ROBINSON v. STATE OF NEW JERSEY et al

Filing 16

OPINION. Signed by Judge Noel L. Hillman on 7/17/2018. (dmr)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY
______________________________
:
ALBERT THEODORE ROBINSON,
:
:
Plaintiff,
:
Civ. No. 17-7135 (NLH)(JS)
:
v.
:
OPINION
:
STATE OF NEW JERSEY DRUG
:
COURT, DEPT. OF CORRECTIONS, :
et al.,
:
:
Defendants.
:
______________________________:
APPEARANCES:
Albert Theodore Robinson, No. 41659
Cumberland County Jail
54 W. Broad Street
Bridgeton, NJ 08302
Plaintiff Pro Se
Ashley L. Costello, Esq.
Office of the Attorney General
25 Market Street
Trenton, NJ 08625
Counsel for Defendants
HILLMAN, District Judge
Plaintiff Albert Theodore Robinson filed a Complaint
pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the State of New Jersey
Drug Court, the New Jersey Department of Corrections, the
Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office, and the Cumberland County
Prosecutor Jennifer Webb McRae.

ECF No. 1 at 7.

In the

Complaint, Plaintiff alleges that he was incarcerated beyond his
“maximum expiration of sentence” because his jail time credits

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were improperly recalculated and reduced while he was
incarcerated.

Id. at 8.

Presently before the Court is

Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss the Complaint, which is ripe for
adjudication.

ECF No. 7-3.

For the reasons that follow, the

Court will grant the Motion and dismiss the Complaint, with
leave to amend granted.
I.

Factual Background
Plaintiff Albert Theodore Robinson is presently

incarcerated at the Cumberland County Jail in Bridgeton, New
Jersey. 1

According to his Complaint, Plaintiff was sentenced to

eight years’ imprisonment, which consisted of “multiple
concurrent and consecutive sentences running concurrent and
consecutively with over 5 years of jail credits awarded to both
sentences as agreed to in the plea agreement.”

ECF No. 1 at 7.

At some point after his sentencing, Plaintiff was
transferred to South Woods State Prison “where according to his
adjusted sentence based on ‘jail credits’ his maximum expiration
of sentence was adjusted on or about June 1, 2012.”
at 8.

ECF No. 1

Approximately one year after he arrived at South Woods

State Prison in April 2012, “Plaintiff noticed on his inmate
monthly account summary his maximum expiration of sentence was
extended to the year of 2018 prompting investigation into the

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Plaintiff’s current incarceration appears to be unrelated to
the incarceration he challenges in his Complaint.
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application of his ‘jail credits’ awarded and earned as an
‘entitlement to time served.’”

Id.

To investigate this

discrepancy, Plaintiff filed a request with the Administrative
Director of the Classifications Department for the Commissioner
of the State of New Jersey.

Id. at 8.

Plaintiff received a certified response from the
Classifications office informing him that the sentencing judge
had removed jail credits as the Department of Corrections had
suggested that they were duplicative credits.

Id. at 9.

Plaintiff asserts that this action excessively and unlawfully
extended his sentence, id., and was done without notice to him
or an opportunity to be heard.

Plaintiff requested but failed

to receive any relief through his sentencing court, and appealed
to the New Jersey Superior Court’s Appellate Division, “where a
judgment was granted to correct sentence in favor of Plaintiff
. . .

to apply all jail credits in accordance to jail time

served.”

Id. at 10.

Despite this order, the sentencing court

apparently only applied a “partial” amount of the jail credits,
“promoting a second appeal to the New Jersey Appellate Courts.”
Id. at 11.

According to the Plaintiff, “after 2 yrs of unjust

adjudication attorney for the Cumberland County Public Defenders
Miss Vanessa Williams successfully had this drug court correct
the appellate ordered judgments of conviction” and Plaintiff was
finally released from prison two years after his original
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release date of June 1, 2012.

Id. at 11-12.

released on December 15, 2014.

Id. at 12.

II.

Plaintiff was

Standard of Review
In a motion to dismiss pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil

Procedure 12(b)(6), the defendant bears the burden of showing
that no claim has been presented.

Rule 8 of the Federal Rules

of Civil Procedure provides that a pleading must set forth a
claim for relief which contains a short and plain statement of
the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief; the
complaint must provide the defendant with fair notice of the
claim.
(2007).

See Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555
When considering a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, the

court must accept as true all factual allegations.
v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (per curiam).

See Erickson

The issue in a motion

to dismiss is whether the plaintiff should be entitled to offer
evidence to support the claim, not whether the plaintiff will
ultimately prevail.

See Phillips v. County of Allegheny, 515

F.3d 224, 232 (3d Cir. 2008) (the Rule 8 pleading standard
“‘simply calls for enough facts to raise a reasonable
expectation that discovery will reveal evidence of’ the
necessary element.”); Nami v. Fauver, 82 F.3d 63, 65 (3d Cir.
1996).
The onus is on the plaintiff to provide a well-drafted
complaint that alleges factual support for its claims.
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“While a

complaint attacked by a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss does not
need detailed factual allegations, a plaintiff's obligation to
provide the ‘grounds' of his ‘entitle[ment] to relief requires
more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of
the elements of a cause of action will not do.”

Twombly, 550

U.S. at 555 (alteration in original and internal citations
omitted).

The court need not accept unsupported inferences,

Cal. Pub. Employees Ret. Sys. v. The Chubb Corp., 394 F.3d 126,
143 (3d Cir. 2004), nor legal conclusions cast as factual
allegations, Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556.

Legal conclusions

without factual support are not entitled to the assumption of
truth. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)
(“Threadbare recitals of elements of a cause of action,
supported by mere conclusory statements, do not” satisfy the
requirements of Rule 8).
Once the court winnows the conclusory allegations from
those allegations supported by fact, which it accepts as true,
the court must engage in a common sense review of the claim to
determine whether it is plausible.

This is a context-specific

task, for which the court should be guided by its judicial
experience.

The court must dismiss the complaint if it fails to

allege enough facts “to state a claim for relief that is
plausible on its face.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (quoting Twombly,
550 U.S. at 570).

A “claim has facial plausibility when the
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plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw a
reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the
misconduct alleged.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678.

The complaint that

shows that the pleader is entitled to relief--or put another
way, facially plausible--will survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion.
See Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2); Mayer v. Belichick, 605 F.3d 223,
229 (3d Cir. 2010).
III. Discussion
A. Voluntary Dismissal of the Cumberland County Prosecutor
and the Prosecutor’s Officer
In Plaintiff’s Opposition to the Motion, ECF No. 14,
Plaintiff states that he wishes to voluntarily withdraw the
claims against the Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office and the
Cumberland County Prosecutor Jennifer Webb McRae.

Id. at 26-27.

Plaintiff states in his brief that he did not intend for the
Prosecutor’s Office and Prosecutor McRae to be named as
defendants in the Complaint, although they are mentioned in it.
In their reply brief, Defendants agree to the dismissal of the
Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office and Prosecutor McRae.
ECF No. 15 at 3.

See

As such, both will be dismissed from this

action.
B. Failure to State a Claim as to Defendants the State of
New Jersey and the New Jersey Department of Corrections
Section 1983 provides “private citizens with a means to
redress violations of federal law committed by state
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individuals.”
(3d Cir. 2013).

Woodyard v. Cty. of Essex, 514 F. App'x 177, 180
In order to state a claim for relief under §

1983, a plaintiff must show two elements: (1) that a person
deprived the plaintiff of a right secured by the Constitution or
laws of the United States, and (2) that the deprivation was done
by a person acting under color of state law.
487 U.S. 42, 48 (1988).

West v. Atkins,

States and state agencies, however, are

not “persons” subject to suit under § 1983.

See Will v.

Michigan Dep’t of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 71 (1989).

See

also Goode v. N.J. Dep't of Corr., No. 11-cv-6960, 2015 WL
1924409, at *10 (D.N.J. April 28, 2015) (“Neither states, nor
their departments and agencies . . . are ‘persons' within the
meaning of Section 1983.”).
Both remaining Defendants the State of New Jersey Drug
Court and the New Jersey Department of Corrections are not
“persons” under § 1983.

See, e.g., Pettaway v. SCI Albion, 487

F. App'x 766, 768 (3d Cir. 2012) (holding that a state
department of corrections is not a “person” under the statute
and cannot be sued under § 1983); Callahan v. City of Phila.,
207 F.3d 668, 673 (3d Cir. 2000) (noting that courts have
routinely held that state judiciary is not a “person” under §
1983).

Because Plaintiff cannot establish the “person”

requirement to proceed under § 1983, Plaintiff’s claims against

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the State of New Jersey Drug Court and the Department of
Corrections fail as a matter of law.
Generally, “plaintiffs who file complaints subject to
dismissal . . . should receive leave to amend unless amendment
would be inequitable or futile.”

Grayson v. Mayview State

Hosp., 293 F.3d 103, 114 (3d Cir. 2002).

The Court will grant

leave to amend in order to allow Plaintiff an opportunity to
amend his Complaint in conformance with this Opinion.
IV.

Conclusion
The Court will grant Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss, with

leave to amend granted.

An appropriate order follows.

Dated: July 17, 2018
At Camden, New Jersey

s/ Noel L. Hillman
NOEL L. HILLMAN, U.S.D.J.

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