Court Opinion

ID: 9458439
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:51:56.675365+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:45.794254
License: Public Domain

ON PETITION FOR REHEARING AND PETITION FOR REHEARING EN BANC
It is also clear that Congress has not acted to end the detainer jurisdictional morass. Nelson v. George, 399 U.S. 224, 228 at n. 5. 90 S.Ct. 1963, 26 L.Ed.2d 578 (1970); Jackson v. State of Louisiana, 452 F.2d 451, 453 (5th Cir., 1971).
 Nelson, supra, and its forerunners, see Word, supra, collecting cases; *487see also White v. Tennessee, 447 F.2d 1354 (6th Cir., 1971), involve applications for writs of habeas corpus attacking state detainer warrants lodged with state detentional authorities. Reed, however, is a federal prisoner. He is as fully entitled to attack the sufficiency of an underlying state sentence lodged as a detainer with federal correctional authorities as he would be were he a state prisoner. Peyton v. Rowe, 391 U.S. 54, 88 S.Ct. 1549, 20 L.Ed.2d 426 (1968); Walker v. Wainwright, 390 U.S. 335, 88 S.Ct. 962, 19 L.Ed.2d 1215 (1968); Jones v. Cunningham, 371 U.S. 236, 83 S.Ct. 373, 9 L.Ed.2d 285 (1963). There is no dispute that Reed is in custody within the Northern District of Georgia, nor that the party respondent has actual control over his confinement. The problem as noted in similar circumstances by Judge Fisher lies in terms closely akin to the doctrine of forum non conveniens.2 We think jurisdiction present in this case but affirm the district court’s considered decision to decline its exercise in circumstances in which a demanding jurisdiction will entertain the petition. United States ex rel. Meadows v. New York, supra. Should a demanding jurisdiction decline to exercise its, at least concurrent, jurisdiction, application may be made to the Supreme Court under the terms of 28 U.S.C. § 2241(a).
Affirmed.
The Petition for Rehearing is denied and no member of this panel nor Judge *488in regular active service on the Court having requested that the Court be polled on rehearing en banc, (Rule 35 Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure; Local Fifth Circuit Rule 12) the Petition for Rehearing En Banc is denied.

. In Varallo v. State of Ohio, 312 F.Supp. 45 (E.D.Tex., 1970), Judge Fisher wrote: “We do not hold, therefore, that this Court lacks all potential jurisdiction of these petitions; but we are of opinion that for this Court to entertain such applications is both a waste of the Court’s time and an exercise in futility on the part of the petitioners. Accordingly, the Court will henceforth decline to entertain habeas petitions by prisoners who seek to attack detainers filed by authorities resident in foreign jurisdictions unless it is shown that application for relief has been made to the federal district court sitting in the demanding state.
“The Court holds hereby that a federal prisoner’s habeas action attacking a conviction in another state which underlies a detainer filed with his keeper is properly brought in the federal district court sitting in the demanding state, and as a matter of sound discretion this Court will decline to exercise its own jurisdiction and will dismiss these petitions.”
312 F.Supp. at 48.
Unlike Craig v. Beto, 458 F.2d 1131 (5th Cir., 1972), the federal authorities holding Heed are making no extrinsic use of the asserted detainer. In Craig, however, the State of Texas made use of an earlier Oklahoma criminal conviction to enhance Craig’s Texas sentence. Under those circumstances this court held:
“Conflicts exist among the Circuits as to whether a prisoner should collaterally attack a conviction in the state of conviction or in the state of confinement. See Word v. North Carolina, 406 F.2d 352 (4th Cir. 1969) ; United States ex rel. Van Scoten v. Pennsylvania, 404 F.2d 767 (3rd Cir. 1968) ; White v. State of Tennessee, 447 F.2d 1354 (6th Cir. 1971). The Supreme Court has not decided the point. In Nelson v. George, 399 U.S. 224 [ 90 S.Ct. 1963, 26 L.Ed.2d 578] (1970), a case covering the validity of a detain-er, the Court left for another day ‘the proper treatment for habeas corpus claims such as those involv[ing] . . . challenge Is] in the California courts to the validity Lof a] North Carolina conviction.’ (J. Harlan concurring opinion, p. 230, 90 S.Ct. [1963] p. 1967.)
“We think that Craig is entitled to question the Oklahoma conviction in Texas in the collateral proceedings against the Texas conviction because, first, Texas is confining him under a life sentence which he w’ould not be serving were it not for the Oklahoma conviction, and second, even if Craig brought proceedings in Oklahoma, a favorable result there would still necessitate further proceedings for relief in Texas.
“We recognize the practical problems in producing in Texas records and witnesses of events that occurred in Oklahoma over twenty years ago. However, we think that Texas should bear this burden, if necessary, in support of the validity of Craig’s 1951 conviction because it has imposed the life sentence in Texas, and is presently confining Craig under that sentence, all based upon the theory that the Oklahoma conviction is valid.”