Opinion ID: 2515
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Denial of Adjournment

Text: Accommodating Lewis's concerns, first raised after the jury was sworn, would have required that the trial [be] adjourned and then rescheduled to be tried out in Syracuse. Trial Tr. at 16. Such an adjournment would have delayed proceedings a few weeks or a month. Id. at 15. It would, moreover, have required the declaration of a mistrial and the dismissal of the sworn jury. Under these circumstances, the first relevant inquiry is not, as in Drake, whether the delay would have been temporally significant, 375 F.3d at 254, but rather whether the district court's decision to deny the requested adjournment was itself an abuse of discretion. This court's precedent instructs us to be particularly solicitous of a district court's ruling on a motion to adjourn the scheduled start of a trial proceeding. Sequa Corp. v. GBJ Corp., 156 F.3d 136, 147-48 (2d Cir.1998). We will not disturb such a ruling absent a showing of clear abuse. Id. [T]o make that showing, the complaining party must establish both that the denial of the adjournment was arbitrary, and that it substantially impaired the presentation of his case. Id.; accord Farias v. Instructional Sys., Inc., 259 F.3d 91, 99-100 (2d Cir.2001) (identifying no abuse where, on first day of trial, court denied continuance to obtain absent witness and noting that decisions regarding trial adjournments rest within the sound discretion of the trial court and will be overturned only where there is showing both of arbitrariness and of prejudice to the defendant); cf. Ungar v. Sarafite, 376 U.S. 575, 589, 84 S.Ct. 841, 11 L.Ed.2d 921 (1964) (The matter of continuance is traditionally within the discretion of the trial judge, and it is not every denial of a request for more time that violates due process even if the party fails to offer evidence or is compelled to defend without counsel.). Applying these principles to this case, we conclude that when a party requests a trial adjournment of several weeks after a jury has been sworn, under circumstances that will require that jury to be dismissed and a new one empaneled, a district court acts well within its discretion in requiring strong justification for the adjournment. See United States v. Cusack, 229 F.3d 344, 349 (2d Cir.2000) (identifying no abuse where district court denied two to three week[] continuance requested [i]n the middle of trial to obtain expert witness); cf. Moffitt v. Ill. State Bd. of Educ., 236 F.3d 868, 872, 876 (7th Cir. 2001) (affirming Rule 41(b) dismissal after jury was sworn where plaintiff, `the only one ... that [could] testify to matters alleged in the complaint,' was not available to testify and noting that a court faced with an eleventh-hour request to postpone a trial is entitled to a more detailed showing than [plaintiff] and her counsel supplied to the district court in this case). The only such justification suggested by the record is Lewis's fear that he would be abused if housed during trial at Great Meadow, the site of the alleged assault by the defendants, some of whom were still employed at the facility at the time of trial. On the record presented here, this justification was not sufficiently strong to remove denial of the requested continuance from the range of permissible decisions. The district court observed that it could understand [Lewis's] discomfort. Trial Tr. at 15. We construe this statement to reflect the court's recognition of the subjective genuineness of Lewis's professed fear. The court did not find, nor was it asked to find, that Lewis's fears were objectively reasonable. Rather, the court referenced a presumption that Lewis would be treated properly and lawfully at any state correctional facility in which he was housed during trial, including Great Meadow. Id. [8] We identify no error in the district court's reliance on such a presumption in the absence of objective evidence to the contrary. To hold otherwise would place an enormous burden on district courts hearing prisoners' complaints, because if an incarcerated plaintiff's subjective fear of abuse in a particular penal facility were enough to mandate a transfer out of that facility during trial, then why not also during depositions, during all phases of discovery, or, indeed, as soon as the complaint is filed? This is not to suggest that district courts should afford anything but careful review to incarcerated litigants' claims that fears of retaliation hamper their presentation of evidence in cases against prison officials. Depending on the circumstances, we expect that any number of steps might be taken to mitigate such fears, including the accommodation suggested by the defendants here, namely, placement in a special-housing unit during the course of trial. See N.Y. Comp.Codes R. & Regs. tit. 7, §§ 301.5, 330.1 (2009) (providing for inmates in protective custody to be housed in SHU to maximize the safety and security of both the inmates and the facility). [9] Indeed, had the district court decided that in this case it was, in fact, appropriate to grant an adjournment and transfer the trial, we would view such a ruling as also falling within the court's broad discretion. Nevertheless, mindful of the ease with which § 1983 claimants may assert subjective fears of abuse, as well as the considerable challenges that confront penal authorities in ensuring the lawful confinement, transportation, and transfer of thousands of inmates, some of whom, like Lewis, have demonstrated records for violence (even in custody) that demand maximum-security placement, we decline to hold that the district court was required to grant such an adjournment. Finally, in upholding the district court's denial of the continuance requested here, we note that Lewis has not demonstrated good cause for failing to alert the district court to his concerns about Great Meadow in a timely fashion. Lewis's assertion that he did not know that he would be housed at Great Meadow until 10:00 a.m. on the morning of trial is hardly convincing. Lewis may not have known for a fact that he would be so housed, but neither he nor his counsel can claim surprise in light of the totality of the circumstances. Lewis was a violent criminal serving, in effect, a life sentence for multiple murders. He also had a record for violence in prison. [10] Lewis could hardly have expected to be confined during the pendency of his civil trial in anything but a maximum-security facility. [11] Moreover, neither he nor his counsel could reasonably have thought that Lewis would continue to be housed at Auburn during trial and transported daily to the federal courthouse in Albany, a driving distance of more than 150 miles each way. Thus, the very real probability that Lewis would be detained during trial at Great Meadow should have been apparent to him and his lawyer well before jury selection. If Lewis feared detention in that facility and wished to ensure his confinement elsewhere, he or his counsel should have made a motion before the day of trial. Even if Lewis could not have anticipated his transfer to Great Meadow before the morning of trial, the transcript indicates that Lewis was in contact with his attorney both before and during jury selection and, according to Lewis, both were aware of Lewis's impending transfer before the morning's proceedings began. However, rather than bring these concerns to the district court's attention promptly, Lewis and his counsel waited until moments before opening statements were to be made. Although the delay was short  just over an hour  in that brief time, a pretrial conference was held, during which the parties were specifically asked to raise any issues requiring resolution before the trial began. More important, a jury was selected and sworn. In denying the requested continuance, the district court could have properly considered plaintiff's failure to raise his concerns about Great Meadow housing or to seek an adjournment during this critical time. In sum, because Lewis (1) failed to demonstrate that his fear of confinement at Great Meadow during trial was objectively reasonable so as to warrant his refusal to testify at trial, and (2) unreasonably delayed in moving to avoid trial confinement at Great Meadow, we conclude that the district court acted within its discretion in refusing to grant an adjournment and to transfer the trial to another courthouse within the Northern District.