Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-arwd-5_02-cv-05199/USCOURTS-arwd-5_02-cv-05199-3/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Department of Justice
Defendant
Drug Enforcement Agency
Defendant
Federal Narcotics Agents
Defendant
Officer Halfacre
Defendant
James Allen Nunley
Plaintiff

Document Text:

Although this Reply is directed at the defendants' motion addressed by the R&R, 1

rather than the R&R itself, the Court has elected to treat it as setting forth

objections to the R&R because it was filed after the R&R was entered.

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

WESTERN DISTRICT OF ARKANSAS

FAYETTEVILLE DIVISION

JAMES ALLEN NUNLEY PLAINTIFF

v. Civil No. 02-5199

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE,

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA;

DRUG ENFORCEMENT AGENCY; 

OFFICER HALFACRE, Individually

and in his Official Capacities;

FEDERAL NARCOTICS AGENTS,

Individually and in their

Official Capacities DEFENDANTS

O R D E R

Now on this 5th day of March, 2007, come on for consideration

the Report And Recommendation Of The Magistrate Judge (document

#80), Plaintiff's Reply To Defendants' Response To Plaintiff's

Motion For Summary Judgment In His Favor (document #81) , and 1

plaintiff's Objections To Magistrate's Report And Recommendations

(document #82), and the Court, having considered these documents

in light of the other pleadings and orders in the file, finds and

orders as follows:

1. Nunley alleges that his due process rights were violated

by the manner in which he was found to have administratively

forfeited certain property in which he claims an interest. The

Court initially granted summary judgment in favor of defendants on

all of Nunley’s claims. Nunley appealed that decision, and the

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Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed in part and reversed in

part. The matter was remanded for proceedings consistent with the

appellate opinion in Nunley v. Department of Justice, 425 F.3d

1132 (8th Cir. 2005).

2. The appellate opinion reversed the entry of summary

judgment in favor of defendants on Nunley’s claims that he

received insufficient notice of forfeiture proceedings relative to

four items: a Corvette, $131,574 in currency, $1,025 in currency,

and $1,815 in currency. The opinion also indicated that if Nunley

had properly raised the issue of sufficiency of the content of the

forfeiture notices, that issue must be specifically addressed.

3. The matter was remanded to the Magistrate Judge, who

supervised discovery and eventually issued the Report And

Recommendation ("R&R") now under consideration in connection with

defendants' Motion To Dismiss Or In The Alternative For Summary

Judgment (document #60) and Nunley's Motion For Summary Judgment

In His Favor (document #77). 

4. By way of background, Nunley was incarcerated in the

Washington County Detention Center ("WCDC") when the challenged

forfeiture proceedings were begun. The notices of forfeiture in

question were mailed to him via certified mail at the WCDC. The

Eighth Circuit held that “the answer to the question of whether

Mr. Nunley received constitutionally adequate notice turns on the

sufficiency of the notices sent to the jail.” In that regard, it

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further held that “there is no irrebuttable presumption that a

prison’s internal mail-distribution procedures are reasonably

calculated to provide notice, but that the prisoner, as the

plaintiff, has the burden to demonstrate that the procedures are

inadequate.” 

5. Upon remand, this Court reviewed the evidence then in

the record with regard to the mail distribution procedures in

question, and found that defendants had established a rebuttable

presumption that the mail distribution procedures of the WCDC were

constitutionally adequate, and that the burden rested with Nunley

to prove that those procedures were not reasonably calculated to

provide notice to a prisoner such as he was at the time in

question. 

The Court further found that a claim of constitutional

insufficiency of the content of seven separate notices of

forfeiture had been properly asserted, and remained for decision.

These matters were referred to the Magistrate Judge to allow

the parties to supplement their evidentiary submissions, and for

further report and recommendation. 

6. Following a period of discovery, and the submission of

motions for summary judgment by all parties, the Magistrate Judge

reported as follows:

* Defendant Officer Halfacre had no involvement in the

forfeiture proceedings.

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* The notices of forfeiture each contained language

advising Nunley that if he was indigent, he could

request a waiver of the bond requirement in forfeiture

proceedings.

* The method of giving Nunley notice - via certified mail

delivered through the prison mail delivery system in the

WCDC - was constitutionally adequate. The mail was

delivered to, and sorted by, employees of the Washington

County Sheriff's Office with specific responsibility for

the task. Once sorted, inmate mail was picked up by a

WCDC detention officer, logged into a computer, and then

delivered directly to inmates. 

The Magistrate Judge recommended that Nunley's motion for

summary judgment be denied, and that defendants' motion for

summary judgment be granted.

7. Nunley first objects that it was error to place on him

the burden of proving that the mail procedures at the WCDC were

constitutionally inadequate. However, as the Eighth Circuit noted

in Nunley, "[t]ime-worn rules require the conclusion that a

prisoner who files a suit claiming that he or she has received

inadequate notice has the burden of proving that the prison's

procedures fall short of the minimum required by the

Constitution." 425 F.3d at 1138. This objection is without

merit.

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8. Nunley next objects that the Magistrate Judge erred in

failing to consider two of his arguments because they had not been

raised at an earlier stage of the proceedings. These arguments

are (a) that the WCDC mail policy was inadequate because it did

not categorize mail from law enforcement agencies as privileged

mail which could only be opened for inspection in the presence of

and after being signed for by the inmate, and (b) that the policy

does not include a procedure for handling certified mail. 

The Court finds no merit in this objection. Regardless of

whether these arguments were addressed by the Magistrate Judge,

Nunley offers neither factual nor legal argument that would result

in a different outcome in his case. He relies entirely on

speculation that a jail employee could deliberately fail to

deliver mail that was opened outside of an inmate's presence

because of some possible bias on the part of the person opening

the mail. Such speculation is not proof, and will not defeat

summary judgment. Moody v. St. Charles County, 23 F.3d 1410, 1412

(8th Cir. 1994). 

9. Nunley objects that the Magistrate Judge failed to

address his argument that Dusenbery v. U.S., 534 U.S. 161 (2002)

is distinguishable, and that "a different rule of law had to be

applied" in his case. While this objection is not fleshed out in

Nunley's Objections, the Court notes that Nunley contends (at page

23 of his Response To Defendants' Motion For Summary Judgment)

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that the WCDC mail policy is inadequate under Dusenbery because

there are "too many stops and too many hands the mail must pass

through to insure there will be no problems with the delivery" and

because there was no policy requiring that the WCDC obtain inmate

authorization for staff members to sign for certified mail

addressed to that inmate. 

The Court is not persuaded by these arguments. The "too many

stops and too many hands" is simply another version of the

speculative argument addressed in paragraph 7, and will not

suffice to defeat summary judgment. The Court finds nothing in

Dusenbery to suggest that the prison mail system there required

inmate authorization to sign for certified mail, and the case

certainly did not turn on such authorization. These objections

are without merit.

10. Nunley also objects that the Magistrate Judge erred in

finding that there was no evidence that he did not actually

receive the forfeiture notices in question. He points out that

the mail was not logged into the WCDC computer, and that he had

submitted an Affidavit averring that he did not receive the mail.

Nunley is correct that this constitutes evidence that he did not

receive the pieces of mail in question. The objection is without

merit, however, because actual receipt of the mail is not the

issue. As the Eighth Circuit pointed out in Nunley, "[t]he due

process clause does not require that the interested party receive

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actual notice of the pending actions. . . . Instead, due process

is satisfied if the method of notice is 'reasonably calculated,

under all of the circumstances, to apprise interested parties of

the pendency of the action and afford them an opportunity to

present their objections'." 425 F.3d at 1136. 

11. Nunley objects that summary judgment is not appropriate

in this case because there are two disputed issues of material

fact, i.e., whether the sender of the notices could have

reasonably believed the procedure utilized would insure delivery,

and whether the WCDC mail delivery procedures were adequate.

The first of these supposed issues misperceives the standard

announced in Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U.S.

306 (1950). That case calls for notice "reasonably calculated,

under all of the circumstances, to apprise interested parties,"

not notice reasonably believed to be sufficient. This objection

is, therefore, without merit.

As for the objection that "there is an unresolved dispute

over the adequcy [sic] of the procedures at the WCDC," that is the

central issue in the case. Yet Nunley does not suggest that he

has witnesses who would, if allowed to testify, shed light on the

issue. He simply places a different legal interpretation on the

facts, which are pretty much undisputed. He maintains that "the

procedures speak for themselves: they fail to provide sufficient

protections for certain mail to render them adequate so that a

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belief might be drawn from a far away actor that something mailed

to an inmate at the facility will be delivered." The Court agrees

that the procedures speak for themselves, but disagrees with

Nunley's conclusion that they are insufficient. The mail delivery

system at the WCDC is virtually identical to that found sufficient

in Dusenbery. This objection is without merit.

12. Finally, Nunley objects to the transfer of this case

from Magistrate Judge Beverly Stites Jones to Magistrate Judge

James Marschewski, and to the promptness with which Magistrate

Judge Marschewski issued the R&R. This objection is without

merit. A litigant has no right to have his case heard by any

particular judge, nor to have the judge linger over the decision

for any particular length of time. 

The Court notes that, while Nunley might not have known that

Magistrate Judge Jones retired and that Magistrate Judge

Marschewski was appointed to replace her - thus inheriting cases

previously assigned to her - Nunley’s leap to the conclusion that

the government somehow engineered Judge Jones’ removal from the

case is typical of his unsupported suspicions that he is being

unfairly treated and conspired against. Since these suspicions

are no more than that - and are so obviously incorrect - the Court

deems it unnecessary to discuss them.

IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that the Report And Recommendation Of

The Magistrate Judge is adopted in toto, and Nunley's Objections

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To Magistrate's Report And Recommendations (document #82) are

overruled.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that, for the reasons stated in the

Report And Recommendation Of The Magistrate Judge, Nunley's Motion

For Summary Judgment In His Favor (document #77) is denied.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that, for the reasons stated in the

Report And Recommendation Of The Magistrate Judge, defendants'

Motion To Dismiss Or In The Alternative For Summary Judgment

(document #60) is granted, and this case is hereby dismissed with

prejudice. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

 /s/ Jimm Larry Hendren 

JIMM LARRY HENDREN

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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