Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca5-03-30479/USCOURTS-ca5-03-30479-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
O. Kent Andrews
Appellee
Jesus Carmona
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

F I L E D

January 29, 2004

Charles R. Fulbruge III

Clerk

In the

United States Court of Appeals

for the Fifth Circuit

_______________

m 03-30479

_______________

JESUS CARMONA,

Petitioner-Appellant,

VERSUS

O. KENT ANDREWS,

Respondent-Appellee.

_________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Louisiana

m 02-CV-558

________________________

Before JONES, MAGILL,

*

 and SMITH,

Circuit Judges.

JERRY E. SMITH, Circuit Judge:

Jesus Carmona challengesthe dismissal, for

want of jurisdiction, of his petition for writ of

habeas corpus. Concluding that there is no

jurisdiction in the district a quo, we affirm and

remand, so that Carmona may elect to transfer

his action to another district.

I.

In 1984, in a state court located in the Eastern District of Louisiana, Carmona was convicted of armed robbery and received a twenty-five-year sentence. In 1996, he was released on parole via good-time credits. In

*

Judge of the United States Court of Appeals

for the Eighth Circuit, sitting by designation.

 Case: 03-30479 Document: 0051496299 Page: 1 Date Filed: 01/29/2004
2

2000, the Louisiana Board of Parole revoked

Carmona’s parole. While imprisoned in the

Western District of Louisiana, Carmona filed,

in the Eastern District, a federal habeas challenge pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 naming, as

respondent, the warden of the prison in which

he was confined.

A judge of the Eastern District determined

that venue for Carmona’s challenge properly

rested in the Middle District of Louisiana.

That judge looked to 28 U.S.C. § 2241(d)1

and decided that the Board of Parole had

“convicted” and “sentenced” Carmona.

Because the Board is located in the Middle

District, the EasternDistrict judge referred the

matter to that district. 

A judge of the Middle District then dismissed Carmona’s petition, without prejudice,

for failing to exhaust state remedies; Carmona

moved to vacate the dismissal. The Middle

District judge decided that that court did not

have jurisdiction because the Board of Parole

is not a “State court” as mentioned in § 2241.

Consequently, the matter was transferred to

the Eastern District, where a judge promptly

returned the matter to the Middle District,

afterSSonce againSSequating a parole board

with a state court, whereupon the judge in the

Middle District, pursuant to a magistrate

judge’s recommendation, dismissed the petition, without prejudice, based on Carmona’s

lack of subject matter jurisdiction. 

Carmona promptly moved to vacate that

dismissal and appealed the denial of that motion. The Middle District judge granted a certificate of appealability (“COA”) on the issue

“of which court has jurisdiction when a petitioner is reincarcerated for violation of parole

terms and is neither convicted nor incarcerated

in the judicial district where the revocation

occurred.” We now review the Middle District’s dismissal.

II.

The instant appeal focuses entirely on the

power of the Middle District to hear Carmona’s § 2254 claim, so we do not address the

merits of the case. We review de novo a dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

See, e.g., Williams v. Dallas Area Rapid Transit, 242 F.3d 315, 318 (5th Cir. 2001). Additionally, “‘The issue ofsubject matter jurisdiction is subject to plenary review by an appellate court.’” Lincoln v. Case, 340 F.3d 283,

287 (5th Cir. 2003) (quoting Julian v. City of

Houston, 314 F.3d 721, 725 (5th Cir. 2002)).

Determining whether the Middle District can

entertainCarmona’s appeal turns on (1) the interaction between §§ 2254 and 2241 and

(2) whether the Board of Parole operates as a

state court.

A.

Section 2254 “confersjurisdiction upon the

federal courts to hear collateral attacks on

state court judgments.” Wadsworth v. Johnson, 235 F.3d 959, 961 (5th Cir. 2000).2

 “Sec

1

 28 U.S.C. § 2241(d) states:

 Where an application for a writ of habeas

corpusis 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 . . . .

2

 See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a) (stating that federal

courts “shall entertain an application for a writ of

habeas corpus [from one] in custody pursuant to

(continued...)

 Case: 03-30479 Document: 0051496299 Page: 2 Date Filed: 01/29/2004
3

tion 2241 ‘specifies the court in which [the petition] must be brought.’” Id. (quoting Story

v. Collins, 920 F.2d 1247, 1250 (5th Cir.

1991)). See 28 U.S.C. § 2241(a) (stating that

federal courts may issue writs of habeas corpus “within their respective jurisdictions”).

The “respective jurisdictions” language presumably limits the general habeas power contained in § 2254.

Although the Supreme Court has discussed

subject matter jurisdiction in § 2254 challenges, such a discussion does not apply to the

case at hand. In ruling that a district court

could hear a habeas challenge from a person

imprisoned in another state, the Court opined

that “[s]o long as the custodian can be reached

by service of process, the court can issue a

writ ‘within its jurisdiction’ . . . even if the prisoner himself is confined outside the court’s

territorial jurisdiction.” Braden v. 30th Judicial Cir. Ct., 410 U.S. 484, 495 (1973) (quoting § 2241(a)).

In Wadsworth, 235 F.3d at 962, we rejected

the notion that “a district court needs only the

capacity to serve process on the custodian in

order to assert jurisdiction.” Two of Wadsworth’s justifications for this conclusion apply

to Carmona’s situation. First, “Braden presented the Supreme Court with a situation that

none of the more specific subsections of

§ 2241 addressed.” Id. at 962-63. In Braden,

the Court was presented with a question of interstate detainerSSan issue that § 2241 does

not cover. Carmona, like 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.” Id. at 963.3

Secondly, as the Wadsworth panel noted,

reading Braden as a broad grant of subject

matter jurisdiction would run against a common doctrine ofstatutory construction. “This

broad reading of § 2241(a) would trump the

more specific § 2241(d). Thus, § 2241(d)

would be unnecessary.” Wadsworth, 235 F.3d

at 963. Numerous panels of this court have

articulated the canon of construction that

states that a more specific provision controls a

more general provision.4 

Accordingly, as Wadsworth noted, Braden

does not invalidate the statutory regime established by §§ 2254 and 2241. Though a petitioner may have a broad right to file a habeas

petition, he may do so only in a limited number

of courts. Carmona falls perfectly within the

circumstances mentioned in § 2241(d). Thus,

the language of that section determines the

appropriate district(s) in which Carmona may

file his petition.

B.

Section 2241(d) lists two districts in which

2

(...continued)

the judgment of a State court only on the ground

that he is in custody in violation of the Constitution

or laws and treaties of the United States.”).

3 See also Mayfield v. Klevenhagen, 941 F.2d

346, 348 (5th Cir. 1991) (rejecting claim that a

District of Columbia district court could hear a

federal habeas petition and stating the petitioner

“was tried and sentenced in Texas; he is confined

in Texas.”).

4 See, e.g., United States v. John, 309 F.3d 298,

302 n.5 (5th Cir. 2002) (“a principle of statutory

construction provides that a specific provision

takes precedenceover a more general one.”); Kirby

Corp. v. Pena, 109 F.3d 258, 270 (5th Cir. 1997)

(“It is a well-known canon of statutory construction that a specific statutory provision governs

the general.”). 

 Case: 03-30479 Document: 0051496299 Page: 3 Date Filed: 01/29/2004
4

a habeas petitioner may file: “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.” The Eastern

District has asserted that the Board of Parole

constitutes a “State court” that “convicted and

sentenced” Carmona.

Both assumptions are misplaced. First,

within Louisiana, the Board of Parole does not

function as a state court. From an institutional

perspective, the legislature created the body,

and the governor appoints its members. LA.

R.S. 15:574.2(A)(1) (“A board of parole . . . is

hereby created in the Department of Public

Safety and Corrections. It shall consist of seven members appointed by the governor.”).

One may easily contrast the method of selection for the members of the Board of Parole

with the electoral process that produces members of the Louisiana state judiciary. LA.

CONST. art. V, § 22(A) (“Except as otherwise

provided in this Section, all judges shall be

elected.”).

Additionally, this court has explicitly

looked to the underlying nature of a correctional entity and has determined that such a

body is not a state court. Story v. Collins, 920

F.2d 1247, 1251 (5th Cir. 1991). In Story, the

panel stated that the Texas Department of

Corrections (“TDC”) “is not a state court.”

Id. The Louisiana Board of Parole is part of

the Department of Public Safety and Corrections, a Louisiana entity analogous to the

TDC.5 Consequently, the Board is not a state

court for purposes of § 2241(d).6

Furthermore, the Board neither “convicted”

nor “sentenced” Carmona. It can only implement policies as directed by the legislature or

the courts. The Orleans Criminal District

Court originally sentenced Carmona. The

Louisiana legislature passed the relevant statutes that detailed the granting and revocation

of parole. LA. R.S. 15:571.13; LA. R.S.

15:571.3. In revoking Carmona’s parole, the

Board of Parole only re-instituted the trial

court’s original sentence. Consequently, the

Board sentencedCarmona to nothingnew, and

he received no new sentence, but merely lost

the good-time credits offered under LA. R.S.

15:571.3.7

5 Although this statement did not occur in the

context of a § 2241(d) analysis, the Wadsworth

panel applied such a statement to the consideration

of venue. Wadsworth, 235 F.3d at 962 (“Because

(continued...)

5

(...continued)

the [TCD] is not a state court, its actions cannot be

the basis for jurisdiction under § 2241(d).”). 

6 The Eastern District cited a Supreme Court

case and several of this court’s opinions to argue

that, for purposes of § 2241, a parole board should

be treated as a state court. The Eastern District’s

cases, however, relate not to the issue involved in

this matter, but to immunity under 42 U.S.C.

§ 1983. 

7 Additionally, this court’s language does not

connect parole revocation with sentencing or with

conviction. Parole is “revoked.” See, e.g., Alexander v. Cockrell, 294 F.3d 626, 630 (5th Cir. 2002)

(noting that “the State sought to revoke Alexander’s parole”); Barnes v. Johnson, 184 F.3d 451,

453 (5th Cir. 1999) (stating that “the State of Texas moved to revoke Barnes’s parole”). Parole

boards neither convict nor sentence. Panels that

have discussed parole boards and sentencing treat

the sentencing as an act separate from a board’s

consideration of a particular case. See, e.g., Jones

v. Jones, 163 F.3d 285, 292 (5th Cir. 1998) (detailing theBoard’slimited power to consider a case

(continued...)

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5

III.

In summary, because the Louisiana Board

of Parole does not act as a state court and neither sentences nor convicts, Carmona cannot

file a § 2254 petition in the Middle District of

Louisiana. Although § 2254 provides general

subject matterjurisdictionfor habeas petitions,

§ 2241(d) gives Carmona two choices. He

may file in the Western District (the place of

his incarceration) or in the Eastern District

(the place of his original conviction and sentence).

The judgment of dismissal is AFFIRMED,

and this matter is REMANDED with instruction to transfer this matter to the Western or

Eastern District ofLouisianaifCarmona elects

to pursue his claim in either of those forums.

7

(...continued)

until a life sentence was commuted to a more

definite duration).

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