Case: 21-50284 Document: 00516337305 Page: 1 Date Filed: 05/31/2022
United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
FILED
No. 21-50284 May 31, 2022
Summary Calendar Lyle W. Cayce
Clerk
Lonnie Kade Welsh,
Plaintiff—Appellant,
versus
Marsha McLane, Director of Texas Civil Commitment Office; Chris
Greenwald, Case Manager of the Texas Civil Commitment Office; Kevin
Stitt, Governor of Oklahoma,
Defendants—Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Texas
USDC No. 1:20-CV-906
Before Wiener, Dennis, and Haynes, Circuit Judges.
Per Curiam:*
Lonnie Kade Welsh, an individual who was civilly committed by
Texas as a sexually violent predator, appeals the district court’s dismissal of
his claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 challenging the denial of his request for a
*
Pursuant to 5th Circuit Rule 47.5, the court has determined that this
opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited
circumstances set forth in 5th Circuit Rule 47.5.4.
Case: 21-50284 Document: 00516337305 Page: 2 Date Filed: 05/31/2022
No. 21-50284
transfer to a treatment facility in Oklahoma and the denial of his
postjudgment motion. We review the denial of Welsh’s postjudgment
motion for abuse of discretion, see Alexander v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 867
F.3d 593, 597 (5th Cir. 2017), and the dismissal of his complaint under 28
U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B) de novo. See Green v. Atkinson, 623 F.3d 278, 279 (5th
Cir. 2010); see also Geiger v. Jowers, 404 F.3d 371, 373 (5th Cir. 2005).
Welsh contends that his Fourteenth Amendment rights to liberty and
interstate travel were violated when his transfer to Oklahoma was denied and
that the sole remedy he seeks is a transfer to Oklahoma for medical and
personal security reasons. These claims were properly brought under § 1983,
rather than in a habeas petition, see, e.g., Wilkinson v. Dotson, 544 U.S. 74, 81-
82 (2005), but were properly dismissed under § 1915(e)(2)(B).
“While such civilly committed persons are entitled to more
considerate treatment and conditions of confinement than criminals whose
conditions of confinement are designed to punish, the Constitution
nevertheless affords a state wide latitude in crafting a civil commitment
scheme.” Brown v. Taylor, 911 F.3d 235, 243 (5th Cir. 2018) (internal
quotation marks and citation omitted). States may civilly commit sexually
violent predators who “require the state’s supervision and treatment,” id.,
and due process requires only “that the conditions and duration of
confinement . . . bear some reasonable relation to the purpose for which
persons are committed,” Seling v. Young, 531 U.S. 250, 265 (2001). Welsh
has not sufficiently alleged how the denial of a transfer lacked a reasonable
relation to the purpose for which he was committed. See id.
And while “[t]he right of interstate travel has repeatedly been
recognized as a basic constitutional freedom,” Mem’l Hosp. v. Maricopa
Cnty., 415 U.S. 250, 254 (1974), and “a right secured by the 14th Amendment
and by other provisions of the Constitution,” Williams v. Fears, 179 U.S. 270,
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No. 21-50284
274 (1900), Welsh is currently an involuntarily committed sexually violent
predator housed in a total confinement civil commitment facility. He does
not presently enjoy the same freedoms as those not so restrained, including
the ability to travel interstate. See, e.g., Jones v. Helms, 452 U.S. 412, 419
(1981).
AFFIRMED.
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