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PREISER V. RODRIGUEZ, 411 U. S. 475 - Volume 411 - 1973 - Full Text - US Supreme Court Center - USSC Cases - Nolo
US Supreme Court Center > Volume 411 > PREISER V. RODRIGUEZ, 411 U. S. 475 (1973) > Full Text
The respondents in this case were state prisoners who were deprived of good conduct time credits by the New York State Department of Correctional Services as a result of disciplinary proceedings. They then brought actions in a federal district court, pursuant to the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 42 U.S.C.1983. Alleging that the Department had acted unconstitutionally in depriving them of the credits, they sought injunctive relief to compel restoration of the credits, which in each case would result in their immediate release from confinement in
Page 411 U. S. 477
prison. The question before us is whether state prisoners seeking such redress may obtain equitable relief under the Civil Rights Act, even though the federal habeas corpus statute, 28 U.S.C. § 2254, clearly provides a specific federal remedy.
The present consolidated case originated in three separate actions, brought individually by the three respondents. The respondent Rodriguez, having been convicted in a New York state court of perjury and attempted larceny, was sentenced to imprisonment for an indeterminate term of from one and one-half to four years. Under New York Correction Law § 803 and Penal Law § 70.30(4)(a), 70.40(1)(b), a prisoner serving an indeterminate sentence may elect to participate in a conditional release program by which he may earn up to 10 days per month good behavior time credit toward reduction of the maximum term of his sentence. Rodriguez elected to participate in this program. Optimally, such a prisoner may be released on parole after having served approximately two-thirds of his maximum sentence (20 days out of every 30); but accrued good-behavior credits so earned may at any time be withdrawn, in whole
Page 411 U. S. 478
or in part, for bad behavior or for violation of the institutional rules. N.Y.Correction Law § 803(1).
After a hearing, the District Court held that Rodriguez' suit had properly been brought under the Civil Rights Act, that the habeas corpus claim was "merely a proper adjunct to insure full relief if [Rodriguez] prevails in the dominant civil rights claim," 307 F.Supp. 627, 628-629 (1969), and that, therefore, Rodriguez was not required to exhaust his state remedies, as he would have had to do if he had simply filed a petition for habeas corpus. On the merits, the District Court agreed with Rodriguez that the questioning of him by prison officials related solely to the issue of how he had obtained the contraband materials, and that he had been ostensibly punished for something different -- possession of the materials -- on which he had had no notice or opportunity to answer. This, the court found, denied him due process
Page 411 U. S. 479
of law, particularly in light of the fact that the prison regulations prescribed no penalty for failure to inform. The District Court further found that the Prison Commutation Board had failed to forward to the Commissioner of Correction written reasons for the cancellation of Rodriguez' good conduct time, as required by former N.Y.Correction Law § 236, and that this, too, had deprived Rodriguez of due process and equal protection of the laws. Accordingly, the court declared the cancellation of 120 days' good behavior time credits unconstitutional, and directed the Commissioner of Correction to restore those credits to Rodriguez. Since, at that time, Rodriguez' conditional release date had already passed, the District Court's order entitled him to immediate release from prison on parole.
Rodriguez v. McGinnis, 451 F.2d 730, 731 (1971).
Page 411 U. S. 480
The Court of Appeals reversed by a divided vote. Without reaching the merits of Katzoff's complaint, the appellate court held that his action was, in essence, an
Page 411 U. S. 481
application for habeas corpus, since it sought and obtained his immediate release from custody, and that, therefore, his complaint should have been dismissed because Katzoff had sought no relief whatever in the state courts, and had made no showing that an adequate state remedy was unavailable. United States ex rel. Katzoff v. McGinnis, 441 F.2d 558 (1971). This judgment of the Court of Appeals was subsequently set aside, and the case was reheard en banc, as explained below.
Kritasky subsequently filed a civil rights action, combined with a petition for habeas corpus, in Federal District Court, alleging that his summary punishment had deprived him of his good time credits without due process of law. The District Court found Kritasky's complaint to be a proper civil rights action, and went on to rule that he had been denied due process by the imposition of summary punishment and by the failure of the Prison Commutation Board to file with the Commissioner written reasons for cancellation of Kritasky's good time credits, as required by New York law. 313 F.Supp. 1247 (1970). Accordingly, the court ordered restoration of the 590 days' good conduct time credits, which entitled Kritasky to immediate release on parole.
Page 411 U. S. 482
The problem involves the interrelationship of two important federal laws. The relevant habeas corpus statutes are 28 U.S.C. §§ 2241 and 2254. Section 2241(c)
Page 411 U. S. 483
"Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen . . . or other person . . . to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the
Page 411 U. S. 484
It is clear, not only from the language of§ 2241(c)(3) and 2254(a) but also from the common law history of the writ, that the essence of habeas corpus is an attack by a person in custody upon the legality of that custody, and that the traditional function of the writ is to secure release from illegal custody. By the end of the 16th century, there were in England several forms of habeas corpus, of which the most important, and the only one with which we are here concerned, was habeas corpus ad subjiciendum -- the writ used to "inquir[e] into illegal detention with a view to an order releasing the petitioner." Fay v. Noia, 372 U. S. 391, 372 U. S. 399 n. 5 (1963). [Footnote 2] Whether the petitioner had been placed in physical confinement by executive direction alone, [Footnote 3] or by order of a court, [Footnote 4] or even by private parties, [Footnote 5] habeas corpus was the proper means of challenging that confinement and seeking release. Indeed, in 1670, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas was able to say, in ordering the immediate
Page 411 U. S. 485
discharge of a juror who had been jailed by a trial judge for bringing in a verdict of not guilty, that
The original view of a habeas corpus attack upon detention under a judicial order was a limited one. T he relevant inquiry was confined to determining simply whether or not the committing court had been possessed of jurisdiction. E.g., 20 U. S. 7 Wheat. 38 (1822); Ex parte Watkins, 3 Pet.193 (1830). But, over the years, the writ of habeas corpus evolved as a remedy available to effect discharge from any confinement contrary to the Constitution or fundamental law, even though imposed pursuant to conviction by a court of competent jurisdiction. See Ex parte Lange, 18 Wall. 163 (1874); Ex parte Siebold, 100 U. S. 371 (1880); Ex parte Wilson, 114 U. S. 417 (1885); Moore v. Dempsey, 261 U. S. 86 (1923); Johnson. v. Zerbst, 304 U.S.
Page 411 U. S. 486
458 (1938); and Waley v. Johnston, 316 U. S. 101 (1942). See also Fay v. Noia, supra, at 372 U. S. 405-409, and cases cited at 372 U. S. 409 n. 17. Thus, whether the petitioner's challenge to his custody is that the statute under which he stands convicted is unconstitutional, as in Ex parte Siebold, supra; that he has been imprisoned prior to trial on account of a defective indictment against him, as in Ex parte Royall, 117 U. S. 241 (1886); that he is unlawfully confined in the wrong institution, as in In re Bonner, 151 U. S. 242 (1894), and Humphrey v. Cady, 40 U. S. 504 (1972); that he was denied his constitutional rights at trial, as in Johnson v. Zerbst, supra; that his guilty plea was invalid, as in Von Moltke v. Gillies, 332 U. S. 708 (1948); that he is being unlawfully detained by the Executive or the military, as in Parisi v. Davidson, 405 U. S. 34 (1972); or that his parole was unlawfully revoked, causing him to be reincarcerated in prison, as in Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471 (1972) -- in each case, his grievance is that he is being unlawfully subjected to physical restraint, and in each case, habeas corpus has been accepted as the specific instrument to obtain release from such confinement. [Footnote 7]
Page 411 U. S. 487
Id. at 391 U. S. 66-67. See also Walker v. Wainwright, 390 U. S. 335 (1968); Carafas v. LaVallee, 391 U. S. 234, 391 U. S. 239 (1968); Braden v. 30th Judicial Circuit Court of Kentucky, 410 U. S. 484 (1973). So, 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
Page 411 U. S. 488
confinement itself. It is beyond doubt, then, that the respondents could have sought and obtained fully effective relief through federal habeas corpus proceedings. [Footnote 8]
Although conceding that they could have proceeded by way of habeas corpus, the respondents argue that the Court of Appeals was correct in holding that they were nonetheless entitled to bring their suits under § 1983 so as to avoid the necessity of first seeking relief in a state forum. Pointing to the broad language of § 1983, [Footnote 9] they argue that, since their complaints plainly came within the literal terms of that statute, there is no justifiable reason to exclude them from the broad remedial protection provided by that law. According to the respondents, state prisoners seeking relief under the Civil Rights Act
Page 411 U. S. 489
In amending the habeas corpus laws in 1948, Congress clearly required exhaustion of adequate state remedies as a condition precedent to the invocation of federal judicial relief under those laws. It would wholly frustrate explicit congressional intent to hold that the respondents in the present case could evade this requirement by the
Page 411 U. S. 490
simple expedient of putting a different label on their pleadings. In short, Congress has determined that habeas corpus is the appropriate remedy for state prisoners attacking the validity of the fact or length of their confinement, and that specific determination must override the general terms of § 1983.
In the respondents' view, the whole purpose of the exhaustion requirement, now codified in § 2254(b), is to
Page 411 U. S. 491
give state courts the first chance at remedying their own mistakes, and thereby to avoid "the unseemly spectacle of federal district courts trying the regularity of proceedings had in courts of coordinate jurisdiction." Parker, Limiting the Abuse of Habeas Corpus, 8 F.R.D. 171, 172-173 (1948) (emphasis added). This policy, the respondents contend, does not apply when the challenge is not to the action of a state court, but, as here, to the action of a state administrative body. In that situation, they say, the concern with avoiding unnecessary interference by one court with the courts of another sovereignty with concurrent powers, and the importance of giving state courts the first opportunity to correct constitutional errors made by them, do not apply, and hence the purpose of the exhaustion requirement of the habeas corpus statute is inapplicable.
It is difficult to imagine an activity in which a State has a stronger interest, or on that is more intricately bound up with state laws, regulations, and procedures,
Page 411 U. S. 492
than the administration of its prisons. The relationship of state prisoners and the state officers who supervise their confinement is far more intimate than that of a State and a private citizen. For state prisoners, eating, sleeping, dressing, washing, working, and playing are all done under the watchful eye of the State, and so the possibilities for litigation under the Fourteenth Amendment are boundless. What for a private citizen would be a dispute with his landlord, with his employer, with his tailor, with his neighbor, or with his banker becomes, for the prisoner, a dispute with the State. Since these internal problems of state prisons involve issues so peculiarly within state authority and expertise, the States have an important interest in not being bypassed in the correction of those problems. Moreover, because most potential litigation involving state prisoners arises on a day-to-day basis, it is most efficiently and properly handled by the state administrative bodies and state courts, which are, for the most part, familiar with the grievances of state prisoners and in a better physical and practical position to deal with those grievances. In New York, for example, state judges sit on a regular basis at all but one of the State's correctional facilities, and thus inmates may present their grievances to a court at the place of their confinement, where the relevant records are available and where potential witnesses are located. The strong considerations of comity that require giving a state court system that has convicted a defendant the first opportunity to correct its own errors thus also require giving the States the first opportunity to correct the errors made in the internal administration of their prisons. [Footnote 10]
Page 411 U. S. 493
But while conceding the availability in the New York courts of an opportunity for equitable relief, the respondents contend that confining state prisoners to federal habeas corpus, after first exhausting state remedies, could deprive those prisoners of any damages remedy to which they might be entitled for their mistreatment, since damages are not available in federal habeas corpus proceedings, and New York provides no damages remedy at all for state prisoners. In the respondents' view, if habeas corpus is the exclusive federal remedy for a state prisoner attacking his confinement, damages might never be obtained, at least where the State makes no provision for them. They argue that, even if such a prisoner were to bring a subsequent federal civil rights action for damages, that action could be barred by principles of
Page 411 U. S. 494
It is true that exhaustion of state remedies takes time. But there is no reason to assume that state prison administrators
Page 411 U. S. 495
or state courts will not act expeditiously. Indeed, new regulations established by the New York Department of Correctional Services provide for administrative review of a prisoner's record in the institution shortly before the earliest possible release date, 7 N.Y.Codes, Rules & Regulations § 261.3(b), [Footnote 11] and, as previously noted, state judges in New York actually sit in the institutions to hear prisoner complaints. Moreover, once a state prisoner arrives in federal court with his petition for habeas corpus, the federal habeas statute provides for a swift, flexible, and summary determination of his claim. 28 U.S.C. § 2243. [Footnote 12] See also Harris v. Nelson, 394 U. S. 286 (1969); and Hensley
Page 411 U. S. 496
v. Municipal Court, ante at 411 U. S. 349-350. By contrast, the filing of a complaint pursuant to § 1983 in federal court initiates an original plenary civil action, governed by the full panoply of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. That such a proceeding, with its discovery rules and other procedural formalities, can take a significant amount of time, very frequently longer than a federal habeas corpus proceeding, is demonstrated by the respondents' actions in the present case. Although both Rodriguez and Kritasky initiated their actions before their conditional release dates, the District Court did not reach its decisions until three and 10 months later, respectively -- in both cases, well after the conditional release dates had passed. Only in Katzoff's case was there a speedy determination, and his action was not initiated until after his alleged release date.
In any event, the respondents' time argument would logically extend to a state prisoner who challenges the constitutionality of a conviction that carried a relatively
Page 411 U. S. 497
short sentence; and yet, such a prisoner is clearly covered by § 2254(b). Arguably, in either case, if the prisoner could make out a showing that, because of the time factor, his otherwise adequate state remedy would be inadequate, a federal court might entertain his habeas corpus application immediately, under § 2254(b)'s language relating to "the existence of circumstances rendering such [state] process ineffective to protect the rights of the prisoner." But we need not reach that issue here.
Principles of res judicata are, of course, not wholly applicable to habeas corpus proceedings. 28 U.S.C. § 225(d). See Salinger v. Loisel, 265 U. S. 224, 265 U. S. 230 (1924). Hence, a state prisoner in the respondents' situation who has been denied relief in the state courts is not precluded from seeking habeas relief on the same claims in federal court. On the other hand, res judicata has been held to be fully applicable to a civil rights action brought under § 1983. Coogan v. Cincinnati Bar Assn., 431 F.2d 1209, 1211 (CA6 1970); Jenson v. Olson, 353 F.2d 825 (CA8 1965); Rhodes v. Meyer, 334 F.2d 709, 716 (CA8 1964); Goss v. Illinois, 312 F.2d 257 (CA7 1963). Accordingly, there would be an inevitable incentive for a state prisoner to proceed at once in federal court by way of a civil rights action, lest he lose his right to do so. This would have the unfortunate dual effect of denying the state prison administration and the state courts the opportunity to correct the errors committed in the State's own prisons, and of isolating those bodies from an understanding of and hospitality to the federal claims of state prisoners in situations such as those before us. [Footnote 13] Federal habeas corpus, on the other
Page 411 U. S. 498
The respondents place a great deal of reliance on our recent decisions upholding the right of state prisoners to bring federal civil rights actions to challenge the conditions of their confinement. Cooper v. Pate, 378 U. S. 546 (1964); Houghton v. Shafer, 392 U. S. 639 (1968); Wilwording v. Swenson, 404 U. S. 249 (1971); Haines v. Kerner, 404 U. S. 519 (1972). But none of the state prisoners in those cases was challenging the fact or duration of his physical confinement itself, and none was seeking immediate release or a speedier release from that confinement -- the heart of habeas corpus. In Cooper, the prisoner alleged that, solely because of his religious beliefs, he had been denied permission to purchase certain religious publications and had been denied other privileges enjoyed by his fellow prisoners. In Houghton, the prisoner's contention was that prison authorities had violated the Constitution by confiscating legal materials which he had acquired for pursuing his appeal but which, in violation of prison rules, had been found in the possession of another prisoner. In Wilwording, the prisoners' complaints related solely to their living conditions and disciplinary measures while confined in maximum security. And in Haines, the prisoner claimed that prison officials had acted unconstitutionally by placing him in solitary confinement as a disciplinary measure, and he sought damages for claimed physical injuries sustained while so segregated. It is clear, then, that, in
Page 411 U. S. 499
all those cases, the prisoners' claims related solely to the States' alleged unconstitutional treatment of them while in confinement. None sought, as did the respondents here, to challenge the very fact or duration of the confinement itself. Those cases, therefore, merely establish that a § 1983 action is a proper remedy for a state prisoner who is making a constitutional challenge to the conditions of his prison life, but not to the fact or length of his custody. Upon that understanding, we reaffirm those holdings. Cf. Humphrey v. Cady, 405 U.S. at 405 U. S. 516-517, n. 18. [Footnote 14]
This is not to say that habeas corpus may not also be available to challenge such prison conditions. See Johnson v. Avery, 393 U. S. 483 (1969); Wilwording v. Swenson, supra, at 404 U. S. 251. When a prisoner is put under additional and unconstitutional restraints during his lawful custody, it is arguable that habeas corpus will lie to remove the restraints making the custody illegal. See Note, Developments in the Law -- Habeas Corpus, 83 Harv.L.Rev. 1038, 1084 (1970). [Footnote 15]
Page 411 U. S. 500
"[t]he remedy provided by these Acts 'is supplementary to the state remedy, and the latter need not be first sought and refused before the federal one is invoked.' Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167, 365 U. S. 183 (1961); McNeese v. Board of Education, 373 U. S. 668 (1963); Damico v. California,
Page 411 U. S. 501
389 U. S. 416 (1967). State prisoners are not held to any stricter standard of exhaustion than other civil rights plaintiffs."
Respondents are three New York state prisoners who were placed in segregation and deprived of good conduct time credits as a result of prison disciplinary proceedings. [Footnote 2/2] Each of the respondents commenced a pro se
Page 411 U. S. 502
action in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York by filing a combined civil rights complaint and petition for habeas corpus. In each case, the District Court concluded that, since the action was properly brought under § 1983, the prisoner was not bound by the "exhaustion of state remedies" requirement of the federal habeas corpus statute. [Footnote 2/3] On the merits of the three cases, the District Court held that state correctional authorities had deprived each respondent of rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, and directed petitioner, the Commissioner of Correction, to restore the good conduct time credits that each of the respondents had lost.
By divided vote, two separate panels of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed the judgments of the District Court with respect to respondents Rodriguez and Katzoff. Prior to decision in the case of respondent Kritasky, the Court of Appeals vacated the two earlier decisions and set all three cases for rehearing en banc. By a vote of 9-3, the Court affirmed the judgments of the District Court "upon consideration of the merits and upon the authority of Wilwording v. Swenson," decided by this Court while rehearing en banc was pending in the Court of Appeals. 456 F.2d 79, 80 (1972). Although several of the judges who concurred in the decision candidly stated their misgivings
Page 411 U. S. 503
about our holding in Wilwording, they felt "constrained," nonetheless, "to concur in affirming the orders of the district court." 456 F.2d at 81 (Friendly, C.J., concurring). [Footnote 2/4]
At bottom, the Court's holding today rests on an understandable apprehension that the no-exhaustion rule of § 1983 might, in the absence of some limitation, devour the exhaustion rule of the habeas corpus statute. The problem arises because the two statutes necessarily
Page 411 U. S. 504
overlap. Indeed, every application by a state prisoner for federal habeas corpus relief against his jailers could, as a matter of logic and semantics, be viewed as an action under the Ku Klux Klan Act to obtain injunctive relief against "the deprivation," by one acting under color of state law, "of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws" of the United States. 42 U.S.C. § 1983. To prevent state prisoners from nullifying the habeas corpus exhaustion requirement by invariably styling their petitions as pleas for relief under § 1983, the Court today devises an ungainly and irrational scheme that permits some prisoners to sue under § 1983 while others may proceed only by way of petition for habeas corpus. And the entire scheme operates in defiance of the purposes underlying both the exhaustion requirement of habeas corpus and the absence of a comparable requirement under § 1983.
In Johnson v. Avery, 393 U. S. 483 (1969), we held that the writ of habeas corpus could be used to challenge allegedly unconstitutional conditions of confinement. Cf. Ex parte Hull, 312 U. S. 546, 312 U. S. 549 (1941). And in Wilwording v. Swenson, supra, where the petitioners challenged "only their living conditions and disciplinary
Page 411 U. S. 505
measures while confined in maximum security at Missouri State Penitentiary," id. at 404 U. S. 249, we held explicitly that their claims were cognizable in habeas corpus. These holdings illustrate the general proposition that
Yet even though a prisoner may challenge the conditions of his confinement by petition for writ of habeas corpus, he is not precluded by today's opinion from raising the same or similar claim, without exhaustion of state remedies, by suit under the Ku Klux Klan Act, provided he attacks only the conditions of his confinement, and not its fact or duration. To that extent, at least, the Court leaves unimpaired our holdings in Wilwording v. Swenson, supra, and the other cases in which we have upheld the right of prisoners to sue their jailers under § 1983 without exhaustion of state remedies. [Footnote 2/6] Humphrey v. Cady, 405 U.S. at 405 U. S. 516-517, n. 18; Houghton v. Shafer, 392 U. S. 639 (1968). [Footnote 2/7] Nor do I read today's
Page 411 U. S. 506
opinion as rejecting, or even questioning, the rationale of numerous lower court decisions authorizing challenges to prison conditions by suit under § 1983. [Footnote 2/8] Accordingly, one can only conclude that some instances remain where habeas corpus provides a supplementary, but not an exclusive, remedy -- or, to put it another way, where an action may properly be brought in habeas corpus even though it is somehow sufficiently distant from the "core of habeas corpus" to avoid displacing concurrent jurisdiction under the Ku Klux Klan Act. In such a case, a state prisoner retains the option of forgoing the habeas corpus remedy in favor of suit under § 1983.
Putting momentarily to one side the grave analytic shortcomings of the Court's approach, it seems clear that the scheme's unmanageability is sufficient reason to condemn it. For the unfortunate but inevitable legacy of today's opinion is a perplexing set of uncertainties and anomalies. And the nub of the problem is the definition of the Court's new-found and essentially ethereal concept, the "core of habeas corpus." [Footnote 2/9]
Page 411 U. S. 507
Between a suit for damages and an attack on the conviction itself or on the deprivation of good time credits
Page 411 U. S. 508
are cases where habeas corpus is an appropriate and available remedy, but where the action falls outside the "core of habeas corpus" because the attack is directed at the conditions of confinement, not at its fact or duration. Notwithstanding today's decision, a prisoner may challenge, by suit under § 1983, prison living conditions and disciplinary measures, [Footnote 2/10] or confiscation of legal materials, [Footnote 2/11] or impairment of the right to free exercise of religion, [Footnote 2/12] even though federal habeas corpus is available as an alternative remedy. It should be plain enough that serious difficulties will arise whenever a prisoner seeks to attack in a single proceeding both the conditions of his confinement and the deprivation of good time credits. And the addition of a plea for monetary damages exacerbates the problem.
First, we might conclude that jurisdiction under § 1983 is lost whenever good time credits are involved, even where the action is based primarily on the need for monetary relief or an injunction against continued segregation. If that is the logic of the Court's opinion, then the scheme creates an undeniable, and in all likelihood
Page 411 U. S. 509
irresistible, incentive for state prison officials to defeat the jurisdiction of the federal courts by adding the deprivation of good time credits to whatever other punishment is imposed. And if all of the federal claims must be held in abeyance pending exhaustion of state remedies, a prisoner's subsequent effort to assert a damages claim under § 1983 might arguably be barred by principles of res judicata. [Footnote 2/14] To avoid the loss of his damages claim, a prisoner might conclude that he should make no mention of the good time issue, and instead seek only damages in a § 1983 action. That approach (assuming it would not be disallowed as a subterfuge to circumvent the exhaustion requirement) creates its own distressing possibilities. For, having obtained decision in federal court on the issue of damages, the prisoner would presumably be required to repair to state court in search of his lost good time credits, returning once again to federal court if his state court efforts should prove unavailing.
Moreover, a determination that no federal claim can be raised where good time credits are at stake would give rise to a further anomaly. If the prisoner is confined in an institution that does not offer good time credits, and therefore cannot withdraw them, [Footnote 2/15] his prison
Page 411 U. S. 510
conditions claims could always be raised in a suit under § 1983. On the other hand, an inmate in an institution that uses good time credits as reward and punishment, who seeks a federal hearing on the identical legal and factual claims, would normally be required to exhaust state remedies and then proceed by way of federal habeas corpus. The rationality of that difference in treatment is certainly obscure. Yet that is the price of permitting the availability of a federal forum to be controlled by the happenstance (or stratagem) that good time credits are at stake.
In any event, the Court today rejects, perhaps for the reasons suggested above, both of the foregoing positions. Instead, it holds that, insofar as a prisoner's claim relates to good time credits, he is required to exhaust state remedies, but he is not precluded from simultaneously litigating in federal court, under § 1983, his claim for monetary damages or an injunction against continued segregation. Ante at 411 U. S. 499 n. 14. Under that approach,
Page 411 U. S. 511
state correctional authorities have no added incentive to withdraw good time credits, since that action cannot, standing alone, keep the prisoner out of federal court. And, at the same time, it does not encourage a prisoner to assert an unnecessary claim for damages or injunctive relief as a means of bringing his good time claim under the purview of § 1983. Nevertheless, this approach entails substantial difficulties -- perhaps the greatest difficulties of the three. In the first place, its extreme inefficiency is readily apparent. For, in many instances, a prisoner's claims will be under simultaneous consideration in two distinct forums, even though the identical legal and factual questions are involved in both proceedings. Thus, if a prisoner's punishment for some alleged misconduct is both a term in solitary and the deprivation of good time credits, and if he believes that the punishment was imposed pursuant to unconstitutional disciplinary procedures, he can now litigate the legality of those procedures simultaneously in state court (where he seeks restoration of good time credits) and in federal court (where he seeks damages or an injunction against continued segregation). Moreover, if the federal court is the first to reach decision, and if that court concludes that the procedures are, in fact, unlawful, then the entire state proceeding must be immediately aborted, even though the state court may have devoted substantial time and effort to its consideration of the case. By the same token, if traditional principles of res judicata are applicable to suits under § 1983, see supra at 411 U. S. 509 n. 14, the prior conclusion of the state court suit would effectively set at naught the entire federal court proceeding. This is plainly a curious prescription for improving relations between state and federal courts.
Since some of the ramifications of this new approach are still unclear, the unfortunate outcome of today's decision -- an outcome that might not be immediately
Page 411 U. S. 512
surmised from the seeming simplicity of the basic concept, the "core of habeas corpus" -- is almost certain to be the further complication of prison conditions litigation. In itself, that is disquieting enough. But it is especially distressing that the remaining questions will have to be resolved on the basis of pleadings, whether, in habeas corpus or suit under § 1983, submitted by state prisoners, who will often have to cope with these questions without even minimal assistance of counsel.
The Court's conclusion that respondents must proceed by petition for habeas corpus is unfortunate not only because of the uncertainties and practical difficulties to which the conclusion necessarily gives rise, but also because it derives from a faulty analytic foundation. The text of § 1983 carries no explanation for today's decision; prisoners are still, I assume, "persons" within the meaning of the statute. Moreover, prior to our recent decisions expanding the definition of "custody," [Footnote 2/16] and abandoning the "prematurity" doctrine, [Footnote 2/17] it is doubtful that habeas corpus would even have provided them a remedy. Since their claims could not, in all likelihood, have been heard on habeas corpus at the time the present habeas corpus statute was enacted in 1867, [Footnote 2/18] or at the
Page 411 U. S. 513
time the exhaustion doctrine was first announced in Ex parte Royall, 117 U. S. 241 (1886), or at the time the requirement was codified in 1948, [Footnote 2/19] it is surely hard to view these acts as a determination to preclude suit under § 1983 and leave habeas corpus the prisoner's only remedy. Nevertheless, to prevent state prisoners from invoking the jurisdictional grant of 1983 as a means of circumventing the exhaustion requirement of the habeas corpus statute, the Court finds it necessary to hold today that, in this one instance, jurisdiction under § 1983 is displaced by the habeas corpus remedy.
By enactment of the Ku Klux Klan Act in 1871, and again by the grant in 1875 of original federal question jurisdiction to the federal courts, [Footnote 2/20] Congress recognized important interests in permitting a plaintiff to choose a federal forum in cases arising under
Page 411 U. S. 514
"When a Federal court is properly appealed to in a case over which it has
Page 411 U. S. 515
by law jurisdiction, it is its duty to take such jurisdiction. . . . The right of a party plaintiff to choose a Federal court where there is a choice cannot be properly denied."
Monroe v. Pape, 365
Page 411 U. S. 516
U.S. 167, 365 U. S. 180 (1961). And the statute's legislative history
Mitchum v. Foster, 407 U. S. 225, 407 U. S. 242 (1972). See also District of Columbia v. Carter, 409 U. S. 418, 409 U. S. 426-428 (1973). [Footnote 2/22]
Page 411 U. S. 517
Our determination that principles of federalism do not require the exhaustion of state remedies in cases brought under the Ku Klux Klan Act holds true even where the state agency or process under constitutional attack is intimately tied to the state judicial machinery. Cf. Lynch v. Household Finance Corp., 405 U. S. 538 (1972). Indeed, only last Term, we held in Mitchum v. Foster, supra, that § 1983 operates as an exception to the federal anti-injunction statute, 28 U.S.C. § 2283, which prohibits federal court injunctions against ongoing state judicial proceedings and which is designed to prevent
Page 411 U. S. 518
"needless friction between state and federal courts." Oklahoma Packing Co. v. Gas Co., 309 U. S. 4, 309 U. S. 9 (1940). Although the anti-injunction statute rests in part on considerations as fundamental as the "constitutional independence of the States and their courts," Atlantic C. L. R. Co. v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, 398 U. S. 281, 398 U. S. 287 (1970), and although exceptions will "not be enlarged by loose statutory construction," ibid., we nevertheless unanimously concluded that § 1983 is excepted from the statute's prohibition -- that the anti-injunction statute does not, in other words, displace federal jurisdiction under the Ku Klux Klan Act.
Crucial to the Court's analysis of the case before us is its understanding of the purposes that underlie the habeas corpus exhaustion requirement. But just as the Court pays too little attention to the reasons for a no-exhaustion rule in actions under § 1983, it also misconceives the purposes of the exhaustion requirement in habeas corpus. As a result, the Court reaches what seems to me the erroneous conclusion that the purposes of the exhaustion requirement are fully implicated in
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respondents' actions, even though respondents sought to bring these actions under § 1983.
Ex parte Royall, 117 U.S. at 117 U. S. 251 (emphasis added). Ex parte Royall is, of course, the germinal case, and its concern with the relations between state
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and federal courts is mirrored in our subsequent decisions. See, e.g., Braden v. 30th Judicial Circuit, supra, at 410 U. S. 489-490; Baker v. Grice, 169 U. S. 284, 169 U. S. 291 (1898); Ex parte Hawk, 321 U. S. 114, 321 U. S. 116-117 (1944); cf. Sostre v. McGinnis, 442 F.2d 178, 182 (CA2 1971); Edwards v. Schmidt, 321 F.Supp. 68, 74-75 (WD Wis.1971). We have grounded the doctrine squarely on the view that
Note, Developments in the Law -- Federal Habeas Corpus, 83 Harv.L.Rev. 1038, 1094 (1970). Significantly, the identical interest in preserving the integrity and orderliness of judicial proceedings gives rise to the application of the exhaustion doctrine even where a federal prisoner attacks the action of
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a federal court. Id. at 1094-1095. See, e.g., Bowen v. Johnston, 306 U. S. 19, 306 U. S. 26-27 (1939). In such a case, considerations of federalism obviously do not come into play. Yet the exhaustion requirement is nevertheless applied in order to prevent the disruption of the orderly conduct of judicial administration.
To be sure, respondents do call into question the constitutional validity of action by state officials, and friction between those officials and the federal court is by no means an inconceivable result. But, standing alone, that possibility is simply not enough to warrant application of an exhaustion requirement. First, while we spoke in Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37, 401 U. S. 44 (1971), of the need for federal courts to maintain a "proper respect for state functions," neither that statement nor our holding there supports the instant application of the exhaustion doctrine. Our concern in Younger v. Harris was the "longstanding public policy against federal court interference with state court proceedings," id. at 401 U. S. 43 (emphasis added), by means of a federal injunction
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Third, if the Court is correct in assuming that the exhaustion requirement must be applied whenever federal jurisdiction might be a source of substantial friction with the State, then I simply do not understand why the
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Court stops where it does in rolling back the district courts' jurisdiction under § 1983. Application of the exhaustion doctrine now turns on whether or not the action is directed at the fact or duration of the prisoner's confinement. It seems highly doubtful to me that a constitutional attack on prison conditions is any less disruptive of federal state relations than an attack on prison conditions joined with a plea for restoration of good time credits. Chief Judge Friendly expressed the view, as did the judges in dissent below, that
Finally, the Court's decision may have the ironic effect of turning a situation where state and federal courts are not initially in conflict into a situation where precisely such conflict does result. Since respondents' actions would neither interrupt a state judicial proceeding nor, even if successful, require the invalidation of a state judicial decision, "[t]he question is simply whether one court or another is going to decide the case." Note, Exhaustion of State Remedies Under the Civil Rights Act, 68 Col.L.Rev. 1201, 1205-1206 (1968). If we had held, consistently with our prior cases, that the plaintiff has the right to choose a federal forum, the exercise of that right would not offend or embarrass a state court with concurrent jurisdiction. Now, however, a prisoner who seeks restoration of good time credits must proceed first in state court, although he has the option of petitioning the federal court for relief if his state suit is unsuccessful.
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If the prisoner does resort to a federal habeas corpus action, the potential for friction with the State is certain to increase. The State is likely, after all, to derive little pleasure from the federal court's effort to determine whether there was
In short, I see no basis for concluding that jurisdiction under § 1983 is, in this instance, preempted by the habeas corpus remedy. Respondents' effort to bring these suits under the provisions of the Ku Klux Klan Act should not be viewed as an attempted circumvention of the exhaustion requirement of the habeas corpus statute, for the effort does not in any sense conflict with the policies underlying that requirement. [Footnote 2/24] By means of
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these suits, they demand an immediate end to action under color of state law that has the alleged effect of violating fundamental rights guaranteed by the Federal Constitution. The Ku Klux Klan Act was designed to afford an expeditious federal hearing for the resolution of precisely such claims as these. Since I share the Court's view that exhaustion of state judicial remedies is not required in any suit properly brought in federal court under § 1983, ante at 411 U. S. 477, and since I am convinced that respondents have properly invoked the jurisdictional grant of § 1983, I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.