Butler v. Haaland
| Docket Number | 22-CV-0536-GKF-JFJ |
| Decision Date | 15 December 2023 |
| Parties | FLOYD EARL BUTLER, Petitioner, v. DEB HAALAND, Secretary of the Department of Interior, MERRICK GARLAND, Attorney General of the United States, Respondents. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Oklahoma |
This mandamus action is before the Court on Respondents' Motion to Dismiss filed July 26, 2023 (Dkt. 31). Petitioner Floyd Earl Butler, a self-represented Oklahoma prisoner, did not file a response to the dismissal motion.[1] Having considered the parties' arguments and applicable law, the Court finds and concludes that Respondents' Motion shall be granted, and that Butler's Petition for Writ of Mandamus filed December 9, 2022 (Dkt. 1) shall be dismissed, in part for lack of jurisdiction and, in part, for failure to state a claim on which relief may be granted.
Butler seeks a mandatory injunction, under either the Mandamus Act 28 U.S.C. § 1361, or the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 701 et seq., claiming that Respondents have failed to comply with their legal duty to enforce federal law. He specifically asks this Court to “compel[] Respondents to investigate [and], if necessary, prosecute Oklahoma state officials for illegal detention of Petitioner and other[s] similarly situated in state custody.” Dkt. 1, at 1, 5.
Butler alleges he is a descendant of a member of the Cherokee Nation and that he presently is serving twenty-five years in state custody, at the James Crabtree Correctional Center in Helena, Oklahoma, under a judgment and sentence entered against him in Tulsa County District Court, “for crimes committed within the boundaries of the Muscogee Creek Nation [R]eservation.” Dkt. 1, at 1. Butler alleges he is “an Indian within the meaning of federal law” and that the State of Oklahoma (“the State”) unlawfully “detained, prosecuted, and incarcerated” him “for crimes occurring within the undisputed boundaries of an Indian reservation,” namely, the Muscogee Creek Nation Reservation, because his crimes were subject to federal prosecution under the Major Crimes Act (“MCA”), 18 U.S.C. § 1153. Id. at 3.
Butler further alleges he cannot seek relief from his allegedly unlawful detention in state court because the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (“OCCA”) has held that the decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma, 591 U.S., 140 S.Ct. 2452 (2020), does not apply retroactively. Id. at 4. The McGirt Court held that the land within the historical boundaries of the Muscogee Creek Nation Reservation is “Indian country” for purposes of federal law and that, “[a]s a result, the MCA applies to Oklahoma according to its usual terms: Only the federal government, not the State, may prosecute Indians for major crimes committed in Indian country.” 140 S.Ct. at 2459, 2468, 2474, 2478. The OCCA subsequently held that because McGirt “announced a new rule of criminal procedure,” the rule announced in McGirt “shall not apply retroactively to void a conviction that was final when McGirt was decided.” State ex rel. Matloff v. Wallace, 497 P.3d 686, 688-89 (Okla. Crim. App. 2021). Butler also alleges he cannot seek relief from his unlawful detention through a federal habeas action because this court previously dismissed as untimely his petition for writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Id. at 4; see Butler v. Nunn, No. 22-CV-0009-CVE-SH, 2022 WL 1697246 (N.D. Okla. Nov. 16, 2022) (unpublished) (). Butler thus contends he “is left only with mandamus as a means of enforcing federal law in this matter.” Dkt. 1, at 4.
Butler contends Respondents have a legal duty to enforce federal law and federal Indian treaties and thus have a “duty to remedy the illegal detention of Petitioner and others similarly situated in Oklahoma Department of Corrections custody.” Id. at 2-3.
Respondents move to dismiss the petition, under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and (b)(6), asserting that: (1) Butler filed it in the wrong venue; (2) Butler has not alleged sufficient facts to establish federal jurisdiction; and (3) even if venue is proper and this Court has jurisdiction to adjudicate the petition, Butler fails to state any claims on which relief may be granted. Dkt. 31.
“Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) permits a party to seek dismissal of a case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.” In re Riley, 365 F.Supp.3d 1195, 1198 (N.D. Okla. 2019). “Rule 12(b)(1) motions generally take one of two forms: (1) a facial attack on the sufficiency of the complaint's allegations as to subject matter jurisdiction; or (2) a challenge to the actual facts upon which subject matter jurisdiction is based.” Ruiz v. McDonnell, 299 F.3d 1173, 1180 (10th Cir. 2002). Respondents' motion appears to assert a facial attack. See Dkt. 31, at 8 (). The Court therefore accepts as true Butler's factual allegations and evaluates whether those allegations, standing alone, are sufficient to establish subject matter jurisdiction. See Paper, Allied-Indus., Chem. & Energy Workers Int'l Union v. Continental Carbon Co., 428 F.3d 1285, 1292 (10th Cir. 2005) ().
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) permits a party to seek dismissal when the facts alleged in the complaint fail to state a claim on which relief may be granted. “The Court's function in ruling on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion is not to weigh the evidence that the parties might present at trial, but to assess whether the plaintiff's complaint is legally sufficient to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.” Wright v. Am. Legion Dep't of Okla., Inc., 549 F.Supp.3d 1301, 1305 (N.D. Okla. 2021). The complaint must include “enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007). And, in assessing plausibility, the court must “accept the facts alleged in the complaint as true and view them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff.” Mayfield v. Bethards, 826 F.3d 1252, 1255 (10th Cir. 2016). But dismissal is appropriate “when the allegations in the complaint, however true, could not raise a claim of entitlement to relief.” Bell Atl. Corp., 550 U.S. at 558.
Applying these standards, the Court finds that venue is appropriate, that the Court has subject matter jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question jurisdiction) to consider Butler's request for a mandatory injunction under 5 U.S.C. § 706(1), and that Butler's petition must be dismissed for failure to state a claim on which relief may be granted.
Respondents first contend that venue is improper because Butler resides in the judicial district of the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma. Dkt. 31, at 2-3.
The Court disagrees. Venue in all civil actions brought in district courts of the United States is governed by 28 U.S.C. § 1391. Section 1391(e)(1) provides, in relevant part:
A civil action in which a defendant is an officer or employee of the United States or any agency thereof acting in his official capacity or under color of legal authority, or an agency of the United States, or the United States, may, except as otherwise provided by law, be brought in any judicial district in which (A) a defendant in the action resides, (B) a substantial part of the events or omissions giving rise to the claim occurred, or a substantial part of property that is the subject of the action is situated, or (C) the plaintiff resides if no real property is involved in the action.
28 U.S.C. § 1391(e)(1). Respondents argue that § 1391(e)(1)(C) controls here because Butler “admits that the [Respondents' respective agencies] reside in Washington, D.C.,” and “admits that he resides in the Western District of Oklahoma.” Dkt. 31, at 2-3. But Respondents' argument overlooks that the crux of Butler's complaint is that the State violated federal law because the Tulsa County District Court allegedly lacked criminal jurisdiction to prosecute and incarcerate Butler (and other similarly situated defendants) for crimes committed within Indian country that is located within Tulsa County and within the judicial district of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma. Dkt. 1, generally. Because “a substantial part of the events or omissions giving rise to [Butler's] claim occurred” in this judicial district, the Court finds that venue is proper under § 1391(e)(1)(B).
Next, Respondents contend that Butler has not alleged sufficient facts to invoke federal jurisdiction. Dkt. 31, at 3-4. Again, the Court disagrees. Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am., 511 U.S. 375, 377 (1994). “The party invoking federal jurisdiction has the burden to establish that it is proper, and ‘there is a presumption against its existence.'” McLaughlin v. Ford Motor Co., 603 F.Supp.3d 1079, 1081 (N.D. Okla. 2022) (quoting Salzer v. SSM Health Care of Okla., Inc., 762 F.3d 1130, 1134 (10th Cir. 2014)).
Butler identifies three potential bases for jurisdiction: 28 U.S.C § 1361, 5 U.S.C. § 706, and 28 U.S.C. § 1651. Dkt. 1, at 1. Two of these...
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