Opinion ID: 389290
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Habeas Corpus versus Section 1983 Relief

Text: 15 Two of the three plaintiff subclasses certified by the trial court are composed of persons involuntarily confined in Mississippi mental institutions. These confinements are the product of state court judgments reached through procedures here asserted to be unconstitutional. Specific challenges to the constitutionality of confinement in state institutions fall within the ambit of habeas corpus procedures, 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a). This statutory provision requires that state remedies must be exhausted before release from confinement can be considered by the federal court. 16 There has been no exhaustion of state remedies by the plaintiffs in this case. An essential inquiry, therefore, is whether this challenge to the procedures for commitment of individuals to state mental institutions is a challenge to the legality of the confinements as such. If so, a § 1983 suit claiming civil rights violations does not lie. Such suits must be brought under § 2254(a), and without the exhaustion of state remedies there is no standing to bring suit by those who are at present confined in state mental institutions. 17 In resolving this issue, we start with Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 93 S.Ct. 1827, 36 L.Ed.2d 439 (1973). There prisoners challenged the procedures under which good-conduct-time credits had been denied, and asked that certain good-conduct-time credits be restored. The Supreme Court held that a § 1983 suit would not lie because the additional good-conduct-time credits sought would automatically have resulted in the immediate release of some prisoners and the accelerated release of others. The Court concluded that such a precise effect on the duration of confinement requires proceeding by the habeas corpus route. In the same case, however, the Court recognized that a § 1983 proceeding would lie, without the exhaustion of state remedies, if civil rights violations were claimed against the conditions under which confinement was maintained rather than the duration of confinement itself. 18 A year later, in Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974), the Supreme Court held that prisoners could use a § 1983 proceeding asking for damages and an injunction to challenge the procedures under which good-conduct-time credits were granted and to fashion remedies short of awarding such credits. The Court accepted Preiser as properly prohibiting a suit to restore good-conduct credits without exhaustion of state remedies. The Court held, however, that under § 1983 a judgment could go so far as to expunge improper disciplinary records although this might in turn lead to restoration of good-conduct-time credits. Removing improper instances of discipline from the records would not automatically entitle anyone to be released from confinement. Prisoners would have to go through other procedures to get good-conduct-time credits restored. 19 This Court gave full consideration to the implications of Preiser and Wolff in two companion cases which involved challenges to criminal convictions based upon serious procedural errors. Fulford v. Klein, 529 F.2d 377 (5th Cir. 1976), was a § 1983 suit for damages against the prosecutor charging that exculpatory evidence had been withheld at the trial. Meadows v. Evans, 529 F.2d 385 (5th Cir. 1976), was a § 1983 suit for damages challenging the voluntariness of plaintiff's plea of guilty. In both cases this Court held that these suits fell under § 2254(a) as proceedings in the nature of habeas corpus and that, since there had not been exhaustion of state remedies, the Court had no jurisdiction. 10 This Court has continued to follow scrupulously the rule that a challenge to a conviction in a criminal case, even though civil rights claims are made, must be brought under § 2254(a) and state remedies must be exhausted. See Delaney v. Giarrusso, 633 F.2d 1126 (5th Cir. 1981); Robinson v. Richardson, 556 F.2d 332 (5th Cir. 1977). 20 In Meadows, the Court opinion stated that in a prisoner's action which asks for relief or raises issues which go directly to the constitutionality of his conviction or confinement, 529 F.2d at 368, state remedies must be exhausted, even though civil rights claims are made. The Court then confirmed the basic distinction made in Preiser that a challenge to the conditions of the confinement rather than to the validity of the confinement itself is subject to § 1983 proceedings without exhaustion of state remedies. 21 Other Supreme Court cases have continued to delineate the distinction between actions to obtain release from confinement and civil rights actions which challenge the constitutionality of procedures but where a decision of unconstitutionality does not of itself entitle the person in confinement to be released. In Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 95 S.Ct. 854, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1975), the Court allowed a § 1983 challenge to pre-trial custody procedures of prisoners under indictment or information since release was neither asked nor ordered, id. at 107, n.6, 95 S.Ct. at 859, n.6. The Court again spoke in an analogous situation in Greenholtz v. Nebraska Penal Inmates, 442 U.S. 1, 99 S.Ct. 2100, 60 L.Ed.2d 668 (1979). This case involved an appeal from the lower court decision which had held Nebraska's parole procedures unconstitutional in a § 1983 civil rights challenge. The Supreme Court reversed the trial court on the merits, upholding the parole procedures. But the Court allowed the § 1983 challenge without exhaustion of state remedies because the declaration that procedures were unconstitutional would not automatically lead to the release of those confined. This Court had already made the same holding in Williams v. McCall, 531 F.2d 1247 (5th Cir. 1976), distinguishing cases such as Cruz v. Skelton, 502 F.2d 1101 (5th Cir. 1974), where the prisoner in the § 1983 proceeding challenged the fact that he had not been paroled and where the court had properly held that § 2254(a) was the exclusive remedy. 22 When the prisoners in Fulford and Meadows claimed that their criminal convictions had been obtained in violation of their civil rights, inescapably they were asking for release from confinement. There would be no authority under which a person serving a term in a prison resulting from a criminal conviction could be retained in custody under that conviction once there was an authoritative determination that the conviction could not stand. In contrast, there can be no absolute right to be released from confinement in a mental institution for a person found to have been committed under procedures which violate the inmate's civil rights. Equating the invalidity of a criminal conviction with a finding that involuntary commitment procedures are invalid overlooks a salient and controlling consideration. A criminal conviction results in a final and settled binding judgment. Confinement of those who are victims of mental illness is not a final and binding event; it is part of a process. There is no sentence and there is no specific duration of confinement. A person who has been involuntarily confined for mental illness is entitled to release when he or she is no longer mentally ill. The law also recognizes there can be confinements of the mentally ill under the most summary procedures when it is necessary to protect a person from self injury or injury to others. 23 An action brought by those who are confined in a mental institution to challenge the procedures under which they were confined is not a suit which asks or, if successful, would result in automatic release from confinement. It is a suit which seeks no more than a finding that current procedures are invalid and that Mississippi should now apply civil commitment procedures which pass constitutional muster. In this case, plaintiffs clearly recognize these considerations by asking only for a declaratory judgment that the current commitment procedures are unconstitutional. They do not ask for release if the procedures are invalid. They ask only an opportunity for a reconsideration of confinement if the procedures are found to be in violation of their civil rights. 24 It follows that the members of the subclasses who are at present involuntarily confined in state mental institutions are entitled to bring this proceeding under § 1983 to claim that because of unconstitutional procedures their continued confinement is a violation of their civil rights. They are not asking for immediate release from confinement, and they would not be entitled to such immediate release even if they prevailed. 25 This conclusion is confirmed by two recent cases decided by the United States Supreme Court. Parham v. J. R., 442 U.S. 584, 99 S.Ct. 2493, 61 L.Ed.2d 101 (1979), and Secretary of Public Welfare of Pennsylvania v. Institutionalized Juveniles, 442 U.S. 640, 99 S.Ct. 2523, 61 L.Ed.2d 142 (1979), both involved appeals from three-judge federal courts which had found unconstitutional the procedures of Georgia and Pennsylvania for the commitment of juveniles to mental institutions. The suits were brought under § 1983, and there had been no exhaustion of state remedies. On appeal, the United States Supreme Court reversed both cases on the merits, finding the state procedures adequate for the commitment of juveniles to mental institutions. 26 The critical aspect of these decisions for purposes of resolving the issue of the right to challenge commitment procedures under § 1983 is found in the fact that neither three-judge Federal District Court nor the United States Supreme Court cast any doubt upon the procedural validity of the § 1983 challenges. Section 2254(a) was not even mentioned in any opinion. Yet the issue obviously is a jurisdictional one, and it is elementary that a Court is obliged to notice an issue of jurisdiction on its own motion. City of Kenosha v. Bruno, 412 U.S. 507, 511-14, 93 S.Ct. 2222, 2225-27, 37 L.Ed.2d 109 (1973); Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(h) (3). 11 27 What the plaintiffs ask in this case is a constitutional evaluation under § 1983 of the procedures under which they were committed to state mental institutions and under which they are now held in state mental institutions. If constitutional defects in such procedures are found, then by virtue of the declaratory judgment which plaintiffs seek, each confined class member would become entitled to a review of his ongoing confinement under corrected procedures. If the District Court finds aspects of the Mississippi commitment procedures unconstitutional, it can suggest the basic constitutional requirements which must be met in dealing with involuntary confinement in mental institutions. 12 If the appropriate legislative body does not within a reasonable time provide such procedures the District Court may entertain applications for relief. 28 Therefore, we conclude that those now involuntarily confined to the state mental institutions may challenge the constitutionality of the state commitment procedures under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and that the subclasses of confined persons certified by the trial court are valid.