19-1778 Federal Defenders of New York, Inc. v. Federal Bureau of Prisons In the United States Court of Appeals For the Second Circuit ______________ August Term, 2020 (Argued: February 11, 2020 Decided: March 20, 2020) Docket No. 19-1778 ______________ FEDERAL DEFENDERS OF NEW YORK, INC., ON BEHALF OF ITSELF AND ITS CLIENTS DETAINED AT THE METROPOLITAN DETENTION CENTER-BROOKLYN, Plaintiff-Appellant, –v.– FEDERAL BUREAU OF PRISONS, WARDEN HERMAN QUAY, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY, Defendants-Appellees. ______________ B e f o r e: WALKER, PARKER, and CARNEY, Circuit Judges. ______________ Plaintiff-Appellant the Federal Defenders of New York, Inc. (the “Federal Defenders” or “Defenders”) appeals from a June 4, 2019 judgment of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Brodie, J.), dismissing the organization’s complaint against Defendants-Appellees the Federal Bureau of Prisons (the “BOP”) and Warden Herman Quay (“Warden Quay”) (together, “Defendants”). The Federal Defenders allege that Defendants’ curtailment of inmate-attorney visits at the Metropolitan Detention Center-Brooklyn (the “MDC”) in early 2019 violated the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”), 5 U.S.C. § 706(2), and the constitutional right to counsel established by the Sixth Amendment. We conclude that the District Court erred in dismissing the Federal Defenders’ APA claim by failing to consider applicable BOP regulations in its zone-of-interests analysis. In its ruling, the District Court also misconstrued the Defenders’ Sixth Amendment claim: whereas the Federal Defenders invoke the court’s traditional equitable powers in their Sixth Amendment claim against Defendants, the District Court treated this claim as purporting to arise under the Constitution itself. Because the equitable basis of the Federal Defenders’ Sixth Amendment claim raises novel questions of constitutional law, we think it prudent to defer ruling on its merits. We therefore vacate the District Court’s judgment and remand the cause for further proceedings. In particular, we direct the District Court on remand to consider appointing a master to mediate the parties’ differences at the earliest possible time to ensure that the Federal Defenders have meaningful, continuous access to their clients either in person or by remote access pending adjudication of these claims, as these claims may be amended to address similar issues of access arising during the current public health emergency. VACATED and REMANDED. The mandate shall issue FORTHWITH. ______________ JENNA M. DABBS (Sean Hecker, Joshua Matz, Matthew J. Craig, Benjamin D. White, on the brief), Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP, New York, NY, for Plaintiff-Appellant. SEAN P. GREENE (Varuni Nelson, Rachel G. Balaban, Seth D. Eichenholtz, on the brief), for Richard P. Donoghue, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Brooklyn, NY, for Defendants-Appellees. ______________ 2 JOHN M. WALKER, JR., BARRINGTON D. PARKER, SUSAN L. CARNEY: This appeal concerns the severe curtailment of defense attorneys’ access to client inmates held at the Metropolitan Detention Center-Brooklyn (“MDC”), most of whom are pretrial detainees who have not been convicted of a crime. In February 2019, the Federal Defenders of New York, Inc. (the “Federal Defenders” or “Defenders”) sued the Federal Bureau of Prisons (the “BOP”) and Warden Herman ...
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals