Wadsworth v. Johnson
| Decision Date | 28 December 2000 |
| Docket Number | No. 00-20296,00-20296 |
| Citation | 235 F.3d 959 |
| Parties | (5th Cir. 2000) RONALD LYNN WADSWORTH, Petitioner-Appellee, v. GARY L. JOHNSON, DIRECTOR, TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE, INSTITUTIONAL DIVISION, Respondent-Appellant |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court For the Southern District of Texas.
Before BARKSDALE, EMILIO M. GARZA, and BENAVIDES, Circuit Judges.
Ronald Lynn Wadsworth pled guilty to theft and conspiracy to commit robbery in Dallas County, Texas. The 292d District Court of Dallas County, Texas imposed two concurrent sentences of 40 years imprisonment. While incarcerated at the Wynne Unit, which is located within the jurisdiction of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Wadsworth was disciplined for possessing a large quantity of tobacco products. As punishment, Wadsworth received 30 days recreation restriction, 30 days commissary restriction, and 30 days cell restriction; his custody classification was reduced from S3 to L1; and he lost 365 days of good time credit.
Wadsworth sought habeas corpus relief, under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Wadsworth challenged the constitutionality of the prison disciplinary hearing, alleging that the following infirmities occurred: (1) the disciplinary charge was not prosecuted within the time allowed by the prison's administrative rules; (2) there was no evidence presented at the disciplinary hearing to support the charge; (3) he was denied the opportunity to confront or to question his accuser; (4) the hearing officer failed to recuse himself even though he was involved in the initial investigation of the alleged offense; (5) the charging officer submitted a falsified charging instrument; and (6) the hearing officer altered the audio-taped record of the hearing. At the time of his application, Wadsworth was incarcerated in the Hughes Unit, which is located within the jurisdiction of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas.
In response to the magistrate judge's order to "file an answer or other pleading," Gary L. Johnson, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Institutional Division ("the Director") filed a motion to dismiss the habeas application for lack of jurisdiction. The Director argued that 28 U.S.C. § 2241(d) denied the Southern District of Texas jurisdiction to hear the application because neither the location of Wadsworth's state conviction and sentence nor Wadsworth's current place of confinement fell within the Southern District. The district court rejected the Director's contentions on the grounds that the disciplinary hearing constituted a "conviction and sentence" which occurred within the Southern District for the purposes of jurisdiction. After concluding that it had jurisdiction, the district court accepted Wadsworth's allegations as true because the Director failed to answer the petition on the merits and found that Wadsworth had been denied due process. The court ordered that the writ of habeas corpus be issued directing the restoration of the lost good time credit and the reinstatement of Wadsworth to "S3" status if the Director failed to voluntarily comply with the order within 90 days. The Director filed a Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e) motion to alter or amend the court's judgment. Following the district court's denial of this motion, the Director filed a timely notice of appeal.
On appeal, the Director renews his contention that the district court lacked jurisdiction under § 2241(d). Second, the Director asserts that district court entered an impermissible default judgment due to the Director's failure to answer Wadsworth's claim on the merits.1 Third, the Director challenges the district court's grant of relief on the merits. We must first address the question of the district court's jurisdiction to hear Wadsworth's petition.
We review de novo the district court's determination of its jurisdiction. Lara v. Trominski, 216 F.3d 487, 491 (5th Cir. 2000); see also Royal v. Tombone, 141 F.3d 596, 599 (5th Cir. 1998) ().
Section 2254 confers jurisdiction upon the federal courts to hear collateral attacks on state court judgments. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Section 2241 "specifies the court in which the petition must be brought." Story v. Collins, 920 F.2d 1247, 1250 (5th Cir. 1991). For those prisoners confined pursuant to a judgment and sentence by a state court in a state with more than one federal judicial district, like Wadsworth, § 2241(d) sets forth the district courts in which the petitioner may file his habeas application:
Where an application for a writ of habeas corpus is made by a person in custody under the judgment and sentence of a State court of a State which contains two or more Federal judicial districts, the application may be filed in the district court for the district wherein such person is in custody or in the district court for the district within which the State court was held which convicted and sentenced him and each of such district courts shall have concurrent jurisdiction to entertain the application. The district court for the district wherein such an application is filed in the exercise of its discretion and in furtherance of justice may transfer the application to the other district court for hearing and determination.
At the time of his application, Wadsworth was confined in the Hughes Unit, located within the Western District of Texas. As a result, § 2241(d) permitted him to file his application for a writ of habeas corpus in the Western District. Similarly, his state court conviction and sentence took place in Dallas County, Texas, which is in the Northern District of Texas. Therefore, he could have filed his habeas application in the Northern District. Wadsworth, however, filed for the writ in the Southern District of Texas, within which the disciplinary hearing took place. It is a matter of first impression in our Circuit whether the district court, pursuant to § 2241(d), had jurisdiction to hear a claim that attacked only a disciplinary proceeding occurring within its district when neither the place of the initial state court conviction and sentence nor current place of incarceration are within its district.
On appeal, the Director argues that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice-Institutional Division ("TDCJ-ID") is not a state court. Thus, regardless of whether a disciplinary proceeding and subsequent punishment could be considered a conviction and sentence, a state court did not impose them. Therefore, the Southern District lacked jurisdiction to hear the petitioner's habeas application. We agree.
In Story v. Collins, 920 F.2d 1247 (5th Cir. 1991), we addressed whether a prisoner needed to file a habeas petition for his challenge to the denial of his application for good time credit separately from the petition he filed attacking the underlying state judgment. In reaching our conclusion that the prisoner need not file a separate petition, we found that the "[TDCJ-ID] was not a state court." Story, 920 F.2d at 1251. Section 2241(d) expressly provides for district court jurisdiction when the state court imposing conviction and sentence is located within that federal judicial district. Because the TDCJ-ID is not a state court, its actions cannot be the basis for jurisdiction under § 2241(d).
Wadsworth argues that Story is inapposite because the TDCJ-ID acted in a substantially different capacity in Story than it acted in the case at bar. Wadsworth contends that in Story the TDCJ-ID merely applied a state statute to deny the petitioner eligibility for good conduct time. In contrast, in this case, the TDCJ-ID conducted a hearing and imposed punishment. Thus, according to Wadsworth, we should view the latter as a state court conviction and sentence. We disagree. Our finding in Story that the TDCJ-ID was not a state court was not predicated upon the action taken by the TDCJ-ID but simply upon the fact that it was not a state court. See Story, 920...
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