Cooke v. Peterson et al
Filing
23
ORDER granting 4 defendant Peterson's Motion to Dismiss; granting 17 defendants Gahm, Pung and Schadegg's Motion to Dismiss(Written Opinion). Signed by Senior Judge David S. Doty on 12/6/2012. (PJM)
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF MINNESOTA
Civil No. 12-1587(DSD/JJK)
Aaron Cooke,
Plaintiff,
ORDER
v.
Jeffrey Peterson, Executive
Officer of the Hearing and
Release Unit for the Minnesota
Department of Corrections, All
Defendants are Sued in Their
Personal Capacity Only; Deb
Schadegg, all Hearings and
Release Officers for the Hearing
and Release Unit. All
Defendants are Sued in Their
Personal Capacity Only; Rick Pung,
all Hearing and Release Officers
for the Hearing and Release Unit.
All Defendants are Sued in Their
Personal Capacity Only; Zach Gahm,
all Hearings and Release Officers
for the Hearing and Release Unit.
All Defendants are Sued in Their
Personal Capacity Only;
Defendants.
A.L. Brown, Capitol City Law Group, LLC, 155 South
Wabasha, Suite 125, St. Paul, MN 55107, counsel for
plaintiff.
Margaret E. Jacot, Minnesota Attorney General’s Office,
Suite 900, 445 Minnesota Street, Suite 900, St. Paul, MN
55101, counsel for defendants.
This matter is before the court on the motions to dismiss by
defendants Jeffrey Peterson, Deb Schadegg, Rick Pung and Zach Gahm
(collectively, defendants).1
Based on a review of the file, record
and proceedings herein, and for the following reasons, the court
grants the motions.
BACKGROUND
This civil-rights dispute arises from the incarceration of
plaintiff Aaron Cooke.
On September 13, 2007, Cooke admitted to
violating his probation and was sentenced in Le Sueur County,
Minnesota, to a term of imprisonment of fifteen and one-third
months, followed by seven and two-thirds months of supervised
release.
Compl. ¶¶ 13-15; see also ECF No. 21.
This sentence also
included a ten-year term of conditional release.
See ECF No. 21.
Cooke was released and began his term of supervised release on
September 10, 2008.
Compl. ¶ 18.
On February 17, 2009, Cooke’s
supervised release was revoked, and he was sentenced to a term of
imprisonment of 365 days.
Id. ¶¶ 20, 24.
Cooke’s incarceration
was extended on three subsequent occasions: January 11, 2010;
October 11, 2010; and June 24, 2011.
1
Id. ¶¶ 26, 31, 33.
Cooke
All defendants are employees of the Minnesota Department of
Corrections Hearing and Release Unit (HRU), which is responsible
for administering supervised release and conditional release.
Compl. ¶¶ 5-12.
2
contested these extensions, and filed an administrative appeal on
March 28, 2012.
from custody.
Id. ¶ 38.2
On April 11, 2012, Cooke was released
Id. ¶ 39.
On June 29, 2012, Cooke filed this action, alleging state-law
false imprisonment and violations of his due process and Eighth
Amendment rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Peterson moved to dismiss
on July 30, 2012.
Gahm, Pung and Schadegg moved to dismiss on
September 13, 2012.
DISCUSSION
I.
Standard of Review
To survive a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim,
“‘a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as
true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’”
Braden v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 588 F.3d 585, 594 (8th Cir. 2009)
(quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. 1937, 1949 (2009)). “A claim
has facial plausibility when the plaintiff [has pleaded] factual
content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that
the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Iqbal, 129 S.
2
In his appeal, Cooke relied on two recent Minnesota Court of
Appeals decisions. Compl. ¶¶ 29, 35. These decisions held that
“conditional release is consecutive to supervised release and ...
the extension of ... incarceration beyond the completion of
[supervised release] ... is unlawful.” State ex rel. Peterson v.
Fabian, 784 N.W.2d 843, 845 (Minn. Ct. App. 2010); see State ex
rel. Cote v. Roy, No. 66-CV-10-3658 (Minn. Ct. App. Nov. 15, 2011)
(same).
3
Ct. at 1949 (citing Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 556
(2007)).
Although a complaint need not contain detailed factual
allegations, it must raise a right to relief above the speculative
level. See Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555.
“[L]abels and conclusions or
a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action” are
not sufficient to state a claim.
Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1949
(citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
The court does not consider matters outside the pleadings
under Rule 12(b)(6).
See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(d).
The court,
however, may consider matters of public record and materials that
are “necessarily embraced by the pleadings.”
See Porous Media
Corp. v. Pall Corp., 186 F.3d 1077, 1079 (8th Cir. 1999) (citation
and internal quotation marks omitted).
In the present action, the
court considers the September 13, 2007, probation violation report,
as it is necessarily embraced by the complaint.
II.
See ECF No. 21.
Section 1983 Claim
Cooke argues that extending his incarceration past his term of
supervised
release
and
into
his
term
of
conditional
violated his due process and Eighth Amendment rights.
release
Defendants
respond that the claim is Heck-barred, and explain that “[a] claim
is not cognizable under [§] 1983 where a judgment in favor of the
plaintiff would necessarily imply invalidity of the plaintiff’s
state conviction or sentence, unless the conviction or sentence has
already been invalidated.” Wilson v. Lawrence Cnty., Mo., 154 F.3d
4
757, 760 (8th Cir. 1998) (citing Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477,
487 (1994)).
Cooke argues, however, that Heck is inapplicable because he
challenges the HRU decisions that extended his incarceration rather
than his court-imposed sentence.
a broad class of claims.
The court disagrees.
Heck bars
Section 1983 actions are “barred (absent
prior invalidation) - no matter the relief sought ..., no matter
the target
of
the
prisoner’s suit
(state conduct
leading
to
conviction or internal prison proceedings) - if success in the
action would necessarily demonstrate the invalidity of confinement
or its duration.”
Wilkinson v. Dotson, 544 U.S. 74, 82 (2005)
(second emphasis added).
In the present action, Cooke asks the
court to find that the duration of his confinement was invalid.
As
a result, Heck bars the claim unless Cooke satisfies the favorable
termination requirement.
To demonstrate favorable termination, “a § 1983 plaintiff must
prove that the conviction or sentence has been reversed on direct
appeal, expunged by executive order, declared invalid by a state
tribunal authorized to make such determination, or called into
question by a federal court’s issuance of a writ of habeas corpus.”
Marlowe v. Fabian, 676 F.3d 743, 746 (8th Cir. 2012) (quoting Heck,
512 U.S. at 487).
Cooke does not allege that his sentence was
5
reversed or that he was granted a writ of habeas corpus, and
instead argues that his release following administrative appeal
amounts to expungement by executive order.
Executive action, however, can only satisfy the favorable
termination requirement if the underlying sentence is completely
expunged.
See Wilson, 154 F.3d at 761 (finding pardon by governor
to be a favorable termination).
action
must
“destroy;
blot
In other words, the executive
out;
obliterate;
erase;
designedly [or] strike out wholly” the conviction.
(citations
omitted).
Cooke does
not allege
efface
Id. at 760-61
that
the
appeal
decision completely expunged his underlying conviction or sentence.
As
a
result,
the
court
finds
that
Cooke’s
release
after
administrative appeal is not a prior invalidation of his conviction
or
sentence.
Therefore,
dismissal
of
the
§
1983
claim
is
warranted.3
III.
State Law Claim
Having now dismissed the § 1983 claim, the only claim for
which
original
jurisdiction
existed,
the
court
must
consider
whether to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining
state-law claim.
See 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3); Johnson v. City of
Shorewood, Minn., 360 F.3d 810, 819 (8th Cir. 2004).
“In the usual
case in which all federal-law claims are eliminated before trial,
3
The court dismisses this claim without prejudice.
See
Schafer v. Moore, 46 F.3d 43, 45 (8th Cir. 1995) (dismissing Heckbarred claims without prejudice).
6
the
balance
of
factors
to
be
considered
under
the
pendent
jurisdiction doctrine - judicial economy, convenience, fairness,
and comity - will point toward declining to exercise jurisdiction
over the remaining state-law claims.”
Dodson v. Univ. of Ark. for
Med. Scis., 601 F.3d 750, 756 (8th Cir. 2010) (per curiam) (quoting
Carnegie-Mellon Univ. v. Cohill, 484 U.S. 343, 350 n.7 (1988)).
Based on consideration of the pendent jurisdiction factors, the
court
does
not
exercise
its
discretion
jurisdiction over the state-law tort claim.
to
take
supplemental
Therefore, the court
dismisses Cooke’s remaining state-law claim without prejudice.
CONCLUSION
Accordingly, based on the above, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the
motions to dismiss by Peterson [ECF No. 4] and Gahm, Pung and
Schadegg [ECF No. 17] are granted without prejudice.
LET JUDGMENT BE ENTERED ACCORDINGLY.
Dated:
December 6, 2012
s/David S. Doty
David S. Doty, Judge
United States District Court
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