Kozlowski v. Coughlin

711 F. Supp. 83, 1988 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16171, 1988 WL 151665
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. New York
DecidedJune 6, 1988
DocketNos. 81 Civ. 5886 (CES), 81 Civ. 2355 (CES)
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 711 F. Supp. 83 (Kozlowski v. Coughlin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kozlowski v. Coughlin, 711 F. Supp. 83, 1988 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16171, 1988 WL 151665 (S.D.N.Y. 1988).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM DECISION

STEWART, District Judge:

Defendants move pursuant to Fed.R. Civ.P. 60(b) for an order modifying a consent judgment entered between the parties in May 1983. For the reasons that follow, defendants’ motion is granted in part and denied in part.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs brought this civil rights action in 1981 challenging defendants’ procedures for suspending or revoking prisoner visitation privileges in correctional facilities run by the New York State Department of Correctional Services (“DOCS”). The plaintiff class consists of all inmates in DOCS custody and their would-be visitors.

After both sides moved for summary judgment, this Court, in a decision dated March 22, 1982, held that visitation privileges are a liberty interest subject to the protection of the Due Process Clause of the fourteenth amendment, and that the regulations then in force violated plaintiffs’ procedural due process rights. Kozlowski v. Coughlin, 539 F.Supp. 852 (S.D.N.Y.1982). After this Court issued its opinion, the parties entered into lengthy negotiations to establish appropriate due process procedures.

The product of these negotiations is a consent judgment signed by the parties and so ordered by the Court in May 1983. The consent judgment, the terms of which are currently embodied in 7 NYCRR § 200.1-200.5, set forth the procedures re[85]*85quired prior to the suspension or revocation of any inmate’s visitation privileges. The process due was linked to the severity of the proposed sanction, i.e., the longer the threatened suspension of visitation privileges, the greater the procedures that would be afforded to both the inmate and the visitor.

Appended to the consent judgment was a table of penalties assigning sanctions of varying severity to various visitor-related offenses. For example, the introduction by a visitor of more than 25 grams of marijuana is punishable by up to six months suspension of contact visitations between the inmate and that visitor on the first offense; up to one year suspension of all visits between the inmate and that visitor on the second offense; and complete revocation of all visitation rights between the inmate and that visitor on the third offense. This table is contained in 7 NYCRR § 200.5.

Defendants now argue that the sanctions established by this appendix have been proven by experience to be inadequate, particularly in the area of drug-related misconduct. They further argue that the sanctions portion of the consent decree is ambiguous in several key respects and contains omissions which impair DOCS’s ability to maintain proper order and discipline.

To remedy these perceived inadequacies, ambiguities, and omissions, defendants seek to make the following modifications:

(1) Increase the length of suspension for drug-related visitor-inmate misconduct.

(2) Provide for suspension of all contact visits for inmates found guilty in a disciplinary hearing of drug-related misconduct not specifically related to a particular visitor.

(3) Allow limitation, suspension, or revocation of an inmate’s visiting privileges for misconduct not related to a specific visitor, but related to visiting generally.

(4) Grant discretion to defendants to impose greater penalties in certain “extraordinary” cases where such an increased sanction may be warranted.

(5) Provide for the cumulation of sanctions in the case of repeated inmate abuse of visiting privileges.

(6) Eliminate the present requirement that an inmate can lose visitation privileges only with regard to one specific visitor.

(7) Add sanctions for misconduct not currently on the table but which would constitute violations of the penal law.

DISCUSSION

Defendants argue that they should be permitted to freely modify the penalty portion of the consent judgment because this portion should not be considered part of the judgment at all. In the alternative, defendants seek permission from the Court to make the specific modifications outlined above.

Enforceability of Sanctions Provisions

Defendants submit that we should construe the consent decree as containing only the due process procedures established in the body of the agreement. They argue that the penalty portion of the consent judgment constitutes neither the primary purpose nor an integral part of the settlement. According to defendants, the sanctions were never a material point of the litigation and plaintiffs’ counsel did not attempt to negotiate the specific sanctions during the course of settlement discussions. Rather, defendants maintain that they established the penalty provisions on a purely gratuitous basis and appended them to the consent decree.

Plaintiffs strenuously object to this characterization, and offer substantial documentary evidence that the penalty provisions played a significant role in the settlement negotiations. Indeed, prior drafts of the sanctions reveal that many of plaintiffs’ proposals were incorporated into the finished penalty table. May 11, 1988 Aff. of David L. Posner, Exs. A, B, and E. The sanctions appendix thus appears to be a bargained-for element of the consent decree and not a gratuitous offering by defendants which they may now modify at will.

[86]*86Defendants next argue that this Court lacks jurisdiction to enforce the sanctions portion of the consent judgment because the sanctions are not mandated by the federal constitution. They maintain that the power of a federal court to restructure the operation of state government entities is not plenary, but may be exercised only on the basis of a constitutional violation. See Dayton Board of Education v. Brinkman, 433 U.S. 406, 419-20, 97 S.Ct. 2766, 2775-76, 53 L.Ed.2d 851 (1977); Rizzo v. Goode, 423 U.S. 362, 377, 96 S.Ct. 598, 607, 46 L.Ed.2d 561 (1976). Asserting that there is no constitutional right to a specific range of penalties for misconduct in the prison setting, defendants claim that we are barred by the eleventh amendment from enforcing the sanctions appendix. Lelsz v. Kavanagh, 807 F.2d 1243, 1252 (5th Cir.1987) (citing Pennhurst State School v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 104 S.Ct. 900, 79 L.Ed.2d 67 (1984)).

The eleventh amendment does not bar us from enforcing the sanctions portion of the consent decree. In Pennhurst, the Supreme Court held that the eleventh amendment prohibited a federal court from awarding injunctive relief against state officials based on state law. 465 U.S. at 124-25, 104 S.Ct. at 921. The Fifth Circuit in Lelsz v. Kavanagh, supra, applied the Pennhurst doctrine in holding that a federal court may not enforce that portion of a consent decree which was expressly based on state law. 807 F.2d at 1255. Defendants in the present case concede that the sanctions portion of the consent decree is not based on state law. Defendants’ Reply Memorandum of Law at 2.

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Bluebook (online)
711 F. Supp. 83, 1988 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16171, 1988 WL 151665, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kozlowski-v-coughlin-nysd-1988.