Young v. Kenny, 88-3995
Decision Date | 25 July 1989 |
Docket Number | No. 88-3995,88-3995 |
Citation | 887 F.2d 237 |
Parties | Robert H. YOUNG, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Phyllis KENNY, Thomas Manning, Henry Rose, Defendants-Appellees. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
Robert H. Young, Shelton, Wash., pro per.
Aaron K. Owada, Asst. Atty. Gen., Dept. of Corrections, Olympia, Wash., for defendants-appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington.
Before BROWNING, KOZINSKI and RYMER, Circuit Judges.
Robert Young, a Washington state prisoner, filed a complaint for damages pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 (1982), claiming that state officials had unconstitutionally failed to apply good-time credits to his prison sentence. The district court dismissed his complaint; we modify the district court's order to stay rather than dismiss the claim.
1. Where a state prisoner challenges the fact or duration of his confinement, his sole federal remedy is a writ of habeas corpus. Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 489-90, 500, 93 S.Ct. 1827, 1836, 1841, 36 L.Ed.2d 439 (1973). 1 This is largely because, while a habeas petitioner must exhaust state remedies, Rose v. Lundy, 455 U.S. 509, 515, 102 S.Ct. 1198, 1201, 71 L.Ed.2d 379 (1982), a section 1983 plaintiff need not. Ellis v. Dyson, 421 U.S. 426, 432-33, 95 S.Ct. 1691, 1695, 44 L.Ed.2d 274 (1975). If habeas were not the exclusive federal method for challenging the length of a state prison sentence, the exhaustion requirement could be easily circumvented: A prevailing section 1983 plaintiff would obtain a federal court's ruling that his sentence is too long, a judgment that would preclude relitigation of the issue in a subsequent state habeas proceeding. Preiser, 411 U.S. at 489-90, 93 S.Ct. at 1836.
This would be true even if, as here, the prisoner does not specifically request the reduction of his sentence in the section 1983 complaint. Before a district court could award damages to Young, it would have to determine that his good-time credits were unconstitutionally withheld. Young would then be able to mount a successful collateral attack on his sentence in state court. The purpose of the exhaustion requirement--to give the state courts the first opportunity to rule on the claims of state prisoners--would accordingly be frustrated. As a result, habeas must be the exclusive federal remedy not just when a state prisoner requests the invalidation or reduction of his sentence, but whenever the requested relief requires as its predicate a determination that a sentence currently being served is invalid or unconstitutionally long.
All nine federal circuit courts to consider this question have arrived at the same conclusion. See Guerro v. Mulhearn, 498 F.2d 1249, 1251-55 (1st Cir.1974) ( ); Mack v. Varelas, 835 F.2d 995, 998 (2d Cir.1987) ( ); Brown v. Fauver, 819 F.2d 395, 397-99 (3d Cir.1987) ( ); Todd v. Baskerville, 712 F.2d 70, 72-73 (4th Cir.1983) (same); Richardson v. Fleming, 651 F.2d 366, 373 (5th Cir. Unit A 1981) ( ); Hadley v. Werner, 753 F.2d 514, 516 (6th Cir.1985) (per curiam) ( )(quoting Guerro, 498 F.2d at 1252); Hanson v. Heckel, 791 F.2d 93, 94-97 (7th Cir.1986) (per curiam) ( ); Offet v. Solem, 823 F.2d 1256, 1258-61 (8th Cir.1987) ( ); Gwin v. Snow, 870 F.2d 616, 626-27 (11th Cir.1989) ( ).
Such a rule is not inconsistent with our prior decisions, which have never expressly addressed the question, but point in the same general direction. See Toussaint v. McCarthy, 801 F.2d 1080, 1102-03 (9th Cir.1986) (, )cert. denied, 481 U.S. 1069, 107 S.Ct. 2462, 95 L.Ed.2d 871 (1987); Ybarra v. Reno Thunderbird Mobile Home Village, 723 F.2d 675, 682 (9th Cir.1984) ( ); Clutchette v. Procunier, 497 F.2d 809, 812-14 (9th Cir.1974) (, )modified, 510 F.2d 613 (9th Cir.1975), rev'd on different grounds sub nom. Baxter v. Palmigiano, 425 U.S. 308, 96 S.Ct. 1551, 47 L.Ed.2d 810 (1976). See also Bergen v. Spaulding, 881 F.2d 719, 722 (9th Cir.1989) ( ). We become the tenth circuit court to adopt it.
2. Although we join our sister circuits, we share a concern expressed by many of them. In Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974), the Supreme Court observed:
The complaint in this case sought restoration of good-time credits, and the Court of Appeals correctly held this relief foreclosed under Preiser. But the complaint also sought damages; and Preiser expressly contemplated that claims properly brought under Sec. 1983 could go forward while actual restoration of good-time credits is sought in state proceedings. Respondent's damages claim was therefore properly before the District Court and required determination of the validity of the procedures employed for imposing sanctions, including loss of good time, for flagrant or serious misconduct. Such a declaratory judgment as a predicate to a damages award would not be barred by Preiser....
Id. at 554-55, 94 S.Ct. at 2974 (citation and footnote omitted). We are acutely aware that this language appears to conflict with the rule we have just adopted; this passage from Wolff may suggest that the exclusivity of habeas turns on the type of relief requested by the plaintiff. We are not the first court to worry about this problem: Many of the decisions cited above discuss Wolff at length and attempt to distinguish it, none very persuasively. See, e.g., Offet, 823 F.2d at 1259-61; Todd, 712 F.2d at 72-73; Hanson, 791 F.2d at 95-96. While we, too, are unable to come up with a principled way of distinguishing Wolff, we agree with Judge Bowman, writing for the Eighth Circuit, that "to read Wolff as allowing a state prisoner to avoid the exhaustion requirement by artful pleading is to set Wolff at odds with the rationale of Preiser, and we do not believe that the Court intended such a result." Offet, 823 F.2d at 1260.
We would nevertheless feel bound to follow Wolff, and thereby create a conflict with nine of our sister circuits, were it not for a brief excursion made by the Supreme Court at the end of its opinion in Tower v. Glover, 467 U.S. 914, 104 S.Ct. 2820, 81 L.Ed.2d 758 (1984). Even though the issue we consider today was not presented in Tower, the Court went out of its way to note: "We ... have no occasion to decide if a Federal District Court should abstain from deciding a Sec. 1983 suit for damages stemming from an unlawful conviction pending the collateral exhaustion of state-court attacks on the conviction itself." Id. at 923, 104 S.Ct. at 2826. Although this statement is dictum, 2 we take it seriously Because the statement would make no sense if Wolff had resolved the question we face today, we presume that the Tower majority deliberately included it in its opinion to signal that the Court deems itself not to have ruled on our issue. Thus, while Wolff on its face appears to foreclose the decision we reach, the Court evidently does not view it that way. This is fortunate, as it spares us the necessity of creating an inter-circuit conflict on a fundamental and recurring issue.
3. Because Young is still in prison, a federal court judgment that his good-time credits have been improperly withheld could...
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