describing Salerno as “noting”
that the “Bail Reform Act is ‘narrowly focuse[d]’ to achieve the government’s
‘overwhelming’ and ‘compelling’ interests.” (Doc. # 105, at 8 (quoting Salerno, 481
U.S. at 750).) But the Salerno Court did not explicitly or implicitly hold that strict
scrutiny applied. Instead, as the Eleventh Circuit explained in Walker, “the Salerno
Court’s analysis was much closer to a relatively lenient procedural due process
analysis than it was any form of heightened scrutiny.
Rather than asking if
preventative detention of dangerous defendants served a compelling or important
State interest and then demanding relatively narrow tailoring, the Court employed a
general due process balancing test between the State’s interest and the detainee’s.”
2018 WL 4000252, at *10; see also id. at *11 (stating that, “even if Salerno did
embrace a form of heightened scrutiny, we do not believe it applies to this case
because the City is not seeking to impose any form of preventative detention”).
Therefore, Plaintiff’s arguments that strict scrutiny applies are not persuasive.
Because strict scrutiny does not apply, Plaintiff (as the party seeking a
preliminary injunction) has the burden of demonstrating a substantial likelihood of
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success on the merits of her due process claims. As explained in the Memorandum
Opinion and Order, Plaintiff has not met that burden. (Doc. # 97, at 13–26.)
According to Plaintiff, however, this court “did not engage in the legally
required balancing analysis” detailed in Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319 (1976),
“to evaluate each of the requested procedures.” (Doc. # 99-1, at 9.) The Mathews
Court observed that
identification of the specific dictates of due process generally requires
consideration of three distinct factors: First, the private interest that
will be affected by the official action; second, the risk of an erroneous
deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the
probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards;
and finally, the Government’s interest, including the function involved
and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or
substitute procedural requirement would entail.
424 U.S. at 335. Admittedly, the court did not explicitly apply the Mathews
balancing test in its Memorandum Opinion and Order. But the court’s reasoning can
be rephrased in terms of the Mathews balancing test: Plaintiff did not show that the
“probable value” of the “additional or substitute procedural safeguards” she
requested would sufficiently decrease “the risk of an erroneous deprivation” of the
interest in pretrial liberty posed by the new standing bond order’s procedures in order
to justify the additional “fiscal and administrative burdens” that the additional
requirements would entail for Defendants. Id.; see Walker, 2018 WL 4000252, at
*13–15 (conducting a procedural due process analysis). (See Doc. # 97, at 13–26.)
Plaintiff’s motion is thus due to be denied with respect to Count Two.
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III. CONCLUSION
The arguments Plaintiff offers in support of her Motion for Reconsideration
are unpersuasive.
It is therefore ORDERED that Plaintiff’s Motion for
Reconsideration (Doc. # 99) is DENIED.
On another note, it is further ORDERED that the motion to substitute party
(Doc. # 109) is GRANTED. The Clerk of the Court is DIRECTED to substitute
Amy Newsome for Clay Tinney as Defendant pursuant to Rule 25(d) of the Federal
Rules of Civil Procedure.
DONE this 28th day of August, 2018.
/s/ W. Keith Watkins
CHIEF UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
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