Koss v. Holm

• Decision Date: 31 May 2002
• Docket Number: No. 02-2151-D/V.,02-2151-D/V.
• Citation: 204 F.Supp.2d 1099
• Parties: James KOOS, Petitioner, v. Michael HOLM, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Tennessee

204 F.Supp.2d 1099

James KOOS, Petitioner, v. Michael HOLM, Respondent.

No. 02-2151-D/V.

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

May 31, 2002.

James T. Koos, Whiteville, TN, pro se.

ORDER DENYING INJUNCTION TO PREVENT TRANSFER ORDER DENYING MOTION TO RENOUNCE CITIZENSHIP ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR DEPORTATION ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR ATTENDANCE ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR APPOINTMENT OF COUNSEL ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR PROSPECTIVE INJUNCTIVE RELIEF ORDER OF DISMISSAL ORDER DENYING CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY AND ORDER CERTIFYING APPEAL NOT TAKEN IN GOOD FAITH

DONALD, District Judge.

Petitioner, James Koos, an inmate at the West Tennessee Detention Facility (WTDF), has filed irregular documents with the Court. The WTDF, which is owned by Corrections Corporation of America, is a privately operated penal facility in Mason, Tennessee. WTDF houses federal pre-trial detainees under a contract with the United States Marshal Service and state inmates under contracts with individual jurisdictions. The petitioner has paid the filing fee of five dollars, the correct amount for a habeas petition.

The Clerk of Court is directed to record the respondent as Michael Holm.¹ The Clerk of Court shall not issue any process.

Petitioner alleges that he is improperly confined at the WTDF. Although the irregular documents are somewhat vague on the exact nature of the relationship between petitioner's current custodian and the State of Wisconsin, this Court is well aware from numerous prior lawsuits in this district that CCA houses Wisconsin prisoners at WTDF under a contract with the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (WDOC). Petitioner contends that by transferring him to a private prison outside the state of Wisconsin, Wisconsin has waived any jurisdiction over him, entitling him to unconditional release. Additionally, petitioner filed a motion requesting that this Court direct the United States Attorney General to allow plaintiff to renounce his United States citizenship and to deport him to his country of choice.

Since Wisconsin contracted with CCA to house its prisoners, this Court has had occasion well over a dozen times to consider claims that the transfer of a Wisconsin prisoner from an institution operated by the Wisconsin Department of Corrections to a CCA prison in another state abrogates the original sentence and entitles the prisoner to release. This Court has uniformly rejected these claims. See, e.g., Donaldson v. Figeuroa, No. 00-1215 (W.D.Tenn. July 31, 2000); Smith v. Pitzer, No. 00-1170 (W.D.Tenn. June 19, 2000); Washington v. Pitzer, No. 00-1151 (W.D.Tenn. May 26, 2000); Day v. Pitzer, No. 00-1140 (W.D.Tenn. May 19, 2000); Eastman v. Holm, No. 00-2383-D/V (W.D.Tenn. May 9, 2000); Edmonds v. Holm, No. 00-2199-G/Bre (W.D.Tenn. Mar. 14, 2000); Page v. Pitzer, No. 99-1328 (W.D.Tenn. Dec. 30, 1999); Belton v. Pitzer, No. 99-1311 (W.D.Tenn. Nov. 23, 1999); Sanders v. Pitzer, No. 99-1290 (W.D.Tenn. June 19, 2000); Nickl v. Pitzer, No. 99-1198 (W.D.Tenn. Sept. 2, 1999); Sturdevant v. Pitzer, No. 99-1189 (W.D.Tenn. Sept. 2, 1999); Eckert v. Pitzer, No. 99-1189 (W.D.Tenn. July 30, 1999); McClain v. Pitzer, No. 99-1072 (W.D.Tenn. Apr. 28, 1999); Schaitel v. Pitzer, No. 99-1034 (W.D.Tenn. Feb. 22, 1999).

Since Koos asserts a right to complete release from confinement, he seeks relief that is only available through a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 500, 93 S.Ct. 1827, 36 L.Ed.2d 439 (1973). Insofar as the waiver theory that has been repeatedly rejected by this Court, the Court will repeat the analysis here. An inmate does not have a liberty interest in assignment to a particular 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). In Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 564-71, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974), the Supreme Court identified the procedural requirements prison officials must adopt to satisfy due process when depriving a prisoner of various liberty interests, including deprivation of sentence credits and confinement to segregation. In Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U.S. 460, 472, 103 S.Ct. 864, 74 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983), the Court limited the Wolff requirements applicable to purely administrative, rather than punitive segregation, but broadened the scope of federal court authority over prison administration by recognizing that the mandatory language of state regulations could create liberty interests protected by due process requirements. Courts were required to consider whether "the repeated use of explicitly mandatory language in connection with requiring specific substantive predicates demands a conclusion that the State [or federal government] has created a protected liberty interest." Hewitt, 459 U.S. at 472, 103 S.Ct. 864. In Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 484-87, 115 S.Ct. 2293, 132 L.Ed.2d 418 (1995), however, the Court rejected Hewitt and much of the lower-court jurisprudence that relied on Wolff. Without explicitly overruling Hewitt itself, Sandin returned to the question left open in Wolff, 418 U.S. at 564-71, 94 S.Ct. 2963: whether inmates even have a liberty interest in freedom from segregation, punitive or administrative. The Court rejected Hewitt's methodology and concluded that they do not.

The time has come to return to the due process principles we believe were correctly established and applied in Wolff and Meachum. Following Wolff, we recognize that States may under certain circumstances create liberty interests which are protected by the Due Process Clause. See also Board of Pardons v. Allen, 482 U.S. 369, 107 S.Ct. 2415, 96 L.Ed.2d 303 (1987). But these interests will be generally limited to freedom from restraint which, while not exceeding the sentence in such an unexpected manner as to give rise to protection by the Due Process Clause of its own force, see, e.g., Vitek[ v. Jones, 445 U.S. 480,] 493, 100 S.Ct. 1254, 63 L.Ed.2d 552 [(1980)] (transfer to mental hospital), and Washington[ v. Harper, 494 U.S. 210,] 221-222, 110 S.Ct. 1028, 108 L.Ed.2d 178 [(1990)] (involuntary administration of psychotropic drugs), nonetheless imposes atypical and significant hardship on the inmate in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life.

Conner asserts, incorrectly, that any state action taken for a punitive reason encroaches upon a liberty interest under the Due Process Clause even in the absence of any state regulation. Neither Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979), nor Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651, 97 S.Ct. 1401, 51 L.Ed.2d 711 (1977), requires such a rule.... We hold that Conner's discipline in segregated confinement did not present the type of atypical, significant deprivation in which a state might conceivably create a liberty interest.... We hold, therefore, that neither the Hawaii prison regulation in question, nor the Due Process Clause itself, afforded Conner a protected liberty interest that would entitle him to the procedural protections set forth in Wolff. The regime to which he was subjected as a result of the misconduct hearing was within the range of confinement to be normally expected for one serving an indeterminate term of 30 years to life.

Sandin, 515 U.S. at 483-84, 486, 487, 115 S.Ct. 2293 (footnotes and some citations omitted).

Sandin thus focuses not on the content of regulations, but on the "nature of the deprivation" visited upon the inmate. Id. at 481, 115 S.Ct. 2293. Absent "atypical and significant hardship," a change in the conditions of confinement simply does not inflict a cognizable injury that merits constitutional protection, regardless of the motivation of the official when making the change. Id. at 484-86, 115 S.Ct. 2293. Thus language in state laws or prison regulations no longer creates a liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause. Rimmer-Bey v. Brown, 62 F.3d 789, 790-91 (6th Cir.1995). Rather, from now on, when analyzing due process claims federal courts look neither to state laws or regulations to ascertain whether they create a liberty interest in connection with a housing assignment, imposition of disciplinary penalties, reclassification, or a prison transfer, nor to the subjective motives of prison officials for effecting such changes. Instead, the Court focuses on the nature of the deprivation itself.

After [Sandin], prisoners may no longer peruse state statutes and prison regulations searching for the grail of limited discretion. Instead, a prisoner has a liberty interest only in "freedom[s] from restraint ... impos[ing] atypical and significant hardship on the inmate in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life." Id. at ___, 115 S.Ct. at 2294.

Orellana v. Kyle, 65 F.3d 29, 31 (5th Cir. 1995). According to Orellana, only deprivations that clearly impinge on the duration of confinement, will henceforth even possibly qualify for constitutional "liberty" status. Id. at 31-32.

Under Sandin, the allegation that petitioner was transferred to and confined at WTDF does not amount to an allegation of "atypical and significant hardship" "in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life" and thus does not allege the deprivation of any liberty interest. See, e.g., Mackey v. Dyke, 111 F.3d 460, 462-63 (6th Cir.1997). This conclusion is clear from Sandin's reliance on Wakinekona, 461 U.S. at 249-50, 103 S.Ct. 1741, in which the Court held that an inmate's transfer to California from a Hawaii prison did not work a substantial hardship or deprive him of a constitutional right. If a six-thousand mile transfer is not atypical and significant, neither is a seven-hundred mile...