Opinion ID: 201493
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Rivera's Allegations

Text: 38 The federal claims dismissed as to defendants Matos, Finegan, White, and Page are alleged in counts one and two. 6 Specifically Rivera alleges in the complaint that the defendants undertook a duty to protect Jennifer and that the defendants enjoyed a special relationship with Jennifer. The acts and omissions of the defendants and their failure to take appropriate steps to protect Jennifer from the risk that Pona posed to her, despite her requests for protection, violated her substantive due process rights. 7 39 Although not clear from the complaint, Rivera's objections to the motions to dismiss and supporting memorandum clarify that in addition to the duty which arises in the context of a special relationship between Jennifer and the state, 8 the two counts are premised on an alleged separate duty to protect Jennifer based on the defendants' actions which enhanced the danger to her. Rivera has essentially conceded, by dropping her special relationship claim on appeal, that she cannot establish such a relationship. The factual circumstances, as alleged in the complaint, also do not amount to the type of state creation of risk contemplated by the doctrine. The actions of the defendants are not the kind of `affirmative acts' by the state that would give rise to a constitutional duty to protect. Souza, 53 F.3d at 427. As to Officers Matos and Finegan, Rivera argued that the danger was created as a result of their actions of identifying and securing Jennifer as a witness, providing her with false assurances of protection upon which she relied, 9 compelling her to act in this capacity as a witness, and by issuing a subpoena to her to confront Pona in open court. 40 As to defendants White and Page, Rivera argued that the danger was created as a result of their promising to protect Jennifer if she testified and subpoenaing her to testify before the grand jury and at the trial of Charles Pona, knowing that she was reluctant to testify without such protection because of the repeated death threats. 41 Rivera argues the state's two actions in identifying Jennifer as a witness and taking her witness statement in the course of investigating a murder compelled Jennifer to testify and thus enhanced the danger to Jennifer. Both are necessary law enforcement tools, and cannot be the basis to impose constitutional liability on the state. 42 Rivera also argues issuance of a subpoena enhanced the risk to Jennifer. Issuing a subpoena is also a vital prosecutorial tool. While requiring Jennifer's testimony may in fact have increased her risk, issuance of a subpoena did not do so in the sense of the state created danger doctrine. Every witness involved in a criminal investigation and issued a subpoena to testify in a criminal proceeding faces some risk, and the issuance of a subpoena cannot become the vehicle for a constitutional claim against a state. 43 The only remaining affirmative acts alleged in the complaint are the defendants' assurances of protection. 10 There is no doubt that, if accepted as true, the complaint shows that Jennifer may have been subjected to an increased risk, if she was promised protection, not given it, and relied on the promise. The state, in making these promises, may have induced Jennifer into a false sense of security, into thinking she had some degree of protection from the risk, when she had none from the state. 44 While the unkept promises may have rendered her more vulnerable to the danger posed by Charles Pona and his associates, merely rendering a person more vulnerable to risk does not create a constitutional duty to protect. See Souza, 53 F.3d at 427. In part this is because an increased risk is not itself a deprivation of life, liberty, or property; it must still cause such a deprivation. 45 Ultimately, the claims alleged in the complaint are indistinguishable from those in DeShaney. The allegation — that Jennifer trusted the state to do what it said and relied on that promise in agreeing to testify — is not materially different from DeShaney, where the state was aware of the risk, by its actions expressed promises of help, and then failed to protect a young boy from his abusive father. 46 DeShaney directs that a state's affirmative constitutional duty to protect an individual from private violence arises when there is some deprivation of liberty by state actors. See DeShaney, 489 U.S. at 200, 109 S.Ct. 998 (The affirmative duty to protect arises not from the State's knowledge of the individual's predicament or from its expressions of intent to help him, but from the limitation which it has imposed on his freedom to act on his own behalf.). The state's promises, whether false or merely unkept, did not deprive Jennifer of the liberty to act on her own behalf nor did the state force Jennifer, against her will, to become dependent on it. See Monahan, 961 F.2d at 993 (finding no constitutional liability when the state did not force the plaintiff to become dependent on the state). Moreover, the state did not take away Jennifer's power to decide whether or not to continue to agree to testify. Merely alleging state actions which render the individual more vulnerable to harm, under a theory of state created danger, cannot be used as an end run around DeShaney's core holding. 11 47 We add a few words about the separate shock the conscience test which plaintiff would also have to meet if she established a duty. In part, the test is meant to give incentives to prevent such gross government abuses of power as are truly outrageous. The facts here do not match the need for such incentives. Intimidation and even murder of witnesses is a growing national problem in major urban areas, plaguing witnesses, law enforcement officers, and the communities. It is in the interests of the police to protect witnesses, in order to secure convictions. There can be any number of common reasons why police protection of witnesses is ineffectual, none of which involve acts by the police intended to cause the murder of a needed witness. Cf. County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 855, 118 S.Ct. 1708, 140 L.Ed.2d 1043 (1998). Of course, there may be an extreme set of facts involving such deliberate and malevolent actions by police against witnesses as to shock the conscience and implicate a constitutional violation. Those await another day.