Background
Jarrett Allen brought a putative class action against the City of New York and its officials, alleging that the NYPD’s practice of handcuffing virtually all arrestees throughout their arraignments — without any individualized judicial determination that restraints are warranted — violates due process under article I, § 6 of the New York State Constitution. The class Allen sought to represent comprised all individuals subjected to this blanket policy.
Supreme Court, New York County dismissed the complaint for lack of standing, denied Allen’s cross-motion for summary judgment, and denied as moot both the motion for class certification and the City’s cross-motion for a stay. Allen appealed, with amicus briefs submitted by LatinoJustice PRLDEF and The Center on Race, Inequality and the Law.
The City argued that Allen lacked standing to seek a declaratory judgment because he had not adequately alleged an injury in fact. Supreme Court accepted that position without separately analyzing whether Allen had pled a likelihood of future harm — a threshold the First Department found the City had failed to rebut.
The Court’s Holding
The First Department unanimously modified the Supreme Court order: the motion to dismiss was denied and Allen’s complaint and motion for class certification were reinstated. On a motion to dismiss for lack of standing, the burden lies with the defendant — here, the City — to affirmatively show that the plaintiff lacked standing. The City never argued Allen suffered no injury in fact, which alone was sufficient to defeat the motion. Even setting that aside, Allen adequately pled a likelihood of future harm by alleging that NYPD officer discretion results in “near-universal handcuffing of people throughout their arraignments.”
On the merits, the Court held that Allen stated a viable due process cause of action under article I, § 6 of the New York State Constitution. Arraignment is a “critical stage of the proceedings” under existing New York law (People v Best, 19 NY3d 739 [2012]; Hurrell-Harring v State of New York, 15 NY3d 8 [2010]), and the Court reasoned that due process protections may extend to that phase just as they have been recognized in other critical stages — including grand jury proceedings, suppression hearings, and annual mental hygiene review hearings. Unresolved factual issues remain, including whether Allen was actually handcuffed at his own arraignment, whether the Unified Court System is a necessary party, and the extent to which shackling was considered acceptable at common law — all of which precluded conversion of the motion to summary judgment.
The motions for amicus briefs filed by LatinoJustice PRLDEF and The Center on Race, Inequality and the Law were granted.
Key Takeaways
- On a motion to dismiss for lack of standing, the burden is on the moving party — not the plaintiff — to demonstrate absence of standing; failure to contest injury-in-fact is dispositive.
- A plaintiff satisfies standing requirements by pleading a likelihood of future harm; allegations that a municipal policy is applied in a near-universal manner are sufficient at the pleading stage.
- Arraignment is a “critical stage of the proceedings,” which opens the door to due process challenges to restraint policies imposed without individualized, on-the-record judicial findings.
- Class certification and complaint reinstated: the case returns to Supreme Court for further proceedings on both the merits and class issues.
Why It Matters
This decision breathes life into a constitutional challenge to a routine courthouse practice. For criminal defense practitioners across New York, Allen signals that automatic handcuffing at arraignment — without an on-the-record judicial finding of necessity — may be constitutionally suspect under New York’s own due process clause, even if federal doctrine might permit it. The case is framed under article I, § 6 of the state constitution (not the Fourteenth Amendment), a deliberate invocation of independent state grounds that can provide greater protection than federal minimums.
For civil rights litigators and institutional defendants alike, the standing ruling carries broad implications: agencies and municipalities facing class-action challenges must affirmatively contest injury-in-fact rather than rely on the plaintiff’s burden. The reinstatement of class certification adds pressure on the City as this case proceeds on remand. If a class is certified and the blanket handcuffing policy found unconstitutional, the consequences for arraignment procedure citywide — and potentially statewide — could be substantial.