This is how qualified immunity works, Part I

Non-lawyers have probably never heard of qualified immunity, but lawyers who handle civil rights cases under Section 1983 know all about it. Qualified immunity means that damages lawsuits against any public official will be dismissed unless the defendant violated clearly-established law. Here is how it all works.

The case is Matzell v. Annucci, issued on April 4. Plaintiff was incarcerated on a drug violation. Under New York law, the sentencing judge can order the criminal defendant to the Shock Incarceration Program, known as Shock, a rehabilitation and rehabilitation drug treatment program that allows inmates to be released from prison early. Under the Penal Law, if the inmate is assigned to Shock by the sentencing judge, the inmate can be kicked out of Shock if they have a medical or mental health condition that would prevent successful completion of the program. In this case, jail officials kicked Matzell out of Shock because he had received disciplinary tickets in jail for substance abuse. That decision violated the Penal Law. Without the Shock program, which allows for early release from prison, Matzell spent another 506 days in prison. He sues under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.

This blog post will focus on the Eighth Amendment angle. That amendment prohibits the government from subjecting inmates to cruel and unusual punishment. Plaintiff cannot win this claim unless Second Circuit or Supreme Court authority made it clear that the governmental misconduct was unconstitutional. You don't need a case on all-fours, but pre-existing case law must be close enough so that governmental officials were at least on constructive notice that they were violating the law. This kind of immunity dooms many civil rights lawsuits because there is not always a case like yours that will repel a motion to dismiss. 

The Eighth Amendment claim fails on qualified immunity grounds. While the Court of Appeals (Leval, Chin and Lee) notes that courts do not typically grant qualified immunity at the Rule 12 motion to dismiss stage, as this defense is normally more suitable for a summary judgment motion, the defendants get qualified immunity under Rule 12 in this case "the law was not clearly established at the time Defendants denied Matzell an opportunity to obtain early release through participation in Shock." The Second Circuit did hold in Hurd v. Fredenburgh, 984 F.3d 1075 (2d Cir. 2021), that "unauthorized detention of just one day past an inmate's mandatory release date qualifies as a harm of constitutional magnitude under the ... Eighth Amendment." Hurd is a good case for Matzell, but he cannot use it to avoid immunity because it was decided in 2021. Matzell suffered his prolonged detention in 2017 and 2018. Since that predates the Hurd decision, Matzell cannot argue that state officials knowingly violated the law, and public officials are not expected to anticipate future court rulings.

This means Matzell cannot win his damages case under the Eighth Amendment. But he has another claim, under the Fourteenth Amendment. That's a different story, to be discussed tomorrow.