[00:00:00] Speaker 04:
The next case is 25-2062, White v. Padilla.

[00:00:07] Speaker 04:
Go ahead.

[00:00:08] Speaker 01:
May it please the Court, Leon Howard and Ryan Villa on behalf of Plaintiff Clifton White.

[00:00:16] Speaker 04:
Before you start. Yes, Your Honor. I'm not sure what we're doing here. Let me explain why. Thank you.

[00:00:26] Speaker 04:
There's no question that your client served time that he shouldn't have. That's not disputed, is that correct?

[00:00:32] Speaker 01:
That's correct, Your Honor.

[00:00:34] Speaker 04:
Was that time in part incarceration, in part parole?

[00:00:38] Speaker 01:
That's also correct, Your Honor.

[00:00:42] Speaker 04:
The state doesn't just automatically say we're going to give you some money? I mean, you have to sue to get that?

[00:00:50] Speaker 01:
In this instance, Your Honor, yes. At the center of this case is four years of liberty that cannot be given back. The state, through a court order, agreed that Mr. White should have been released in September of 2016 but kept it under its control until 2020.

[00:01:14] Speaker 04:
And when the state concedes that, it doesn't think that it has a responsibility to provide compensation? There's not some system to do that?

[00:01:24] Speaker 01:
Your Honor, that was a surprise to us as well, that we weren't able to resolve this matter pretty early on after the court order was made clear.

[00:01:34] Speaker 04:
It's not a problem. The state is just overflowing with money right now. That's not the problem.

[00:01:39] Speaker 01:
That's correct. The problem, Your Honor, and it is quite frankly, there's protections that we all know of, like qualified immunity. And this is our second time.

[00:01:52] Speaker 04:
You don't have an easy legal case. You've got a very strong equitable case.

[00:01:57] Speaker 01:
That could be your correct, Your Honor. And through the course of this case, we are now here on two issues.

[00:02:08] Speaker 01:
One pertains to CoreCivic, and that is whether Mr. White's claims were timely, even though he was under the same continuing sentencing restraint until 2020. That's on the state law. Yes, that's under the state law.

[00:02:24] Speaker 04:
And so we're here... And does the state... I mean, we have...

[00:02:29] Speaker 04:
analogous law in federal court, under federal law. Do we have any state court decisions whether they apply HEC or anything like that?

[00:02:38] Speaker 01:
We do not. We don't have a case that, where the New Mexico Supreme Court has squarely answered this false imprisonment a cruel issue but in those instances when there is established federal law like the heck doctrine there's good reason to believe that the New Mexico Supreme Court would adopt that logic at least in part because the the wisdom of heck is that we don't want people going out and getting civil orders that they are falsely imprisoned while there's a criminal sentencing order that keeps the person under the restraint of the state.

[00:03:23] Speaker 04:
Should we let the state courts decide that issue?

[00:03:25] Speaker 01:
And Your Honor, the answer is yes, and that issue surfaced while this case was ongoing, and we filed and added CoreCivic as a defendant in the third amended complaint. Once we learned that it had a role in the sentence apparatus, access to the case management system, and provided information that was manipulated into the sentencing system that kept Mr. White under the wrongful restraint.

[00:04:02] Speaker 01:
And so at that point, they were added as a defendant. which was well within the three years since the order releasing Mr. White.

[00:04:13] Speaker 04:
Did anyone move to certify the issue to the state Supreme Court?

[00:04:17] Speaker 01:
That did not happen at the district court level, Your Honor.

[00:04:27] Speaker 01:
And so the primary issue there is the district court became too focused on restraint as being released from a physical building when the law in New Mexico on parole is clear. Somebody serving their sentence on parole is still under the control of the state and therefore in custody. And so there's two ways to think about it. We discussed one, heck, that we believe the New Mexico Supreme Court would adopt.

[00:05:02] Speaker 01:
And the other that points in the same direction is the restatement, which also the New Mexico Supreme Court often relies on. And under the restatement hinges on the terms parole, I mean, I'm sorry, custody and restraint. And if you take the next step and look at what the New Mexico courts have said about parole, it certainly says the person's still in custody of the state and still under restraint. And therefore, the release from... A physical building in 2019 was the wrong date to focus on.

[00:05:36] Speaker 01:
It's really when Mr. White was discharged from his sentence in October of 2020 as the date of accrual.

[00:05:45] Speaker 02:
Do you have any cases in which a court has treated parole the same as imprisonment for purposes of false imprisonment, for purposes of that kind of a claims accrual?

[00:05:57] Speaker 01:
Yes, Your Honor. There's the New Mexico case Roybal, and there's another case, New Mexico case Robinson, that stand for the proposition that parole is custody. Further, in the federal habeas world, there's a case, Jones v. Cunningham, that also treats parole as in custody. And New Mexico has a unique parole system that I understand is different from other states.

[00:06:29] Speaker 01:
And so parole is, by every measure, an extension of a sentence. The case Roybal I just mentioned goes as far as to say the person is still serving their sentence just outside of the walls.

[00:06:46] Speaker 01:
And so, turning to the remaining New Mexico Corrections Department defendants, the claim against the remaining New Mexico Corrections Department defendants is also straightforward. The people responsible for administering Mr. White's sentence, the record custodian's sentence calculation and parole administration actors that maintained erroneous sentence information, failed to correct known errors, and allowed courts and supervision officers to rely on bad information in ways that kept Mr. White under watch.

[00:07:25] Speaker 04:
You concede that you have to prove that those correction department people acted with intent or reckless disregard. Is that correct?

[00:07:37] Speaker 01:
That is correct.

[00:07:40] Speaker 04:
What facts in the complaint can support that?

[00:07:43] Speaker 01:
Yeah, there's several facts in the complaint, and we've attached a number of exhibits. So first, I would start with the entry into the case management system that created a new offense in the case management system that said second subsequent offense, which had no relation to the underlying sentence, Mr. Whitehead.

[00:08:11] Speaker 04:
Who made that entry?

[00:08:14] Speaker 01:
Your Honor, we haven't had the benefit of discovery in this case.

[00:08:17] Speaker 04:
You have to allege specific people.

[00:08:20] Speaker 01:
We did, and we have DOE actors in our complaints, and, you know, based on information and belief, the best representation I can make without discovery is defendant Lisa Padilla, who is a records custodian, who was in charge, had her hands on the calculations of Mr. White's sentence and access to the... What shows that she is the one

[00:08:44] Speaker 04:
who made the entry that this was a second offense. I assume that's because habitual offenders don't get the same good time, is that it? What difference did it make?

[00:08:54] Speaker 01:
Your Honor, so the difference that it makes, and this is going back to your initial question, why are we here? It's because of qualified immunity and having somebody who's incarcerated without access to the same information as the state and the whole sentencing apparatus. to be able to prove who did what to who without the benefit of discovery creates a challenge.

[00:09:25] Speaker 01:
And so what we're able to provide in our complaint are good time figuring sheets that have L. Padilla at the bottom of the good time figuring sheets.

[00:09:36] Speaker 04:
We know who... Okay, does that... Are her initials... Excuse me.

[00:09:42] Speaker 04:
Are her initials on a document that says second offender?

[00:09:48] Speaker 01:
Your Honor, we don't have access to this.

[00:09:51] Speaker 04:
You have some documents with her initial on it.

[00:09:53] Speaker 01:
That's correct. But not this document. This document is a printout from a computer system, and it could have been a Doe defendant. It could have been most likely defendant Padilla because we know she was the case.

[00:10:06] Speaker 04:
Let me ask two questions about that. One, what difference does it make if he was the second offender?

[00:10:14] Speaker 04:
Does that affect the timing?

[00:10:16] Speaker 01:
There's no such thing as a second offense.

[00:10:20] Speaker 04:
Well, then maybe I misunderstood. I thought the error was to put that this was a second offense.

[00:10:28] Speaker 01:
Your Honor, the best I can speculate is that...

[00:10:34] Speaker 01:
Mr. White goes back into the facility on a parole violation. The system is telling this records custodian there's no more jurisdiction over this defendant. And so she made an entry into the system that made it appear as if the state still had jurisdiction over Mr. White.

[00:10:55] Speaker 04:
We don't know who that was. But see...

[00:10:59] Speaker 04:
under Iqbal and Twombly, you simply have to have allegations. And I can see your problem with not identifying people, but none of the named defendants are tied to those entries. Not only tied to them, but then you've got to have evidence that it wasn't just a negligent error, an oversight typo, that it was something done intentionally with reckless disregard. And that's what I'm not seeing in your complaint.

[00:11:28] Speaker 01:
So, Your Honor, in the third amended complaint, there are direct allegations against defendant Padilla for preparing the good time figuring sheets And we, in the record, there's an expert who talks about the inconsistency and can't even come to a conclusion or an opinion on the appropriate release date because the good time figuring sheets were so recklessly and negligently prepared.

[00:11:56] Speaker 04:
Maybe I'm mistaken.

[00:11:59] Speaker 04:
Is this on summary judgment or on dismissal?

[00:12:01] Speaker 01:
This is, we're at Rule 12 stage, Your Honor.

[00:12:05] Speaker 04:
So what's an expert opinion? How's an expert opinion considered?

[00:12:10] Speaker 01:
I don't mean to distract the court with that. All I'm trying to say is the record shows, based on the evidence that we have and are able to provide, that the good time figuring sheets that predict the release date are all over the map. But there are clear records in the offender system that show a release date as early as 2016. There's good time figuring sheets that show a release date as early as 2016. And then all of a sudden, they're starting to create new good time figuring sheets that miraculously show a new release date.

[00:12:49] Speaker 01:
And I want to get to why this is clearly established. This court, even in the first... appeal in this case relied on the obviousness doctrine. And the Tenth Cert recognizes, and I think Your Honor recognizes in your first question to me, is some constitutional violations are so obvious that a case on all fours is not required.

[00:13:14] Speaker 02:
Did you make that argument on appeal though? I mean, the doctrine is well settled and available to you, but did you make it on appeal? Did you rely on sort of this obviousness argument in support of establishing the law on the second?

[00:13:29] Speaker 01:
Your Honor, that is in our briefing.

[00:13:32] Speaker 01:
And we don't only have to rely on that. We also rely on clearly established law on this circuit through Pierce. and McCarty, which stand for the proposition that you cannot provide false information into legal process that drives a wrongful or unlawful detention. And then that is directly analogous to this instance where we have records custodian actors providing false information into a legal process that resulted in a court order that extended Mr. White's jurisdiction.

[00:14:11] Speaker 01:
And then the third way this is clearly established is the weight of authorities on unlawful detention and over detention. In our briefing, we have cases from the Fifth Circuit, Eleventh Circuit, Ninth Circuit, cases like Alcocer's sample, Alexander, Davis, that all stand for the proposition that it is obvious that an inmate cannot be detained past its release date.

[00:14:46] Speaker 01:
And so this case is not about just some simple paperwork errors. It's about sentence administration gone badly wrong. And we're up here on the remaining corrections department defendants. The first time we were here on wardens. Now we're here with the people who actually had their hands. in the sentence and provided that false information that resulted in an order extending Mr. White's sentence wrongfully.

[00:15:17] Speaker 01:
See, my time is up. Thank you. Thank you.

[00:15:28] Speaker 03:
Good afternoon, Your Honors. Kevin Nguyen on behalf of Athlete Corps Civic.

[00:15:33] Speaker 04:
Let me ask you. Yes.

[00:15:36] Speaker 04:
You're not disputing that he was under a sentence for several years after the sentence expired? He was either on parole or in confinement. You're not disputing that, are you?

[00:15:51] Speaker 03:
I'm not disputing it for the purposes of the timeliness argument.

[00:15:58] Speaker 03:
There is a question, though, as to whether the discharge order that he obtained based on the stipulation that was granted by the court just a few hours after the next day did...

[00:16:17] Speaker 03:
discharge his sentences retroactively or just prospectively from that date.

[00:16:22] Speaker 04:
But you're not disputing that there was an error in calculating the sentence?

[00:16:30] Speaker 03:
I have no reason to dispute that.

[00:16:31] Speaker 04:
And the state has no mechanism to compensate people for that? Whether it was done intentionally with reckless disregard, negligently, or a computer error, whatever? There's no mechanism to compensate for that?

[00:16:47] Speaker 03:
Judge Hartz, I'm not in a position to answer that question because I represent CoreCivic.

[00:16:54] Speaker 03:
Perhaps the state may be able to address that better, but I'm not personally aware of it.

[00:17:01] Speaker 04:
Okay, you represent CoreCivic? Yes, sir. Why shouldn't the issue be resolved by the state Supreme Court?

[00:17:11] Speaker 03:
You're absolutely right, Judge Hartz. It should be resolved by the New Mexico Supreme Court.

[00:17:19] Speaker 03:
But there's no reason to engage in plaintiff's theories and predictions as to whether the New Mexico Supreme Court would change its laws and endorse his theories because, one, his theories are wrong, and two, The question on appeal, whether his claims are timely filed, can be resolved based on the existing law because the New Mexico Supreme Court has already held that favorable termination is not an element of a malicious abuse of process claim.

[00:17:53] Speaker 03:
And plaintiff's entire theory was that Heck should apply because of the favorable termination requirement. He had to obtain a favorable termination of his underlying sentence based on the October 2026, I'm sorry, October 2023 discharge order before he could bring his claims.

[00:18:14] Speaker 04:
So that's contrary to the federal law of heck, is that right?

[00:18:18] Speaker 03:
It is. It is, Your Honor. It's completely contrary to it. And the plaintiff actually concedes this in the reply brief, stating that favorable termination is not an element of his claim based on the absence of probable cause.

[00:18:35] Speaker 03:
If so, this entire appeal has been a waste of the court's time and judicial resources because that position is completely contrary to what he argued in the district court and in his opening brief.

[00:18:50] Speaker 03:
He tries to reconcile that contradiction by arguing that heck is not actually a favorable termination or delayed accrual rule, but rather a rule based on the doctrine of collateral estoppel.

[00:19:06] Speaker 03:
He argues that until he obtained that October 2023 stipulated discharge order, he was estopped from collaterally attacking the underlying sentence.

[00:19:19] Speaker 03:
But that argument fails because collateral estoppel is completely irrelevant to the accrual of his claims to the statute of limitations issue. Collateral estoppel is issue preclusion, which precludes a party from...

[00:19:36] Speaker 03:
Excuse me, my mouth is running dry.

[00:19:39] Speaker 03:
Relitigating issues that the party had an adequate opportunity to argue in a prior suit actually litigated the issue and the court reached the final adjudication on the merits that necessarily resolved that issue either explicitly or implicitly. That's completely irrelevant to the issue here as to when his claims are accrued and whether they're time barred. And indeed the doctrine of collateral estoppel, the statute of limitations can act independently of each other as separate bars because issues can be precluded in a timely fault claim and vice versa.

[00:20:22] Speaker 04:
Now, when you talked about the New Mexico Supreme Court doctrine on abuse of process, this all comes under that rubric, is that right?

[00:20:34] Speaker 04:
What's the title they use? I remember they merged a couple common law torts.

[00:20:39] Speaker 03:
You're correct, Judge Harps. The New Mexico Supreme Court in Devaney abolished, well, eliminated the court of malicious prosecution, which is the...

[00:20:54] Speaker 03:
claimed that the head court addressed and found was most analogous.

[00:21:00] Speaker 03:
The New Mexico Supreme Court merged that claim, that tort with the tort of abuse of process. And in doing so, it specifically eliminated the favorable termination requirement.

[00:21:15] Speaker 04:
Has it ever applied that in a malicious prosecution case or was Devaney a malicious prosecution case itself?

[00:21:23] Speaker 03:
It was, but it was in a different civil context.

[00:21:31] Speaker 04:
There was no criminal conviction component there?

[00:21:35] Speaker 03:
No, Your Honor, there wasn't.

[00:21:40] Speaker 03:
There's no need to predict whether New Mexico would change its laws. It's pretty clear that federal termination is not an element of the claim and plaintiff has conceded that in the reply brief. His alternative, theory that predicts New Mexico would follow the restatement also fails because it relies on Wallace v. Cato, where the Supreme Court declined to apply HEC, distinguishing false imprisonment claims from malicious prosecution claims.

[00:22:17] Speaker 03:
reasoning that a false imprisonment claim ends when the legal process begins. Therefore, it declined to apply the HEC rule and adopted the restatement. And in doing so, it recognized that each period of false imprisonment is considered a distinct unit and adopted the reasoning, the policy reasoning under the restatement that false imprisonment claims are subject to a distinct rule that recognizes that a false imprisonment victim may be unable to file suit until the period of false imprisonment ends.

[00:23:03] Speaker 03:
And here the district court applied that analysis and said that Plano's theory fails on that ground as well because the period of his incarceration, of course, in his facility is a separate and distinct unit from the subsequent period of his release.

[00:23:25] Speaker 03:
it was undisputed that there was nothing that impeded his ability to bring claims against CoreCivic within the statute of limitations during the period of his release.

[00:23:39] Speaker 03:
Plaintiff's argument that parole is a deprivation of his liberty disregards that false imprisonment. I think Judge Rossman, you brought this point up or alluded to it.

[00:23:55] Speaker 03:
False imprisonment is...

[00:24:00] Speaker 03:
a claim that not just requires the deprivation of liberty, but it requires confinement or restraint. More specifically, confinement or restraint to a particular area or a bounded area. And that is incarceration, and that is the opposite of parole, which is released from a confined... Did you want to save some time for... Oh, I'm sorry. Yes.

[00:24:24] Speaker 04:
I have a question.

[00:24:33] Speaker 00:
May it please the court, I'm Mark Comer on behalf of the corrections defendants.

[00:24:38] Speaker 00:
And Judge Hart, just to address your question about a mechanism to compensate, I don't know that there is, but I think the way that issue is addressed is done through judicial remedies. If a court makes a mistake and enters an order that's wrong, for some reason we have...

[00:25:02] Speaker 00:
Well, there's arguments in the original court.

[00:25:04] Speaker 00:
There's the right to appeal.

[00:25:07] Speaker 00:
In this case, there's also a habeas component as well, all of which were utilized in this case. And I understand there's a good deal of tension in the case that arises from this later order talking about things that happened back in 2002 and 2012 all of which predate the factual allegations concerning Michael.

[00:25:34] Speaker 04:
Is there a question, a legitimate question, that he served four years more on a sentence than he should have, either in confinement or on parole? Is there any question about that?

[00:25:50] Speaker 00:
It's a conclusion that I'm unable to resolve based on the record. I can't resolve it.

[00:25:56] Speaker 04:
There was not a court order saying that he had served, that his sentence should have ended four years earlier?

[00:26:04] Speaker 00:
There was a stipulation by counsel that was presented to the court.

[00:26:08] Speaker 04:
A stipulation by counsel, and that included counsel from the state?

[00:26:12] Speaker 04:
The district attorney. Okay.

[00:26:14] Speaker 00:
Doesn't that bind the state?

[00:26:16] Speaker 00:
I would assume that it does bind the state.

[00:26:18] Speaker 04:
Okay, so when you say the remedy is through the judiciary, through the courts, he's got a tough road to hoe to bring a 1983 action, as you've already heard.

[00:26:34] Speaker 04:
They may have done as well as they can, but there's some things they have to prove there, and I don't see why they should have to prove that this was malicious, intentional, reckless by the government. If it was negligence or whatever, he served four years, he shouldn't have served. And I'm just astonished that there's not a mechanism where...

[00:26:55] Speaker 04:
he would get compensation from the state.

[00:26:59] Speaker 00:
Well, the court, in accepting that stipulation, accepted what it said, which was the parties did this and the court did this. The concern I have in this case is that if the responsibility for this rests with the parties or the court, which has absolute immunity in matters like this, then it would be completely inappropriate to try to foist all this over onto some clerks at the corrections office under a Section 1983 action.

[00:27:34] Speaker 00:
It doesn't make any sense at all.

[00:27:35] Speaker 04:
Well, why not foist it on the state? As I said, this state's rolling in money right now. There's no excuse for not paying.

[00:27:45] Speaker 04:
I'm just astonished by what's going on in this case.

[00:27:49] Speaker 00:
Well, Your Honor, I don't know about discussing...

[00:27:55] Speaker 00:
What's happening just in terms of the state in that context, what I'm addressing is I've got individual defendants that I have to represent.

[00:28:05] Speaker 04:
Well, you wouldn't have to if they paid, then you wouldn't be sued.

[00:28:11] Speaker 00:
I don't know what to say to that other than I'm here representing my clients.

[00:28:13] Speaker 04:
Well, talk to somebody, would you?

[00:28:16] Speaker 04:
Somebody ought to take charge here and do justice.

[00:28:21] Speaker 04:
And I don't think, I'm not sure we can.

[00:28:24] Speaker 00:
I don't think the right thing to do would be to impose these sort of obligations on these corrections officials.

[00:28:31] Speaker 04:
That makes sense.

[00:28:33] Speaker 00:
And I don't think the case has been made against them, and I don't think the law in a situation like this imposes that sort of obligation on them, and I don't think there's adequate factual allegations tying them to this order that appeared at this time.

[00:28:54] Speaker 02:
What about as to Ms. Padilla? Why are the allegations sufficient as to that?

[00:29:00] Speaker 00:
There are two allegations against Ms. Padilla. The first one has to do with 311 days of pre-sentence confinement credit.

[00:29:08] Speaker 00:
That arose as a result of a stipulation between the DA and Mr. White's counsel. The judge entered that. Correction was made on the record. It was reflected in later orders. So Ms. Padilla doesn't have anything to do with that.

[00:29:24] Speaker 00:
That was something that is reflected in the sentence, and it's reflected multiple times. So she doesn't have anything to do with that. The other issue that's mentioned is these good time figuring sheets, but here again, there's nothing in the court's order that ties anything to good time figuring sheets by Ms. Padilla. It's got nothing to do with good time figuring sheets.

[00:29:54] Speaker 00:
It's exactly the opposite. What the court order says, the thing that released Mr. White was that the court and the parties made an error that then caused mistakes later. They're causing mistakes later. First of all, we're back to the problem of there's no showing of deliberate indifference if someone has been misled by something the court and the parties did. But in any event, there's nothing in the order that's the genesis of all of this that has anything to do with good time figuring machines or Ms.

[00:30:25] Speaker 00:
Padilla. Ms. Padilla was not advising the court. She wasn't a court-appointed expert. So far as I know, there's no reason for her to even have been present in the court.

[00:30:35] Speaker 02:
Why aren't these arguments that you're making arguments that will be available to you after discovery?

[00:30:42] Speaker 00:
They will be available to me whenever I need to make them, but I think we can make them based on the record that we have now because we have the benefit of a pretty developed record from the criminal proceedings, which have come in without any objection at this point. We have the court sentencing orders. We have the records of what transpired, motions and orders and statements and so on and so forth.

[00:31:12] Speaker 04:
It's not on summary judgment.

[00:31:14] Speaker 04:
but records referred to in the complaint, if uncontested, can be considered on a motion to dismiss. Is that what's happening here? That's why we have these other records?

[00:31:25] Speaker 00:
That's exactly right, Your Honor. They're referenced in the complaint, but they're also official court records. And they've come in without objection, and we've all discussed them. So I think in that context, they come in and can be considered on a motion for judgment on the pleadings, as they have been here.

[00:31:43] Speaker 00:
as they were in the court below.

[00:31:46] Speaker 00:
The judge below also determined, in granting Ms. Padilla some qualified immunity, that the facts in the complaint did not tie her to anything concerning Mr. White's incarceration for this additional period, if that's what in fact occurred.

[00:32:11] Speaker 00:
And that come back to this again, it would not be appropriate to impose this sort of obligation on her for mistakes that may have been made by others that are present in this case. Thank you.

[00:32:27] Speaker 04:
Thank you. Counsel, you're private counsel, is that right? I am, Your Honor. You're retained by the state. I am. And who do you respond to?

[00:32:36] Speaker 00:
I respond to the Department of Corrections and the State Risk Management Division, Your Honor.

[00:32:42] Speaker 00:
So you'll report on these proceedings? I certainly will.

[00:32:45] UNKNOWN:
Okay.

[00:32:46] Speaker 04:
Thank you.

[00:32:47] Speaker 00:
Thank you.

[00:32:48] Speaker 04:
Case submitted. Counselor excused.