Stephens v. Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

MIDDLE DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA

JEFFREY C. STEPHENS,

Plaintiff, CIVIL ACTION NO. 1:19-cv-00102

v. (WILSON, J.)

(SAPORITO, M.J.)

PENNSYLVANIA BOARD OF

PROBATION AND PAROLE, et al.,

Defendants.

MEMORANDUM

This is a prisoner civil rights case. At the time of filing, the plaintiff,

Jeffrey C. Stephens, was a convicted prisoner incarcerated at SCI Dallas,

a state correctional institution located in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.

During the course of this litigation, however, he was released upon

expiration of his maximum sentence of imprisonment.

The plaintiff’s pro se amended complaint named two defendants:

the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole (the “Board”) and the

Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (the “DOC”). The amended

complaint alleged that the defendants discriminated against him based

on his disabilities, in violation of Title II of the Americans with

Disabilities Act (“ADA”), 42 U.S.C. § 12131 et seq., and deprived him of

his rights under various provisions of the United States Constitution,

made actionable by 42 U.S.C. § 1983. See generally Mala v. Crown Bay

Marina, Inc., 704 F.3d 239, 244–46 (3d Cir. 2013) (discussing a court’s

obligation to liberally construe pro se pleadings and other submissions,

particularly when dealing with imprisoned pro se litigants). In particular,

the plaintiff claimed that, over the course of years, he had been

interviewed by the Board and denied release on parole eleven times. He

claimed that these repeated denials of parole by the Board, and several

negative parole recommendations by the DOC to the Board, constituted

unlawful discriminatory treatment based on his disabilities of alcoholism

and post-traumatic stress disorder. Based on this same conduct by the

defendants, the plaintiff further asserted double jeopardy, equal

protection, substantive due process, and ex post facto claims under

§ 1983.

The defendants moved for summary judgment pursuant to Rule 56

of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. We entered a report

recommending that the motion be granted. Upon review, the court

adopted our recommendation in part and rejected it in part. The court

granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants and against the

plaintiff with respect to his § 1983 claims, but it deferred ruling on the

plaintiff’s ADA claims, remanding the matter to us for consideration of a

request by the pro se plaintiff for further discovery pursuant to Rule 56(d)

of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

The plaintiff had served on the defendants several iterations of the

same set of several requests for the production of documents. Generally,

these requests sought the production of documents considered by the

Board in connection with its several decisions denying parole or by the

DOC in connection with its negative parole recommendations. With

respect to the Board, the plaintiff requested various risk and needs

assessments, evaluations, and reports considered by the Board in making

its decision,1 any reports of criminal conduct considered by the Board,

and a sex offender assessment prepared by the Pennsylvania Sex

1 Specifically, Stephens requested copies of any LSI-R (Level of

Service Inventory-Revised), OVRT (Offender Violence Risk Typology),

PBPP-361 Parole Decisional Instrument, Static-99, RRASOR (Rapid

Risk Assessment for Sexual Offense Recidivism), SONAR (Sex Offender

Need Assessment Rating), STABLE-2007, ACUTE-2007, Risk Matrix-

2000, SORAG (Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide), SVR-20 (Sexual

Violence Risk-20), VRS-2 (Violence Risk Scale), or other actuarial risk

assessment tools employed by the Board in deciding to deny him parole.

Offenders Assessment Board in 2004.2 With respect to the DOC, the

plaintiff requested any reports of criminal conduct considered by the

DOC in making its recommendation, any mental health evaluation

reports considered by the DOC, and any parole vote sheets. The plaintiff,

however, seeks these documents for an expansive time frame, from 2008

to the present.

The defendants objected to disclosure on the grounds that these

discovery requests were overly broad and unduly burdensome and to the

extent that they sought confidential information, the disclosure of which

may jeopardize institutional safety and security.

“A Court is obligated to give a party opposing summary judgment

an adequate opportunity to obtain discovery.” In re Avandia Mktg., Sales

& Prods. Liab. Litig., 945 F.3d 749, 761 (3d Cir. 2019) (brackets and

internal quotation marks omitted); see also id. (“If discovery is

incomplete, a district court is rarely justified in granting summary

judgment, unless the discovery request pertains to facts that are not

2 The plaintiff also requested broad statistical information

regarding a narrow class of convicted sex offenders up for parole, to which

the defendants objected on relevance and proportionality grounds. We

agree that this information is immaterial to the plaintiff’s ADA claims

and disproportionate to the needs of the case.

material to the moving party’s entitlement to judgment as a matter of

law.”).

As noted above, the plaintiff’s surviving claims arise under Title II

of the ADA. To establish an ADA claim, a plaintiff must demonstrate

that: (1) “he is a qualified individual with a disability,” (2) “who was

precluded from participating in a program, service, or activity, or other

wise subject to discrimination,” (3) “by reason of his disability.” Furgess

v. Pa. Dep’t of Corrs., 933 F.3d 285, 288–89 (3d Cir. 2019). Moreover, to

recover monetary damages, the plaintiff “must also show intentional

discrimination under a deliberate indifference standard.” Id. at 289; see

also S.H. ex rel. Durrell v. Lower Merion Sch. Dist., 729 F.3d 248, 263–64

(3d Cir. 2013).

Upon close review of the record before us, we conclude that the

plaintiff’s request for additional discovery should be granted in part. The

information sought is clearly relevant to the issues of whether the

Board’s denial of parole was caused by discrimination on the basis of

Stephens’s disabilities, and whether any such discrimination was

intentional under a deliberate indifference standard.3 The defendants’

objections that the plaintiff’s requests are overly broad and unduly

burdensome, however, are well taken. The plaintiff’s § 1983 claims have

been dismissed on summary judgment, leaving only his ADA claims.

Moreover, “the statute of limitations applicable to claims under Title II

of the ADA . . . is the statute of limitations for personal injury actions in

the state in which the trial court sits. In this case, the applicable statute

is 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 5524, which prescribes a two-year statute of

limitations.” Disabled in Action of Pa. v. Se. Pa. Transp. Auth., 539 F.3d

199, 208 (3d Cir. 2008). The original complaint in this action was received

and docketed by the clerk on January 18, 2019, but it was constructively

filed on January 11, 2019—the date when Stephens signed it and

presented it to prison officials for mailing. See Houston v. Lack, 487 U.S.

3 In its notice of decision dated January 11, 2017, the Board stated

that the reasons it denied Stephens’s application for parole included the

following: (a) “Your risk and needs assessment indicating your level of

risk to the community”; (b) “The negative recommendation made by the

Department of Corrections”; (c) “Reports, evaluations and

assessments/level of risk indicates your risk to the community”; (d) “Your

minimization/denial of the nature and circumstances of the offense(s)

committed”; and (e) “Your lack of remorse for the offense(s) committed.”

(Doc. 68, at 29–30.) On its face, this highly generalized, largely conclusory

statement of reasons offers nothing at all to suggest whether the denial

of parole was motivated by discriminatory intent or not.

266, 276 (1988); see also Moody v. Conroy, 680 Fed. App’x 140, 144 (3d

Cir. 2017) (per curiam) (“Under the prison mailbox rule, . . . a pleading is

deemed filed at the time a prisoner executes it and delivers it to prison

authorities for mailing.”). The plaintiff has sought discovery with respect

to parole decisions dating back more than a decade, but the only

potentially actionable claims he has asserted concern the most recent

denial of parole on January 11, 2017. Any claims concerning the ten

earlier parole decisions are clearly time-barred, any information or

documents concerning those prior decisions are largely immaterial to the

plaintiff’s actionable ADA claims, and we further find this more limited

scope of discovery to be proportional to the needs of the case. Thus, we

will limit the scope of additional discovery allowed to the January 2017

decision denying parole to Stephens.

We will direct the defendants to produce for inspection by the pro

se plaintiff any non-confidential documents considered by the Board in

connection with its January 11, 2017, decision denying parole or by the

DOC in connection with its related negative parole recommendation. We

are sensitive, however, to the defendants’ concern that disclosure of

confidential information may jeopardize institutional safety and security.

Thus, to the extent the defendants contend that any documents

considered by the Board in connection with its January 11, 2017, decision

denying parole or by the DOC in connection with its related negative

parole recommendation are confidential and should be withheld from

production to the pro se plaintiff because their disclosure poses a

substantial risk of compromising institutional safety and security, we

will direct the defendants to produce such materials to the court for in

camera inspection. However, we encourage the defendants to scrutinize

any responsive materials and consider whether some or all of these

documents may be produced for inspection by the pro se plaintiff himself,

in light of his recent release from incarceration.

For easier reference by the parties and the court, we will direct the

defendants to Bates label all responsive documents, whether produced

directly to the plaintiff or to the court for in camera inspection.

With respect to any documents withheld from the plaintiff and

produced to the court for in camera inspection, we will also direct the

defendants to prepare and serve a privilege log, in compliance with Rule

26(b)(5)(A) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Copies of this

privilege log shall be provided to both the court and the pro se plaintiff.

An appropriate order follows.

Dated: November 8, 2022 s/Joseph F. Saporito, Jr.

JOSEPH F. SAPORITO, JR.

United States Magistrate Judge