Norris v. State of Ga.

• Citation: 522 F.2d 1006
• Decision Date: 24 July 1975
• Docket Number: No. 73-2313,73-2313
• Parties: Gerald D. NORRIS, Appellee, v. The STATE OF GEORGIA et al., Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 1006

522 F.2d 1006

Gerald D. NORRIS, Appellee, v. The STATE OF GEORGIA et al., Appellants.

No. 73-2313.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued Feb. 5, 1975.

Decided July 24, 1975.

Richard N. League, Asst. Atty. Gen. of North Carolina (Rufus L. Edmisten, Atty. Gen. of North Carolina, on brief), for appellants.

Robert M. Ariail, Columbia, N. C. (Court-appointed), for appellee.

Before WINTER, RUSSELL and FIELD, Circuit Judges.

DONALD RUSSELL, Circuit Judge:

Gerald D. Norris, a North Carolina prisoner, filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the District Court for the Western District of North Carolina seeking dismissal of detainers lodged against him by the States of Georgia and Louisiana. The detainers were based on criminal charges pending in those States against the petitioner. The defendants named in the petition were the Warden of North Carolina prison having custody of the petitioner, the Supervisor of Combined Records for the North Carolina Department of Correction, and the States of North Carolina, Georgia and Louisiana. In his petition, Norris alleged that the detainers adversely affected his status in the North Carolina prison. He also sought dismissal of (and an injunction against the prosecution of) the underlying criminal charges pending in Georgia and Louisiana because of the claimed failure of those States to afford him a speedy trial as guaranteed under the Sixth Amendment.

With the filing of the petition, the District Court issued an Order directed to the Attorney General of North Carolina requiring him "to answer and show cause why the relief prayed for in the petition ought not to be granted." The Order made no reference to any respondent other than the North Carolina Attorney General. No service Or even an attempt at service of process on the other named respondents in the proceedings was made. All that was done by way of purported service of process was the mailing of the Court's Order and a copy of the petition to the Attorney General of North Carolina.

The Attorney General of North Carolina filed a response as directed by the Court. He admitted that petitioner's status as a prisoner had been adversely affected by the interstate detainers, but asserted that the action, so far as it sought dismissal of the pending charges on speedy trial grounds, should be brought in the federal district courts in Georgia and Louisiana. Despite a reference to "respondents" at the beginning of his response, it is obvious that the Attorney General's return was made only on behalf of himself as the sole person to whom the Court's Order was directed, For throughout his answer he used only the singular term "respondent." At no time thereafter did the North Carolina Attorney General purport to represent the States of Georgia and Louisiana.

Subsequent to the North Carolina Attorney General's response the District Court filed an order holding that it had jurisdiction over the cause of action to determine both the Validity of the criminal charges pending in the foreign jurisdictions upon which the detainers were based, as well as the Effect to be given such detainers in connection with petitioner's status as a North Carolina prisoner. ¹ It concluded this order with a Rule directed to the respondents, which presumably included the respondent States, to show cause why the unnamed "prosecuting authorities of Georgia and Louisiana" should not be permanently enjoined and barred from prosecuting petitioner on the underlying criminal charges. Copies of the order and petition were mailed to the Attorneys General of Georgia and Louisiana. This mailing represented the only attempt by way of notice or service of process to acquire In personam jurisdiction over the States of Georgia and Louisiana. ²

Louisiana made no response following the mailing of the copy of the Court's order. Georgia did, however, file a limited response denying the jurisdiction of the Court. It asked dismissal of the proceedings for want of proper service, ³ and because of its sovereign immunity to suit. ⁴ It also pleaded that the State of Georgia was not a proper party to the petition since it did not, itself, file detainers that function belonging to a particular court of that State. ⁵ It also asserted that the petitioner had not complied with the procedures of the Interstate Agreement on Detainers Act by failing to direct his request for final disposition of the charges to both the prosecuting official and the appropriate court of the prosecuting officer's jurisdiction. ⁶ It concluded its response with a request in the alternative, assuming its plea to the jurisdiction of the Court was denied, for a change of venue to the Northern District of Georgia. This motion was submitted by the Attorney General of Georgia for disposition without oral argument.

In its final order, the District Court summarily dismissed the State of Georgia's motions, directed the North Carolina respondents to redetermine petitioner's institutional status without reference to any detainer and permanently restrained the Georgia and Louisiana authorities from prosecuting petitioner on the charges underlying the detainers. For the reasons set out below, we affirm as much of that order as eliminates the adverse impact of the detainers on petitioner's institutional status, but reverse that portion of the order barring Georgia and Louisiana from prosecuting petitioner on the untried charges upon which the detainers were based.

The law is too well settled to permit dispute over the proposition that a federal district court in the state or district of confinement may entertain by habeas corpus a prisoner's challenge to the adverse effects on the conditions of his confinement resulting from the filing of a foreign detainer. Nelson v. George (1970), 399 U.S. 224, 90 S.Ct. 1963, 26 L.Ed.2d 578. Thus, in the instant appeal, the District Court had both subject matter jurisdiction And the authority by reason of In personam jurisdiction to direct the North Carolina officials by way of affirmative injunctive relief to give no effect to the Georgia and Louisiana detainers so far as petitioner's status as a North Carolina prisoner was concerned. ⁷

We think, however, that the challenge to the validity of the underlying charges stands on a different footing for under the facts of this case, the District Court had no capacity, within its geographic boundaries, to enforce its order a power dependent upon the valid exercise of In personam jurisdiction. At no point in its orders did the District Court indicate the circumstances under which it presumed to have acquired In personam jurisdiction of the States of Georgia and Louisiana and their prosecuting officials. In asserting "jurisdiction" over petitioner's attack on the validity of the pending criminal charges, the District Court instead relied on Braden v. 30th Judicial Circuit Court of Ky. (1973), 410 U.S. 484, 93 S.Ct. 1123, 35 L.Ed.2d 443. Braden, in stark contrast to the facts of this appeal, involved an Alabama prisoner who attacked the validity of a Kentucky detainer based on pending criminal charges By petitioning for a writ of habeas corpus in the federal district court of Kentucky, the demanding state. But the Kentucky District Court's capacity to enforce its order was not questioned for, as the Court expressly noted, the "respondent was properly served" within the Western District of Kentucky, which was his domicile for personal jurisdiction purposes. ⁸ Thus Braden dealt only with the question of the District Court's exercise of subject matter jurisdiction as imposed by the language of the federal habeas corpus statute, 28 U.S.C. § 2241(a), requiring the petitioner to be "in custody" within the jurisdiction of the issuing court. By holding that the state detaining the petitioner in immediate confinement acted as an agent for the demanding state that filed the detainer, the Braden Court avoided the "slavish application" of the rule of Ahrens v. Clark (1948), 335 U.S. 188, 68 S.Ct. 1443, 92 L.Ed. 1898, which would have required the petitioner to file in the state of his confinement to satisfy the habeas corpus statutory requirements Relating to subject matter jurisdiction i. e., the requirement that the prisoner be in custody within the court's jurisdiction. By employing this agency fiction, the District Courts in the demanding as well as the confining state were free to exercise concurrent "habeas corpus" or subject matter jurisdiction. But the Court did not deal with In personam jurisdiction, since that was not in issue.

While Braden thus employed the agency fiction for purposes of fulfilling the "in custody" requirement of the habeas statute, so as to support subject matter jurisdiction, that decision did not hold that the immediate custodian becomes "an agent For purposes of service simply by recognizing the existence of * * * (another) state's intent to secure custody of a prisoner now in another jurisdiction," so as to confer In personam jurisdiction. Lawrence v. Blackwell (D.C.Ga.1969), 298 F.Supp. 708, 711 (emphasis added). ⁹ To employ an agency theory for the purpose of establishing In personam jurisdiction is a result Braden never contemplated. As we observed in Word v. State of North Carolina (4th Cir. 1969), 406 F.2d 352, 357:

" * * * (A)n action in a district court in the state of detention would be met with jurisdictional problems as well as * * * practical difficulties * * *. In their petitions in the Eastern District of Virginia, (petitioners) named as the respondents the State of North Carolina and one of its law enforcement officials, neither of which could be served with process in Virginia. The actions were properly dismissed for want of jurisdiction. If the Virginia warden had been the named respondent, there would remain a jurisdictional problem. While he is acting for North Carolina in holding these prisoners under the detainers, he owes North Carolina no duty to defend...