F I LED

United States Court of Appeals

Tenth Circuit

December 13, 2006

Elisabeth A. Shumaker

Clerk of Court

PUBLISH

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

TENTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

HECTOR GARCIA, JR.,

Defendant-Appellant.

 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

 Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

VICTOR MANCILLAS,

 Defendant-Appellant.

No. 06-3222

No. 06-3223

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Kansas

(D.C. Nos. 02-CR-10140-01-MLB; 02-CR-10140-20-MLB)

Submitted on the briefs:

David M. Lind, Office of United States Attorney, Wichita, Kansas, for PlaintiffAppellee.
We have consolidated the present appeals for purposes of disposition. 1

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Hector Garcia, Jr., pro se.

Victor Mancillas, pro se.

Before MURPHY, SEYMOUR, and McCONNELL, Circuit Judges. 

MURPHY, Circuit Judge.

After examining the briefs and appellate records, this court has determined

unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist the determination of

these appeals. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). They are 1

therefore ordered submitted without oral argument.

Appellants Hector Garcia, Jr. and Victor Mancillas were charged in a 

multi-count indictment with a litany of offenses, including conspiracy to

distribute cocaine and methamphetamine. Garcia pleaded guilty to the drug

conspiracy charge and was sentenced to a term of seventy-two months’

incarceration by the United States District Court for the District of Kansas. 

Mancillas was convicted after a jury trial of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and

methamphetamine, distribution of methamphetamine, and using a communication

facility to facilitate the distribution of a controlled substance. Mancillas was

ultimately sentenced to a ninety-seven-month term of imprisonment. United

States v. Mancillas, No. 05-3328, 2006 WL 1389111 (10th Cir. May 18, 2006). 
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Garcia and Mancillas both state they are currently incarcerated in the Moshannon

Valley Correctional Center in Phillipsburg, Pennsylvania. 

On May 15, 2006, Garcia filed a motion requesting the Kansas district

court to compel the Bureau of Prisons to transfer him to a detention facility

located within a five-hundred-mile radius of Arizona. In the alternative, Garcia

requested that he be transferred to a “Camp.” Mancillas filed a nearly identical

motion on May 19, 2006, requesting that he be transferred to a detention facility

closer to his family or placed in a “Camp.” The district court summarily denied

both motions without analysis. In his appellate brief, Garcia asserts the district

court erred by failing to review the merits of his motion and asks this court to

issue a “memorandum order” directing his transfer “in the fairness of justice.” 

Likewise, Mancillas requests this court grant him the relief he requests “in the

interest of justice.” 

In the motions Appellants filed with the district court, neither sought

release from the custody of the Bureau of Prisons or a shortened period of

incarceration. Instead, both sought a court order directing the Bureau of Prisons

to transfer them to detention facilities located closer to their families. In Boyce v.

Ashcroft, 251 F.3d 911, 918, vacated as moot, 268 F.3d 953 (10th Cir. 2001), this

court concluded that a request by a federal prisoner for a change in the place of

confinement is properly construed as a challenge to the conditions of confinement

and, thus, must be brought pursuant to Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of
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the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971). Although Boyce was

vacated as moot on rehearing, we are persuaded by its reasoning. Appellants are

in the lawful custody of the Bureau of Prisons. Both seek a change in the place

of confinement rather than a shortened period of custody. Accordingly,

Appellants’ challenges to their current assignment at the Moshannon Valley

Correctional Center must be brought in a Bivens action. Because Appellants’

claims were raised in motions filed in their respective criminal cases and not in

civil rights complaints comporting with the requirements of Bivens, they were

properly denied by the district court. 

The judgments of the district court denying Appellants’ motions are

affirmed.