Opinion ID: 783278
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Habeas Jurisdiction and the Custodian Requirement

Text: 1) The Habeas Statute 9 The relevant statute, 28 U.S.C. § 2241, provides that a writ of habeas corpus shall only be granted if a prisoner is in custody under the authority of the United States in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States. Although the statute is commonly used by federal prisoners detained on criminal charges, it has also been employed, both historically and in its current form, by aliens detained for immigration law enforcement purposes. See, e.g., INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289, 121 S.Ct. 2271, 150 L.Ed.2d 347 (2001); Ahrens v. Clark, 335 U.S. 188, 68 S.Ct. 1443, 92 L.Ed. 1898 (1948), abrogated on other grounds by Braden v. 30th Judicial Circuit Court, 410 U.S. 484, 93 S.Ct. 1123, 35 L.Ed.2d 443 (1973); see also Zadvydas, 533 U.S. at 687, 121 S.Ct. 2491(discussing historical and current use of the federal habeas corpus statute by immigration detainees). 10 Language specifying the form of an application for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2242 provides that the application shall allege ... the name of the person who has custody over him. The statute does not specify that the respondent named shall be the petitioner's immediate physical 12075 custodian, but habeas petitions brought by prisoners typically name the warden of the institution at which the prisoner is confined. See Ortiz-Sandoval, 81 F.3d at 894; Brittingham v. United States, 982 F.2d 378, 379 (9th Cir. 1992); Guerra v. Meese, 786 F.2d 414, 416 (D.C.Cir.1986). Both Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit case law, however, have recognized exceptions to the general practice of naming an immediate physical custodian as respondent, especially with regard to habeas petitions brought by persons detained for reasons other than federal criminal violations. As the statutory language is of little help in determining the precise person who has custody over a habeas petitioner, we look to case law for direction. 2) Supreme Court Case Law 11 The Supreme Court has grappled only obliquely with the determination of which person has custody over an immigration detainee and therefore may properly be named as a respondent in a habeas action. On the question of most direct pertinence here, the Court has noted but avoided deciding whether the Attorney General is a proper respondent in an immigration habeas action. We review this interesting but ultimately indeterminate history briefly, for it does shed some indirect light on the issue before us. 12 In Ex parte Endo, 323 U.S. 283, 65 S.Ct. 208, 89 L.Ed. 243 (1944), the Supreme Court addressed the jurisdictional questions posed by a habeas petition brought in the District Court for the Northern District of California by Mitsuye Endo, a Japanese-American woman who was initially interned in Tulelake, California, but was, during the pendency of her habeas case, transferred to an internment camp in Utah. 3 Because it was of the view that the court may act if there is a respondent within reach of its process who has custody of the petitioner, id. at 306, 65 S.Ct. 208, and because there were potential respondents — the Secretary of the Interior or national-level officials of the War Relocation Authority — still within the District Court's territorial reach, id. at 304-05, 65 S.Ct. 208, the Court held that Endo's transfer did not destroy the California district court's jurisdiction. Thus, rather than formalistically examining who Endo's immediate physical custodian was, Endo stated that a habeas petition can be properly directed against national-level officials who have power to produce[] the petitioner. Id. at 305, 65 S.Ct. 208. 13 Four years later, in Ahrens v. Clark, the Supreme Court examined jurisdictional issues raised by habeas petitions brought by German immigrants detained on Ellis Island under removal orders issued by the Attorney General. The petitions named the Attorney General as sole respondent. The Ahrens Court determined that the detainees' habeas petitions had to be dismissed because the detainees had not filed the petitions in the district court for the district in which they were confined. 4 335 U.S. at 193, 68 S.Ct. 1443. In so holding, Ahrens explicitly declined to consider whether the Attorney General, under whose removal orders and custody and control the aliens were detained, was the proper respondent to the immigrants' petitions. Id. at 189, 193, 68 S.Ct. 1443. 14 There ensued in the 1970s a trilogy of Supreme Court cases involving non-traditional habeas petitioners and respondents and concerning jurisdictional and venue questions. These cases focused largely on venue and territorial issues and so failed to enunciate any clear guidelines regarding the identity of proper respondents to such habeas petitions. These cases do offer, however, some general guidance for determining appropriate respondents in non-traditional habeas actions. 15 Schlanger v. Seamans, 401 U.S. 487, 91 S.Ct. 995, 28 L.Ed.2d 251 (1971), addressed a habeas petition filed by a United States soldier temporarily studying at Arizona State University (ASU) but under the command and control of military officers stationed at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia. Schlanger filed a habeas petition in Arizona district court, alleging that his enlistment contract had been breached and that his freedom was being unlawfully restricted by the military. The petition named the Secretary of the Air Force, the Commander of Moody Air Force Base, and the Commander of ROTC on the ASU campus as respondents. Id. at 488, 91 S.Ct. 995. 16 The Court observed that Schlanger was not a participant in ASU's ROTC program and therefore did not fall within the ASU ROTC commander's chain of command. Id. at 488-89, 91 S.Ct. 995. Schlanger's custodian — the Commander of Moody Air Force Base, who supervised the soldier's Air Force activities — was located outside the territorial jurisdiction of the Arizona district court. Id. at 490-91, 91 S.Ct. 995. Accordingly, the Court found that the Arizona district court was without jurisdiction to adjudicate the petition. Id. at 491, 91 S.Ct. 995. 17 Oddly, the Schlanger Court did not discuss whether the Secretary of the Air Force might be both within the Arizona court's territorial jurisdiction and a proper respondent to Schlanger's petition. By this omission and its emphasis on the Moody Air Force Base commander as an essential party, Schlanger suggested that a habeas petition must name as respondent the individual who directly exercises the power to limit the petitioner's liberty — in the military context, the power to command. But insofar as Schlanger recognizes that a person who commands another from a substantial distance may be that person's custodian, it does not require that an individual actually exercise immediate, physical control to be a proper respondent in a habeas case. 18 Just one year after Schlanger, Strait v. Laird, 406 U.S. 341, 92 S.Ct. 1693, 32 L.Ed.2d 141 (1972), held that Strait, a California-domiciled soldier under the command of an Indiana-based officer, could file a habeas action against that officer in California district court. The Court pointed to the fact that the Indiana officer had directed California-based military personnel in his dealings with Strait regarding Strait's application for conscientious objector discharge. Id. at 344, 92 S.Ct. 1693. Accordingly, the Indiana commander was 19 `present' in California through the officers in the hierarchy of the command who processed this serviceman's application for discharge. To require him to go to Indiana where he never has been or assigned to be would entail needless expense and inconvenience.... The concepts of `custody' and `custodian' are sufficiently broad to allow us to say that the commanding officer in Indiana, operating through officers in California in processing petitioner's claim, is in California for the limited purposes of habeas corpus jurisdiction. 20 Id. at 345-46, 92 S.Ct. 1693. 21 Strait thus further developed the recognition in Schlanger that a distantly-placed individual who is not a habeas petitioner's immediate custodian can be a proper respondent. Under the Strait Court's broad concept of custodian, the operative concern is whether the respondent, whether by himself or through agents, directly caused restraint of the petitioner's liberty. Consideration of needless expense and inconvenience may also enter into the calculus. 22 Strait, however, offered no insight into how far removed in the chain of command a person can be and still be considered a custodian for habeas purposes. Although Strait had apparently named the Secretary of Defense as a respondent in addition to his Indiana commanding officer, the Court did not discuss whether the Secretary was a proper respondent in this case, just as it had not discussed in Schlanger whether the Air Force Secretary was properly named as a respondent. 23 Capping its trilogy of early 1970s cases on habeas jurisdiction, the Court in Braden v. 30th Judicial Circuit Court of Kentucky, 410 U.S. 484, 93 S.Ct. 1123, 35 L.Ed.2d 443 (1973), declared that Ahrens was overruled and held that a petitioner imprisoned in Alabama could file a habeas petition in a Kentucky federal district court to challenge Kentucky's alleged failure to grant him a speedy trial on Kentucky state charges. The Braden Court reasoned that: 24 The writ of habeas corpus does not act upon a prisoner who seeks relief, but upon the person who holds him in what is alleged to be unlawful custody.... Read literally, the language of [the habeas statute] requires nothing more than that the court issuing the writ have jurisdiction over the custodian. So long as the custodian can be reached by service of process, the court can issue a writ `within its jurisdiction' requiring that the prisoner be brought before the court for a hearing on his claim, or requiring that he be released outright from custody, even if the prisoner himself is confined outside the court's territorial jurisdiction. 25 Id. at 494-95, 93 S.Ct. 1123. In emphasizing the location of the custodian, not that of the petitioner, Braden necessarily reaffirmed the earlier rulings that the custodian need not be the person with immediate physical control over the detained prisoner while imprisoned. 26 Read as a whole, the Supreme Court's pertinent case law indicates that the concept of custodian is a broad one that includes any person empowered to end restraint of a habeas petitioner's liberty, not just the petitioner's on-site, immediate physical custodian. 3) Ninth Circuit Case Law 27 The Ninth Circuit's habeas jurisprudence has often applied the rule that a petitioner's immediate physical custodian is the proper respondent in the context of traditional habeas petitions, but has recognized that the custodian requirement may be flexibly interpreted to encompass other custodians when it is efficient to do so. 28 Brittingham v. United States, 982 F.2d 378 (9th Cir.1992), a brief opinion issued after the trilogy of Supreme Court cases discussed above, did not examine those cases. Rejecting a petitioner's contention that the United States Marshal for the District of Hawaii was his custodian, Brittingham held that a habeas petitioner's immediate physical custodian is the proper respondent to a petition: The proper respondent in a federal habeas corpus petition is the petitioner's `immediate custodian.' A custodian `is the person having a day-to-day control over the prisoner. That person is the only one who can produce `the body' of the petitioner.' Id. at 379(internal citations omitted). As Brittingham was temporarily detained in a California state facility used for the detention of federal prisoners when he first filed his habeas petition, this court found that Brittingham's custodian was the warden of the California state facility, not the federal marshal responsible for transporting him to a federal prison where he might eventually be detained. Id. at 379-80. 29 Since Brittingham, however, this court has veered toward a more flexible approach. Ortiz-Sandoval v. Gomez held that a state prisoner could name the California Director of Corrections as a respondent to his habeas action instead of the warden of the prison where he was incarcerated. 81 F.3d at 896. Although the court observed that the warden is the typical respondent, it recognized that the advisory committee notes to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 provided that the named respondent to the action could be the warden, the chief officer in charge of state penal institutions, or, in some cases, the Attorney General. Id. at 894. Thus, the advisory committee notes contemplate[d] a variety of possible respondents, including multiple respondents. Id. Ortiz-Sandoval further noted that, although earlier courts had not discussed the propriety of naming the Director of the Department of Corrections, they had treated the director as respondent. Id. 30 Ortiz-Sandoval then engaged in a practical inquiry as to whether the Director of Corrections could serve the purposes of a habeas respondent: 31 Both the warden of a California prison and the Director of Corrections for California have the power to produce the prisoner. Both may receive service of process. The director supervises the warden, but this does not mean that the warden is not a proper respondent. If it did, the governor would be the only proper respondent because he has supervisory power over the director. Conversely, the fact that a warden has more direct control over the prisoner than the director does not exclude the director as a possible respondent. 32 Id. at 895. Ortiz-Sandoval noted in particular that naming the Director rather than the warden could serve the efficient administration of justice by avoiding procedural problems that might arise from situations, such as a prisoner's transfer, in which naming an immediate custodian could lead to a loss of personal jurisdiction if the immediate custodian changed. Id. at 896. Thus, Ortiz-Sandoval took into account the need for efficient resolution of habeas claims and approved of a flexible, practical approach to designating appropriate respondents. 33 It is difficult to reconcile Brittingham's firm pronouncements with the Supreme Court's and Ortiz-Sandoval's more flexible approach. We think that tension between Brittingham and Ortiz-Sandoval is best resolved by recognizing that Brittingham deals with an unusual, highly fact-specific situation: The federal marshal in Brittingham was only responsible for transporting the petitioner and obviously had no power to command or direct the petitioner's release. Brittingham did not address the question whether a higher official or entity in the hierarchy than the immediate custodian would be a proper habeas custodian, and therefore did not address the pertinent Supreme Court cases so indicating. Accordingly, Ortiz-Sandoval, with its flexible view of who can be a proper respondent, is the Ninth Circuit case most applicable to the present case. Neither of these cases, however, addresses the habeas respondent question in the particular circumstances faced by immigration detainees, and thus neither case necessarily dictates our decision here. 34 4) Out-of-Circuit Cases Addressing Immigration Detainees 35 Although the Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit have not definitively determined the proper respondent to a habeas petition brought by an immigration detainee, two other circuits have, and one other has discussed the issue at some length without resolving it. 36 Two Courts of Appeals have determined that a detainee's immediate custodian is the appropriate respondent in an immigration habeas case. In Vasquez v. Reno, 233 F.3d 688 (1st Cir.2000), cert. denied, 534 U.S. 816, 122 S.Ct. 43, 151 L.Ed.2d 15 (2001), the First Circuit held that the Attorney General was not an appropriate respondent in a habeas action brought by an alien detained in an INS detention facility in Oakdale, Louisiana. Viewing Supreme Court precedent on the proper custodian issue as inscrutable, the court noted that circuit courts, in the context of traditional habeas petitions, have held with echolalic regularity, that a prisoner's proper custodian for purposes of habeas review is the warden of the facility where he is being held.... The warden is the proper custodian because he has day-to-day control over the petitioner and is able to produce the latter before the habeas court. Id. at 691. 37 In so holding, the Vasquez court pointed to non-immigration cases in other circuits rejecting the designation of the Attorney General as respondent on the grounds that the prison warden has day-to-day control over the petitioner and the actual ability to produce the corpus. Id. The court stated that it found no principled distinction between an alien held in a detention facility awaiting possible deportation and a prisoner held in a correctional facility awaiting trial or serving a sentence. Id. at 693. Moreover, the rule that the proper respondent in habeas actions is the immediate custodian is clear and easily administered. Id. 38 The Vasquez court examined three arguments in favor of considering the Attorney General custodian of aliens for immigration habeas purposes: (1) the court-crippling concentration of habeas cases in the Western District of Louisiana, where the Oakdale INS detention center (and its director) are located; (2) the value of a practical approach to the identity of the custodian, as expressed in habeas case law; and (3) the unique role of the Attorney General in immigration matters. Id. 39 Although the court acknowledged that the district courts in the Western District of Louisiana were overwhelmed with alien habeas petitions, the court determined that Congress, not the courts, must rewrite the definition of custodian to ease the Louisiana courts' burden. Id. at 694. The court further expressed the concern that allowing petitioners to name the Attorney General as respondent using this logic would foster rampant forum shopping and generate litigation concerning questions of venue and forum non conveniens. Id. 40 Addressing the argument that custodian was a flexible concept under the relevant law, Vasquez examined the Supreme Court's Endo and Strait decisions. Because Endo presented a situation in which the petitioner had filed her petition in the district court for the area in which she was being held before her transfer, the court found that it differed significantly from the situation of Vasquez, who, while he was detained at Oakdale, had filed his habeas petition in the Massachusetts district court, where neither he nor his immediate custodian was physically present. Id. at 695. The court distinguished Strait on the basis that all Strait's face-to-face contacts with the military had taken place in California; he had never been to Indiana, where his commanding officer was stationed. In contrast, Vasquez, although he had resided, was apprehended, and was initially detained by the INS in Massachusetts, had been transferred to Oakdale and had his removal proceedings conducted in that location. Id. The court concluded that Endo and Strait: 41 simply do[] not give a legitimate judicial imprimatur to a freewheeling definition of custodian such as the petitioner champions. At most, these decisions represent idiosyncratic responses to highly unusual facts. They cannot plausibly be read, singly or in combination, to consign to the scrap heap the substantial body of well-reasoned authority holding that a detainee must name his immediate custodian as the respondent to a habeas petition. 42 Id. at 695-96. 43 The court then rejected the argument that the Attorney General's unique position as the ultimate decisionmaker on immigration matters and considerable discretion over detention and removal of aliens made her a proper respondent in alien habeas cases: [T]he Attorney General's role with regard to aliens is not materially different from her role with regard to prisoners, at least not different enough to justify a rule that she is the custodian of aliens, but not prisoners, for habeas purposes. Id. at 696. Vasquez therefore concluded that, absent exceptional circumstances, an alien contesting the legality of his INS detention normally must name as the respondent his immediate custodian, that is, the individual having day-to-day control over the facility in which he is being detained. Id. 44 Two other circuit courts have addressed the identity of the proper respondent to an immigration detainee's petition. In Yi v. Maugans, 24 F.3d 500 (3d Cir.1994), the Third Circuit examined whether the district director of the INS, rather than the warden of the INS facility where Li was detained, could be a respondent in an immigration habeas petition. Yi rejected this idea, holding that the warden of the prison or the facility where the detainee is held ... is considered the custodian for purposes of a habeas action. Id. at 507. Yi offered little support for this conclusion, merely stating: 45 [I]t is the warden that has day-to-day control over the prisoner and who can produce the actual body. That the district director has the power to release the detainees does not alter our conclusion. Otherwise, the Attorney General of the United States could be considered the custodian of every alien and prisoner in custody because ultimately she controls the district directors and the prisons. 46 Id. (internal citations omitted). 47 The Second Circuit discussed the issue more fully in Henderson v. INS, 157 F.3d 106 (2d Cir.1998), cert. denied sub nom. Reno v. Navas, 526 U.S. 1004, 119 S.Ct. 1141, 143 L.Ed.2d 209 (1999), in which it discussed, without deciding the issue, the pros and cons of permitting the Attorney General to be named as a respondent in immigration habeas cases. Henderson involved several criminal alien habeas petitions, most of which had named several respondents. The court observed that the question of the proper custodian's identity has historically depended both on who has power over the petitioner and ... the convenience of the parties and the court, id. at 122, and that the concept of custodian has broadened ... because of increasing practical problems that allegedly attach to the traditional approach, id. at 124. Citing Endo and Strait as examples of the Supreme Court's flexible approach to respondents in habeas actions, Henderson pointed to specific reasons why the Attorney General might properly be named as respondent in some or all immigration habeas actions. Those reasons include Congress' statutory designation of the Attorney General as legal custodian of criminal aliens and the Attorney General's broad statutory power to detain aliens. Id. at 126. The court added: 48 There is also no question that the Attorney General has the power to produce the petitioners, remains the ultimate decisionmaker as to matters concerning the INS, and is commonly designated as a respondent in these cases, even when personal jurisdiction over the immediate custodian clearly lies. In this respect, the extraordinary and pervasive role that the Attorney General plays in immigration matters is virtually unique. 49 Id. (internal citations omitted). 50 Henderson, however, also recounted arguments against allowing the Attorney General to be named a respondent in habeas cases. As in Vasquez, the court noted the parallels between the Attorney General's statutory custodianship over prisoners and aliens, yet no one seriously suggests that she is a proper respondent in prisoner habeas cases. Id. The court also recognized concerns about forum-shopping but ultimately concluded that the application of traditional venue doctrine, rather than `an inflexible jurisdictional rule' could do much to curb this potential problem. Id. at 127-28 (quoting Braden, 410 U.S. at 500, 93 S.Ct. 1123) (emphasis in original). Finally, the court observed that although allowing the Attorney General to be named as respondent could ease the Oakdale-generated crisis in the Western District of Louisiana, it might only accomplish this by overcrowding those relatively few districts in which aliens disproportionately reside, districts that are already among the busiest in the nation. Id. at 128. 51 Despite its extensive discussion, the Henderson court ultimately determined that it was unnecessary to reach whether the Attorney General was a proper respondent under the circumstances of the cases before it and declined to decide the issue. 52