Opinion ID: 2761838
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Liberal Treatment of Pro Se Habeas Petitions

Text: We construe Spencer's pro se petition liberally. Here, an appropriate construction would be to recharacterize Spencer's claim into the correct procedural vehicle for the claim asserted. In Papantony v. Hedrick, 215 F.3d 863 (8th Cir. 2000) (per curiam), we upheld a district court's dismissal of a habeas petition challenging forced medication; nevertheless, because [w]e . . . recognize[d] [the petitioner] [was] a pro se petitioner and, as such, should not unreasonably be subjected to stringent procedural niceties, we construed the action as a Bivens claim. Id. at 865. Our decision in Young v. Armontrout, 795 F.2d 55 (8th Cir. 1986), is also informative. There, we remanded a habeas petition back to the district court to be considered as a complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 because after reading Young's petition liberally, as is required in this case, it is apparent that Young has also raised a potentially viable [E]ighth [A]mendment claim. Id. at 56. Spencer's habeas petition similarly raised potential Eighth Amendment violations. As in Young, the district court should have treated this case as a Bivens action as opposed to dismissing the petition without prejudice. Finally, we approve the Seventh Circuit's wisdom outlined in Robinson v. Sherrod, 631 F.3d 839 (7th Cir. 2011). Thus, we think it appropriate to consider the action that ultimately challenged the fact or duration of [the petitioner's] confinement in Colorado). -6- potential detriment to habeas petitioners if district courts, sua sponte, transformed their habeas petitions into Bivens or § 1983 claims, and vice versa. See id. at 841. As a result, we think the better practice will be for district courts to first obtain the consent of the pro se individual before converting their claims from a habeas proceeding to a Bivens action.