Guerra Pleitez v. Johns

• Decision Date: 19 August 2021
• Docket Number: 1:21-cv-507
• Parties: Francis Yunni Guerra Pleitez, Petitioner, v. T. Johns et al., Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Michigan

Francis Yunni Guerra Pleitez, Petitioner, v. T. Johns et al., Respondent.

No. 1:21-cv-507

United States District Court, W.D. Michigan, Southern Division

August 19, 2021

OPINION

Paul L. Maloney United States District Judge

This is a habeas corpus action brought by a federal prisoner under 28 U.S.C. § 2241. A court must promptly order an answer or grant the writ under § 2241, “unless it appears from the application that the applicant or person detained is not entitled thereto.” 28 U.S.C. § 2243. After undertaking the review required by § 2243, the Court concludes that the petition must be dismissed, because Petitioner the Court does not have subject matter jurisdiction to consider Petitioner's requests for relief.

Discussion

I. Factual allegations

Petitioner Francis Yunni Guerra Pleitez is incarcerated at the North Lake Correctional Institution in Baldwin, Michigan. During the summer of 2015, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Petitioner entered a guilty plea to one count of conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking of children by force, fraud, or coercion, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1594(c). United States v. Pleitez, No 4:14-cr-497 (S.D. Tex.) (Plea Tr., Doc. 329.) On August 17 2016, the court sentenced Petitioner to 210 months imprisonment. Petitioner filed an appeal regarding the restitution amount ordered by way of an amended judgment. The court of appeals agreed with Petitioner and vacated the initial judgment and remanded for entry of the restitution amount originally agreed upon or appointment of counsel to permit Petitioner to litigate the restitution amount. On December 12, 2017, the court issued an amended sentence that incorporated the restitution amount initially agreed upon the term of imprisonment, however, remained the same.

About a year after the amended judgment of sentence was entered, Petitioner filed a motion to vacate under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. By order entered August 8, 2019, the court denied relief.

On September 17, 2020, Petitioner filed an emergency motion for compassionate release pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1), raising the same issues he raises in the present petition. By order entered September 25, 2020, the court denied relief. On June 10, 2021, Petitioner filed this habeas corpus petition (ECF No. 1) and a supporting brief (ECF No. 3).

It does not appear that English is Petitioner's first language. The petition is scattered and confusing. Nonetheless, it appears that Petitioner seeks the very same relief that he sought by way of his motion for compassionate release filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas. He contends that he is medically vulnerable, that the COVID-19 pandemic poses significant risks to his health and safety, and that the persons holding him in custody do not comply with Centers for Disease Control guidelines. Petitioner also suggests that, because he is in a facility run privately by the Geo-Group, Inc. for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, he is held in conditions that are the equivalent of “modern slavery.” (Pet'r's Br., ECF No. 3, PageID.28.)

Petitioner asked the warden of his facility to seek compassionate release on his behalf. That request was denied, in part because Petitioner is subject to a detainer order from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Upon Petitioner's release, he will be detained by ICE pending his deportation. This is certainly not a surprise to Petitioner. He acknowledged that inevitable consequence as part of his plea in the Texas court. He does not contend that the detainer was improperly or unconstitutionally lodged; but he does argue that denying him compassionate release because of the detainer violates his constitutional right to equal protection of the laws. He identifies several other persons detained by the BOP who have been afforded compassionate release.

Moreover, Petitioner suggests that he, as an alien-even an alien in the country illegally-is entitled to due process. He suggests that he has been denied due process; but he does not say how. He specifically acknowledged in the Texas proceedings that he was not a citizen of the United States and that his plea would lead to his deportation. United States v. Pleitez, No. 4:14-cr-497 (S.D. Tex.) (Plea Tr., Doc. 329, P. 6.)

II. Discussion

Section 2241 of Title 28, United States Code, limits the federal court's power to grant the writ of habeas corpus to five circumstances. The only circumstance that applies to Petitioner is that “[h]e is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States . . . .” 28 U.S.C. § 2241(c)(3).^[1] Petitioner argues that the failure to give him the remedy of compassionate release or home confinement violates the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause, as well as the statutes that provide those remedies. Petitioner's claims are not properly before this Court.

In United States v. Jones, 980 F.3d 1098 (6th Cir. 2020), the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals provided background regarding the “compassionate release” remedy that is helpful to analysis of Petitioner's claims:

The “compassionate release” provision of 18 U.S.C. § 3582 allows district courts to reduce the sentences of incarcerated persons in “extraordinary and compelling” circumstances. 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A). For over three decades, § 3582(c)(1)(A) allowed only the Bureau of Prisons (“BOP”) to file motions for compassionate release. Because the BOP rarely did so, few compassionate release cases reached the federal courts. This drought of compassion concluded in 2020, when the forces of law and nature collided. The First Step Act of 2018's provision allowing incarcerated persons to file their own § 3582(c)(1)(A) motions coupled with COVID-19's pernicious presence in federal prisons triggered a massive upswing in imprisoned persons seeking compassionate release; 10, 940 persons applied for compassionate release in the first three months of the pandemic alone.¹ Michael Jones is one of these legion petitioners. Jones is serving a ten-year sentence at Federal Correctional Institution Elkton, where one out of every four imprisoned persons has tested positive for COVID-19.2 In his § 3582(c)(1)(A) motion, Jones's medical ailments-which expose him to COVID-19-related health complications-comprise the crux of his request for a sentence reduction.

The First Step Act and COVID-19 have redefined the compassionate release landscape. Because this court had little opportunity to examine compassionate release before this, technical questions regarding § 3582(c)(1)(A)'s requirements and standards of review long went unanswered. Our recent decision in United States v. Ruffin, 978 F.3d 1000 (6th Cir. 2020), unravels some of these mysteries. In lockstep with Ruffin, we hold that sentence-modification decisions pursuant to § 3582(c)(1)(A) embody a three-step inquiry: district courts must “find” both that “extraordinary and compelling reasons warrant [a sentence] reduction” and that “such a reduction is consistent with applicable policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission” before considering all relevant sentencing factors listed in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). We resolve a debate that we first teed up in Ruffin, holding that U.S. Sentencing Guideline § 1B1.13 is not an “applicable” policy statement in cases where incarcerated persons file their own motions in district court for compassionate release. We also hold that the deferential abuse-of-discretion standard requires district courts to supply specific factual reasons for their compassionate release decisions.

¹ See Keri Blakinger & Joseph Neff, Thousands of Sick Federal Prisoners Sought Compassionate Release. 98 Percent Were Denied, THE MARSHALL PROJECT (Oct. 7, 2020, 6:00 AM), https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/10/07/thousands-of-sick-federal-prisoners-sought-compassio-nate-release-98-percent-were-denied (citing data provided by BOP showing that 10, 940 federal prisoners applied for compassionate release between March and May 2020). The BOP has not provided data on how many persons have filed for compassionate release since May 2020. See Id. But the BOP updates its website every day with a running total of “Compassionate Releases / Reduction in Sentences” since the First Step Act's passage in December 2018. See Federal Bureau of Prisons, First Step Act, https://www.bop.gov/inmates/fsa/index.jsp (last visited Nov. 2, 2020). On November 2, 2020, BOP's website represented that there have been 1, 992 grants since December 2018. Id. Because the Sentencing Commission has reported that there were twenty-four grants of compassionate release in 2018 and 145 grants in 2019, see U.S. SENT'G COMM'N, THE FIRST STEP ACT OF 2018: ONE YEAR OF IMPLEMENTATION (Aug. 2020) at 47 & n.143, we can safely assume that there has been an unprecedented surge in both filings and grants of compassionate release motions in 2020.

Jones, 980 F.3d at 1100-02 (some footnotes omitted).

Even though the First Step Act permits Petitioner to directly seek compassionate release from the district court, Petitioner is still required to first seek relief from the BOP. 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A). Petitioner raises constitutional challenges that apply to both aspects of his quest for compassionate release-his attempt to get the BOP to seek compassionate release on Petitioner's behalf and, after the BOP declined, his request for that relief from the district court. Neither decision, however, is reviewable under 28 U.S.C. § 2241.

In Crowe v. United States, 430 Fed.Appx. 484 (6th Cir. 2011), the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that “a federal court lacks authority to review a decision by the BOP to not seek a compassionate release for an inmate.” Id. at 485. Moreover, the court...