Can One Seek Habeas Relief for Prison’s COVID-19 Risk?
No is the short answer to the question posed in the title of this article. However, the reason why one cannot petition for a writ of habeas corpus due to the risk a prison allows to exist from COVID-19 exposure is what is important and why this article is presented, as in the future, there will surely be similar health risks in our prisons and prisoners’ legal rights thereto must be understood.
More broadly, the case is instructive for reminding us of what can and cannot be challenged in a petition for writ of habeas corpus, which many prisoners and jail inmates call our office about filing.
Jeremy Pinson v. Michael Carvajal, Bureau of Prisons Director, is a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling from the Ninth Circuit in Pasadena. It arose from a consolidated appeal from two underlying habeas petitions, one from federal prisoner Jeremy Pinson, housed at United States Prison at Victorville, and one from federal prisoner Bruce Sands, housed at the Federal Correctional Institute in Lompoc. Both prisoners asserted their incarceration during the COVID-19 pandemic was unduly dangerous and thus violated the Eighth Amendment and both sought release from custody.
Naturally, one reading this recognizes that if such claims were recognized, this ruling would serve as a roadmap to future similar claims challenging the conditions of confinement and place our courts and prisons on a “slippery slope” of distinguishing valid and invalid claims against confinement conditions due to all types of custodial situations.
At the district court level, both judges in both cases dismissed the petitions, brought under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, concluding that petitioners were challenging the conditions of confinement, not the fact or duration of confinement and thus their claims did not properly sound in habeas.
The Ninth Circuit first acknowledged the serious health hazard that the COVID-19 pandemic posed and stated that it did not intend to trivialize the claims of either plaintiff.
However, it explained that under Preiser v. Rodriguez (1973) 411 U.S. 475, a prisoner’s claim is at “the core of habeas corpus” if it (1) “goes directly to the constitutionality of [the] physical confinement itself” and (2) “seeks either immediate release from that confinement or the shortening of its duration.” Id., at 489.
More fundamentally, the history of the writ of habeas corpus demonstrates that it has always been used to challenge the authority of the sovereign to detain the prisoner. It “was a mechanism for asking why the liberty of a subject is restrained.” Edwards v. Vannoy (2021) 141 S. Ct. 1547, 1567. Here, neither Prison nor Sands asked this in their petition.
Nonetheless, the Ninth Circuit considered its jurisdiction more closely. It first acknowledged that 28 U.S.C. § 2255, not § 2241, “provides the exclusive procedural mechanism by which a federal prisoner may test the legality of detention.” Lorentsen v. Hood (9th Cir. 2000) 223 F. 3d 950, 953.
Under this view, § 2241 is an “escape hatch” that allows a federal prisoner to petition for habeas corpus when the prisoner demonstrates that relief under § 2255 would be “inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention.” See Lorentsen, supra; Harrison v. Ollison (9th Cir. 2008) 519 F.3d 952, 955.
On the other hand, the Ninth Circuit noted, it has consistently held that “motions to contest the legality of a sentence must be filed under § 2255 in the sentencing court, while petitions that challenge the manner, location, or conditions of a sentence’s execution must be brought pursuant to § 2241 in the custodial court.” Hernandez v. Campbell (9th Cir. 2000) 204 F.3d 861, 864.
The Ninth Circuit then pointed out that the conditions of a sentence’s execution, i.e., the prison’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, are distinguishable from the conditions of a prisoner’s confinement.
Here, both Pinson and Sands contended that the conditions of their confinement violated the Eighth Amendment. A writ of habeas corpus, however, is limited to attacks on the legality or duration of a petitioner’s confinement. Accordingly, no relief could be afforded to either plaintiff under Section 2241 because it was not the proper vehicle for claims regarding the conditions of confinement.
It merits mention that the Ninth Circuit commented by footnote that it regarded Sands’ petition as a “disguised motion for compassionate release” and that he had previously filed two such motions which were denied.
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