Todd v. Baskerville, s. 81-6517
Decision Date | 06 July 1983 |
Docket Number | 81-6730,Nos. 81-6517,s. 81-6517 |
Citation | 712 F.2d 70 |
Parties | Wilbur Fletcher TODD, Appellant, v. Alton BASKERVILLE, Warden, Appellee. Aaron HOLSEY, # 121937, Appellant, v. Gary BASS, individually, and as Assistant Prosecutor with the State's Attorney's Office; James P. Farmer, individually, and as Assistant Public Defender for the City of Baltimore, Maryland; Alfred J. O'Ferrell, III, individually, and as the deputy Public Defender for the State of Maryland; Leonard S. Freedman, individually, and as an Attorney with a practice; J. Harold Grady, individually, and as the Chief Judge of the Supreme Bench of Baltimore, Maryland; Allen D. Greif, individually, and as appointed Defender; Thomas E. Kelly, individually, and as a Parole Agent with the Dept. of Parole and Probation for the State of Maryland; Edward Mintzer, individually, and as an Official Court Reporter with the Supreme Bench; James W. Murphy, individually, and as an Associated Justice, assigned to the Supreme Bench; Charles E. Orth, Jr., individually, and as the Former Chief Judge of the Md. Court of Special Appeals; Calvin R. Payne, individually, and as an Official Court Reporter with the Supreme Bench; Leonard D. Redmond, III, individually and as an Assistant Public Defender for the City of Baltimore, Maryland; Julius A. Romano, individually, and as the Former Chief of Md. Court of Special Appeals; Gerald A. Smith, individually, and as Appointed Public Defender; Norman N. Yankellow, individually, and as Chief Public Defender for the City of Baltimore, Maryland, Appellees. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
James Phillip Chandler, Sr., Washington, D.C., for appellants.
Guy W. Horsley, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Richmond, Va., Patricia McDonald, Asst. Atty. Gen., Baltimore, Md. (Gerald L. Baliles, Atty. Gen. of Virginia, Richmond, Va., Stephen H. Sachs, Atty. Gen. of Maryland, Maureen O'Ferrall Gardner, Asst. Atty. Gen., Baltimore, Md., on brief) for appellees.
Before RUSSELL and CHAPMAN, Circuit Judges, and HAYNSWORTH, Senior Circuit Judge.
These appeals have been consolidated because both involve the "ambiguous borderland" 1 between habeas corpus proceedings and § 1983 actions, though the dispositive issue in the two cases are different. As they come to us, the Todd appeal poses the question whether the action by a state prisoner in that case was to be considered in habeas and thus subject to state exhaustion or was to be treated as a § 1983 action in which state exhaustion was excused; the Holsey appeal, on the other hand, involves as the ultimate issue the propriety of a dismissal of a state prisoner's § 1983 action as frivolous under § 1915(d), 28 U.S.C. in the absence of a responsive pleading. The District Court in Todd found the action to be in habeas and dismissed it for failure to exhaust state remedies; in Holsey the Court dismissed the suit as frivolous under § 1915(d) without requiring any responsive pleading by the defendant. We affirm Holsey but, in Todd, the panel is in agreement to remand in order that the District Court may consider whether changed circumstances would now require a different result, though a majority of the panel would find that the action of the District Court on the facts as they existed at the time it acted was correct.
The real gravamen of this plaintiff's action is that, because of the failure "to properly apply good conduct time credit on his sentence," he has been and is as of the time of the filing of his action being "subjected to terms of confinement that go beyond satisfaction of sentence." He seeks release from confinement and damages at the rate of $1,000 per day for every day he is being unlawfully detained." Such an action, seeking primarily release from confinement, meets, as we view it, the test for a habeas proceeding, as enunciated in Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 93 S.Ct. 1827, 36 L.Ed.2d 439 (1973).
In Preiser, the Supreme Court clearly stated that, "Congress has determined that habeas corpus is the appropriate [and exclusive] remedy for state prisoners attacking the validity of the fact or length of their confinement, and that specific determination must override the general terms of § 1983." The Supreme Court added in explication of this ruling that the state prisoner 411 U.S. at 489, 93 S.Ct. at 1836 (Italics added) The Court explained further that 411 U.S. at 494, 93 S.Ct. at 1838 (Italics in text) It would seem clear that under the principles enunciated by the majority in Preiser, that any challenge to the length or duration of confinement, whether involving judicial or administrative action, is redressable only in habeas with its requirement of state exhaustion while, as Justice Brennan, in his dissent, phrased the holding of the majority, an action for damages by a state prisoner, "provided he attacks only the conditions of his confinement and not its fact or duration," may be maintained under § 1983, 411 U.S. at 505, 93 S.Ct. at 1844. (Italics added)
Some writers, however, have been confused by the language of footnote 14 in the majority opinion in Preiser (411 U.S. at 499, 93 S.Ct. at 1841):
We find no confusion in this language. In our opinion, its proper construction is that expressed by Justice Brennan, i.e., that the action for damages is maintainable "simultaneously" with the prisoner's habeas claim, "provided he attacks only the conditions of his confinement and not its fact or duration." Any other application of this language would mean, as Justice Brennan in his dissent hypothesizes, that, if any prisoner, in attacking the length or duration of his confinement, "could formulate at least a colorable damages claim, he would be entitled to litigate all issues in federal court without first exhausting state remedies," a result which Justice Brennan found the majority had rejected. 411 U.S. at 510, 93 S.Ct. at 1846.
A further explication of this language in Preiser was given in the subsequent case of Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974). In that case a state prisoner filed a § 1983 class action challenging on due process grounds the disciplinary procedures resulting in good-time credits against his sentence. The plaintiff sought "three types of relief: (1) restoration of good time; (2) submission of a plan by the prison authorities for a hearing procedure [in connection with good-time rights] ... which complied with the requirements of due process; and (3) damages for the deprivation of civil rights resulting from the use of the allegedly unconstitutional procedures." 418 U.S. at 553, 94 S.Ct. at 2973. The Supreme Court sustained the Court of Appeals holding that relief by way of "restoration of good-time credits, ... [was] foreclosed under Preiser " but it held that the district court "short of ordering the actual restoration of good time already canceled," could review such procedures under due process in a § 1983 action and could grant injunctive relief in that action so far as future proceedings involving good-time rights were concerned, including the granting of "declaratory...
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