Wadsworth v. Johnson

Revised January 2, 2001

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FIFTH CIRCUIT

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No. 00-20296
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RONALD LYNN WADSWORTH,

Petitioner-Appellee,

versus

GARY L. JOHNSON, DIRECTOR,
TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE,
INSTITUTIONAL DIVISION,

Respondent-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court
For the Southern District of Texas

December 28, 2000

Before BARKSDALE, EMILIO M. GARZA, and BENAVIDES, Circuit Judges.

EMILIO M. GARZA, Circuit Judge:

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

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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 Direct or’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)

(reviewing a district court’s determinations of law de novo).

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:

1
While we do not reach this issue, we question whether the district court can
circumvent Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b), which provides that the party must make its motion for lack of
jurisdiction before pleading, and enter a default judgment.

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 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

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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 F.2d at 1251.

Even if the TDCJ-ID cannot be considered a state court, Wadsworth argues that a district

court needs only the capacity to serve process on the custodian in order to assert jurisdiction. In

tendering this argument, Wadsworth relies principally upon Braden v. 30th Judicial Circuit Court

of Kentucky, 410 U.S. 484, 93 S.Ct. 1123, 35 L.Ed.2d 443 (1973).

In Braden, the Supreme Court addressed whether a district court i n one state could have

jurisdiction over a prisoner in cust ody in another state where that prisoner challenged a detainer

issued in the first state. In reaching its conclusion that the prisoner could attack the interstate detainer

in a district court located within the state issuing the detainer, though the prisoner was confined in

another state, the Supreme Court looked to the text of 28 U.S.C. § 2241(a). The Court noted that

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on its face, § 2241(a)

requires nothing more than that the court issuing the writ have jurisdiction over the
custodian. So long as the custodian can be reached by service of process, the court
can issue a writ ‘within its jurisdiction’ requiring that the prisoner be brought before
the court for a hearing on his claim...even if the prisoner himself is confined outside
the court’s territorial jurisdiction. 410 U.S. at 495, 93 S.Ct. at 1130.

The Court then used traditional venue principles to reach its conclusion that it could not “assume that

Congress intended to require the Commonwealth of Kentucky to defend its action in a distant State

and to preclude resolution of the dispute by a federal judge familiar with the laws and practices of

Kentucky.” See id. at 499, 1132. Wadsworth seeks support from this interpretation of § 2241(a) and

the Court’s reliance on venue principles for his contention that the Southern District had jurisdiction.

The case now before us bears important distinctions from Braden. First, despite the broad

language construing § 2241(a), Braden presented the Supreme Court with a situation that none of

the more specific subsections of § 2241 addressed, i.e., interstate detainer. See United States ex rel.

Sero v. Preiser, 506 F.2d 1115, 1130 n.11 (2d Cir. 1974) (“In Braden – since the case involved the

problem of interstate detainer – there was no applicable venue statute”). In stark contrast, the case

at bar falls directly within § 2241(d). Wadsworth is a prisoner pursuant to a state court judgment and

sentence. He is currently confined within that state, which has more than one federal judicial district.

He challenges a disciplinary hearing occurring while in the custody of the state which entered the

judgment against him.

Second, because Braden concerned a situation which did not fall under § 2241(d), it is not

only factually distinct, but the Court ’s decision also understandably offers little discussion of that

subsection. The Court touched upon § 2241(d) only as a part of its survey of the developments in

habeas jurisdiction. In do ing so, the Court did no more than reiterate the plain language of the

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section — “a prisoner contesting a conviction and sentence of a state court of a State which contains

two or more federal judicial districts, who is confined in a district within the State other than that in

which the sentencing court is located, has the option of seeking habeas corpus either in the district

where he is confined or the district where the sentencing court is located.” Braden, 410 U.S. at 497,

93 S.Ct. at 1131. While the Court went on to note the congressional intent behind the enactment of

§ 2241(d) and other alterations to habeas jurisdiction, the Court offered no other di scussion of §

2241(d). See 410 U.S. at 497, 93 S.Ct. at 1130 (noting that “Congress explicitly recognized the

substantial advantages of having these cases resolved in t he court which originally imposed the

confinement or in the court located near the site of the underlying controversy”).

Applying Braden in the fashion suggested by Wadsworth would have another untenable

consequence. Were we to accept Wadsworth’s application of the supposition that a district court

needs only personal jurisdiction over the custodian for a situation like his, where § 2241(d) would

otherwise apply, this broad reading of § 2241(a) would trump the more specific § 2241(d). Thus,

§ 2241(d) would be unnecessary. As a matter of statutory interpretation, we do not read one section

so as to render another related section superfluous. See Freytag v. Comm’r of Internal Revenue,

501 U.S. 868, 876, 111 S.Ct. 2631, 2638, 115 L.Ed.2d 764 (1991) (“Our cases consistently have

expressed a deep reluctance to interpret a statutory provision so as to render superfluous other

provisions in the same enactment”) (citations omitted). In short, we find Wadsworth’s Braden-based

arguments unavailing.

Because we find that the district court lacked jurisdiction to hear Wadsworth’s application,

we do not address the remaining questions presented in this appeal.

For the foregoing reasons, we VACATE the district court’s judgment and DISMISS the

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petition for lack of jurisdiction.

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