Court Opinion

ID: 9942701
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-21 19:01:14.877174+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:48:27.804821
License: Public Domain

United States Court of Appeals
             for the Fifth Circuit                         United States Court of Appeals
                                                                    Fifth Circuit
                             ___________                          FILED
                                                           February 21, 2024
                              No. 22-30180
                                                              Lyle W. Cayce
                             ___________
                                                                   Clerk
Brian McNeal,

                                                        Plaintiff—Appellee,

                                  versus

James LeBlanc,

                                        Defendant—Appellant.
               ______________________________

               Appeal from the United States District Court
                   for the Middle District of Louisiana
                         USDC No. 3:18-CV-736
               ______________________________

          ON PETITION FOR REHEARING EN BANC

Before Jones, Stewart, and Duncan, Circuit Judges.
Per Curiam:
      Treating the petition for rehearing en banc as a petition for panel
rehearing (5th Cir. R. 35 I.O.P.), the petition for panel rehearing is
DENIED. The petition for rehearing en banc is DENIED because, at the
request of one of its members, the court was polled, and a majority did not
vote in favor of rehearing (Fed. R. App. P. 35 and 5th Cir. R. 35).
      In the en banc poll, eight judges voted in favor of rehearing, Chief
Judge Richman and Judges Jones, Smith, Ho, Duncan, Engelhardt, Oldham,
                              No. 22-30180

and Wilson, and nine voted against rehearing, Judges Stewart, Elrod,
Southwick, Haynes, Graves, Higginson, Willett, Douglas, and Ramirez.

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                                 No. 22-30180

Stuart Kyle Duncan, Circuit Judge, joined by Richman, Chief
Judge, and Jones, Smith, Engelhardt, Oldham, and Wilson,
Circuit Judges, dissenting from denial of en banc rehearing:
       As I’ve explained before, in the rising tide of suits by overdetained
prisoners against Louisiana officials, our court routinely misapplies Connick
v. Thompson, 563 U.S. 51 (2011). See McNeal v. LeBlanc, 90 F.4th 425, 435–
39 (5th Cir. 2024) (Duncan, J., concurring). Yes, we pay lip service to
Connick’s requirement of a “pattern” of similar violations, see Parker v.
LeBlanc, 73 F.4th 400, 405 (5th Cir. 2023), but in the same breath we read
that requirement out of existence. See id. at 406 (rejecting any “distinction”
between overdetention due to “misclassification” and overdetention due to
other causes). But see McNeal, 90 F.4th at 437 (Duncan, J., concurring)
(explaining that “[o]verdetentions occur for many reasons,” and collecting
decisions). The result is that our court has now “turn[ed] § 1983 into a
source of vicarious liability for the heads of State agencies.” McNeal, 90 F.4th
at 439 (Duncan, J., concurring). That mocks Connick and decades of prior
precedent. See Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658 (1978).
       Ironically, Connick overruled our en banc court. See Thompson v.
Connick, 578 F.3d 293 (5th Cir. 2009) (mem.) (affirming district court by 8-8
vote). Now that a 9-8 majority has refused to rehear this case and correct our
pattern of underruling Connick, our court may have the last word. If this were
a movie, it would be called The Fifth Circuit Strikes Back.
       I dissent.

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                                 No. 22-30180

Andrew S. Oldham, Circuit Judge, joined by Jones, Smith, Ho,
Duncan, Engelhardt, and Wilson, Circuit Judges, dissenting from
the denial of rehearing en banc.
       Brian McNeal sued the Secretary of the Louisiana Department of
Public Safety and Corrections (“DPSC”). McNeal alleged the Secretary
wrongfully detained him for 41 days. All agree McNeal could have sought
habeas relief during those 41 days. But he chose not to do that. He instead
slept on his habeas rights, got out of jail, and then sought declaratory relief,
compensatory and punitive damages, and attorneys’ fees under 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983. A panel of our court blessed that approach, effectively holding that
the federal habeas statute and § 1983 offer prisoners like McNeal an election
of remedies: The former allows prisoners to get out of jail, while the latter
allows prisoners to stay in jail and then sue for compensation later. That
conflicts with multiple Supreme Court cases, so we should have reheard this
case en banc.
                                       I.
       This case lies at the intersection of the federal habeas statute, 28
U.S.C. § 2241, and the principal federal civil rights statute, 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
“At the time of § 1983’s adoption, the federal habeas statute mirrored the
common-law writ of habeas corpus, in that it authorized a single form of
relief: the prisoner’s immediate release from custody.” Wilkinson v. Dotson,
544 U.S. 74, 85 (2005) (Scalia, J., concurring). The singular habeas remedy
of release is a powerful one—so powerful that it transformed the common-
law courts from agents of the Crown to independent guardians of liberty. See,
e.g., Darnel’s Case, 3 How. St. Tr. 1 (K.B. 1627). Habeas is so powerful that
its 1679 codification in England was the “second magna carta.” 1 W.
Blackstone, Commentaries *133. And today, the habeas remedy is
so powerful that it allows federal courts to vitiate long-final judgments from
co-sovereign state courts notwithstanding res judicata principles that would

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otherwise apply. See, e.g., 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Perhaps owing to its
extraordinary power, the habeas remedy of release carries with it a host of
limitations from both common law and statutory law that can make it difficult
to win. See, e.g., Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996
(“AEDPA”), Pub. L. No. 104–132, 110 Stat. 1217; Beras v. Johnson, 978 F.3d
246, 251–52 (5th Cir. 2020) (per curiam) (holding common-law limitations
on habeas survive AEDPA’s enactment).
       Section 1983, by contrast, has none of this history. Congress enacted
it 1871 as part of its wide-ranging efforts to fight the Ku Klux Klan. And
perhaps owing to those wide-ranging efforts, § 1983 does not embrace one
remedy—it embraces many, including money damages and equitable relief.
And it carries with it the promise of attorney’s fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1988.
       Despite their radically different histories and scopes, § 2241 and
§ 1983 have one very important commonality: On their faces, they both apply
to a prisoner who says he’s in state custody in violation of the federal
Constitution. Compare 28 U.S.C. § 2241(c)(3) (authorizing federal judges to
grant habeas remedies to a state prisoner who “is in custody in violation of
the Constitution”), with 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (authorizing federal judges to grant
money damages and equitable relief against any state actor who deprives any
person of “any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the
Constitution”). The Supreme Court has recognized this overlap and held
that here, as in so many other areas, the specific controls the general. See
Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 489(1973). That is, where a prisoner seeks
or could seek the specific, singular remedy of habeas (release), he cannot fall
back on the general, broader remedies offered by § 1983 (damages,
injunctions, declarations, &c.).
       Consider for example Preiser. There the state prisoners filed suit
under § 1983 and sought an injunction restoring good-time credits. The

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                                 No. 22-30180

Court rejected that effort and held that what the prisoners really wanted was
to get out of jail earlier—and that is a habeas remedy. Id. at 488–90. Instead,
the Court held the federal habeas corpus statute supplies the “exclusive
[federal] remedy” for such claims. Id. at 489; see Wilkinson, 544 U.S. at 78
(“[A] prisoner in state custody cannot use a § 1983 action to challenge the
fact or duration of his confinement . . . He must seek federal habeas corpus
relief (or appropriate state relief) instead.” (quotation omitted)). Preiser
limited its holding to claims seeking equitable relief. See 411 U.S. at 494
(“[R]espondents here sought no damages, but only equitable relief—
restoration of their good-time credits—and our holding today is limited to
that situation.”). In other words, Preiser held only that a prisoner cannot
bring a claim under § 1983 if judgment for the prisoner would entitle him to
“immediate release or a speedier release from that imprisonment.” Id. at
500.
       The Court later extended that to hold a claim is not cognizable under
§ 1983 if judgment for the plaintiff would “necessarily imply” that the
prisoner is entitled to immediate or speedier release. Edwards v. Balisok, 520
U.S. 641, 648 (1997). For example, in Edwards a state prisoner sued prison
officials under § 1983, alleging they revoked his good-time credits without
affording him constitutionally adequate process. The prisoner requested only
damages and so contended his § 1983 claim was not barred under Preiser. Id.
at 643–44. But the Court rejected the claim anyway because “a win for the
prisoner would ‘necessarily imply the invalidity of the deprivation of his
good-time credits’ and get him out of prison 30 days sooner.” Crittindon v.
Leblanc, 37 F.4th 177, 194 (2022) (Oldham, J., dissenting) (quoting Edwards,
520 U.S. at 646). Thus, under Preiser and Edwards, a prisoner who sues to get
out of jail (or to get out of jail sooner) must use the specific remedy Congress
enacted for that purpose: Habeas.

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                                        No. 22-30180

        All agree that McNeal had a habeas remedy on the first day of his
overdetention, call it Day 1. On Day 1, McNeal could have sued in state
habeas court to get a specific remedy—release. McNeal concedes the fact.
See ROA.244 (Brief in Opposition to Defendants’ Motion for Summary
Judgment) (citing an example in which the DOC “release[ed an]
overdetained person within hours of the filing of a habeas petition”). And if
for whatever reason prison officials denied him release, and the state courts
were either unwilling or unable to give him that remedy,1 McNeal could have
sued in federal court under § 2241 on Day 2 or 3 or 10 or 41. All also agree,
of course, that McNeal had zero remedy under § 1983 on Day 1, 2, 3, 10, or
41. It turns Preiser and Edwards upside down to say that McNeal’s world flips
on Day 42 (the day of his release)—such that he then had zero habeas remedy
but limitless § 1983 remedies. The panel’s holding allows a prisoner to forgo
the specific remedy afforded by § 2241, wait six weeks, and then choose the

        1
           It is baseless to suggest, as a panel of our court did, that overdetained prisoners
cannot get habeas relief. See Hicks v. LeBlanc, 81 F.4th 497, 509 & n.76 (5th Cir. 2023). It
is of course true that a would-be § 2241 petitioner like McNeal would have to exhaust his
remedies in state court first. See Thomas v. Crosby, 371 F.3d 782, 812 (11th Cir. 2004)
(Tjoflat, J., specially concurring) (“Although there is a distinction in the statutory language
of §§ 2254 and 2241, there is no distinction insofar as the exhaustion requirement is
concerned.”). But we have no basis to think the state courts would have turned a blind eye
to a properly filed habeas petition. And even if they did, the federal courts certainly would
not have. Cf. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1)(B)(i)–(ii) (excusing federal habeas applicant from
exhausting state remedies where “there is an absence of available State corrective process”
and where “circumstances exist that render such process ineffective to protect the rights
of the applicant”). McNeal’s Day 1 habeas claim differs from claims arising in the mine-
run state prisoner’s case. In the latter kind of case, the prisoner is being held “pursuant to
the judgment of a State court,” id. § 2254(a), and the prisoner can be held until that
judgment is set aside or otherwise held infirm. By contrast, once McNeal’s sentence
expired, he was being held without any authorization whatsoever—which has been a
cognizable habeas claim since at least Darnel’s Case, and which forms the heartland of §
2241.

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                                  No. 22-30180

general remedy afforded by § 1983. We have no basis for that general-
controls-the-specific rule.
                                         II.
       You might reasonably wonder how we got so far afield. The answer is
a warning about our court’s understanding of the party-presentation
principle and the rule of orderliness.
       We started this mistake in Crittindon. In that case, the panel majority
held itself powerless to consider whether overdetention claims are non-
cognizable under § 1983 because no party presented the question. See id. at
190. Still, the Crittindon panel majority discussed the purportedly non-
presented problem. See id. at 190–92. And then Hicks returned to the
Crittindon’s discussion of the purportedly non-presented problem and held
it binding on all future panels of our court. See Hicks v. LeBlanc, 81 F.4th 497,
507 (5th Cir. 2023) (“Crittindon controls this case.”).
       This is a surreal double-whammy. Our court underruled Preiser and
Edwards in Crittindon but shushed the dissent by insisting the question
wasn’t properly presented. Then Hicks blew past the party-presentation
problem and held Crittindon binding on all the world. So one party’s failure
to brief a question to the panel’s satisfaction in the first case somehow means
all parties in all future cases must live with the doctrinal dictates of the very
Crittindon panel that insisted it didn’t have proper briefing to decide the
relevant question in the first place. It raises serious questions about the
interaction between our misunderstanding of the party-presentation
principle and the rule of orderliness when a panel can pronounce a binding
answer to a question it disclaimed authority to consider in the first place. See
also Solis v. Curtis, --- F.4th ---, --- (5th Cir. Feb. 14, 2024) (Oldham, J.,
dissenting) (criticizing our court’s misunderstanding of party presentation).

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                                     No. 22-30180

        And even aside from these procedural shenanigans, the Crittindon-
Hicks rule is indefensible on the merits. In those cases, our court held that
prisoners can turn their habeas claims into § 1983 claims by (1) waiting until
they get out jail and then (2) asking for money damages (a non-habeas
remedy) to compensate for illegal confinement. See Hicks, 81 F.4th at 507–
09. The Crittindon-Hicks theory appears to be that the prisoner did not
request a habeas remedy; the prisoner did not allege a problem in his
conviction or sentence; the prisoner only claimed he was held in jail too long
and in excess of his sentence; and therefore, § 1983’s gates are wide open to
him. The problem, of course, is that the § 1983 plaintiffs in Preiser and
Edwards tried the same move and lost. In Preiser, the prisoner alleged only
“that the deprivation of [his] good-conduct-time credits was causing or
would cause [him] to be in illegal physical confinement.” 411 U.S. at 487.
And in Edwards the prisoner alleged only a defect in the revocation of his
good-time credits. Neither prisoner challenged his underlying conviction or
sentence—just that he wanted to get out of jail sooner than his custodian
planned. Nevertheless, the Court held that neither claim could proceed
under § 1983. So it is no answer for the Hicks panel to say the § 1983 claim
can forward because it does not challenge the validity of Hicks’ sentence.2
        It is true that neither Preiser nor Edwards considered overdetention
claims. But it’s also irrelevant because any prisoner could easily reframe any
sentence-execution challenge into an overdetention claim. Consider the
following hypothetical: Prison officials revoke a year’s worth of good-time
credits from a prisoner (call her Patricia) following administrative

        2
          Hicks tried to ground the distinction in Muhammad v. Close, 540 U.S. 749 (2004)
(per curiam), but Muhammad is plainly irrelevant. The Court in that case held Edwards did
not apply only because the prisoner’s claim had no necessary implication for the duration
of his confinement. Id. at 754.

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                                       No. 22-30180

proceedings Patricia thinks were constitutionally defective. So Patricia’s
release date changes from September 1, 2024, to September 1, 2025. Patricia
never files a habeas petition; she simply sleeps on her rights until September
2, 2024. On that date, she brings an overdetention claim seeking damages
under § 1983 alleging: (1) that she was entitled to release on September 1,
2024, because the prison officials’ revocation of her good-time credits was
ultra vires, and (2) by holding her beyond September 1, 2024, prison officials
detained her in excess of her sentence, in violation of her constitutional
rights.
          If McNeal’s claim is cognizable under § 1983, it is hard to see why
Patricia’s claim is not.3 Like McNeal, Patricia does not challenge her
conviction or its attendant sentence. She alleges only that she should have
been released on September 1, 2024, and that she is accordingly entitled to
damages. Put differently, Patricia challenges only “the execution of h[er]
release.” Hicks, 81 F.4th at 506. But that is obviously a problem because
judgment for Patricia would “necessarily imply” the unlawfulness of his
confinement, and of the deprivation of his good-time credits. Edwards, 520
U.S. at 648. So allowing Patricia’s claim to proceed would be flatly
inconsistent with Edwards. And that is true even though Patricia (like
McNeal) seeks only damages to compensate for her alleged overdetention.
          The upshot is that if our precedents are right, a clever prisoner can
challenge all manner of things related to his conviction and sentence through
§ 1983 instead of habeas. All he must do is sleep on his rights until his

          3
          The only material difference between Patricia and McNeal is that McNeal is no
longer in custody. But that distinction is legally irrelevant because our precedents currently
dictate that the limits on § 1983 cognizability apply irrespective of custodial status. See
Wilson v. Midland Cnty., Texas, 89 F.4th 446, 454 (5th Cir. 2023).

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(ostensible) release date passes. And voila—the prisoner is no longer forced
to choose the specific habeas remedy over the general § 1983 remedy.
                               *        *         *
       This court has twisted itself into knots to avoid a conclusion that
should be obvious: A prisoner who has a habeas remedy cannot sue under
§ 1983. See Crittindon, 37 F.4th at 193 n.1 (Oldham, J., dissenting). Our
precedents embrace a contrary rule and should be overruled. It is a shame
that we failed to do that here. And we will not be able to avoid reconfronting
these issues when we rehear Wilson v. Midland Cnty., Texas, 89 F.4th 446
(5th Cir. 2024) (en banc rehearing granted Feb. 14, 2024).
       For now, I respectfully dissent.

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