Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-96-07259/USCOURTS-caDC-96-07259-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 550
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Civil Rights (U.S. defendant)
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. 96-7259

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

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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 prisoner 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 misdemeanor violations of D.C.'s housing, building, zoning, licensing, 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 Corrections, Anyanwutaku filed a confusing pro se complaint in U.S.

District Court for the District of Columbia against the Department 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 incarceration or at least much sooner than 10/25/97 as recorded and

maintained by the record office." Compl. at 6-7. The complaint 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,

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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 reconsideration, 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 district 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

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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 Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"), Pub. L. No.

104-132, 100 Stat. 1214 (1996). While this appeal was pending, 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 required 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.

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Unlike the prisoners in Preiser, whose challenges to the

loss of good time credits, if successful, would have automatically shortened the duration of their confinement, Anyanwutaku 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 discretionary, 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); Georgevich 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

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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. Humphrey, 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 confinement." 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 invalidity 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 invalidated. 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 reinstatement 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 invalidity 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 damages, is a ticket to get in the door of the parole board,

thus only making them eligible for parole consideration.... 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). Anyanwutaku faces precisely the same situation. Had he succeeded

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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 Anyanwutaku's, would have necessarily resulted in speedier release.

39 F.3d at 330. Chatman-Bey, which required parole eligibility 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 continuing 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 appealability 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.

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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-orcontroversy requirement subsists through all stages of federal 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 challenged 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 requires 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 (explaining 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 before 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; appellees 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.)

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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. Department 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 prisoners 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.

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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 similarly 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 capriciously denied access to the said [prison] programs through invidious 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

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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 frivolous, 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 legitimate 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 "classified" 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 incarceration, since misdemeanants must serve one-third of their aggregate 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 independent equal protection claim with regard to his parole eligibility. His motion for reconsideration merely states that his

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parole eligibility date is "wrong and is arbitrarily and capriciously 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 specific 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 programs equal protection claim and remand for further proceedings. In all other respects, we affirm.

So ordered.

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