Opinion ID: 3150212
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Civil Detention

Text: “In our society liberty is the norm, and detention prior to trial or without trial is the carefully limited exception.” United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739, 755 (1987). Civil detention violates the Due Process Clause except “in certain special and narrow nonpunitive circumstances, where a special justification, such as harm-threatening mental illness, outweighs the individual’s constitutionally protected interest in avoiding physical restraint.” Zadvydas, 533 U.S. at 690 (citations omitted). Consistent with these principles, the Supreme Court has—outside of the immigration context—found civil detention constitutional without any individualized showing of need only when faced with the unique exigencies of global war or domestic insurrection. See Ludecke v. Watkins, 335 U.S. 160 (1948); Korematsu v. 5 See 8 C.F.R. § 241.4(f) (listing factors that Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) must “weigh[] in considering whether to recommend further detention or release of a detainee,” including the detainee’s criminal history, evidence of recidivism or rehabilitation, ties to the United States, history of absconding or failing to appear for immigration or other proceedings, and the likelihood that the detainee will violate the conditions of release); id. § 1236.1(d)(1) (authorizing IJs to “detain the alien in custody, release the alien, and determine the amount of bond, if any, under which the respondent may be released” and to “ameliorat[e] the conditions” of release imposed by DHS). 26 RODRIGUEZ V. ROBBINS United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944); Moyer v. Peabody, 212 U.S. 78 (1909).6 And even in those extreme circumstances, the Court’s decisions have been widely criticized. See, e.g., Eugene V. Rostow, The Japanese American Cases—A Disaster, 54 Yale L.J. 489 (1945). In all contexts apart from immigration and military detention, the Court has found that the Constitution requires some individualized process and a judicial or administrative finding that a legitimate governmental interest justifies detention of the person in question. For example, in numerous cases addressing the civil detention of mentally ill persons, the Court has consistently recognized that such commitment “constitutes a significant deprivation of liberty,” and so the state “must have a constitutionally adequate purpose for the confinement.” Jones v. United States, 463 U.S. 354, 361 (1983) (citations omitted). Further, the “nature and duration of commitment” must “bear some reasonable relation to the purpose for which the individual is committed.” Jones, 463 U.S. at 368 (citation omitted). Accordingly, the state may detain a criminal defendant found incapable of standing trial, but only for “the reasonable period of time necessary to determine whether there is a substantial probability that he will attain [the] capacity [to stand trial] in the foreseeable future.” Jackson v. Indiana, 6 For a thorough discussion of civil detention jurisprudence and its bearing on the constitutionality of civil detention in the immigration context, see Farrin R. Anello, Due Process and Temporal Limits on Mandatory Immigration Detention, 65 Hastings L.J. 363 (2014), and David Cole, In Aid of Removal: Due Process Limits on Immigration Detention, 51 Emory L.J. 1003 (2002). RODRIGUEZ V. ROBBINS 27 406 U.S. 715, 738 (1972). At all times, the individual’s “commitment must be justified by progress toward that goal.” Id. Likewise, the state may detain a criminal defendant following an acquittal by reason of insanity in order to “treat the individual’s mental illness and protect him and society from his potential dangerousness.” Jones, 463 U.S. at 368. However, the detainee “is entitled to release when he has recovered his sanity or is no longer dangerous.” Id.; see also Foucha v. Louisiana, 504 U.S. 71, 78 (1992) (“[K]eeping Foucha against his will in a mental institution is improper absent a determination in civil commitment proceedings of current mental illness and dangerousness.”). Further, although the state may detain sexually dangerous individuals even after they have completed their criminal sentences, such confinement must “take[] place pursuant to proper procedures and evidentiary standards.” Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U.S. 346, 357 (1997). To “justify indefinite involuntary commitment,” the state must prove both “dangerousness” and “some additional factor, such as a ‘mental illness’ or ‘mental abnormality.’” Id. at 358 (collecting cases). Similarly, the Court has held that pretrial detention of individuals charged with “the most serious of crimes” is constitutional only because, under the Bail Reform Act, an “arrestee is entitled to a prompt detention hearing” to determine whether his confinement is necessary to prevent danger to the community. Salerno, 481 U.S. at 747. Further, “the maximum length of pretrial detention is limited by the stringent time limitations of the Speedy Trial Act.” Id.; see also Schall v. Martin, 467 U.S. 253, 263 (1984) (upholding a statute that “permits a brief pretrial detention based on a finding of a ‘serious risk’ that an arrested juvenile may commit a crime before his return date”). 28 RODRIGUEZ V. ROBBINS In addition, the Court has held that incarceration of individuals held in civil contempt is consistent with due process only where the contemnor receives adequate procedural protections and the court makes specific findings as to the individual’s ability to comply with the court order. See Turner v. Rogers, 131 S. Ct. 2507, 2520 (2011). If compliance is impossible—for instance, if the individual lacks the financial resources to pay court-ordered child support—then contempt sanctions do not serve their purpose of coercing compliance and therefore violate the Due Process Clause. See id. Early cases upholding immigration detention policies were a product of their time. See Carlson v. Landon, 342 U.S. 524 (1952) (McCarthy Era deportation of communists); Ludecke v. Watkins, 335 U.S. 160 (1948) (removal of German enemy aliens during World War II); Wong Wing v. United States, 163 U.S. 228 (1896) (Chinese exclusion). Yet even these cases recognized some limits on detention of non-citizens pending removal. Such detention may not be punitive—Congress may not, for example, impose sentences of “imprisonment at hard labor” on non-citizens awaiting deportation, Wong Wing, 163 U.S. at 235—and it must be supported by a legitimate regulatory purpose. Under these principles, the Court authorized the “detention or temporary confinement” of Chinese-born non-citizens “pending the inquiry into their true character, and while arrangements were being made for their deportation.” Id. The Court also upheld executive detention of enemy aliens after the cessation of active hostilities because deportation is “hardly practicable” in the midst of war, and enemy aliens’ “potency for mischief” continues “even when the guns are silent.” Ludecke, 335 U.S. at 166. Similarly, the Court approved detention of communists to limit their RODRIGUEZ V. ROBBINS 29 “opportunities to hurt the United States during the pendency of deportation proceedings.” Carlson, 342 U.S. at 538. The Court recognized, however, that “purpose to injure could not be imputed generally to all aliens subject to deportation.” Id. at 538. Rather, if the Attorney General wished to exercise his discretion to deny bail, he was required to do so at a hearing, the results of which were subject to judicial review. Id. at 543. More recently, the Supreme Court has drawn on decades of civil detention jurisprudence to hold that “[a] statute permitting indefinite detention of an alien would raise a serious constitutional problem.” Zadvydas, 533 U.S. at 690. Although the state has legitimate interests in “ensuring the appearance of aliens at future immigration proceedings” and “protecting the community,” post–removal period detention does not uniformly “‘bear[] [a] reasonable relation to the purpose for which the individual [was] committed.’” Id. (second and third alterations in original) (quoting Jackson, 406 U.S. at 738). To avoid constitutional concerns, the Court construed 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(6), the statute governing post–removal period detention, to “limit[] an alien’s post-removal-period detention to a period reasonably necessary to bring about that alien’s removal from the United States.” Id. at 689. Detention beyond that point requires “strong procedural protections” and a finding that the noncitizen is “specially dangerous.” Id. at 691. Soon after Zadvydas, the Court rejected a due process challenge to mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(c), which applies to non-citizens convicted of certain crimes. Demore, 538 U.S. at 517–18. While affirming its “longstanding view that the Government may constitutionally detain deportable aliens during the limited period necessary 30 RODRIGUEZ V. ROBBINS for their removal proceedings,” id. at 526, the Court emphasized that detention under § 1226(c) was constitutionally permissible because it has “a definite termination point” and typically “lasts for less than . . . 90 days,” id. at 529. Since Zadvydas and Demore, our court has “grappled in piece-meal fashion with whether the various immigration detention statutes may authorize indefinite or prolonged detention of detainees and, if so, may do so without providing a bond hearing.” Rodriguez II, 715 F.3d at 1134 (quoting Rodriguez I, 591 F.3d at 1114). As we recognized in Casas, “prolonged detention without adequate procedural protections would raise serious constitutional concerns.” Casas, 535 F.3d at 950; see also Rodriguez II, 715 F.3d at 1144 (discussing “the constitutional concerns raised by prolonged mandatory detention”); Singh, 638 F.3d at 1208 (“The private interest here—freedom from prolonged detention—is unquestionably substantial.”); Diouf II, 634 F.3d at 1085 (“When the period of detention becomes prolonged, ‘the private interest that will be affected by the official action’ is more substantial; greater procedural safeguards are therefore required.”) (quoting Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 335 (1976)). We have therefore held that non-citizens detained pursuant to § 1226(a) and § 1231(a)(6) are entitled to bond hearings before an IJ when detention becomes prolonged. See Casas, 535 F.3d at 949 (requiring bond hearings for individuals detained under § 1226(a)); Diouf II, 634 F.3d at 1084 (extending Casas to individuals detained under § 1231(a)(6)). While the government falsely equates the bond hearing requirement to mandated release from detention or facial invalidation of a general detention statute, our precedents RODRIGUEZ V. ROBBINS 31 make clear that there is a distinction “between detention being authorized and being necessary as to any particular person.” Casas, 535 F.3d at 949. Bond hearings do not restrict the government’s legitimate authority to detain inadmissible or deportable non-citizens; rather, they merely require the government to “justify denial of bond” with clear and convincing “evidence that an alien is a flight risk or danger to the community.” Singh, 638 F.3d at 1203. And, in the end, the government is required only to establish that it has a legitimate interest reasonably related to continued detention; the discretion to release a non-citizen on bond or other conditions remains soundly in the judgment of the immigration judges the Department of Justice employs. Prior decisions have also clarified that detention becomes “prolonged” at the six-month mark. In Zadvydas, the Supreme Court recognized six months as a “presumptively reasonable period of detention.” 533 U.S. at 701. By way of background, the Court noted that in 1996, Congress had “shorten[ed] the removal period from six months to 90 days.” Id. at 698. The Court then explained: While an argument can be made for confining any presumption to 90 days, we doubt that when Congress shortened the removal period to 90 days in 1996 it believed that all reasonably foreseeable removals could be accomplished in that time. We do have reason to believe, however, that Congress previously doubted the constitutionality of detention for more than six months. Consequently, for the sake of uniform administration in the federal courts, we recognize that period. 32 RODRIGUEZ V. ROBBINS Id. at 701 (citation omitted); see also Clark v. Martinez, 543 U.S. 371, 386 (2005) (applying “the 6–month presumptive detention period” the Supreme Court “prescribed in Zadvydas”); cf. Nadarajah v. Gonzales, 443 F.3d 1069, 1078–79 (9th Cir. 2006) (discussing the Patriot Act’s requirement that “detention of suspected terrorists or other threats to national security” be reviewed “at six month intervals”). Following Zadvydas, we have defined detention as “prolonged” when “it has lasted six months and is expected to continue more than minimally beyond six months.” Diouf II, 634 F.3d at 1092 n.13.7 At that point, we have explained, “the private interests at stake are profound,” and “the risk of an erroneous deprivation of liberty in the absence of a hearing before a neutral decisionmaker is substantial.” Id. at 1092.