Wright v. State

• Citation: 47 F.4th 954
• Decision Date: 31 August 2022
• Docket Number: 19-35543
• Parties: Sean WRIGHT, Petitioner-Appellant, v. STATE of Alaska, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (9th Circuit)

47 F.4th 954

Sean WRIGHT, Petitioner-Appellant,
v.
STATE of Alaska, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 19-35543

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted March 24, 2022 Pasadena, California
Filed August 31, 2022

Daniel Poulson (argued), Legal Writing and Research Assistant; Rich Curtner, Federal Defender; Office of the Federal Public Defender, Anchorage, Alaska; for Petitioner-Appellant.

Donald Soderstrom (argued) and Timothy W. Terrell, Assistant Attorneys General; Kevin G. Clarkson, Attorney General; Office of Criminal Appeals, Office of the Attorney General, Anchorage, Alaska; for Respondent-Appellee.

Before: Mary H. Murguia, Chief Judge, and Johnnie B. Rawlinson and Ryan D. Nelson, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Chief Judge Murguia ; Concurrence by Judge Rawlinson

MURGUIA, Chief Circuit Judge:

The facts of this case span a nearly 25-year period. Indeed, this case comes to us a second time, but we are hardly the first to consider its claims. See Wright v. State , 347 P.3d 1000 (Alaska Ct. App. 2015) (" Wright I "), rev'd , 404 P.3d 166 (Alaska 2017) (" Wright II "); United States v. Wright , No. 1:17-cr-00112-HSM (E.D. Tenn. July 25, 2017) ("Wright III "); Wright v. Alaska , No. 3:18-CV-00056-JKS, 2019 WL 2453641 (D. Alaska June 12, 2019) (" Wright IV "), rev'd and remanded , 819 F. App'x 544 (9th Cir. 2020) (" Wright V "), cert. granted, judgment vacated , ––– U.S. ––––, 141 S. Ct. 1467, 209 L.Ed.2d 431 (2021) (per curiam) (" Alaska v. Wright ").

In 1999, Appellant Sean Wright was accused of sexually abusing two young girls. Wright fled Alaska soon after. The State of Alaska filed an information charging Wright with sexual abuse of a minor that same year, but Wright was neither apprehended nor charged by indictment until 2004, when an employment background check in Minnesota alerted Alaskan authorities to Wright's whereabouts, leading to his arrest and extradition. In 2009,

47 F.4th 956

Wright was convicted of thirteen counts of sexual abuse of a minor. In 2016, he completed his prison sentence and probation.

Now before us is Wright's 2018 habeas petition—filed under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 —challenging the 2009 Alaska conviction as a violation of his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial because of Alaska's delay in apprehending and indicting Wright after he fled. Section 2254 grants federal courts jurisdiction over writs of habeas corpus on behalf of a person "in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court ... on the ground that he is in custody in violation of" federal law. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a) (emphasis added). It is undisputed that Wright alleges a constitutional violation. At issue here, however, is whether Wright was "in custody pursuant to" the Alaska judgment he challenges when he filed his § 2254 petition. In other words, if Wright was not "in custody pursuant to" the Alaska judgment, then we lack jurisdiction over his habeas petition.

To demonstrate that he was "in custody pursuant to" the Alaska judgment, either Wright must show that he was serving a term of incarceration or probation pursuant to his Alaska conviction, see Maleng v. Cook , 490 U.S. 488, 490–91, 109 S.Ct. 1923, 104 L.Ed.2d 540 (1989) (per curiam), or Wright must have suffered from "other restraints on ... [his] liberty, restraints not shared by the public generally" pursuant to his Alaska conviction, Veltmann-Barragan v. Holder , 717 F.3d 1086, 1088 (9th Cir. 2013) (quoting Jones v. Cunningham , 371 U.S. 236, 240, 83 S.Ct. 373, 9 L.Ed.2d 285 (1963) ). Wright contends that he was "in custody" at the time he filed his § 2254 petition because he was subject to Tennessee's sex offender registration requirements, which implement the federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act of 2006 ("SORNA"). SORNA, enacted "to protect the public from sex offenders and offenders against children" by "establish[ing] a comprehensive national system for [their] registration," imposes "more onerous" registration requirements than most states had before its enactment. Gundy v. United States , ––– U.S. ––––, 139 S. Ct. 2116, 2121, 204 L.Ed.2d 522 (2019), reh'g denied , ––– U.S. ––––, 140 S. Ct. 579, 205 L.Ed.2d 378 (2019). Wright asserts that Tennessee's registration requirements constitute "custody" because they impose a severe restraint on his liberty. In fact, before Wright filed this habeas petition, he was convicted in federal court in Tennessee for failing to register as a sex offender pursuant to its laws. Wright further contends that he is in custody "pursuant to" his Alaska judgment because his obligation to register as a sex offender in Tennessee is "directly attributable to the Alaska judgment of conviction."

Wright's arguments are unpersuasive. Wright attempts to establish custody "pursuant to" the Alaska judgment of conviction based on an attenuated connection to Tennessee and its sex offender registration laws. The district court's judgment dismissing the habeas petition for lack of subject matter jurisdiction is therefore affirmed.

I.

In February 1999, Wright moved out of his home in Alaska after his then-wife told police that he had sexually assaulted two minors. Wright I , 347 P.3d at 1003. Wright evaded arrest for approximately five years, living in Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Minnesota until his arrest in, and extradition from, Minnesota in September 2004. See id. at 1004 ; Wright II , 404 P.3d at 168.

In 2009, Wright was convicted in Alaska state court of thirteen counts of sexual abuse of a minor and was thereafter...