Court Opinion

ID: 9472908
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:14:25.340601+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:13.304525
License: Public Domain

CLARK, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. Like the majority I would treat the notice of appeal as a petition for writ of mandamus. Further, I would reverse and remand the case to the Northern District of Alabama for that court to rule upon whether it has jurisdiction of this case. Instead of deciding whether it had jurisdiction, the district court merely transferred the case to the Southern District of Alabama.
The majority goes astray in deciding this case on the principles that have been enunciated in interpreting 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a) which provides that a district court may transfer any civil action to any other district where it might have been brought for the convenience of the parties and witnesses, and in the interest of justice. The venue provision controlling this case is under 28 U.S.C. § 2241(d) which gives the petitioner
*1510the option of seeking habeas corpus either in the district where he is confined or the district where the sentencing court is located. 28 U.S.C. § 2241(d). In enacting these amendments, Congress explicitly recognized the substantial advantages of having these cases resolved in the court which originally imposed the confinement or in the court located nearest the site of the underlying controversy. (emphasis added)
Braden v. 30th Judicial Circuit Court of Kentucky, 410 U.S. 484, 497, 93 S.Ct. 1123, 1130, 35 L.Ed.2d 443 (footnotes omitted). The statute, unlike 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a), has the following direction to the district courts:
The district court for the district wherein such an application is filed in the exercise of its discretion and in furtherance of justice may transfer the application to the other district court for hearing and determination.
28 U.S.C. § 2241(d). The district court in this case did not exercise its discretion, did not consider what was in furtherance of justice and denied petitioner his option under the statute to file the petition in the Northern District of Alabama. This was done without any explanation, exercise of discretion, or stating reasons for transferring it other than some misplaced fear that it might not have jurisdiction of the case.
The report of the Senate accompanying Senate Bill No. 3576 which became subsection (d) of Section 2241 states the following:
The purpose of the proposed legislation is to allow a person in custody under a judgment and sentence by a state court to petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the federal district court of the district within which the state court was held that convicted and sentenced him.
S.Rep. No. 1502, 89th Cong., 2d Sess. (1966), reprinted in 1966 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 2968, 2969.
Dobard was charged with committing a crime in Sumter County and was indicted in that county. He was sentenced in that county, all of which occurred in the Northern District of Alabama. The state court transferred trial of the case to adjoining Marengo County where the jury verdict of guilty was returned. Marengo County is in the Southern District of Alabama. Clearly the Northern District of Alabama has jurisdiction of a petition for writ of habeas corpus under these circumstances and under the statute. Just as clearly, Dobard is given the option by the statute of filing his habeas petition in the Northern District of Alabama. The district court erred in not considering whether it had jurisdiction. I would return the case to that court with directions that it consider whether there were any reasons in furtherance of justice why the case should not be retained in the Northern District of Alabama.
I think the majority errs in its treatment of this vital right of a prisoner to have his case heard in the district nearest where the crime occurred and thus where normally the witnesses would be. Habeas corpus, although technically a civil proceeding is for all practical purposes a criminal matter. Therefore, this, although a civil case, is not properly compared to the broader discretion permitted to a district court to transfer a Section 1404(a) case for the convenience of the parties. Here the district court’s discretion is bounded by the requirement that the prisoner has the first election and the court must have sound reasons for transferring the venue of a Section 2254 case. Because, as the majority points out, the district court’s decision is not an immediate appealable order1 and because a reviewing court will be reluctant to overturn an otherwise error free habeas decision solely on the grounds of improper transfer of venue, the district court has a particularly heavy burden to consider these motions with care. See generally 2 Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure § 347, p. 282-83. I am greatly concerned that the majority opinion, the first apparently in the country to consider this problem, gives the dis*1511trict court unbounded discretion to transfer 2241 cases in the same manner they transfer Section 1404(a) cases. The majority goes beyond the intent of Congress. For these reasons I dissent.

. However, we do have jurisdiction to return a petition for a writ of mandamus to correct an abuse of discretion. See Roofing & Sheet Metal Services, Inc. v. La Quinta Motor Inns, Inc., 689 F.2d 982, 987 n. 9 (11th Cir.1982).