Alan Mapuatuli v. Jefferson Sessions ( 2018 )

FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
MAR 02 2018
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
ALAN MAPUATULI, on behalf of No. 15-17292
himself and for all others in this District
similarly situated; et al., D.C. No. 1:14-cv-00506-LEK-BMK
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
MEMORANDUM*
v.
JEFFERSON B. SESSIONS III, Attorney
General, in his capacity as United States
Attorney General; et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Hawaii
Leslie E. Kobayashi, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted February 16, 2018
Honolulu, Hawaii
Before: O’SCANNLAIN, CLIFTON, and IKUTA, Circuit Judges.
Plaintiff-appellants Alan Mapuatuli, Gilbert Medina, and Gary Victor Dubin
appeal the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Defendant-appellees
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
Jefferson B. Sessions, Charles Samuels, Jr., J. Ray Ormond, and Florence
Nakakuni (sued in their official capacities as United States Attorney General,
Director of the United States Bureau of Prisons (BOP), Warden of the Honolulu
Federal Detention Center, and United States Attorney for the District of Hawaii,
respectively). We affirm.
First, to the extent Plaintiffs are seeking reversal of their convictions, such
relief is not available in this action. Relief from a criminal conviction must be
sought on direct appeal of the conviction or through a habeas petition, not through
a civil suit. See Nettles v. Grounds, 830 F.3d 922, 927 (9th Cir. 2016) (en banc).
Second, to the extent Plaintiffs are seeking to challenge the conditions of
their confinement, Mapuatuli and Medina failed to exhaust their administrative
remedies as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA). Under the
PLRA, a prisoner or pretrial detainee may not bring a claim “with respect to prison
conditions under section 1983 of this title, or any other Federal law . . . until such
administrative remedies as are available are exhausted.” 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a); see
also Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 135 S. Ct. 2466, 2476 (2015) (noting that the PLRA
“applies to both pretrial detainees and convicted prisoners). The Supreme Court
has broadly construed the term “prison conditions,” and has held that the
exhaustion requirement applies even if the prisoner may not be able to receive the
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precise relief he is seeking through those administrative procedures. Porter v.
Nussle, 534 U.S. 516, 524, 532 (2002); see also Roles v. Maddox, 439 F.3d 1016,
1018 (9th Cir. 2006). Mapuatuli and Medina’s complaints about the TRULINCS
and CorrLinks systems relate to prison conditions, but they failed to exhaust the
BOP’s administrative process; indeed, there is no evidence that they filed any
grievances at all. They therefore may not bring suit in federal court.1
Finally, Plaintiffs waived any claim that the district court erred in granting
summary judgment to Defendants because they failed to address the district court’s
reasoning in their opening brief. When an appellant fails to raise an issue in his
opening brief, we generally consider it waived. See Brown v. Rawson-Neal
Psychiatric Hosp., 840 F.3d 1146, 1148-49 (9th Cir. 2016). Here, Plaintiffs failed
to so much as mention the district court’s determination that Plaintiffs failed to
exhaust their administrative remedies. Therefore, we consider any claim that the
district court erred on this point waived.
AFFIRMED.
1
Although Dubin’s claim is not subject to the PLRA’s exhaustion
requirement, he lacks standing to raise a Sixth Amendment claim. See Portman v.
Cty. of Santa Clara, 995 F.2d 898, 902 (9th Cir. 1993).
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