Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-96-07192/USCOURTS-caDC-96-07192-0/pdf.json

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 May 11, 1998 Decided July 24, 1998

No. 96-7192

Anthony Crowell,

Appellant

v.

Edward Walsh,

Administrator and

Matthew McLean, Deputy Warden,

Maximum Security Facility,

District of Columbia Department of Corrections,

Appellees

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 96cv00339)

Jonathan M. Smith, appointed by the court, argued the

cause and filed the briefs for appellant.

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Mary L. Wilson, Assistant Corporation Counsel, argued

the cause for the District of Columbia appellees. With her on

the briefs 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 Williams.

Williams, Circuit Judge: Anthony Crowell was convicted

in Virginia state court and is currently serving time at the

District of Columbia jail, having been transferred to D.C.

under the Interstate Corrections Compact ("ICC"), D.C.

Code s 24-1001, Va. Code. ss 53.1-216, 217. The district

court denied his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, which

was filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. s 2241. We hold that Crowell is not entitled to a certificate of probable cause and

dismiss the appeal.

Crowell was sentenced by the Commonwealth of Virginia to

more than 30 years in prison for robbery and murder. He

began serving his sentence in Virginia but thanks to an

"extensive enemy list" he was transferred to a prison in New

Mexico under the ICC. After assaulting a prison guard and

being generally uncooperative in New Mexico Crowell was

transferred again under the ICC, this time to the Lorton

Correctional Complex in Occoquan, Virginia, which is part of

the District of Columbia penal system. See D.C. Code

s 24-442. On February 22, 1996, while housed at Lorton,

Crowell filed his federal habeas petition, alleging that D.C.

officials had denied him due process and equal protection by

not awarding him good conduct credits to which he was

entitled under Virginia law.

As a threshold matter we note that Crowell's claim of

entitlement to good conduct credits must be brought in

habeas because it would accelerate his release if successful.

Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475 (1973). Under our decision today in Blair-Bey v. Quick, No. 96-5280, therefore, his

claim is not one that required him to comply with the filing

fee provisions of the Prison Litigation Reform Act, 28 U.S.C.

s 1915(b). In addition, the parties appear to agree that

Crowell has exhausted his Virginia state habeas remedies.

There remains the question whether Crowell's appeal is

governed by the certificate of appealability requirement of

the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act

("AEDPA"). Before the passage of the AEDPA, 28 U.S.C.

s 2253 required state prisoners seeking to appeal denials of

habeas relief to get a "certificate of probable cause," which

could be issued if the prisoner made "a substantial showing of

the denial of a federal right." Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U.S.

880, 893 (1983). Under the AEDPA prisoners must get a

"certificate of appealability," which requires them to make "a

substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right."

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28 U.S.C. s 2253(c)(2). Since Crowell's only claims are constitutional, for purposes of this case there is no difference

between the standards for issuance of the two types of

certificate.

Since the parties were ordered to brief the issue, however,

it is appropriate to specify whether we must insist on the

AEDPA certificate or its predecessor. The Supreme Court

has held that the AEDPA's amendments to the non-capital

habeas provisions of Title 28 "generally apply only to cases

filed after the Act became effective." Lindh v. Murphy, 117

S. Ct. 2059, 2068 (1997). Noting the word "generally" in this

passage from Lindh, the Eighth Circuit concluded that the

certificate of appealability requirement nonetheless applies to

all appeals filed on or after April 24, 1996, even if the

underlying petition was filed before that date. Tiedeman v.

Benson, 122 F.3d 518, 521 (8th Cir. 1997). The Eighth

Circuit appeared to reach this conclusion after determining

that such application would have no meaningful "retroactive

effect," as defined by Landgraf v. USI Film Products, Inc.,

511 U.S. 244 (1994), because it would not "impair rights a

party possessed when he acted, increase a party's liability for

past conduct, or impose new duties with respect to transactions already completed." Id. at 280. See Tiedeman, 122

F.3d at 521 ("[W]e can think of no reason why a new

provision exclusively directed towards appeal procedures

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would depend for its effective date on the filing of a case in a

trial court, instead of on the filing of a notice of appeal or

similar document.").

But Lindh rejected the idea that a court should restrict

itself to the Landgraf retroactive-effect inquiry whenever a

statute lacks an "express command" as to "its ultimate temporal reach," Lindh, 117 S. Ct. at 2062, mandating instead the

use of "normal rules of construction" to ascertain congressional intent. Id. at 2063. It was on that basis that it concluded

that the AEDPA's non-capital habeas provisions were intended by Congress to "generally apply only to cases filed after

the Act became effective." Id. at 2068. Our conclusion that

those provisions include even the ones addressed to appeal

procedures is strengthened by Lindh's express disapproval of

an Eleventh Circuit opinion invoking Landgraf to find the

certificate of appealability requirement applicable to cases

filed before the AEDPA's effective date but appealed afterward. See id. at 2062 (citing Hunter v. United States, 101

F.3d 1565, 1569 (11th Cir.1996) (en banc)). Accordingly, we

join every circuit (apart from the Eighth) to address the

question after Lindh in holding that s 2253(c) does not apply

to appeals of habeas petitions filed before the effective date of

the Act. See, e.g., Hardwick v. Singletary, 122 F.3d 935, 936

(11th Cir.), vacated in part on other grounds, 126 F.3d 1312

(11th Cir. 1997); Berrios v. United States, 126 F.3d 430, 432

n.2 (2d Cir. 1997) (collecting cases).1

Having determined that the certificate of probable cause is

the right kind of certificate for Crowell's case, we decline to

issue one. Crowell's claim of entitlement to good conduct

credits is based entirely on Virginia law, and his habeas

petition simply "attempts to transform his state law claim into

a federal court action by dressing it in the verbiage of due

process and equal protection." Brandon v. District of Columbia Board of Parole, 823 F.2d 644, 651 (D.C. Cir. 1987).

The due process claim founders on the fact that Crowell

concededly has no constitutionally protected liberty interest

in any particular level of good conduct credits. His habeas

petition seems to contend that Virginia inmates transferred

under the ICC are entitled to the highest level of credits, a

contention that appears to be grounded in a complete mis-

__________________

1. Earlier this month the Supreme Court held that it had certiorari 

jurisdiction over the Eighth Circuit's

denial of a certificate of appealability in a s 2255 case filed by a federal 

prisoner before passage of the

AEDPA but appealed thereafter. Hohn v. United States, 118 S. Ct. 1969 

(1998). Although the petitioner in

that case argued that the certificate of appealability requirement should not 

apply to such cases, see Brief for

Petitioner at 40-44, Hohn v. United States, 118 S. Ct. 1969 (1998), the 

Court's opinion did not address the

question. We therefore treat Lindh as the Court's last word on the subject.

reading of the relevant regulations. But the regulations do

not contain the sort of mandatory language that could give

rise to a liberty interest. See Ellis v. District of Columbia,

84 F.3d 1413, 1418 (D.C. Cir. 1996). As the regulations were

his sole basis for any claim of entitlement, there is no liberty

or property the deprivation of which could have been without

due process. Finally, assuming Crowell's petition can be read

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to state an equal protection claim, it is an entirely conclusory

one and inadequate to merit a certificate of probable cause.

The case is therefore

Dismissed.

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