Source: https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/789-F-3d-218-2nd-Cir-2015-13-981-Turkmen-v-Hasty-594953394
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 00:44:06+00:00

Document:
As Amended June 22, 2015.
As Amended June 24, 2015.
Appeal from a January 15, 2013 Memorandum and Order of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Gleeson, J.) granting in part and denying in part Defendants' motions to dismiss. Cross-appeal from an April 10, 2013 Judgment of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Gleeson, J.), which was entered pursuant to Rule 54(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure on April 11, 2013, granting certain Defendants' motions to dismiss. We AFFIRM in part and REVERSE in part. Judge Raggi concurs in part in the judgment and dissents in part in a separate opinion.
RACHEL A. MEEROPOL, Center for Constitutional Rights, New York, N.Y. (Michael Winger, Sunita Patel, Baher A. Azmy, Center for Constitutional Rights, New York, NY; Nancy L. Kestenbaum, Jennifer L. Robbins, Joanne Sum-Ping, Covington & Burling LLP, New York, NY, on the brief), for Plaintiffs-Appellees-Cross-Appellants.
HUGH D. SANDLER, Crowell & Moring LLP, New York, N.Y. (Shari Ross Lahlou, Crowell & Moring LLP, Washington, D.C., on the brief), for Defendant-Appellant Dennis Hasty.
JOSHUA C. KLEIN (Allan N. Taffet, Kirk L. Brett, Megan E. Uhle, on the brief), Duval & Stachenfeld LLP, New York, NY, for Defendant-Appellant Michael Zenk.
JEFFREY A. LAMKEN, MoloLamken LLP, Washington, D.C. (Martin V. Totaro, MoloLamken LLP, Washington, D.C.; Debra L. Roth, Julia H. Perkins, Shaw, Bransford & Roth P.C., Washington, D.C., on the brief), for Defendant-Appellant James Sherman.
H. THOMAS BYRON III, Appellate Attorney, Civil Division (Stuart F. Delery, Assistant Attorney General, Ronald C. Machen Jr., United States Attorney, Dana Boente, United States Attorney, Barbara L. Herwig, Appellate Attorney, Civil Division, on the brief), U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for Defendants-Cross-Appellees John Ashcroft and Robert Mueller.
WILLIAM ALDEN MCDANIEL, JR., Ballard Spahr LLP, Baltimore, MD, for Defendant-Cross-Appellee James W. Ziglar.
Trina Realmuto, National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, Boston, MA; Mary Kenney, American Immigration Council, Washington, D.C., amici curiae in support of Plaintiffs-Appellees-Cross-Appellants.
Before: POOLER, RAGGI, AND WESLEY, Circuit Judges. REENA RAGGI, Circuit Judge, concurring in part in judgment and dissenting in part.
On September 11, 2001, " 19 Arab Muslim hijackers who counted themselves members in good standing of al Qaeda" hijacked four airplanes and killed over 3,000 people on American soil. Ashcroft v. Iqbal ( Iqbal ), 556 U.S. 662, 682, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009). This case raises a difficult and delicate set of legal issues concerning individuals who were caught up in the post-9/11 investigation even though they were unquestionably never involved in terrorist activity. Plaintiffs are eight male, " out-of-status" aliens1 who were arrested on immigration charges and detained following the 9/11 attacks. Plaintiffs were held at the Metropolitan Detention Center (the " MDC" ) in Brooklyn, New York, or the Passaic County Jail (" Passaic" ) in Paterson, New Jersey; their individual detentions generally ranged from approximately three to eight months.
The operative complaint, a putative class action, asserts various claims against former Attorney General John Ashcroft; former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (the " FBI" ) Robert Mueller; former Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (the " INS" ) James Ziglar; former MDC Warden Dennis Hasty; former MDC Warden Michael Zenk; and former MDC Associate Warden James Sherman.2 All claims arise out of allegedly discriminatory and punitive treatment Plaintiffs suffered while confined at the MDC or Passaic.
dismiss, the district court dismissed Plaintiffs' unlawful-length-of-detention claims but permitted to proceed, inter alia, the substantive due process and equal protection claims challenging the conditions of confinement at the MDC. See Turkmen v. Ashcroft ( Turkmen I ), No. 02 CV 2307(JG), 2006 WL 1662663, at *33-36, 40-41 (E.D.N.Y. June 14, 2006), aff'd in part, vacated in part, Turkmen v. Ashcroft ( Turkmen II ), 589 F.3d 542 (2d Cir. 2009) (per curiam), remanded to Turkmen III, 915 F.Supp.2d at 314. Plaintiffs and Defendants appealed various aspects of that ruling.
Two significant events occurred while the appeal was pending. First, six of the original eight named Plaintiffs at that time withdrew or settled their claims against the government. See Turkmen II, 589 F.3d at 544 n.1, 545. This left only Ibrahim Turkmen and Akhil Sachdeva, both of whom were detained at Passaic, as opposed to the MDC. Second, the Supreme Court issued Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 662, which altered the pleading regime governing Plaintiffs' claims. In light of these events and the remaining Plaintiffs' stated desire to replead claims unique to the settling Plaintiffs, this Court affirmed the dismissal of the length of detention claims but vacated and remanded with respect to the conditions of confinement claims. See Turkmen II, 589 F.3d at 546-47, 549-50.
The Complaint dramatically winnowed the relevant claims and defendants; it alleges seven claims against eight defendants. The first six claims, all brought pursuant to Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 619 (1971), are: (1) a conditions of confinement claim under the Due Process Clause; (2) an equal protection claim alleging that Defendants subjected Plaintiffs to the challenged conditions because of their, or their perceived, race, religion, ethnicity, and/or national origin; (3) a claim arising under the Free Exercise Clause; (4) and (5) two claims generally alleging interference with counsel; and (6) a claim under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments alleging unreasonable and punitive strip searches. The seventh and final claim alleges a conspiracy under 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3). The DOJ and MDC Defendants moved to dismiss the Complaint for failure to state a claim, on qualified immunity grounds, and, in some instances, based on a theory that Bivens relief did not extend to the claim at issue.
information gleaned from two reports by the Office of the Inspector General of the United States Department of Justice (the " OIG reports" )5 that documented the federal law enforcement response to 9/11 and conditions at the MDC and Passaic.
The OIG reports, which the Complaint " incorporate[s] by reference except where contradicted by the allegations of [the Complaint]," Compl. ¶ 3 n.1, see also id. ¶ 5 n.2, play a significant role in this case.6 Primarily, the OIG reports provide invaluable context for the unprecedented challenges following 9/11 and the various strategies federal agencies employed to confront these challenges. The reports help orient our analysis of the Complaint.

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