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Nature of Suit Code: 530
Nature of Suit: Prisoner Petitions - Habeas Corpus
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued December 8, 2003 Decided July 16, 2004

No. 01-5432

CEDRIC STOKES A/K/A ABDUS SALAAM MUHAMMED,

APPELLANT

v.

UNITED STATES PAROLE COMMISSION,

APPELLEE

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 00cv03075)

Timothy P. O’Toole, Attorney, Public Defender Service of

the District of Columbia, argued the cause for appellant.

With him on the briefs were James W. Klein and Giovanna

Shay, Attorneys.

Edward E. Schwab, Acting Deputy Corporation Counsel,

and Mary L. Wilson, Assistant Corporation Counsel, were on

 Bills of costs must be filed within 14 days after entry of judgment.

The court looks with disfavor upon motions to file bills of costs out

of time.

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the brief as amicus curiae in support of appellant’s position

on jurisdiction.

John R. Fisher, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause

for appellee. With him on the brief were Roscoe C. Howard,

Jr., U.S. Attorney, and Elizabeth H. Danello, Robert D. Okun

and Lisa H. Schertler, Assistant U.S. Attorneys. MaryPatrice Brown, Assistant U.S. Attorney, entered an appearance.

Before: GINSBURG, Chief Judge, and RANDOLPH and

ROBERTS, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Chief Judge GINSBURG.

GINSBURG, Chief Judge: Cedric Stokes challenges the district court’s denial of his habeas corpus petition, brought

pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241. In his petition Stokes claimed

the United States Parole Commission violated the Ex Post

Facto Clause of the Constitution of the United States by

denying him parole and determining his parole rehearing date

on the basis of regulations and guidelines promulgated after

the crimes of which he was convicted. On appeal, another

panel of this Court concluded the district court lacked jurisdiction over the proper respondent. When Stokes petitioned

for rehearing, however, that panel vacated its earlier decision.

For the following reasons, we reverse the judgment of the

district court insofar as it purported to exercise jurisdiction

over Stokes’s petition, and remand this case with directions to

dismiss his petition without prejudice.

I. Background

In 1987 Stokes was convicted in District of Columbia

Superior Court of various violations of the D.C. Code. He

was sentenced to consecutive prison terms of 10–30 and of 8–

24 years and to a term of 2–6 years to be served concurrently.

Since August 2000 the United States Parole Commission

has been responsible for making parole determinations with

respect to District of Columbia prisoners. See D.C. Code

§ 24–131(a)(1); National Capital Revitalization and Self–Government Improvement Act of 1997 § 11231, Pub. L. 105–33,

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111 Stat. 712; Fletcher v. District of Columbia et al., 370 F.3d

1223, (D.C. Cir. 2004). In October 2000 the Commission

denied Stokes parole and put off any rehearing for 48 months.

Each decision represented a departure from the Commission’s guidelines adverse to Stokes.

Under those guidelines a prisoner with Stokes’s ‘‘Base

Point Score’’ is ordinarily paroled; if such a prisoner is

denied parole, then the guidelines recommend he be given a

rehearing in 12–18 months. The Commission explained that

it departed from the guidelines because it believed Stokes

posed an ‘‘unusual risk to the safety of the community.’’ The

Commission noted in this regard that Stokes was sentenced

for his ‘‘involvement in 3 separate assaults with a deadly

weapon over a period of 7 months,’’ including an incident

during which he ‘‘brutally beat the victim in his head with a

shovel, causing serious bodily injury.’’

Stokes, who is now in a federal facility in South Carolina

but was then incarcerated in a private prison in Ohio, filed a

petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States

District Court for the District of Columbia, pursuant to 28

U.S.C. § 2241. In his habeas petition he argued the application to him of the Commission’s parole guidelines violated the

Ex Post Facto Clause because the guidelines were promulgated by the Commission and made applicable to D.C. Code

offenders after the conduct for which he was incarcerated.

The Commission opposed Stokes’s petition, arguing, among

other things, that the district court lacked personal jurisdiction over the only proper respondent — the warden of the

Northeast Ohio Correctional Center — and, in any event, the

Ex Post Facto claim lacked merit.

After a procedural detour of no concern here, the district

court ultimately denied Stokes’s petition because he had not

shown ‘‘application of the Parole Commission’s regulations

‘yields results materially harsher than those ordinarily occurring under the prior regime.’ ’’ Dist. Ct. Mem. Op. at 3,

citing Blair-Bey v. Quick, 159 F.3d 591, 592 (D.C. Cir. 1998).

The district court granted a certificate of appealability, however, because ‘‘the precise application of the Constitution’s

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prohibition against ex post facto laws to Parole Commission

regulations’’ was then still unresolved in this circuit.*

On appeal, a different panel of this Court held the district

court lacked jurisdiction over the warden of the Ohio facility

in which Stokes was incarcerated; his petition should therefore have been dismissed. The court also noted Stokes could

refile his claim in a judicial district with jurisdiction over the

warden of the Ohio correctional center. Upon Stokes’s petition for rehearing, we vacated that judgment and invited the

District of Columbia to participate as an amicus curiae. The

District of Columbia is of the view that the district court had

jurisdiction over Stokes’s habeas petition but takes no position on the merits of the claims presented therein.

II. Analysis

District courts may grant habeas relief only ‘‘within their

respective jurisdictions.’’ 28 U.S.C. § 2241(a). Because ‘‘[a]

writ of habeas corpus does not act upon the prisoner who

seeks relief, but upon the person who holds him in TTT

custody,’’ Braden v. 30th Judicial Cir. Ct. of Ky., 410 U.S.

484, 494 (1973), a court may issue the writ only if it has

jurisdiction over that person. See Padilla v. Rumsfeld, 2004

WL 1432135, at *5, *9, 542 U.S. , (June 28, 2004).

As an initial matter, it is clear the only proper respondent

to Stokes’s habeas petition was his ‘‘immediate custodian’’—

that is, the warden of the Ohio facility in which he was

incarcerated at the time he filed the petition. See Padilla,

2004 WL 1432135, at *5, 542 U.S. at ; see also Blair-Bey v.

Quick, 151 F.3d 1036, 1039 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (‘‘When a prisoner

seeks to challenge parole-related decisions, the warden of the

prison TTT is the prisoner’s ‘custodian’ ’’); Chatman-Bey v.

Thornburgh, 864 F.2d 804, 810–11 (D.C. Cir. 1988) (en banc)

* We have since resolved the issue, holding parole guidelines are

not ‘‘laws’’ within the proscription of the Ex Post Facto Clause. See

Fletcher, 370 F.3d at . Thus, even if the United States District

Court for the District of Columbia had jurisdiction over his immediate custodian, Stokes’s claim would have failed on the merits.

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(‘‘proper defendant in federal habeas cases is the warden’’ of

the facility where prisoner is incarcerated).

Citing Braden v. 30th Judicial District of Kentucky, 410

U.S. 484 (1973), Strait v. Laird, 406 U.S. 341 (1972), and Ex

Parte Mitsuye Endo, 323 U.S. 283 (1944), Stokes argues the

‘‘immediate custodian’’ rule is a ‘‘policy rule[ ],’’ rather than a

‘‘hard and fast limitation[ ] drawn from the plain language of

the applicable habeas statutes.’’ If this theory was once

viable, it clearly is not after Padilla.

‘‘In Braden and Strait,’’ the Padilla Court explained, ‘‘the

immediate custodian rule did not apply because there was no

immediate physical custodian with respect to the ‘custody’

being challenged.’’ Padilla, 2004 WL 1432135, at *6, 542 U.S.

at (emphasis in original). Here there was: At the time

Stokes filed his petition, the warden of the Ohio facility

‘‘exercise[d] day-to-day control,’’ id., over Stokes. The immediate custodian rule therefore applies in this case. See id.;

accord Guerra v. Meese, 786 F.2d 414, 416 (D.C. Cir. 1986)

(‘‘The Braden decision in no way stands for the proposition

that the Parole Commission is the ‘custodian’ of a prisoner

currently incarcerated in a federal penal institution’’).

Endo is equally unhelpful to Stokes’s cause. Endo, a

Japanese–American citizen of the United States interned in

California by the War Relocation Authority (WRA), brought a

habeas petition in the United States District Court for the

Northern District of California, naming an official of the

WRA as the respondent. While Endo’s petition was pending

before that court, the Government moved her to Utah. The

Supreme Court held the Northern District of California retained jurisdiction over the habeas petition, notwithstanding

that the prisoner — and hence her immediate custodian —

was now in Utah. See 323 U.S. at 306 (‘‘the removal [of the

prisoner] did not cause [the District Court] to lose jurisdiction

where a person in whose custody she is remains within the

district’’).

Endo did not, as Stokes maintains, ‘‘relax’’ the immediate

custodian rule but rather recognized the continuing jurisdicUSCA Case #01-5432 Document #836407 Filed: 07/16/2004 Page 5 of 8
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tion of the court in which that rule is first satisfied. As the

Supreme Court recently explained:

Endo stands for the important but limited proposition

that when the Government moves a habeas petitioner

after she properly files a petition naming her immediate

custodian, the District Court retains jurisdiction and may

direct the writ to any respondent within its jurisdiction

who has legal authority to effectuate the prisoner’s release.

Padilla, 2004 WL 1432135, at *8, 542 U.S. at .

Thus, if Stokes had filed his petition in the United States

District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, naming the

Ohio warden as the respondent, then under Endo that court

would have retained jurisdiction over his petition notwithstanding Stokes’s later transfer to the federal penitentiary in

South Carolina where he is now incarcerated. Instead,

Stokes filed his petition in the District Court for the District

of Columbia. Because Stokes was already in Ohio when he

filed, that court never acquired jurisdiction over his petition.

That Stokes had been arrested and convicted in D.C. in 1987

and that he served a portion of his prison term in a D.C.

correctional facility are of no moment under the immediate

custodian rule. See Padilla, 2004 WL 1432135, at *8, 542

U.S. at .

In sum, the warden of the Northeast Ohio Correctional

Center is the only proper respondent to the petition before

us.*

* Stokes and the amicus also argue that under Sanders v. Allen,

100 F.2d 717 (D.C. Cir. 1938), the custodian of a ‘‘D.C. prisoner’’ is

one who ultimately ‘‘controls’’ his release, rather than the warden of

the facility in which he is incarcerated at the time he files his

habeas petition. That is not so, for two reasons. First, in Sanders

and the other cases upon which Stokes relies, the prisoner was

incarcerated in either the Occoquan or the Lorton, Virginia facility — both of which we held were, as a practical matter, ‘‘jail[s] of

the District,’’ 100 F.2d at 719, because they were owned and

controlled by the District and were located just outside its borders.

The Northeast Ohio Correctional Center clearly does not have a

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It is equally clear the district court did not have jurisdiction

over the warden of the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center.

Relying again upon the Supreme Court’s decisions in Braden

v. 30th Judicial District of Kentucky, 410 U.S. 484 (1973), and

Strait v. Laird, 406 U.S. 341 (1972), Stokes and the amicus

assert the Supreme Court ‘‘has abandoned an ‘inflexible

jurisdictional rule’ ’’ based upon the territorial jurisdiction of

the district court, ‘‘in favor of explicit reliance on modern

principles of personal jurisdiction and service of process.’’

The Supreme Court’s recent opinion in Padilla unequivocally rejected that theory as well. Concluding that the

limiting language in the habeas statute — ‘‘within their

respective jurisdictions,’’ 28 U.S.C. § 2241(a) — means a

district court may issue the writ only to one who is within its

district, the Court held that in habeas cases involving ‘‘present physical confinement, jurisdiction lies in only one district:

the district of confinement.’’ Padilla, 2004 WL 1432135, at

*10, 542 U.S. at . This is necessarily so because in such

cases ‘‘the immediate custodian and the prisoner reside in the

same district.’’ Id. at *11. Therefore, a district court may

not entertain a habeas petition involving present physical

custody unless the respondent custodian is within its territorial jurisdiction. Guerra, 786 F.2d at 417. Dicta to the

contrary in the course of our en banc disposition of ChatmanBey v. Thornburgh, therefore, have been overtaken by Padilla. See 864 F.2d at 813.

III. Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district

court purporting to deny Stokes’s petition on the merits is

reversed for want of jurisdiction, and this matter is remanded

similar relationship to the District. Cf. Ex Parte Flick, 76 F.Supp.

979, 981 (D.D.C. 1948), aff’d sub nom. Flick v. Johnson, 174 F.2d

983 (D.C. Cir. 1949). Second, to the extent those cases were

previously susceptible to the reading Stokes and the amicus urge,

they are inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s recent decision in

Padilla and have thus been overruled.

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to the district court so that it may dismiss the petition

without prejudice.

So ordered.

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