United States District Court, D. Alaska
ALASKA PRETRIAL DETAINEES FOR THE END OF UNWARRANTED COURTROOM SHACKLING; JASON MCANULTY; TOBY SPECE, Plaintiffs,
v.
ALASKA COURT SYSTEM ADMIN. DIRECTOR CHRISTINE JOHNSON; ALASKA DEPT. OF PUB. SAFETY COMM'R WALTER MONEGAN, Defendants.
ORDER RE MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION
SHARON
L. GLEASON, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Before
the Court is Plaintiffs' Motion for Preliminary
Injunction at Docket 10.[1] Defendants opposed the motion at Docket
24. Plaintiffs filed a reply at Docket 35. Oral argument on
the motion was held on February 23, 2018.[2] For the reasons
set forth below, the motion will be denied.
BACKGROUND
Plaintiffs'
Complaint alleges that Alaska state courts require pretrial
detainees to be shackled together in a “human
chain” to enter the courtrooms.[3] Plaintiff Jason McAnulty was
charged with crimes by the State of Alaska and was unable to
post bail.[4] He alleges he was handcuffed to other
detainees who were unable to post bail and taken into the
courtroom before the Alaska Superior Court.[5] Mr. McAnulty
requested that his handcuffs be removed, but the court denied
the request.[6]
Plaintiff
Toby Spece violated his state probation and was detained when
he was unable to post bail.[7] At Mr. Spece's hearing, he
also requested to the Alaska Superior Court to have his
handcuffs removed.[8] The court deferred to the Judicial
Services Officer, who declined to unshackle Mr.
Spece.[9] Neither Mr. McAnulty nor Mr. Spece
appealed the decisions made by the Alaska Superior Court.
On May
31, 2017, the Ninth Circuit issued an opinion regarding
pretrial shackling in United States v.
Sanchez-Gomez.[10] The Circuit held that pursuant to the
due process clause of the Constitution, “[b]efore a
presumptively innocent defendant may be shackled, the court
must make an individualized decision that a compelling
government purpose would be served and that shackles are the
least restrictive means for maintaining security and order in
the courtroom.”[11] This holding extends to
“pretrial, trial, or sentencing, with a jury or
without.” Plaintiffs maintain that after
Sanchez-Gomez was decided, the Alaska Superior Court
conducted a “Bench-Bar” meeting in Anchorage to
determine whether the Alaska state court should following the
Ninth Circuit's holding in
Sanchez-Gomez.[12] The superior court decided not to
follow Sanchez-Gomez and to continue the current
shackling practice.[13]
On
October 24, 2017, Plaintiffs filed their Complaint in this
Court alleging that without an individualized finding that
handcuffs are necessary, pretrial detainees' procedural
and substantive federal due process rights are
violated.[14] Plaintiffs also allege a cause of action
for battery under state law. They seek injunctive and
declaratory relief on behalf of all in-custody defendants in
the District of Alaska.[15] On November 24, 2017, Plaintiffs
filed a Motion for Preliminary Injunction asserting that
Plaintiffs are entitled to preliminary injunctive relief
under Sanchez-Gomez.[16]
DISCUSSION
Plaintiffs
challenge the Alaska state court's shackling policy and
seek an injunction prohibiting the State of Alaska from
“[s]hackling pretrial detainees to each other by the
wrists in court” and “[s]hackling any pretrial
detainee in court without a prior judicial factual
determination of necessity to protect the safety of the
public and court officers.”[17] Defendants respond that
Plaintiffs “have state-court remedies to address their
alleged harms. Rather than seeking federal-court entanglement
and oversight in the administration and supervision of
Alaska's state courts, plaintiffs should litigate their
claims in the state courts in the first
instance.”[18]
Defendants
rely on O'Shea v. Littleton to support their
argument.[19] In O'Shea, a group of
individuals filed a complaint against various state
officials, including a state magistrate and associate judge,
seeking an injunction in federal court from “set[ting]
bond in criminal cases according to an unofficial bond
schedule without regard to the facts of the case or
circumstances of the individual
defendant.”[20] The district court dismissed the case
for lack of jurisdiction; the Court of Appeals reversed and
remanded. On appeal to the Supreme Court, the Court held that
the principles of equity, comity, and federalism precluded
the federal court's equitable intervention.[21] The Court
provided the following discussion as to why federal courts
should not generally issue injunctions against state court
officials:
A federal court should not intervene to establish the basis
for future intervention that would be so intrusive and
unworkable. In concluding that injunctive relief would be
available in this case because it would not interfere with
prosecutions to be commenced under challenged statutes, the
Court of Appeals misconceived the underlying basis for
withholding federal equitable relief when the normal course
of criminal proceedings in the state courts would otherwise
be disrupted. The objection is to unwarranted anticipatory
interference in the state criminal process by means of
continuous or piecemeal interruptions of the state
proceedings by litigation in the federal courts; the object
is to sustain the special delicacy of the adjustment to be
preserved between federal equitable power and State
administration on its own law. An injunction of the type
contemplated by respondents and the Court of Appeals would
disrupt the normal course of proceedings in the state courts
via resort to the federal suit for determination of the claim
ab initio, just as would the request for injunctive relief
from an ongoing state prosecution against the federal
plaintiff which was found to be unwarranted in
Younger. Moreover, it would require for its
enforcement the continuous supervision by the federal court
over the conduct of the petitioners in the course of future
criminal trial proceedings involving any of the members of
the respondents' broadly defined class.[22]
Here,
Plaintiffs are also seeking equitable relief against state
officials and request an injunction to require the state
court not to shackle pretrial detainees to each other by the
wrists and for an individual “judicial factual
determination of necessity” for any pretrial detainee
that is shackled.[23] An injunction of this sort would disrupt
the normal course of proceedings in state court and would
interfere with the state criminal process as it would require
state courts to make shackling determinations for each
individual pretrial detainee. Moreover, it would likely
require this Court to step into the role of ongoing
compliance monitor and enforcer of the injunction in federal
court.
The
proper forum for Plaintiffs to adjudicate their claims is in
Alaska state courts. The Alaska state courts have already
addressed similar claims made in the context of jury
trials.[24] Moreover, Plaintiffs could appeal a
potential unfavorable state court decision to the Alaska
Supreme Court. The Alaska Supreme Court would then have the
opportunity to decide whether to adopt the Ninth
Circuit's reasoning in Sanchez-Gomez. Should
Plaintiffs not obtain a favorable result, Plaintiffs could
also seek direct review to the United States Supreme Court or
federal habeas relief.[25]
At oral
argument, Plaintiffs narrowed their argument and requested
the Court to issue an injunction, requiring the state courts
to implement a policy regarding pretrial detainee shackling.
However, requiring the state court to issue and implement a
policy would also interfere with the state court criminal
proceedings. And if Plaintiffs were unsatisfied with the
policy that the state court may or may not implement, it
would also require them to seek enforcement of the injunction
in federal court.
Plaintiffs
assert that “[a]bstention does not apply since no
ongoing federal intrusion with state court cases will be
created by the requested injunction.”[26] Plaintiffs
cite to Courthouse News Service v. Planet in
support, which states, “O'Shea abstention
is inappropriate where the requested relief may be achieved
without an ongoing intrusion into the state's
administration of justice.”[27] In Courthouse News
Service, the plaintiffs sought an injunction preventing
the California state courts from withholding court filing
information to the media under the First Amendment. The Ninth
Circuit held that the (internal citations omitted));
Nason v. State, 102 P.3d 966, 969-70 (Alaska App.
2004) (holding trial court erred in not holding evidentiary
hearing before allowing defendant to be shackled in front of
jury at trial). district court improperly abstained from the
case, and the O'Shea doctrine did not apply
because providing same-day access to civil complaint filings
posed “little risk that the federal courts would need
to examine the administration of a substantial number of
individual cases.”[28] Here, each pretrial detainee has a
different background and criminal history, requiring a court
to apply the shackling requirement on an individual basis.
Moreover, in Courthouse News Service, the court
...