Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/371/236/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 14:55:36+00:00

Document:
1. A state prisoner who has been placed on parole, under the "custody and control" of a parole board, is "in custody" within the meaning of 28 U.S. C. § 2241, and, on his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, a Federal District Court has jurisdiction to hear and determine his charge that his state sentence was imposed in violation of the Federal Constitution. Pp. 371 U. S. 236-243.
2. The fact that such a petitioner has left the territorial jurisdiction of the District Court does not deprive that Court of jurisdiction when the members of the parole board are still within its jurisdiction and can be required to do all things necessary to bring the case to a final adjudication. Pp. 371 U. S. 243-244.
because he no longer had custody or control over petitioner "at large on parole." It refused to permit the petitioner to add the Parole Board members as respondents because they did not have "physical custody" of the person of petitioner, and were therefore not proper parties. 294 F.2d 608. We granted certiorari to decide whether a parolee is "in custody" within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 2241, and is therefore entitled to invoke the habeas corpus jurisdiction of the United States District Court. 369 U.S. 809.
from her husband against her will. [Footnote 4] The test used was simply whether she was "at her liberty to go where she please[d]." [Footnote 5] So also, habeas corpus was used in 1763 to require the production in court of an indentured 18-year-old girl who had been assigned by her master to another man "for bad purposes." [Footnote 6] Although the report indicates no restraint on the girl other than the covenants of the indenture, the King's Bench ordered that she "be discharged from all restraint, and be at liberty to go where she will." [Footnote 7] And more than a century ago, an English court permitted a parent to use habeas corpus to obtain his children from the other parent, even though the children were "not under imprisonment, restraint, or duress of any kind." [Footnote 8] These examples show clearly that English courts have not treated the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, 31 Car. II, c. 2 -- the forerunner of all habeas corpus acts -- as permitting relief only to those in jail or like physical confinement.
Similarly, in the United States, the use of habeas corpus has not been restricted to situations in which the applicant is in actual, physical custody. This Court itself has repeatedly held that habeas corpus is available to an alien seeking entry into the United States, [Footnote 9] although, in those cases, each alien was free to go anywhere else in the world.
"[H]is movements," this Court said, "are restrained by authority of the United States, and he may by habeas corpus test the validity of his exclusion." [Footnote 10] Habeas corpus has also been consistently regarded by lower federal courts as the appropriate procedural vehicle for questioning the legality of an induction or enlistment into the military service. [Footnote 11] The restraint, of course, is clear in such cases, but it is far indeed from the kind of "present physical custody" thought by the Court of Appeals to be required. Again, in the state courts, as in England, habeas corpus has been widely used by parents disputing over which is the fit and proper person to have custody of their child, [Footnote 12] one of which we had before us only a few weeks ago. [Footnote 13] History, usage, and precedent can leave no doubt that, besides physical imprisonment, there are other restraints on a man's liberty, restraints not shared by the public generally, which have been thought sufficient in the English-speaking world to support the issuance of habeas corpus.
the liberty of a person released on parole is not so restrained as to permit the parolee to attack his conviction in habeas corpus proceedings. In some of those cases, upon which the Court of Appeals in this case also relied, the petitioner had been completely and unconditionally released from custody; [Footnote 14] such cases are obviously not controlling here, where petitioner has not been unconditionally released. Other cases relied upon by respondent held merely that the dispute between the petitioner and the named respondent in each case had become moot because that particular respondent no longer held the petitioner in his custody. [Footnote 15] So here, as in the cases last mentioned, when the petitioner was placed on parole, his cause against the Superintendent of the Virginia State Penitentiary became moot because the superintendent's custody had come to an end, as much as if he had resigned his position with the State. But it does not follow that this petitioner is wholly without remedy. His motion to add the members of the Virginia Parole Board as parties respondent squarely raises the question, not presented in our earlier cases, of whether the Parole Board now holds the petitioner in its "custody" within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 2241, so that he can, by habeas corpus, require the Parole Board to point to and defend the law by which it justifies any restraint on his liberty.
that conditions and restrictions such as these [Footnote 20] may be desirable and important parts of the rehabilitative process; what matters is that they significantly restrain petitioner's liberty to do those things which, in this country, free men are entitled to do. Such restraints are enough to invoke the help of the Great Writ. Of course, that writ always could and still can reach behind prison walls and iron bars. But it can do more. It is not now and never has been a static, narrow, formalistic remedy; its scope has grown to achieve its grand purpose -- the protection of individuals against erosion of their right to be free from wrongful restraints upon their liberty. While petitioner's parole releases him from immediate physical imprisonment, it imposes conditions which significantly confine and restrain his freedom; this is enough to keep him in the "custody" of the members of the Virginia Parole Board within the meaning of the habeas corpus statute; if he can prove his allegations, this custody is in violation of the Constitution, and it was therefore error for the Court of Appeals to dismiss his case as moot instead of permitting him to add the Parole Board members as respondents.
an appropriate respondent with custody remained. Here, the members of the Parole Board are still within the jurisdiction of the District Court, and they can be required to do all things necessary to bring the case to a final adjudication.
The case is reversed and remanded to the Court of Appeals with directions to grant petitioner's motion to add the members of the Parole Board as respondents and proceed to a decision on the merits of petitioner's case.
Parole in this case was granted while petitioner's appeal was pending in the Court of Appeals.
U.S.Const. Art. I, § 9.
See, e.g., McNally v. Hill, 293 U. S. 131, 293 U. S. 136 (1934); Ex parte Parks, 93 U. S. 18 (1876).
Rex v. Clarkson, 1 Str. 444, 93 Eng.Rep. 625 (K.B. 1722).
Id. at 445, 93 Eng.Rep. at 625.
Rex v. Delaval, 3 Burr. 1434, 97 Eng.Rep. 913 (K.B. 1763).
Id. at 1437, 97 Eng.Rep. at 914.
Earl of Westmeath v. Countess of Westmeath, as set out in a reporter's footnote in Lyons v. Blenkin, 1 Jac. 245, 264, 37 Eng.Rep. 842, 848 (Ch. 1821); accord, Ex parte M'Clellan, 1 Dowl. 81 (K.B. 1831).
E.g., Brownell v. Tom We Shung, 352 U. S. 180, 352 U. S. 183 (1956); Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel. Mezei, 345 U. S. 206 (1953); United States ex rel. Knauff v. Shaughnessy, 338 U. S. 537 (1950); United States v. Jung Ah Lung, 124 U. S. 621, 124 U. S. 626 (1888).
Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel. Mezei, supra, note 9 at | note 9 at S. 213|>213.
E.g., Ex parte Fabiani, 105 F.Supp. 139 (D.C.E.D.Pa.1952); United States ex rel. Steinberg v. Graham, 57 F.Supp. 938 (D.C.E.D.Ark.1944).
E.g., Boardman v. Boardman, 135 Conn. 124, 138, 62 A.2d 521, 528 (1948); Barlow v. Barlow, 141 Ga. 535, 536-537, 81 S.E. 433, 434 (1914); In re Swall, 36 Nev. 171, 174, 134 P. 96, 97, (1913) ("the question of physical restraint need be given little or no consideration where a lawful right is asserted to retain possession of the child"). See also In re Hollopeter, 52 Wash. 41, 100 P. 159 (1909) (husband held entitled to release of his wife from restraint by her parents); In re Chace, 26 R.I. 351, 358, 58 A. 978, 981 (1904) (wife held entitled to husband's society free of restraint by his guardian).
Ford v. Ford, 371 U. S. 187 (1962).
Parker v. Ellis, 362 U. S. 574 (1960); Zimmerman v. Walker, 319 U.S. 744 (1943); Tornello v. Hudspeth, 318 U.S. 792 (1943).
United States ex rel. Lynn v. Downer, 322 U.S. 756 (1944); United States ex rel. Innes v. Crystal, 319 U.S. 755 (1943); Weber v. Squier, 315 U.S. 810 (1942).
See Anderson v. Corall, 263 U. S. 193, 263 U. S. 196 (1923) ("While [parole] is an amelioration of punishment, it is in legal effect imprisonment"); von Hentig, Degrees of Parole Violation and Graded Remedial Measures, 33 J.Crim.L. & Criminology 363 (1943).
Va.Code Ann. §§ 53-258, 53-259. In fact, all the Board has to find is that there was "a probable violation."
Even the condition which requires petitioner not to violate any penal laws or ordinances, at first blush innocuous, is a significant restraint because it is the Parole Board members or the parole officer who will determine whether such a violation has occurred.
The conditions involved in this case appear to be the common ones. See Giardini The Parole Process, 12-16 (1959).

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