Opinion ID: 483327
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: STATE ACTION UNDER 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983

Text: 10 The United States Supreme Court addressed the issue of state action in the context of third-party crimes in Martinez v. California, 444 U.S. 277, 100 S.Ct. 553, 62 L.Ed.2d 481 (1980). A parolee, who had been released from state prison five months earlier, murdered a young girl. The girl's parents brought an action under Sec. 1983 against the state officers responsible for the parole decision. The Court concluded that although the parole decision was state action, the act of a parolee five months after his release cannot be fairly characterized as state action. Id. at 285, 100 S.Ct. at 559. The Court reasoned that the parolee was in no sense an agent of the parole board and that the girl's murder was too remote a consequence of the parole officers' action to hold them responsible under the federal civil rights law. Id. In discussing remoteness, the Court considered not only the lapse of time, but also the fact that the decedent did not stand in any special relationship to the parolee from which the state officers might have inferred a special danger to her, distinguishable from the danger the public at large faces from parolees. Id. The Court, in effect, found that the parole officers' decision did not proximately cause the deprivation of the girl's life despite the fact that the parole board knew, or should have known, that the prisoner's release created a clear and present danger that a crime would occur. Id. at 280, 100 S.Ct. at 556. 11 The analysis in Martinez is particularly germane to the present case because the plaintiffs, like Ketchum, had no recourse under state tort law. The same California statute grants absolute immunity to public employees and entities from liability for crimes of parolees or escapees. Cal.Gov't Code Sec. 845.8 (West 1980). The Court upheld the constitutionality of the California statute, see Martinez, 277 U.S. at 280-83, 100 S.Ct. at 556-58, and despite the absence of an alternative state remedy, held that there was no cognizable claim under Sec. 1983. Id. at 283-85, 100 S.Ct. at 558-59. 12 Ketchum argues that Martinez is distinguishable because it addresses parolees rather than escapees. She contends that a discretionary decision to release an inmate on parole should be analyzed differently from an escape that is the result of allegedly grossly negligent confinement practices. 3 However, although an escape is factually distinguishable from a parole decision, the analysis of state action and constitutional deprivation in Martinez and its progeny is based on factors that are not affected by that factual difference (e.g., lapse of time between custody and crime, remoteness of crime from official actions, lack of special relationship between state and victim). 13 In fact, the Ninth Circuit has not narrowly confined Martinez to its facts, but views it as relevant, if not controlling, to other cases addressing state officers' liability for death at the hands of a third party. Escamilla v. Santa Ana, 796 F.2d 266, 269 (9th Cir.1986). In Escamilla, the court applied the Martinez analysis to a case in which two undercover officers, present at a barroom shooting, were sued under Sec. 1983 by the victim's survivors for failing to intervene in time to save the victim's life. In finding there was no basis to impose liability under Sec. 1983, the court observed that Martinez illustrates the principle that state officials do not violate due process rights, and hence are not liable under section 1983, for every injury in which they play some causal role. Id. 14 The district court in the instant case found the facts to be in all important respects ... indistinguishable from Martinez. First, over two months passed between the time of Hampton's escape and the crime. See Janan v. Trammell, 785 F.2d 557, 559-60 (6th Cir.1986) (We do not believe that the Supreme Court [in Martinez ] intended to provide us with a due process timetable such that a five-month gap does not deprive one of due process rights while a two-month gap automatically does); Humann v. Wilson, 696 F.2d 783, 784 (10th Cir.1983) (stating that the difference in time between five months in Martinez and two months between parole and crime is not sufficient to distinguish the cases). Hampton was not an agent of the state prison officials, just as the parolee in Martinez was not a state agent. Hampton's crime was remote from any official acts in terms of both time (2 months and 9 days) and geography (50 miles). Second, it is undisputed that there was no special relationship between Ketchum and the state or the victim. Therefore, Hampton's status as an escapee does not affect the state action analysis that the courts have applied to parolees under Sec. 1983. 15