United States Court of Appeals
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
Argued May 11, 1998 Decided July 24, 1998
No. 96-7259
Kingsley Anyanwutaku,
Appellant
v.
Margaret Moore, Director,
District of Columbia Department of Corrections, et al.,
Appellees
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Columbia
(No. 96cv02198)
Trevor J. Welch, student counsel, argued the cause for
appellant. With him on the briefs were Steven H. Goldblatt,
appointed by the court, and Kimberly J. McGraw, student
counsel.
Mary L. Wilson, Assistant Corporation Counsel, argued
the cause for the District of Columbia appellees. With her on
the brief were John Ferren, Corporation Counsel, and
Charles L. Reischel, Deputy Corporation Counsel. Jo Anne
Robinson, Principal Deputy Corporation Counsel, entered an
appearance.
Before: Wald, Williams and Tatel, Circuit Judges.
Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge Tatel.
Tatel, Circuit Judge: A former District of Columbia pris-
oner appeals the district court's sua sponte dismissal of his 42
U.S.C. s 1983 complaint. Claiming due process and equal
protection violations by prison officials who had allegedly
miscalculated his parole eligibility date, misclassified him as a
felon, and barred him from participating in certain prison
programs, the prisoner sought damages as well as injunctive
relief. Appellees argue that he should have brought his
parole eligibility claims in habeas corpus, but since those
claims, if successful, would not have automatically resulted in
his speedier release, we conclude that he properly brought
them pursuant to section 1983. Because we also find that the
prisoner's pro se claim that he was denied access to prison
programs on the basis of his race or ethnicity was sufficient
to survive sua sponte dismissal, we remand that claim for
further proceedings. We affirm the district court's dismissal
of his other claims.
I
Appellant Kingsley Anyanwutaku, a landlord operating in
the District of Columbia, pleaded guilty to numerous misde-
meanor violations of D.C.'s housing, building, zoning, licens-
ing, and tax codes. The D.C. Superior Court sentenced him
to multiple consecutive sentences totaling over six years.
While in the custody of the D.C. Department of Correc-
tions, Anyanwutaku filed a confusing pro se complaint in U.S.
District Court for the District of Columbia against the De-
partment and various Department officials under 42 U.S.C.
s 1983 (1994). Seeking correction of his parole eligibility
records, compensatory and punitive damages, and prospective
injunctive relief, his complaint alleges that he was "entitled to
a timely parole classification date within 60 days of incarcera-
tion or at least much sooner than 10/25/97 as recorded and
maintained by the record office." Compl. at 6-7. The com-
plaint also claims that the Department's refusal to correct his
"parole classification date" deprived him of due process and
equal protection. Id. at 7-8. In five inmate grievance forms
and one informal written grievance attached to his complaint,
Anyanwutaku alleges that he was denied a timely parole
eligibility hearing; in two of these documents, he claims
prison officials denied him access to educational, religious,
and other prison programs. Id. at 13-20.
Anyanwutaku sought to proceed in forma pauperis, but the
district court never ruled on his application. Instead, on the
same day Anyanwutaku filed his complaint, the district court,
finding no constitutional right to parole, sua sponte dismissed
it under "28 U.S.C. s 1915(d)"; we assume the district court
meant section 1915(e), 28 U.S.C.A. s 1915(e) (Supp. 1998),
with which the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1996, Pub. L.
No. 104-134, 110 Stat. 1321 (1996), replaced former section
1915(d). Anyanwutaku then filed a motion for reconsidera-
tion, later filing an "addendum" to the motion. Together,
these documents clarify Anyanwutaku's original complaint as
alleging two primary claims: that prison officials denied him
due process by miscalculating his parole eligibility date, by
misclassifying him as a felon, and by failing to correct both
errors, thus delaying his eligibility for parole; and that on the
basis of his race or ethnicity, prison officials denied him
access to prison programs that would have advanced his
opportunity to obtain parole at an earlier date. One other
possible claim emerges from these documents: that prison
officials miscalculated Anyanwutaku's parole eligibility date
and misclassified him as a felon because of his race or
ethnicity. Reaffirming its section 1915(e) dismissal, the dis-
trict court denied the motion for reconsideration.
Anyanwutaku now appeals the denial of the motion for
reconsideration. The district court granted his application to
proceed in forma pauperis on appeal. We appointed counsel
for Anyanwutaku and scheduled oral argument together with
two other prison litigation cases whose opinions we also issue
today: Blair-Bey v. Quick, No. 96-5280, slip op. (D.C. Cir.
July 24, 1998), and Crowell v. Walsh, No. 96-7192, slip op.
(D.C. Cir. July 24, 1998). We directed the parties to address
whether the PLRA's filing fee requirement, 28 U.S.C.
s 1915(b), applies to this case, and whether Anyanwutaku
must obtain a certificate of appealability pursuant to 28
U.S.C. s 2253, as amended by the Antiterrorism and Effec-
tive Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"), Pub. L. No.
104-132, 100 Stat. 1214 (1996). While this appeal was pend-
ing, the D.C. Board of Parole released Anyanwutaku on
parole.
Because In re Smith, 114 F.3d 1247, 1250 (D.C. Cir. 1997),
makes clear that Anyanwutaku's appeal falls squarely within
the ambit of the PLRA's filing fee requirements, we ordered
Anyanwutaku to pay the necessary fee before we would
consider the remaining issues in his case. Anyanwutaku v.
Moore, No. 96-7259 (D.C. Cir. June 18, 1998). He has now
made that payment, so his appeal is properly before us.
II
We begin with a few threshold issues: Did Anyanwutaku
need to bring his challenges to his parole eligibility date in
habeas? Did he need to obtain a certificate of appealability
pursuant to the newly enacted AEDPA? What effect does
his release have on the justiciability of his claims?
As to the first issue, appellees contend that Anyanwutaku
should have brought his challenges to his parole eligibility
date not under section 1983, but as a petition for habeas
corpus, and that because Anyanwutaku failed to exhaust his
local habeas remedy, the district court lacked jurisdiction
over his claims. We disagree.
Starting with Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475 (1973), the
Supreme Court has carved out a category of prisoner cases
challenging the "fact or duration" of confinement that sound
exclusively in habeas. Id. at 500. In Preiser, state prisoners
brought actions under section 1983 seeking restoration of
good time credits that they lost as a result of adverse
disciplinary actions, actions the prisoners claimed deprived
them of due process. Holding that the prisoners must bring
their claims in habeas, the Supreme Court noted that "even if
restoration of respondents' good-time credits had merely
shortened the length of their confinement, rather than re-
quired immediate discharge from that confinement, their suits
would still have been within the core of habeas corpus in
attacking the very duration of their physical confinement
itself." Id. at 487-88. Such cases, the Court said, must take
the form of habeas petitions exclusively because 28 U.S.C.
s 2254(b) "require[s] exhaustion of adequate state remedies
as a condition precedent to the invocation of federal judicial
relief.... It would wholly frustrate explicit congressional
intent to hold that the respondents in the present case could
evade this requirement by the simple expedient of putting a
different label on their pleadings." Id. at 489-90.
Unlike the prisoners in Preiser, whose challenges to the
loss of good time credits, if successful, would have automati-
cally shortened the duration of their confinement, Anyanwut-
aku challenges his assigned parole eligibility date. Although
Anyanwutaku would have been eligible for parole at an
earlier date had he prevailed on his claims in the district
court, because D.C. parole decisions are entirely discretion-
ary, see D.C. Code Ann. s 24-204(a) (1996), there is no
guarantee that he would have been released any earlier.
Interpreting Preiser, a majority of our sister circuits have
held that challenges to state parole procedures whose success
would not necessarily result in immediate or speedier release
need not be brought in habeas corpus, even though the
prisoners filed their suits for the very purpose of increasing
their chances of parole. See, e.g., Gwin v. Snow, 870 F.2d
616, 624-25 (11th Cir. 1989); Serio v. Members of La. State
Bd. of Pardons, 821 F.2d 1112, 1119 (5th Cir. 1987); George-
vich v. Strauss, 772 F.2d 1078, 1087 (3d Cir. 1985) (en banc);
Walker v. Prisoner Rev. Bd., 694 F.2d 499, 501 (7th Cir.
1982); Candelaria v. Griffin, 641 F.2d 868, 869 (10th Cir.
1981) (per curiam); Strader v. Troy, 571 F.2d 1263, 1269 (4th
Cir. 1978); Williams v. Ward, 556 F.2d 1143, 1150-51 (2d Cir.
1977). Even the Supreme Court reached the merits of a
section 1983 claim by state prisoners alleging due process
violations in the consideration of their suitability for parole
without first addressing whether Preiser required the claim
to be brought in habeas. See Greenholtz v. Inmates of the
Neb. Penal and Correctional Complex, 442 U.S. 1 (1979).
The Supreme Court's recent decisions in Heck v. Hum-
phrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), and Edwards v. Balisok, 117
S. Ct. 1584 (1997), underscore the distinction between this
case and Preiser. In Heck, a state prisoner sought section
1983 damages, claiming that he had been unlawfully convicted
and sentenced. Although he requested neither release from
prison nor injunctive relief, the Court held that his claim had
to be brought in habeas because, in effect, it amounted to a
collateral attack on his conviction, since in order to prevail he
had to "prove the unlawfulness of his conviction or confine-
ment." Heck, 512 U.S. at 486. The Court thus held that:
when a state prisoner seeks damages in a s 1983 suit,
the district court must consider whether a judgment in
favor of the plaintiff would necessarily imply the invalidi-
ty of his conviction or sentence; if it would, the complaint
must be dismissed unless the plaintiff can demonstrate
that the conviction or sentence has already been invali-
dated. But if the district court determines that the
plaintiff's action, even if successful, will not demonstrate
the invalidity of any outstanding criminal judgment
against the plaintiff, the action should be allowed to
proceed, in the absence of some other bar to the suit.
Id. at 487. In Balisok, a state prisoner brought a section
1983 action alleging that his disciplinary proceeding was
tainted by deceit and bias--a procedural defect so severe that
in the Court's view the only available remedy was reinstate-
ment of the good time credits that had been deducted as a
result of the proceeding. Applying Heck's reasoning, the
Court held that the claim had to be brought in habeas
because, if successful, it would "necessarily imply" the invalid-
ity of the loss of good time credits. Balisok, 117 S. Ct. at
1588-89.
We read these cases to require that a state prisoner's
section 1983 claim must first be brought in habeas only when,
if successful, it would "necessarily imply," or automatically
result in, a speedier release from prison. As the Ninth
Circuit explained, ruling that prisoners' claims that they were
improperly labeled sex offenders, thus affecting their parole
eligibility, were properly brought under section 1983:
The only benefit that a victory in this case would provide
[the prisoners], besides the possibility of monetary dam-
ages, is a ticket to get in the door of the parole board,
thus only making them eligible for parole consider-
ation.... If [they] win, it will in no way guarantee
parole or necessarily shorten their prison sentences by a
single day.
Neal v. Shimoda, 131 F.3d 818, 824 (9th Cir. 1997). Anyan-
wutaku faces precisely the same situation. Had he succeeded
in the district court, he would have earned nothing more than
a "ticket to get in the door of the parole board." He thus
properly brought his claim under section 1983.
Contrary to appellees' contention, neither Best v. Kelly, 39
F.3d 328 (D.C. Cir. 1994), nor Chatman-Bey v. Thornburgh,
864 F.2d 804 (D.C. Cir. 1988) (en banc), requires a different
result. Like Preiser, Best involved prisoner challenges to the
loss of good time credits through the cancellation of a drug
treatment program; if successful, their claims, unlike Anyan-
wutaku's, would have necessarily resulted in speedier release.
39 F.3d at 330. Chatman-Bey, which required parole eligibil-
ity challenges to be brought in habeas, dealt expressly with
federal prisoners, see 864 F.2d at 809, 810 n.6; because
Anyanwutaku was in the custody of the District of Columbia,
we need not decide whether Chatman-Bey has any continu-
ing vitality after Heck and Balisok.
Our conclusion that Anyanwutaku properly brought all of
his claims under section 1983 not only means that he had no
state remedies to exhaust, but it also answers the question
whether Anyanwutaku needed to obtain a certificate of ap-
pealability under the AEDPA to maintain his appeal. He did
not. The AEDPA's certificate of appealability requirement
applies only to appeals from "the final order in a habeas
corpus proceeding in which the detention complained of arises
out of process issued by a State court," 28 U.S.C.A.
s 2253(c)(1)(A), and "the final order in a proceeding under
section 2255," id. s 2253(c)(1)(B), not to section 1983 actions.
This brings us to the final preliminary question raised by
this case: Are Anyanwutaku's claims any longer justiciable in
view of his release from prison? The constitutional " 'case-or-
controversy requirement subsists through all stages of feder-
al judicial proceedings, trial and appellate.... The parties
must continue to have a personal stake in the outcome of the
lawsuit.' " Spencer v. Kemna, 118 S. Ct. 978, 983 (1998)
(quoting Lewis v. Continental Bank Corp., 494 U.S. 472, 477-
78 (1990)). Accordingly, when a prisoner seeking injunctive
or declaratory relief challenges his parole eligibility date but
is subsequently released on parole, his claims are moot unless
he alleges continuing adverse consequences from the chal-
lenged parole records. See Kerr v. Farrey, 95 F.3d 472, 476
(7th Cir. 1996) (holding that a paroled prisoner's claim to have
negative references about his attendance at a prison program
expunged from his prison records was not moot "because any
such references may have a continuing adverse impact on
him"); cf. Spencer, 118 S. Ct. at 983 (challenge to parole
revocation by prisoner who has since been re-released re-
quires that "continuing 'collateral consequences' of the parole
revocation be either proven or presumed"). Anyanwutaku
has nowhere explained what adverse impact he continues to
suffer as a result of the Parole Board's alleged failure to give
him a timely parole eligibility date, and we can think of none.
His release on parole thus rendered moot his claims for
correction of his parole eligibility records and for prospective
injunctive relief. See Chatman-Bey, 864 F.2d at 805 (explain-
ing that a prisoner's challenge to his parole eligibility date in
In re U.S. Parole Commission, 793 F.2d 338 (D.C. Cir.), reh'g
granted and opinion vacated, 798 F.2d 1532 (D.C. Cir. 1986),
was eventually dismissed as moot upon prisoner's release on
parole). His damages claims, however, remain properly be-
fore us. See Smith, 114 F.3d at 1249; Kerr, 95 F.3d at 476.
III
Turning to the merits of Anyanwutaku's appeal, we find
nothing in the record indicating whether he filed his pro se
motion for reconsideration pursuant to Rule 59(e) or 60(b) of
the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. We treat the motion
as having been filed under Rule 59(e), in light of several
considerations: The district court appears to have treated it
as a Rule 59(e) motion; Anyanwutaku filed it pro se; appel-
lees failed to raise the issue; and Anyanwutaku may have
filed it within the ten days required by Rule 59(e). (Although
the record does not indicate when he gave his motion to
prison officials for delivery to the district court, the key date
under the "mailbox rule" for pro se prisoner pleadings, see,
e.g., Houston v. Lack, 487 U.S. 266, 270-71 (1988), since the
district court received the motion seventeen days after it
dismissed the complaint, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(a) (computation
of time), Anyanwutaku could well have given it to prison
officials within ten days.)
Rule 59(e) motions "need not be granted unless the district
court finds that there is an 'intervening change of controlling
law, the availability of new evidence, or the need to correct a
clear error or prevent manifest injustice.' " Firestone v.
Firestone, 76 F.3d 1205, 1208 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (per curiam)
(quoting National Trust for Historic Preservation v. Depart-
ment of State, 834 F. Supp. 453, 455 (D.D.C. 1993), aff'd in
part and rev'd in part on other grounds sub nom. Sheridan
Kalorama Historical Ass'n v. Christopher, 49 F.3d 750 (D.C.
Cir. 1995)). We review district court denials of Rule 59(e)
motions for reconsideration for abuse of discretion. Id.
In in forma pauperis proceedings, section 1915(e) requires
district courts to dismiss "frivolous or malicious" actions, 28
U.S.C.A. s 1915(e)(2)(B)(i), actions that "fail[ ] to state a
claim on which relief may be granted," id. s 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii),
and actions that "seek monetary relief against a defendant
who is immune from such relief," id. s 1915(e)(2)(iii). The
district court never said which of these deficiencies provided
the basis for dismissal. But because in both the order
dismissing the complaint and the order denying the motion
for reconsideration the district court pointed out that prison-
ers have no constitutional right to parole, we assume that the
district court dismissed the complaint either because it failed
to state a claim or because it was frivolous.
According to appellees, Anyanwutaku's contention that he
was discriminatorily prohibited from participating in certain
prison programs failed to state a claim because he has not
"shown" the two necessary predicates to an equal protection
claim, i.e., that he was treated differently from others similar-
ly situated, and that prison officials acted with intent to
disadvantage him relative to others. Appellees demand too
much. An in forma pauperis complaint may be dismissed
sua sponte for failure to state a claim only if " 'it appears
beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in
support of his claim which would entitle him to relief.' "
Baker v. Director, 916 F.2d 725, 726 (D.C. Cir. 1990) (per
curiam) (quoting Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46 (1957)).
At this early stage, where the complaint constitutes the only
submission before the district court, the complaint need only
be "sufficiently plausible that the claim could state a cause of
action." Brandon v. District of Columbia Bd. of Parole, 734
F.2d 56, 61 (D.C. Cir. 1984). To be sure, Anyanwutaku's
complaint is confusing and fails to explain clearly that his
allegations about the prison programs relate to his equal
protection claims. But in his motion for reconsideration, he
says quite specifically that he was "arbitrarily and capricious-
ly denied access to the said [prison] programs through invidi-
ous discrimination," and then two sentences later he says that
"the defendants invidiously discriminated against the plaintiff
based on race or ethnic origin." Given that we "liberally
construe[ ]" pro se prisoners' pleadings, see Estelle v. Gamble,
429 U.S. 97, 106 (1976), holding them, "however inartfully
pleaded," to "less stringent standards" than pleadings drafted
by counsel, Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520 (1972) (per
curiam); see also United States v. Sanchez, 88 F.3d 1243,
1247 (D.C. Cir. 1996), we believe that this allegation was
sufficient to plead a section 1983 cause of action. The district
court should have allowed it to proceed beyond the sua sponte
dismissal stage. Cf. Moore v. Agency for Int'l Dev., 994 F.2d
874, 877 (D.C. Cir. 1993) (holding that district court should
have permitted plaintiff to amend his complaint because the
long-standing principle that "leave to amend a complaint shall
be freely given when justice so requires ... would appear to
be particularly appropriate when the party seeking to amend
is permitted to proceed in forma pauperis and, because of his
circumstances, does so without benefit of counsel") (internal
quotations and citations omitted).
Nor do we think, at least at this early stage of the
litigation, that Anyanwutaku's claim can be considered frivo-
lous, i.e., that it rests on a " 'fanciful factual allegation,' "
Johnson v. Gibson, 14 F.3d 61, 63 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (per
curiam) (quoting Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 325
(1989)). We recognized the viability of a section 1983 claim
similar to Anyanwutaku's in Women Prisoners of the D.C.
Department of Corrections v. District of Columbia, 93 F.3d
910, 924 (D.C. Cir. 1996), where we concluded that allegations
that the Department discriminated against the prisoners on
the basis of sex as to prison programs and services made out
a cognizable equal protection claim. Even if Anyanwutaku
might lose on the merits, we think the district court should
have permitted his claim, drafted pro se and based on legiti-
mate factual allegations, to proceed.
Accordingly, the district court's refusal to reconsider its
sua sponte dismissal of Anyanwutaku's prison programs equal
protection claim amounted to an abuse of discretion. The
court's dismissal of Anyanwutaku's remaining claims did not.
With regard to Anyanwutaku's claim that he was denied due
process because he was entitled to be considered or "classi-
fied" for parole within sixty days of his incarceration, and was
not so classified because he was misclassified as a felon,
Anyanwutaku has failed to allege that he has been deprived
of a protected liberty interest, the first element of any due
process claim. D.C. law creates no liberty interest in a parole
eligibility date, much less one within sixty days of incarcera-
tion, since misdemeanants must serve one-third of their ag-
gregate sentences before being considered for parole, see
D.C. Code Ann. s 24-208(a).
Finally, nothing in either Anyanwutaku's complaint or his
motion for reconsideration sufficiently sets forth any indepen-
dent equal protection claim with regard to his parole eligibili-
ty. His motion for reconsideration merely states that his
parole eligibility date is "wrong and is arbitrarily and capri-
ciously prolonged." Neither his motion for reconsideration
nor his complaint directly tied that claim--in contrast to his
prison programs equal protection claim--to any allegations of
discrimination based on race or ethnicity, or any other specif-
ic type of equal protection violation. Accordingly, because it
was not "sufficiently plausible that [Anyanwutaku's] claim
could state a cause of action," Brandon, 734 F.2d at 61, the
district court's dismissal did not amount to an abuse of
discretion.
IV
We reverse the district court's denial of the motion for
reconsideration with respect to Anyanwutaku's prison pro-
grams equal protection claim and remand for further pro-
ceedings. In all other respects, we affirm.
So ordered.