Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-1_13-cv-00526/USCOURTS-caed-1_13-cv-00526-1/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Michael L. Benov
Respondent
Jesus Pacheco-Lozano
Petitioner

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

Petitioner is a federal prisoner proceeding pro se and in forma 

pauperis with a petition for writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 

U.S.C. § 2241. The matter has been referred to the Magistrate Judge

pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1) and Local Rules 302 through 304. 

Pending before the Court is the petition, which was filed on April 

12, 2013. 

I. Background

Respondent filed a response to the petition on July 18, 2013, 

indicating that Petitioner had been released from custody. No 

traverse was filed.

On October 23, 2013, the Court directed the parties to brief

JESUS PACHECO-LOZANO,

 Petitioner,

v.

MICHAEL L. BENOV,

Respondent.

Case No. 1:13-cv-00526-AWI-SKO-HC

FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS TO 

DISMISS THE PETITION FOR WRIT OF 

HABEAS CORPUS AS MOOT (DOC. 1) AND 

DIRECT THE CLERK TO CLOSE THE CASE

OBJECTIONS DEADLINE:

THIRTY (30) DAYS

Case 1:13-cv-00526-AWI-SKO Document 19 Filed 01/02/14 Page 1 of 7
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the question of whether or not the case should be dismissed as moot 

because Petitioner’s claims related to the loss of good time credit, 

and Petitioner had been released from custody. Respondent served 

and filed a brief on November 21, 2013. Although the time for 

filing a responsive brief has passed, Petitioner has not responded 

to Respondent’s brief or sought an extension of time within which to 

do so.

Petitioner, an inmate of the Taft Correctional Institution

(TCI), challenges the disallowance of twenty-seven days of good time 

credit he suffered as a result of prison disciplinary findings on or 

about October 20, 2011, that he engaged in fighting on or about July 

22 or 26, 2011. (Pet., doc. 1 at 13-15.) Petitioner challenges the 

loss of credit and seeks invalidation of the sanction. (Id. at 7.) 

Petitioner raises the following claims in the petition: 1) because 

the hearing officer was not an employee of the Federal Bureau of 

Prisons (BOP) and lacked the authority to conduct the disciplinary 

hearing and make findings resulting in punishment, including 

disallowance of good time credit, Petitioner suffered a violation of 

his right to due process of law; 2) because the hearing officer was 

not an employee of the BOP but rather was an employee of a private 

entity with a financial interest in the disallowance of good time 

credits, Petitioner’s due process right to an independent and 

impartial decision maker at the disciplinary hearing was violated. 

(Id. at 3-7.)

In the amended response to the petition filed on July 18, 2013, 

Respondent contends that Petitioner, who was serving a sixty-month 

sentence for possession of a controlled substance imposed in 2008, 

was released from custody “to an immigration detainer on May 24, 

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2013, via Good Conduct Time.” (Doc. 16-1, 3.) 

Respondent seeks dismissal of the petition for mootness. 

II. Mootness 

Federal courts lack jurisdiction to decide cases that are moot 

because the courts= constitutional authority extends to only actual 

cases or controversies. Iron Arrow Honor Society v. Heckler, 464 

U.S. 67, 70-71 (1983). Article III requires a case or controversy 

in which a litigant has a personal stake in the outcome of the suit 

throughout all stages of federal judicial proceedings and has 

suffered some actual injury that can be redressed by a favorable 

judicial decision. Id. A petition for writ of habeas corpus 

becomes moot when it no longer presents a case or controversy under 

Article III, ' 2 of the Constitution. Wilson v. Terhune, 319 F.3d 

477, 479 (9th Cir. 2003). A petition for writ of habeas corpus is 

moot where a petitioner=s claim for relief cannot be redressed by a 

favorable decision of the court issuing a writ of habeas corpus. 

Burnett v. Lampert, 432 F.3d 996, 1000-01 (9th Cir. 2005) (quoting 

Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S. 1, 7 (1998)). Mootness is jurisdictional. 

See, Cole v. Oroville Union High School District, 228 F.3d 1092, 

1098-99 (9th Cir. 2000). Thus, a moot petition must be dismissed 

because nothing remains before the Court to be remedied. Spencer v. 

Kemna, 523 U.S. 1, 18. A federal court has a duty to consider 

mootness on its own motion. Demery v. Arpaio, 378 F.3d 1020, 1025 

(9th Cir. 2004). 

Respondent relies on dicta in Nonnette v. Small, 316 F.3d 872, 

875-76 (9th Cir. 2002), involving a § 1983 plaintiff with respect to 

whom it had to be determined whether a habeas corpus remedy was 

available. The court concluded that a habeas corpus remedy was 

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unavailable to a state prisoner who challenged a loss of good time 

credit but had been released on parole, setting forth the following 

explanation: 

After the district court entered its decision, Nonnette 

was released from the incarceration of which he complains, 

and is now on parole. Were he to seek a writ of habeas 

corpus, his petition would present no case or controversy 

because establishing the invalidity of his disciplinary 

proceeding could have no effect on the 360 days of 

additional incarceration or the 100 days of administrative 

segregation that resulted from it. Nor could such relief 

have any effect on the term of his parole.FN4 As a 

consequence, his petition for habeas corpus would have to 

be dismissed as moot. See Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S. 1,

118 S.Ct. 978, 140 L.Ed.2d 43 (1998). In Spencer, the 

Supreme Court held that, although a prisoner who has 

completed his sentence can challenge his conviction in 

habeas corpus because of the collateral consequences that 

survive his release, no such collateral consequences 

attended the prisoner's incarceration imposed for 

violation of parole. Id. at 14–16, 118 S.Ct. 978. 

Accordingly, the prisoner's petition was moot because he 

had served the term of incarceration resulting from his 

parole revocation. See id. at 18, 118 S.Ct. 978.

FN4 The State does not contend that the length 

of Nonnette's parole term would be affected by 

invalidation of his disciplinary proceeding or 

by administrative recalculation of his date of 

release from incarceration. It argues only that 

Nonnette is still “in custody” while on parole, 

and thus qualifies for habeas relief. The 

relevant bar to habeas relief, however, is not 

the “in custody” requirement, but the “case or 

controversy” requirement, which would render 

Nonnette's claims moot if they were brought in 

a habeas corpus proceeding. See Spencer, 523 

U.S. at 7, 118 S.Ct. 978.

We see no relevant distinction between the collateral 

consequences attending parole revocation and those 

attending Nonnette's deprivation of good-time credits. We 

are satisfied, therefore, that if he now filed a petition 

for habeas corpus attacking the revocation of his goodtime credits and the imposition of administrative 

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segregation (as well as the administrative calculation of 

his release date), his petition would have to be dismissed 

for lack of a case or controversy because he has fully 

served the period of incarceration that he is attacking.

Nonnette v. Small, 316 F.3d at 875-76. 

The reasoning of Nonnette v. Small has been applied to dismiss 

a habeas corpus petition by a state prisoner seeking restoration of 

time credit lost in an allegedly unconstitutional prison 

disciplinary where the petitioner had served the extra time and had 

been released to serve a term of community supervision. Johnson v. 

Swarthout, 2013 WL 2150333, *1-*3 (No. 11-cv-2715-GEB-CKD-P, 

E.D.Cal. May 16, 2013). The court found no significant distinction 

between the parole term involved in Nonnette and the community 

supervision term involved in Johnson, noting that neither parole nor 

community supervision are equivalent to actual incarceration, but 

are instead mandatory periods to be served following release. 

Further, in the petitioner’s case, supervision was by an entity 

separate from the prison administration. Concluding that Nonnette

was controlling, the court held that the petitioner had failed to 

allege collateral consequences flowing from the prison disciplinary 

conviction and accompanying loss of conduct credits at issue, and a 

favorable judicial decision would not afford the petitioner relief 

from the alleged injury because he had already served the time in 

question. Id. 

Respondent argues that good conduct time is specific to the 

period of incarceration in which it is earned, and that pursuant to 

28 C.F.R. § 523.2(c) (2012), good conduct time cannot be used to 

shorten a period of supervision. Title 28 C.F.R. § 523.2(c) (2012) 

provides, “Once an inmate is conditionally released from 

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imprisonment, either by parole, including special parole, or 

mandatory release, the good time earned (extra or statutory) during 

that period of imprisonment is of no further effect either to 

shorten the period of supervision or to shorten the period of 

imprisonment which the inmate may be required to serve for violation 

of parole or mandatory release.” Respondent urges the Court to 

apply the rationale of Nonnette to Petitioner’s release on an 

immigration hold. Respondent concludes that because any issue with 

respect to the application or loss of good conduct time does not 

survive a prisoner’s release from incarceration, there is no “live” 

issue for the court to decide, and the petition is therefore moot.

Petitioner did not file any response to Respondent’s brief and 

has not shown how any order from this Court with respect to 

Petitioner’s disciplinary proceeding will have any effect on the 

duration of Petitioner’s detention in ICE custody or grant him

release.

The Court concludes that it is no longer possible for this 

Court to issue a decision redressing the injury. Petitioner has not 

asserted any factual or legal basis that would preclude a finding of 

mootness. The Court thus concludes that the matter is moot because 

the Court may no longer grant any effective relief. See, Badea v. 

Cox, 931 F.2d 573, 574 (9th Cir. 1991) (habeas claim was moot where 

a former inmate sought placement in a community treatment center but 

was subsequently released on parole and no longer sought such a 

transfer); Kittel v. Thomas, 620 F.3d 949 (9th Cir. 2010)

(dismissing as moot a petition seeking early release where the

petitioner was released and where there was no live, justiciable 

question on which the parties disagreed).

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Therefore, it will be recommended that the petition be 

dismissed as moot.

III. Recommendations

Accordingly, it is RECOMMENDED that:

1) The petition for writ of habeas corpus be DISMISSED as moot; 

and 2) The Clerk be DIRECTED to close the action.

These findings and recommendations are submitted to the United 

States District Court Judge assigned to the case, pursuant to the 

provisions of 28 U.S.C. ' 636 (b)(1)(B) and Rule 304 of the Local 

Rules of Practice for the United States District Court, Eastern 

District of California. Within thirty (30) days after being served 

with a copy, any party may file written objections with the Court 

and serve a copy on all parties. Such a document should be 

captioned AObjections to Magistrate Judge=s Findings and 

Recommendations.@ Replies to the objections shall be served and 

filed within fourteen (14) days (plus three (3) days if served by 

mail) after service of the objections. The Court will then review 

the Magistrate Judge=s ruling pursuant to 28 U.S.C. ' 636 (b)(1)(C). 

The parties are advised that failure to file objections within the

specified time may waive the right to appeal the District Court=s 

order. Martinez v. Ylst, 951 F.2d 1153 (9th Cir. 1991).

 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: January 2, 2014 /s/ Sheila K. Oberto 

UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

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