Williams 124345 v. Ryan

District Court, D. Arizona·Decided October 1, 2020·No. 2:17-cv-01833·Unknown

Opinion

1 MGD 2 WO 3 4 5 6 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 7 FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA 8 9 DaJuan Torrell Williams, No. CV 17-01833-PHX-DGC (CDB) 10 Plaintiff, 11 v. ORDER 12 AND Charles L. Ryan, et al., 13 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE Defendants. 14

15 Plaintiff DaJuan Torrell Williams, who is temporarily confined in the Yuma County 16 Detention Center, brought this pro se civil rights action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 17 challenging the Arizona Department of Corrections’ (ADC) Department Order (DO) 18 914.07, the policy prohibiting prisoners from sending, receiving, or possessing “sexually 19 explicit material or content that is detrimental to the safe, secure, and orderly operation of 20 the facility.” (Doc. 15.) Before the Court is Defendant Shinn’s Response in Opposition to 21 Summary Judgment pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(f) and the Court’s 22 Order (Doc. 175), as well Defendant’s supplemental evidence submitted for in camera 23 review (Doc. 177). Also pending is Plaintiff’s Motion for Correction of Record (Doc. 178), 24 which the Court has construed as a Motion for Reconsideration, and Defendant’s Response 25 to that Motion (Doc. 181). 26 I. Background 27 On screening of Plaintiff’s First Amended Complaint (FAC) pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 28 § 1915A(a), the Court determined that Plaintiff stated First Amendment claims against 1 former ADC Director Ryan and Correctional Officers Barnes, Anderson, Osler, Mangan, 2 Williams, and Antolin, and required them to answer the claims against them.1 (Doc. 17.) 3 In an August 30, 2019 Order, the Court granted Defendants’ Motion for Summary 4 Judgment as to Plaintiff’s facial challenge to DO 914.07 and determined that Defendants 5 were entitled to qualified immunity on Plaintiff’s as-applied claim for damages. 6 (Doc. 110.) The Court ordered additional briefing on Plaintiff’s as-applied challenge 7 seeking injunctive relief, requiring Plaintiff to identify the specific injunctive relief he 8 sought and Defendants to state the bases for the exclusions of those items. (Id.) 9 On July 15, 2020, the Court granted in part and denied in part Defendant Shinn’s 10 Motion for Summary Judgment with respect to Plaintiff’s First Amendment claims as 11 applied to the publications Plaintiff had ordered.2 (Doc. 172.) The Court granted summary 12 judgment to Defendant with respect to the books and booklets Plaintiff had ordered, 8 13 photos from FIYA Girls, 5 pages of thumbnail photos from Picture Kingz, an issue of 14 Prison Legal News, and various issues of Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, and Cosmopolitan 15 magazines. (Id.) The Court denied summary judgment with respect to one page of 16 thumbnail photos from publisher EPS because Defendant had not provided those photos 17 with its summary judgment briefing; one page each from the September and December 18 2016 issues of Elle; the entire February 2017 issue of Elle because Defendant did not 19 identify which page(s) violated DO 914.07; and one page each from the December 2016 20 and March 2017 issues of Cosmopolitan. (Id.) 21 The Court permitted Defendant Shinn 30 days to file a response to the July 15, 2020 22 Order pursuant to Rule 56(f) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure addressing why 23 Plaintiff is not entitled to summary judgment in his favor with respect to the items for 24 which the Court denied summary judgment. (Id. at 26.) Defendant has now filed his 25 26 1 On October 1, 2019, David Shinn became ADC’s Director and was automatically substituted for Ryan in his official capacity under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 25(d). 27 (See Doc. 119 at 1 n.1.) 28 2 The Court also dismissed with prejudice Defendants Barnes, Anderson, Osler, Mangan, Williams, and Antolin. (Doc. 172 at 25.) 1 Response (Doc. 175), and the Court granted Defendant leave to provide the Court with the 2 thumbnail photos from EPS for in camera inspection – photos which Defendant says he 3 inadvertently failed to submit with his summary judgment briefing. (Docs. 176, 177.) 4 II. Defendant’s Rule 56(f) Response to Summary Judgment Order 5 Defendant asserts that he does not seek to have the Court reconsider its earlier 6 conclusions regarding Plaintiff’s magazines. Rather, Defendant “reurge[s] a waiver 7 argument briefly made in the Motion for Summary Judgment as to the personal liability of 8 the individual Defendants, but not made as to the injunctive relief claims.” (Doc. 175 at 3, 9 citing Doc. 65 at 20-21.) Defendant argues that Plaintiff alleged in his FAC that ADC’s 10 publication regulations were facially unconstitutional and that specific individuals violated 11 his constitutional rights by preventing him from receiving specific publications, but that 12 Plaintiff never alleged or argued that the regulations, if constitutional, were irrationally or 13 improperly applied to his specific publications. (Id., citing Doc. 15 (FAC) at 5-9, 11; Doc. 14 15-1 at 2-4.) Defendant argues that Plaintiff’s claims against the ADC Director in his 15 official capacity were general, facial invalidity claims and did not involve the application 16 of DO 914.07 to Plaintiff’s specific publications. (Id. at 4, citing Doc. 17 at 4-5, 9.) Thus, 17 Defendant contends that summary judgment should not be granted to Plaintiff on a claim 18 he never made. (Id.) 19 Defendant did not make this argument in his Response to the Court’s Order for 20 additional briefing on Plaintiff’s as-applied injunctive relief claims. (See Doc. 119.) When 21 Defendants argued at summary judgment that corrections officers sued in their individual 22 capacities for money damages were entitled to qualified immunity because they applied a 23 constitutional policy in good faith (Doc. 65 at 20-21), it was not clear that Defendants also 24 meant to argue that the ADC Director, in his official capacity, was immune from Plaintiff’s 25 injunctive relief claims because Plaintiff did not allege that the policy, if constitutional, 26 was improperly applied to his publications. Moreover, the Court must construe Plaintiff’s 27 pleadings liberally, and the Court has already determined that Plaintiff was asserting an as- 28 applied claim for injunctive relief. See Doc. 110 at 16, 19. The only Defendant in a 1 position to address Plaintiff’s request for injunctive relief is Defendant Shinn in his official 2 capacity. See ACS of Fairbanks, Inc. v. GCI Commc’n Corp., 321 F.3d 1215, 1217 (9th 3 Cir. 2003) (although the Eleventh Amendment bars a damages action against a State in 4 federal court, it does not bar claims for injunctive relief against individuals in their official 5 capacity). Thus, Defendant’s “waiver” argument is without merit and the Court will 6 consider the additional evidence Defendant has submitted and whether Defendant is 7 entitled to summary judgment as to that evidence. 8 The Court has reviewed the thumbnail photos from EPS titled “Non-Nude Porn 9 Stars” and, although the photos are small and the pages submitted are photocopies, they 10 are clear enough for the Court to conclude that prison officials could have rationally 11 concluded that they come within the exclusion categories of DO 914.07 § 1.2.1 (nudity) or 12 § 1.2.17 (sexually suggestive settings, poses or attire, etc.) and reasonably believed that 13 exclusion of the photos served a legitimate penological purpose.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Williams 124345 v. Ryan, (D. Ariz. 2020).

Williams 124345 v. Ryan (Williams 124345 v. Ryan) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seed Farms
561 U.S. 139 (Supreme Court, 2010)
Michael Henry Ferdik v. Joe Bonzelet, Sheriff
963 F.2d 1258 (Ninth Circuit, 1992)
United States v. Kory Ray Smith
389 F.3d 944 (Ninth Circuit, 2004)
City of Los Angeles v. Santa Monica BayKeeper
254 F.3d 882 (Ninth Circuit, 2001)