LAW LIBRARY CLERK’S REMOVAL CHALLENGED
After serving, for a number of years, as a law library clerk at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, Anthony A., an “incarcerated individual,” was removed from that position due to a new system-wide policy which required that such assignments be identified and reviewed when an inmate was assigned to a “sensitive or preferred” position for more than 36 months.After submitting a grievance which was denied by the Central Office Review Committee, Anthony filed a special (Article 78) proceeding in the Albany County Supreme Court challenging the outcome. But that case was also unsuccessful, because Anthony purportedly failed to show that his removal was “arbitrary and capricious;" with the court deferring to “facility administrators regarding matters of internal security.”
By the time the dispute reached the Appellate Division, Third Department, Anthony had been transferred to another facility (Sullivan Correctional) and was “no longer aggrieved by the administrative action.” Given that his case was now “moot,” his appeal was dismissed.
To the extent Anthony was protesting the policy as a whole, rather than its application just to him, since he didn’t bring the correct kind of case, they declined to entertain that aspect of his claim and refused to “sua sponte convert this matter in the interest of justice.”
I guess, while he was at Sing Sing, Anthony should have sung a different song?
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DECISION