Source: http://pa.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.20180420_0001014.EPA.htm/qx
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 12:25:59+00:00

Document:
UNITED STATES PROBATION DEPARTMENT, et al., Defendants.
Emory Edward Reed, III, who is currently incarcerated at the Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia, filed this pro se action pursuant to Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Fed. Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), against the United States Probation Department in Reading, Pennsylvania and Probation Officers Carlos Montgomery and Liz Rayez, asserting claims arising from criminal proceedings that occurred in this Court. He has also filed a motion to proceed in forma pauperis. For the reasons set forth below, the Court will grant Mr. Reed leave to proceed in forma pauperis and will dismiss his Complaint.
Public dockets reflect that Mr. Reed has been convicted on four (4) separate occasions in this Court. See United States v. Reed, Crim. Action No. 03-754 (convicted of one count of conspiracy and one count of aiding and abetting bank robbery); United States v. Reed, Crim. Action No. 04-185 (convicted of four counts of bank robbery); United States v. Reed, Crim. Action No. 04-468 (convicted of one count of bank robbery); United States v. Reed, Crim. Action No. 12-89 (convicted of one count of bank robbery). On December 13, 2017, in Criminal Action No. 12-89, the Honorable Lawrence F. Stengel issued an Order directing that a warrant be issued for Mr. Reed's arrest and that he be brought before the Court for supervised revocation proceedings. United States v. Reed, Crim. Action No. 12-89 (Docket No. 33). The warrant was based upon, inter alia, Mr. Reed's arrest for yet another bank robbery. Id. Supervised release revocation proceedings are still pending.
The Court will grant Mr. Reed leave to proceed in forma pauperis because it appears that he is not capable of prepaying the fees to commence this action. Accordingly, 28 U.S.C. 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) applies to Mr. Reed's Complaint. That statute requires the Court to dismiss the Complaint if it fails to state a claim. Whether a complaint fails to state a claim under 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) is governed by the same standard applicable to motions to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), see Tourscher v. McCullough, 184 F.3d 236, 240 (3d Cir. 1999), which requires the Court to determine whether the complaint contains “sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quotations omitted). Conclusory statements and naked assertions will not suffice. Id. The Court may also consider matters of public record. Buck v. Hampton Twp. Sch. Dist., 452 F.3d 256, 260 (3d Cir. 2006). As Mr. Reed is proceeding pro se, the Court construes his allegations liberally. Higgs v. Att'y Gen., 655 F.3d 333, 339 (3d Cir. 2011).
Mr. Reed's Bivens claims against the Defendants fail for several reasons. First, the United States Probation Department is part of the Administrative Office of the United States Court, and is therefore a federal agency. See Farrow v. W. District of Pa. Parole and Prob., No. 08-0263, 2008 WL 597189, at *2 (W.D. Pa. Mar. 4, 2008). “Absent a waiver, the federal government and its agencies enjoy sovereign immunity.” Id. (citing F.D.I.C. v. Meyer, 510 U.S. 471, 475 (1994). Therefore, Mr. Reed cannot maintain a Bivens action against the United States Probation Department. See Meyer, 510 U.S. at 484-86 (holding that a Bivens action cannot be maintained against a federal agency).
Mr. Reed's claims against Officers Montgomery and Rayez also fail. It appears that Mr. Reed seeks to hold the Defendants responsible for failing to act to ensure that he would not commit further crimes. To the extent Mr. Reed is raising a due process claim against the Defendants, the Supreme Court has noted that the Due Process Clause “is phrased as a limitation on the State's power to act, not as a guarantee of certain minimal levels of safety and security. . . . Its purpose was to protect the people from the State, not to ensure that the State protected them from each other.” DeShaney v. Winnebago Cty. Dep't of Soc. Servs., 489 U.S. 189, 195-96 (1989). Thus, “the Due Process Clauses generally confer no affirmative right to governmental aid, even where such aid may be necessary to secure life, liberty, or property interests of which the government itself may not deprive the individual.” Id. (citations omitted); see also D.R. v. Middle Bucks Area Vocational Technical Sch., 972 F.2d 1364, 1368-69 (3d Cir. 1992) (en banc) (noting that it is a “well-established principle that the Due Process Clause [of the Fifth Amendment] does not impose an affirmative duty upon the state to protect its citizens”). Under this reasoning, Officers Montgomery and Rayez cannot be liable to Mr. Reed for failing to protect him from himself. It was Mr. Reed's own actions, not the alleged failure of the officers to act, that led to his current and prior losses of freedom.
There are two recognized exceptions to this rule. First, government actors may be liable “when the State takes a person into its custody and holds him there against his will.” DeShaney, 489 U.S. at 199-200. Because of the creation of a “special relationship, ” the government has a constitutional “duty to assume some responsibility for [the] safety and general well-being” of that individual. Id. at 200. Here, however, Mr. Reed was not in the physical custody of Officers Montgomery and Rayez. His supervised release “was not an “‘incarceration, institutionalization, or other similar restraint of personal liberty-which is the ‘deprivation of liberty' triggering the protections of the Due Process Clause.'” Taylor v. Garwood, 98 F.Supp.2d 672, 677 (E.D. Pa. 2000) (quoting DeShaney, 489 U.S. at 200) (concluding that federal probationer could not hold his probation officer liable under the special relationship theory). Accordingly, Mr. Reed cannot hold Officers Montgomery and Rayez liable under the special relationship theory.

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