Pruett v. Levi, 78-1089

• Decision Date: 22 May 1980
• Docket Number: No. 78-1089,78-1089
• Citation: 622 F.2d 256
• Parties: Charles Edward PRUETT, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Edward H. LEVI, Attorney General of the United States, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 256

622 F.2d 256 Charles Edward PRUETT, Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
Edward H. LEVI, Attorney General of the United States, et
al., Defendants-Appellees. No. 78-1089. United States Court of Appeals,
Sixth Circuit. Argued April 17, 1980.
Decided May 22, 1980.

Charles R. Ray, Williams, Lenahan, Thoresen & Ray, Nashville, Tenn., Charles Edward Pruett, pro se, for plaintiff-appellant.

Hal D. Hardin, U. S. Atty., Gary Blackburn, William M. Cohen, Asst. U. S. Attys., Nashville, Tenn., for defendants-appellees.

Before WEICK and JONES, Circuit Judges, and PHILLIPS, Senior Circuit Judge.

PER CURIAM.

Charles Pruett filed a complaint against the Attorney General of the United States and Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) alleging that his criminal file maintained by the FBI "contains inaccurate and incomplete dispositions which have in the past been detrimental to him and which are presently and will continue to hinder his efforts to seek review of his case or to receive a favorable review by the Pardon and Parole Board." ¹ He claimed a deprivation of his constitutional right of privacy and asserted jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1331. Pruett asked that the

Page 257

inaccuracies be "expunged, corrected, or updated." The district court granted the Government's motion to dismiss the complaint, on the ground that Pruett had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. We affirm.

Pruett has received a copy of his FBI file, as provided for in 28 C.F.R §§ 16.30-.34, 20.34(a)(1979). His complaint does not state the inaccuracies which he alleges are present in his file. Nor does the complaint allege that he requested the FBI to correct particular inaccuracies. An affidavit by a Special Agent Supervisor in the FBI's Identification Division accompanying the motion to dismiss states:

(B)ased on Mr. Pruett's March 2, 1976, letter, it is not possible to identify the specific entries being challenged.

It should be noted that once the entry or entries under challenge are more clearly identified, this Bureau will expunge any non-Federal arrests at the request of the contributing agency. The FBI Identification Division will return to the contributing criminal justice agency, upon its request, the fingerprint card originally submitted in connection with the arrest. This procedure results in the deletion of the arrest in question from the subject's FBI Identification Record.

App. 12.

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