Opinion ID: 723918
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Federal Law Claim for Delay in Arraignment.

Text: 36 Watson challenges the district court's dismissal of the claim in count three of her complaint, see supra note 5, that the delay in her arraignment violated her rights under the United States Constitution. Watson's appeal brief acknowledges that the Supreme Court set[ ] 48 hours as the presumptive outside limit for confinement prior to arraignment in County of Riverside v. McLaughlin, 500 U.S. 44, 56, 111 S.Ct. 1661, 1670, 114 L.Ed.2d 49 (1991). Watson contends, however, that by enacting section 140.20(1), the state of New York created a liberty interest in people being released, or at least arraigned, within 24 hours. Watson relies upon Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U.S. 460, 103 S.Ct. 864, 74 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983), which holds that the repeated use of explicitly mandatory language in connection with requiring specific substantive predicates demands a conclusion that the State has created a protected liberty interest. Id. at 472, 103 S.Ct. at 871. 37 Section 140.20(1) concededly uses explicitly mandatory language, although not repeated[ly], in specifying that an arresting officer must bring an arrestee to arraignment without unnecessary delay. See supra note 2. The analysis in Hewitt upon which Watson relies, however, was repudiated by the Supreme Court in Sandin v. Conner, --- U.S. ----, ---- - ----, 115 S.Ct. 2293, 2298-2300, 132 L.Ed.2d 418 (1995), which concluded that the Hewitt methodology for identifying due process interests created by state law was in practice ... difficult to administer and ... produce[d] anomalous results. Id. at ---- n. 5, 115 S.Ct. at 2300 n. 5. 38 Furthermore, the analysis upon which Watson premises her argument is fundamentally flawed, wholly aside from its reliance upon Hewitt. Ample precedent establishes that a state rule of criminal procedure, such as section 140.20(1), does not create a liberty interest that is entitled to protection under the federal Constitution. As the Supreme Court has stated, [p]rocess is not an end in itself. Its constitutional purpose is to protect a substantive interest to which the individual has a legitimate claim of entitlement. Olim v. Wakinekona, 461 U.S. 238, 250, 103 S.Ct. 1741, 1748, 75 L.Ed.2d 813 (1983); see also Doyle v. Oklahoma Bar Ass'n, 998 F.2d 1559, 1570 (10th Cir.1993) (The mere expectation of receiving a state afforded process does not itself create an independent liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause.); Pugliese v. Nelson, 617 F.2d 916, 924 (2d Cir.1980) ( 'Although a Due Process Clause liberty interest may be grounded in state law that places substantive limits on the authority of state officials, no comparable entitlement can derive from a statute that merely establishes procedural protections.'  (quoting Cofone v. Manson, 594 F.2d 934, 938 (2d Cir.1979))). As the Seventh Circuit has explained: 39 Constitutionalizing every state procedural right would stand any due process analysis on its head. Instead of identifying the substantive interest at stake and then ascertaining what process is due to the individual before he can be deprived of that interest, the process is viewed as a substantive end in itself.... A basic problem, in terms of cogent federal constitutional analysis, with maintaining that one has an entitlement to a state created procedural device such as a hearing is that the dimensions of the procedural protections which attach to state law entitlements are defined by federal standards.... If a right to a hearing is a liberty interest, and if due process accords the right to a hearing, then one has interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment to mean that the state may not deprive a person of a hearing without providing him with a hearing. Reductio ad absurdum. 40 Shango v. Jurich, 681 F.2d 1091, 1101 (7th Cir.1982). 41 Watson contravenes these precedents by framing her alleged liberty interest in terms of the specific arraignment requirements mandated by section 140.20(1) as interpreted in Roundtree. Arraignment, however, is a procedure that protects the true liberty interest at stake in this case--freedom from confinement. This is made clear by the definition of the issue presented for decision on this appeal by the Supreme Court in County of Riverside, as follows: 42 In Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 95 S.Ct. 854, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1975), this Court held that the Fourth Amendment requires a prompt judicial determination of probable cause as a prerequisite to an extended pretrial detention following a warrantless arrest. This case requires us to define what is prompt under Gerstein. 43 500 U.S. at 47, 111 S.Ct. at 1665. Similarly, in Gerstein, the Court pointed out that [b]oth the standards and procedures for arrest and detention have been derived from the Fourth Amendment and its common-law antecedents. 420 U.S. at 111, 95 S.Ct. at 861 (collecting cases). 44 Thus, the federal, constitutional liberty interest at stake in this case derives directly from the Fourth Amendment, as well as from the due process guarantees of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. See Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651, 672-74, 97 S.Ct. 1401, 1413-14, 51 L.Ed.2d 711 (1977). Of course, liberty interests may be created by state law, see Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 557, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 2975, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974), in which event they are entitled to the procedural protections accorded by the Fourteenth Amendment, see id. Federal law, of course, prescribes the nature and extent of the procedural protections afforded by the federal Constitution. 45 It follows that whether an arraignment is adequately prompt to satisfy the Fourth Amendment, as construed by Gerstein and County of Riverside, is a federal issue that is not affected by the New York Court of Appeals' construction of the phrase without unnecessary delay in section 140.20(1). Because Watson's sole claim under the federal constitution is erroneously premised upon the proposition that Roundtree 's construction of section 140.20(1) creates a liberty interest that is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, that claim is unavailing.Conclusion 46 The judgment of the district court awarding damages in the amount of $20,000 to Watson is reversed. The district court's dismissal of Watson's federal claim for delay in arraignment is affirmed.