United States District Court, M.D. Alabama, Northern Division
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
Royce
C. Lamberth United States District Court Judge
On
September 6, 2019, plaintiffs subpoenaed Judge Armstead
Lester Hayes, III ("Judge Hayes"), who is no longer
a party to this case. Plaintiffs commanded him to produce the
following:
1. All documents or materials, including but not limited to
reports from the Montgomery City Jail (the "Jail")
and all emails or reports, regarding any aspect of giving
credit for jail work to Jail prisoners or the performance of
jail work by Jail prisoners.
2. All documents or materials, including but not limited to
testimony, transcripts, or exhibits, received by you or your
lawyers from the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission in
connection with the Complaint of the Alabama Judicial Inquiry
Commission filed on or about November 17, 2016 in the Alabama
Court of the Judiciary against Armstead Lester Hayes III, No.
49 (the "Complaint"), and in connection with the
proceedings in that matter.
3. All documents or materials, including but not limited to
testimony, transcripts, or exhibits, received by you or your
lawyers from the Alabama Court of the Judiciary in connection
with the Complaint and in connection with the proceedings in
that matter.
Judge
Hayes accepted service of the subpoena and waived the
necessity for any further or different service of the same.
Pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 45(d)(2)(B),
3(iii)(iv), and (e)(2), Judge Hayes objects to the subpoena
as structured and targeted. Judge Hayes also asks the Court
to quash the subpoena based on judicial immunity. ECF No.
223. For the reasons set forth below, the Court grants the
Motion to Quash.
I.
The Court Grants Judge Hayes's Motion to Quash Request
1.
Beginning
with Request 1, Judge Hayes has represented to this Court
that he does not have in his possession any of the materials
covered in that request. There is no evidence suggesting that
Judge Hayes has lied, and he obviously cannot turn over
materials that he does not have. Therefore, the Court grants
Judge Hayes's Motion to Quash with respect to Request 1.
II.
The Court Grants Judge Hayes's Motion to Quash Request
2.
Moving
to'Request 2, Judge Hayes asserts that he cannot be
required to turn over these materials because of judicial
immunity. In their Response to the Motion to Quash,
plaintiffs "agree with Judge Hayes" that if he
"provided the records to the city or its counsel... the
subpoena should be unnecessary" and plaintiffs can
simply obtain the records from the city. ECF No. 228 at 2.
Judge Hayes has since explained that as far as he knows,
"none of those materials were ever shared with the City
because he knew that section 156 of Article VI (Judicial
Department) of the Constitution of Alabama of 1901 declares
that '[a] 11 proceedings of the commission shall be
confidential except the filing of a complaint with the Court
of the Judiciary.'" ECF No. 232 at 1. Therefore,
Judge Hayes's response to the Court's Order does not
resolve the issue, and the parties are still in disagreement
about Request 2.
This
Court already found that based on the Eleventh Circuit's
ruling in McCullough v. Finley, 907 F.3d 1324, 1335
(11th Cir. 2018), Judge Hayes has absolute immunity for the
judicial acts that plaintiffs alleged in their various
pleadings. ECF No. 183. It is true that judicial immunity
does not extend to administrative acts, but as this Court
previously observed, the Eleventh Circuit has already found
that "none of the acts alleged" against Judge Hayes
in this case "were in fact administrative."
Id. at 7. In its effort to refute the applicability
of judicial immunity, plaintiffs cite only unreported
district court cases. This Court is bound by prior rulings of
the Eleventh Circuit, not by unreported district cases.
Plaintiffs also have not argued that Judge Hayes waived any
privilege or immunity with respect to the materials sought.
Therefore, Judge Hayes is protected from the burdens of
non-party discovery associated with his judicial acts, and
the Court grants the Motion to Quash with respect to Request
2.
III.
The Court Grants Judge Hayes's Motion to Quash Request
3.
Judge
Hayes objects to Request 3 on the basis that those materials
are already available to plaintiffs by virtue of being
publicly accessible. Judge Hayes is correct that subpoenas
should not be used to obtain information that is available to
the public. Because Request 3 ...