Frazier v. Hesson

• Decision Date: 30 March 1999
• Docket Number: No. 99-2194-D/V.,99-2194-D/V.
• Citation: 40 F.Supp.2d 957
• Parties: Leonard M. FRAZIER, Petitioner, v. Alton HESSON, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Tennessee

Page 957

40 F.Supp.2d 957

Leonard M. FRAZIER, Petitioner, v. Alton HESSON, Respondent.

No. 99-2194-D/V.

United States District Court, W.D. Tennessee, Western Division.

March 30, 1999.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Leonard M. Frazier, Henning, TN, pro se.

ORDER OF DISMISSAL ORDER DENYING CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY AND ORDER CERTIFYING APPEAL NOT TAKEN IN GOOD FAITH

DONALD, District Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

Petitioner, Leonard M. Frazier, an inmate at West Tennessee State Prison (WTSP) in Henning, Lauderdale County, Tennessee, who was formerly confined at the Hardeman County Correctional Facility (HCCF), has filed a habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, with a motion to proceed in forma pauperis. The motion is GRANTED. The Clerk shall record the respondent as Alton Hesson.¹

II. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Frazier, who is serving an unspecified state sentence for an unspecified crime, complains that he has been confined in involuntary administrative segregation (IAS) and transferred to a maximum security facility in violation of his due process rights, postponing the date on which he will be granted a parole hearing, and preventing him from earning sentence credits that can shorten the time until his release eligibility date. Frazier contends that in October of 1997 officials at HCCF, a lower security facility, accused him of various disciplinary violations, confined him to IAS, and then transferred him to WTSP. He contends that at some point a disciplinary hearing board conducted a hearing and found him not guilty of the disciplinary charges. Nevertheless, WTSP officials have continued to keep him in segregation at a maximum security classification. Frazier seeks a writ of habeas corpus directing his release from segregation and return to a lower security classification.

III. ANALYSIS

In general, an inmate does not have a liberty interest in assignment to a particular institution or to a particular security classification within that institution. Olim v. Wakinekona, 461 U.S. 238, 245, 103 S.Ct. 1741, 75 L.Ed.2d 813 (1983); Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 224-25, 96 S.Ct. 2532, 49 L.Ed.2d 451 (1976); Montanye v. Haymes, 427 U.S. 236, 243, 96 S.Ct. 2543, 49 L.Ed.2d 466 (1976); Moody v. Daggett, 429 U.S. 78, 88 n. 9, 97 S.Ct. 274, 50 L.Ed.2d 236 (1976); Newell v. Brown, 981 F.2d 880, 883 (6th Cir.1992); Beard v. Livesay, 798 F.2d 874, 876 (6th Cir.1986).

This case is another on the continuum on which many state prisoner issues eventually intersect: the line at which claims affecting merely a prisoner's liberty within confinement meet claims affecting the duration of that confinement. The analysis of these cases depends not only on the substantive claims asserted, but on the differing habeas remedies available to state prisoners.

Four Supreme Court decisions delineate this boundary: Edwards v. Balisok, 520 U.S. 641, 117 S.Ct. 1584, 1588-89, 137 L.Ed.2d 906 (1997); Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 483-86, 115 S.Ct. 2293, 132 L.Ed.2d 418 (1995); Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994); and Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 93 S.Ct. 1827, 36 L.Ed.2d 439 (1973). The scope of this intersection was first clearly delineated in Preiser, which involved attempts by various New York state prisoners to challenge prison disciplinary board decisions to deprive them of sentence credits. The Supreme Court reasoned that:

even if restoration of respondents' goodtime credits had merely shortened the length of their confinement, rather than required immediate discharge from that confinement, their suits would still have been within the core of habeas corpus in attacking the very duration of their physical confinement itself. It is beyond doubt, then, that the respondents could have sought and obtained fully effective relief through federal habeas corpus proceedings.

411 U.S. at 487-88, 93 S.Ct. 1827. The federal courts have wrestled in the succeeding twenty-four years over how to distinguish between prisoner claims that seek relief from some condition within an undisputed period of confinement and those seeking to affect the actual duration of that confinement. As the implications of Preiser have percolated through the appellate courts, the Supreme Court and Courts of Appeal have limited certain types of claims to presentation through a habeas petition, limited others to relief available in a damages action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and held, in Heck and Balisok, that habeas relief is a prerequisite to presentation of certain civil rights actions.

One of the remaining undefined areas of this boundary is which federal habeas statute provides the prisoner the basis for a petition attacking the revocation of sentence credits or the extension of an early release date after he exhausts his available state remedy. In enunciating the statutory basis for this habeas remedy, the Preiser court referred to both of the federal habeas statutes, 28 U.S.C. §§ 2241, 2254, but without distinguishing between them. The Court then applied both the explicit exhaustion requirements of § 2254(b) and the implicit comity-based exhaustion principles of § 2241 cases such as Braden v. 30th Jud. Cir. Ct. of Kentucky, 410 U.S. 484, 93 S.Ct. 1123, 35 L.Ed.2d 443 (1973), without specifically distinguishing which applied to a habeas petition seeking restoration of either sentence credits or a revoked early-release date. Preiser clarified that any demand for restoration of sentence credits or an early-release date must be sought through a habeas petition.

[W]hen a state prisoner is challenging the very fact or duration of his physical imprisonment, and the relief he seeks is a determination that he is entitled to immediate release or a speedier release from that imprisonment, his sole federal remedy is a writ of habeas corpus.

411 U.S. at 500, 93 S.Ct. 1827. The Court did not distinguish, however, whether the writ should be sought under § 2241 or § 2254.

When Preiser was decided in 1973, any distinction between § 2241 and § 2254 was of little more than academic interest or importance in this context. As of April 24, 1996, however, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), P.L. 104-132, Title I, § 102, 110 Stat. 1220 (Apr. 24, 1996), elevated that distinction to a preeminent position. Actions under § 2254 are now subject to a one-year statute of limitation. See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d).² They are also subject to successive-petition limits, 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b), and various presumptions that favor upholding the state court's determination. Id. at § 2244(c), 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), (e). Furthermore, appeals of district court orders in petitions brought under the two different statutes are not necessarily subject to the same procedural rules.³

Federal courts have heretofore operated by assuming the applicability of a habeas remedy in a case such as this without detailed analysis of the specific foundation for that remedy. The Sixth Circuit has issued a number of unpublished opinions citing Preiser as authority for the proposition that § 2254 provides the remedy for a prisoner claiming that a violation of due process in a prison disciplinary proceeding has deprived him of sentence or good-time credits. Carney v. Sundquist, No. 96-5320, 1997 WL 135619 (6th Cir. Mar.24, 1997) (perfunctorily applying Heck and Preiser to sentence credit claim); Barnes v. Lewis, No. 93-5698, 1993 WL 515483 (6th Cir. Dec. 10, 1993) (following Preiser); Pettigrew v. Bass, No. 92-5373, 1992 WL 245916 (6th Cir. Sept.29, 1992) (applying Preiser and holding Tennessee prisoner's challenge to early release date extension must be made under § 2254); Privett v. Pellegrin, No. 85-5049, 1986 WL 16899 (6th Cir. Apr. 17, 1986) (interpreting Preiser as holding that habeas petition seeking restoration of sentence-credits is governed by § 2254 exhaustion requirement). Cf. Branham v. Koehler, No. 89-1709, 1989 WL 136116 (6th Cir. Nov.13, 1989) (following Preiser and holding that petitioner failed to exhaust state remedies before filing petition under § 2254). These cases, while not binding because unpublished, nevertheless indicate that the Sixth Circuit considers this matter resolved in light of Preiser.⁴

However, while informative, these cases do not directly address the issue presented here, whether habeas is available to challenge a prisoner's confinement in IAS. The closest Sixth Circuit case is Gunnett v. Mayor, No. 91-1329, 1991 WL 182640 (6th Cir. Sept.18, 1991), which applied Preiser and held that a challenge to a disciplinary conviction that resulted only in a potential postponement of parole was not cognizable under § 2254.

Examining the language of the two statutes provides no enlightenment. Section 2254 states that "a district court shall entertain an application for a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court only on the ground that he is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a). Section 2241 states: "The writ of habeas corpus shall not extend to a prisoner unless — ... He is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States ...." Arguably, a prisoner complaining of more onerous conditions of confinement is not attacking "custody" imposed by a state court, and, therefore, cannot invoke § 2254.

In this circumstance, the Court pretermits the issue. Frazier should not be able to invoke either § 2254 or § 2241 to attack his confinement to segregation or assignment to a maximum security classification prison because neither condition constitutes "custody" within the meaning required by the Constitution for a federal court to exercise habeas jurisdiction. Rather, as explained below, these are merely changes in the conditions of confinement pursuant to an administrative decision by prison officials.

In Sandin, 515 U.S. at 483-86, 115 S.Ct. 2293, the Supreme Court clarified by addressing...