Ellis v. Blanckensee
| Decision Date | 04 March 2022 |
| Docket Number | CV-20-00139-TUC-JAS (EJM) |
| Parties | Rene Ellis, Jr., Petitioner, v. Barbara Von Blanckensee, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Arizona |
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
Pending before the Court is Petitioner Rene Ellis, Jr.'s pro se Petition Under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 for a Writ of Habeas Corpus by a Person in Federal Custody (“Petition”) (Doc. 1). Respondent filed a Response (Doc. 13), and Petitioner did not file a reply.
As an initial matter, the Court notes that the proper respondent in an action for habeas corpus is the Petitioner's custodian, who, at the time this action was filed, was Barbara Von Blanckensee, warden of United States Penitentiary-Tucson. See 28 U.S.C. § 2242; Rumsfeld v. Padilla, 542 U.S. 426, 435-36 (2004). The Court takes judicial notice that Petitioner is currently incarcerated at USP-Thomson, in Illinois.[1] The Court will substitute the warden of USP-Thomson, Andrew Ciolli, as Respondent pursuant to Rule 25(d) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
Pursuant to Rules 72.1 and 72.2 of the Local Rules of Civil Procedure this matter was referred to Magistrate Judge Markovich for a Report and Recommendation. For the reasons discussed below the undersigned Magistrate Judge recommends that the District Court deny and dismiss the Petition.
Petitioner is serving an aggregate sentence of 71 years and 4 months imprisonment with a projected release date of August 9, 2065. (Doc. 13 Ex. A Attach. 1).
Petitioner filed his pro se Petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 for a Writ of Habeas Corpus on March 24, 2020. (Doc. 1). Petitioner alleges four grounds for relief. In Ground One Petitioner asserts that his Fifth Amendment due process rights were violated during disciplinary hearings for ten separate incident reports (“IR”) that resulted in the loss of good conduct time and privileges because he was denied a psychological evaluation, exculpatory video evidence, exculpatory inmate witnesses, access to confidential informant and Special Investigation Services (“SIS”) files for exculpatory information, and a fair and impartial disciplinary hearing officer (“DHO”). In Ground Two Petitioner alleges the conduct described in Ground One violates the First Amendment and 42 U.S.C. § 1997d. In Ground Three Petitioner alleges the conduct described in Ground One violates the Eighth Amendment and further alleges that he is in imminent danger because of the COVID-19 pandemic and is being denied access to medical care, soap, face masks, gloves, and sanitation supplies. In Ground Four Petitioner alleges his Fifth Amendment rights were violated because he has never received a Segregation Review Official (“SRO”) hearing while in the Special Housing Unit (“SHU”). Petitioner admits that he did not exhaust his administrative remedies for any of his claims for relief because prison staff allegedly threatened and harassed him when he requested forms. Petitioner requests that the Court appoint counsel, hold an evidentiary hearing, expunge the IRs listed in Ground One, and order his immediate release from the SHU.
This Court previously dismissed Grounds Two and Three of the petition because Petitioner's allegations in those claims relate to his conditions of confinement and thus are not properly raised in a § 2241 petition. See Doc. 7 at 2.
Respondent argues that the Petition should be denied because Petitioner failed to exhaust his administrative remedies for nine of the ten incident reports that he challenges and that regardless of exhaustion, the Petition is meritless. (Doc. 13).
As to Petitioner's due process claim regarding the disciplinary hearings for the ten IRs listed in the Petition, the undersigned finds that Petitioner failed to exhaust his administrative remedies as to eight of the ten IRs and further that Petitioner's claim lacks merit. As to Petitioner's due process claim regarding the alleged denial of an SRO hearing during his placement in the SHU, the undersigned finds that Petitioner failed to properly exhaust this claim and further that the claim lacks merit. Accordingly, for the reasons explained below, the undersigned finds that the Petition should be dismissed.
“Federal courts are always ‘under an independent obligation to examine their own jurisdiction,' and a federal court may not entertain an action over which it has no jurisdiction.” Hernandez v. Campbell, 204 F.3d 861, 865 (9th Cir. 2000) (quoting FW/PBS, Inc. v. City of Dallas, 493 U.S. 215, 231 (1990)). “Generally, motions to contest the legality of a sentence must be filed under § 2255 in the sentencing court, while petitions that challenge the manner, location, or conditions of a sentence's execution must be brought pursuant to § 2241 in the custodial court.” Id. at 864. Additionally, the judicial power of this and all federal courts is limited to actual cases or controversies. U.S. Const. art. III; see also Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83, 94 (1968); Munoz v. Rowland, 104 F.3d 1096, 1097 (9th Cir. 1997). A petition for writ of habeas corpus is moot where a petitioner's claim for “relief cannot be ‘redressed by a favorable . . . decision' of the court issuing a writ of habeas corpus.” Burnett v. Lampert, 432 F.3d 996, 1001 (9th Cir. 2005) (quoting Spencer v. Kenna, 523 U.S. 1, 7 (1998)). Therefore, a proper characterization of the petition is necessary to determine jurisdiction.
Here, Petitioner alleges that he was denied due process during disciplinary hearing proceedings resulting in loss of privileges and good conduct time and was further denied due process because he never received an SRO hearing while housed in the SHU. As such, Petitioner is challenging the manner, location, or condition of the execution of his sentence. It is well established that a § 2241 petition is the proper vehicle through which a federal prisoner challenges the manner or execution of a sentence. See, e.g., Hernandez, 204 F.3d at 864; Tucker v. Carlson, 925 F.2d 330, 331 (9th Cir. 1991) ().
At the time of filing the Petition, Petitioner was incarcerated at USP-Tucson in Arizona, and the Petition challenges the manner in which Petitioner's sentence was being executed in the District of Arizona. However, Petitioner is presently incarcerated at USP- Thomson. While “jurisdiction attaches on the initial filing for habeas corpus relief, and it is not destroyed by a transfer of the petitioner and the accompanying custodial change[, ]” Francis v. Rison, 894 F.2d 353, 354 (9th Cir. 1990) (citation omitted), “[d]istrict courts are limited to granting habeas relief ‘within their respective jurisdictions.'” Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. at 442 (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 2241(a)). Thus, “in habeas challenges to present physical confinement-‘core challenges'-the default rule is that the proper respondent is the warden of the facility where the prisoner is being held, not the Attorney General or some other remote supervisory official.” Id. at 435. “The court issuing the writ must have personal jurisdiction over the custodian[, because w]ithout such jurisdiction, the court has no authority to direct the actions of the restraining authority.” Malone v. Calderon, 165 F.3d 1234, 1237 (9th Cir. 1999). Here, the undersigned finds that the Court presumably lacks personal jurisdiction over Petitioner's current custodian at USP-Thomson, which is located in the Northern District of Illinois. See Singh v. Wolf, 2020 WL 4455468, at *3 (D. Ariz. Mar. 31, 2020) (“the district court's habeas jurisdiction is limited to the district's territory, such jurisdiction is determined by personal jurisdiction over the respondent within such territory (without benefit of long-arm service), and the proper respondent is normally the local warden where the petitioner is detained”), report and recommendation adopted, 2020 WL 2611208 (D. Ariz. May 22, 2020); Divine v. Chavez, 2009 WL 3722994, at *6 (D. Ariz. Nov. 4, 2009) ().
While the Court could transfer this action to any other such court in which the action could have been brought, the undersigned finds that it is not in the interests of justice to transfer this matter. See Miller v. Hambrick, 905 F.2d 259, 262-63 (9th Cir. 1990) ().[2]An inmate may be transferred to a different institution at any time, and the undersigned is mindful of avoiding a “ping-pong” effect where the § 2241 petition is transferred to a new court each time the petitioner is designated to a new institution. Moreover, as explained below, regardless of whether this action may be considered moot in this Court, the undersigned recommends that the Petition be dismissed for lack of exhaustion and further be denied on the merits.
i. In General
“As a prudential matter, courts require that habeas petitioners exhaust all available judicial and administrative remedies before seeking relief under § 2241.” Ward v Chavez, 678 F.3d 1042, 1045 (9th Cir. 2012). “The requirement that federal prisoners exhaust administrative remedies before filing a habeas corpus petition was judicially created; it is not a statutory requirement.” Brown v. Rison, 895 F.2d 533, 535 (9th Cir. 1990), overruled on other grounds by Reno v. Koray, 515...
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