Jeremy Pinson v. Michael Carvajal ( 2023 )

FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
JEREMY VAUGHN PINSON, No. 21-55175
Petitioner-Appellant,
D.C. No.
v. 5:20-cv-02599-
PSG-SP
MICHAEL CARVAJAL, BOP
Director,
Respondent-Appellee. OPINION
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of California
Philip S. Gutierrez, Chief District Judge, Presiding
BRUCE R. SANDS, Jr., No. 21-55759
Petitioner-Appellant,
D.C. No.
v. 2:21-cv-01114-
JVS-JEM
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Respondent-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of California
James V. Selna, District Judge, Presiding
2 PINSON V. CARVAJAL
Argued and Submitted January 19, 2023
Pasadena, California
Filed June 8, 2023
Before: Ryan D. Nelson, Bridget S. Bade, and Danielle J.
Forrest, Circuit Judges.
Opinion by Judge Bade
SUMMARY*
Habeas Corpus
The panel affirmed the district court’s judgments
dismissing for lack of jurisdiction Jeremy Vaughn Pinson’s
and Bruce R. Sands, Jr.’s habeas corpus petitions in which
they asserted that their incarceration during the COVID-19
pandemic violated the Eighth Amendment and sought
release from custody.
The district court dismissed the petitions for lack of
subject matter jurisdiction, concluding that Petitioners were
challenging conditions of confinement, not the fact or
duration of confinement, and thus their claims did not
properly sound in habeas.
The panel was asked to decide whether these sorts of
claims—that prison officials violated prisoners’
*
This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has
been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.
PINSON V. CARVAJAL 3
constitutional rights by failing to provide adequate
conditions of confinement to protect against the spread of
COVID-19—may be brought by federal prisoners under the
federal habeas corpus statute, 28 U.S.C. § 2241.
Given Pinson’s transfer from USP Victorville prior to the
court’s review of her habeas petition, the panel addressed its
jurisdiction. The petition sought relief in the form of release
from USP Victorville and an injunction requiring that
facility to protect USP Victorville inmates from COVID-19.
Because the panel could no longer provide Pinson’s
requested relief, the panel held that she fails to present a live
case or controversy, and Article III therefore prohibits
jurisdiction over her petition. Because Pinson was
transferred before the district court ruled on her habeas
petition, and thus her petition was not “[p]ending review”
before the court of appeals, the panel explained that Fed. R.
App. P. 23(a) does not apply and does not cure the loss of
jurisdiction resulting from Pinson’s transfer. The panel
likewise held that the district court lacked jurisdiction over
Pinson’s habeas petition because the district court was
unable to fashion the requested relief after her transfer from
USP Victorville. The panel accordingly affirmed the
judgment dismissing Pinson’s petition.
The panel then turned to the main issue on appeal.
Sands’s habeas petition also challenges his conditions of
confinement. Notwithstanding this court’s holding in
Crawford v. Bell, 599 F.2d 890 (9th Cir. 1979) (the “the writ
of habeas corpus is limited to attacks upon the legality or
duration of confinement” and does not cover claims based
on allegations “that the terms and conditions of . . .
incarceration constitute cruel and unusual punishment”),
Sands argued that his claims that the terms and conditions of
4 PINSON V. CARVAJAL
his incarceration constitute cruel and unusual punishment
sound in habeas for two reasons.
First, relying on Hernandez v. Campbell, 204 F.3d 861(9th Cir. 2000) (per curiam), Sands asserted that the
requested relief is available under 28 U.S.C. § 2241. The
panel wrote that Sands misreads Hernandez as instructing
federal prisoners to bring claims related to the conditions of
their confinement under § 2241. The panel explained that
Hernandez did not instruct federal prisoners to bring claims
related to the conditions of their confinement under § 2241;
rather, Hernandez states that challenges to “conditions of a
sentence’s execution” may properly be brought under
§ 2241.
Second, Sands argued that his conditions-of-
confinement claims lie at the “core of habeas corpus”
because no set of conditions could render his continued
confinement constitutional and, thus, release is the only
effective remedy. The panel’s review of the history and
purpose of habeas led it to conclude the relevant question is
whether, based on allegations in the petition, release is
legally required irrespective of the relief requested. The
panel wrote that by collapsing the habeas analysis into a
simple inquiry of the requested relief, Petitioners, and the
authority they cite, fail to account for the historic purpose of
the writ and misapprehend the relationship between the
nature of a claim and its requested relief. Stated differently,
a successful claim sounding in habeas necessarily results in
release, but a claim seeking release does not necessarily
sound in habeas. Applying these principles to Sands’s
petition, the panel concluded that Sands failed to allege facts
to support his legal contention that his detention was
unlawful because no set of conditions exist that would cure
the constitutional violations at FCI Lompoc. Because
PINSON V. CARVAJAL 5
Sands’s claims lie outside the historic core of habeas corpus,
the panel concluded the district court properly found it
lacked jurisdiction to hear Sands’s petition.
The panel concluded the district court was not required
to convert Pinson’s and Sands’s habeas petitions into civil
rights actions, and declined the invitation to remand to the
district court to perform this conversion in the first instance.
COUNSEL
Gary D. Rowe (argued), Brianna Mircheff, and Andrew B.
Talai, Deputy Federal Public Defenders; Cuauhtemoc
Ortega, Federal Public Defender of the Central District of
California; Public Defender’s Office; Los Angeles,
California; for Petitioner-Appellant.
Suria M. Bahadue (argued), Assistant United States
Attorney; Bram M. Alden, Assistant United States Attorney,
Criminal Appeals Section Chief; Tracy L. Wilkison, United
States Attorney of the Central District of California; Office
of the United States Attorney; Los Angeles, California; for
Respondent-Appellee.
6 PINSON V. CARVAJAL
OPINION
BADE, Circuit Judge:
In these consolidated appeals, federal prisoners Jeremy
Pinson and Bruce Sands (collectively “Petitioners”)
challenge the dismissals of their habeas corpus petitions in
which they asserted that their incarceration during the
COVID-19 pandemic violated the Eighth Amendment and
sought release from custody. The district court dismissed
the petitions for lack of subject matter jurisdiction,
concluding that Petitioners were challenging conditions of
confinement, not the fact or duration of confinement, and
thus their claims did not properly sound in habeas.
We are asked to decide whether these sorts of claims—
that prison officials violated prisoners’ constitutional rights
by failing to provide adequate conditions of confinement to
protect against the spread of COVID-19—may be brought
by federal prisoners under the federal habeas corpus statute,
28 U.S.C. § 2241. Petitioners allege that the district courts
are unable to fashion injunctive relief that would render the
conditions of confinement constitutional and, accordingly,
release is the only available remedy. Consistent with
Supreme Court precedent, we reject Petitioners’ arguments.
We accordingly affirm the district court’s judgments
dismissing the habeas petitions for lack of jurisdiction.
PINSON V. CARVAJAL 7
I.
A.
Jeremy Pinson1 and Bruce Sands are federal prisoners
who were serving sentences in, respectively, the United
States Penitentiary in Victorville, California (“USP
Victorville”), and the Federal Correctional Institute in
Lompoc, California (“FCI Lompoc”), after each pleaded
guilty to multiple violations of federal law. In early 2021,
these facilities experienced COVID-19 outbreaks. While the
outbreaks were ongoing, Pinson and Sands filed habeas
petitions under 28 U.S.C. § 2241.
In her habeas petition filed on December 14, 2020,
Pinson alleged that she was transferred from the United
States Penitentiary in Tucson, Arizona (“USP Tucson”), to
USP Victorville, where she had been “brutally attacked” in
2008. Pinson alleges that she was transferred in an effort “to
bypass a potential favorable ruling in a federal case
challenging . . . COVID-19 protective measures.” There was
a COVID-19 outbreak at USP Victorville “[s]hortly after”
Pinson’s arrival, and Pinson complained that she lacked
personal protective equipment and was unable to socially
distance. Because of her “multiple comorbidities,” Pinson
alleged that her “life [was] in grave danger.” Accordingly,
she sought her release or home confinement “as her
continued incarceration violate[d] the [Eighth]
Amendment.” Pinson also requested injunctive relief
ordering the director of the Bureau of Prisons (“BOP”) to
protect USP Victorville inmates from COVID-19 and an
1
Pinson identifies as a transgender woman, and so we refer to her—as
she does herself—using female pronouns.
8 PINSON V. CARVAJAL
emergency adjudication of her petition.2 The same day that
Pinson filed her habeas petition, she was transferred to the
United States Penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia, and then to
Coleman, Florida, a few weeks later.3
Sands filed his habeas petition on January 29, 2021. He
alleged that prison officials violated his Eighth Amendment
rights by: (1) failing to provide adequate care for his
hypertension and obesity; (2) failing to implement policies
consistent with guidance from the BOP and the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”); (3) failing to
“immediately reduce the inmate population” at FCI Lompoc;
(4) failing to isolate and retest Sands following an initially
inconclusive COVID-19 test result; and (5) failing to remove
Sands from housing with inmates who tested positive for
COVID-19. Sands argued that relief was appropriate under
§ 2241 because he was challenging the fact or duration of his
confinement, and “no set of conditions” could remedy the
alleged constitutional violations at FCI Lompoc.
B.
The district court screened and summarily dismissed
Pinson’s petition, concluding that Pinson’s claim did “not
contest the legality of her conviction or sentence.” Instead,
2
Pinson also alleged that when she arrived at USP Victorville, an
unnamed “SHU Lieutenant” threatened Pinson with physical harm if she
were to file suit and “separated her from all of her legal papers.” She
does not complain of either act here.
3
Because it was unclear from the record when Pinson was transferred
from USP Victorville, the government moved to supplement the record
with a declaration establishing that Pinson was transferred on December
14, 2020. The motion to supplement the record is GRANTED. See
Johnson v. Rancho Santiago Cmty. Coll. Dist., 623 F.3d 1011, 1020 n.3
(9th Cir. 2010).
PINSON V. CARVAJAL 9
the court concluded that Pinson challenged “what she
believes are unconstitutional conditions of confinement,
which neither the Supreme Court nor the Ninth Circuit have
recognized as proper bases for federal habeas relief.”
The government moved to dismiss Sands’s petition. The
magistrate judge recommended granting dismissal because,
although “a Section 2241 petition may be utilized by a
federal inmate to challenge the manner, location, or
conditions of a sentence’s execution, it is not the proper
vehicle to challenge the conditions of confinement.” The
magistrate judge concluded that, because Sands sought
“release based on the BOP’s alleged inability to take certain
precautions at FCI Lompoc” against the spread of COVID-
19, his “allegations sound[ed] in civil rights, not in habeas.”4
The district court adopted the magistrate’s report and
recommendation and dismissed Sands’s petition with
prejudice.
II.
We review a district court’s decision to deny a habeas
petition and its determination that it lacks jurisdiction over
the petition de novo. Nettles v. Grounds, 830 F.3d 922, 927
(9th Cir. 2016) (en banc).
III.
Before turning to the primary jurisdictional question in
this case, we must ascertain our jurisdiction over Pinson
4
To the extent Sands’s petition was “actually a disguised motion for
compassionate release,” the court explained relief was improper because
such motions must be filed in the sentencing—rather than custodial—
court. Sands had previously “filed two separate compassionate release
motions [in the sentencing court,] both of which were denied.”
10 PINSON V. CARVAJAL
given her transfer from USP Victorville prior to this court’s
review of her habeas petition.
A.
The United States Constitution limits the “judicial
Power” of the federal courts to cases and controversies. U.S.
CONST. art. III, § 2, cl. 1. Accordingly, this court is
“precluded by Article III . . . from entertaining an appeal if
there is no longer a live case or controversy,” including
where it “can no longer provide . . . the primary relief
sought.” Munoz v. Rowland, 104 F.3d 1096, 1097–98 (9th
Cir. 1997). The party seeking relief bears the burden of
establishing jurisdiction. See Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504
U.S. 555, 561 (1992).
Pinson’s petition sought relief in the form of release from
USP Victorville and an injunction requiring that facility “to
protect USP Victorville inmates from COVID-19.” Pinson
is no longer detained at USP Victorville. And Pinson has
already had petitions dismissed on these same grounds. In
Pinson v. Othon, she brought an Eighth Amendment
conditions-of-confinement claim while she was detained at
USP Tucson. No. CV-20-00169-TUC-RM, 2020 WL
7404587, at *1 (D. Ariz. Dec. 17, 2020). While her motion
for a preliminary injunction to remedy the alleged violations
was pending, she was transferred to USP Victorville, which
led the district court to dismiss the action after concluding
Pinson’s claims had become moot upon her transfer. Id. at
*2–3 (citing Munoz, 104 F.3d at 1097–98). Pinson’s claims
here are also moot. Because we “can no longer provide”
Pinson’s requested relief, she fails to present a live case or
controversy for our review, and Article III therefore
prohibits exercising jurisdiction over her petition. Munoz,
104 F.3d at 1097–98.
PINSON V. CARVAJAL 11
Pinson argues that we have jurisdiction based on Federal
Rule of Appellate Procedure 23(a), which generally
prohibits transferring custody over prisoners “[p]ending
review of a decision in a habeas corpus proceeding” before
the court of appeals.5 See Fed. R. App. P. 23(a). But Pinson
was transferred before the district court ruled on her habeas
petition, and thus her petition was not “[p]ending review”
before the court of appeals. Accordingly, Rule 23(a) does
not apply here and does not cure the loss of jurisdiction
resulting from Pinson’s transfer from USP Victorville.6 Cf.
5
In her reply brief, Pinson contends her claim is not moot because she
may be forced to return to USP Victorville just as she was forced to
return to USP Tucson. This contention is speculative on its face and fails
to meet Pinson’s burden of establishing jurisdiction at this stage in
litigation. See Lujan, 504 U.S. at 561; see also Darring v. Kincheloe,
783 F.2d 874, 876 (9th Cir. 1991) (concluding claim was moot because
there was “neither a ‘reasonable expectation’ nor ‘demonstrated
probability’ that [appellant] will again return to the State Penitentiary”
that he was transferred from). Even if we were to accept her conclusory
allegation that she might return to USP Victorville, Pinson points to no
evidence that she might return to this facility in the midst of a similar
COVID-19 outbreak.
6
Relying on United States v. Munsingwear, 340 U.S. 36 (1950), Pinson
contends that even if we determine there is no jurisdiction over her
petition, the proper course is not to affirm the district court’s order of
dismissal, but rather to vacate the judgment below and remand with
directions to dismiss. The rule announced in Munsingwear is intended
to prevent preclusion based on an unreviewed judgment due to
“happenstance” or “the unilateral action of the party who prevailed
below.” Dilley v. Gunn, 64 F.3d 1365, 1370 (9th Cir. 1995) (citations
omitted); see also United States v. Bancorp Mortg. Co. v. Bonner Mall
P’ship, 513 U.S. 18, 23–25 (1994) (rejecting the contention that
automatic vacatur is required whenever mootness prevents appellate
review). This rule does not apply to Pinson’s case. At most, Pinson is
precluded from reasserting her allegations in habeas proceedings (which,
12 PINSON V. CARVAJAL
Darring, 783 F.2d at 876 (concluding that § 1983 claim for
injunctive relief was moot where prisoner was transferred to
a different prison before district court ruled on his amended
complaint); Johnson v. Moore, 948 F.2d 517, 519 (9th Cir.
1991) (“Before our first decision was rendered in this case,
Johnson was transferred to a federal correctional facility in
Washington. Because he has demonstrated no reasonable
expectation of returning to [the prior facility], his claims for
injunctive relief relating to [that facility’s] policies are
moot.” (emphasis added)).
Pinson also objects that the district court summarily
dismissed her habeas petition, without providing notice of its
jurisdictional defects or an opportunity to respond. As
Pinson acknowledges, district courts are expected to take “an
active role in summarily disposing of facially defective
habeas petitions,” Boyd v. Thompson, 147 F.3d 1124, 1127
(9th Cir. 1998), and if it “plainly appears from the petition
and any attached exhibits that the petitioner is not entitled to
relief in the district court, the judge must dismiss the petition
and direct the clerk to notify the petitioner,” R. Governing
Section 2254 Cases in the U.S. Dist. Cts., R. 4; see also id.,R. 1(b) (permitting district courts to apply the Habeas Rules
to § 2241 habeas proceedings). Pinson does not dispute that
her petition alleges claims based on her conditions of
confinement; instead, she argues only that the district court’s
dismissal on this basis was not “obvious” because the
Supreme Court has left open the question of whether
prisoners can use habeas to challenge confinement
conditions. But the Ninth Circuit has long held that the “the
writ of habeas corpus is limited to attacks upon the legality
for reasons discussed below, she would be unable to do in any event),
but she is not precluded from reasserting them in a civil rights action.
PINSON V. CARVAJAL 13
or duration of confinement” and does not cover claims based
on allegations “that the terms and conditions of . . .
incarceration constitute cruel and unusual punishment.”
Crawford v. Bell, 599 F.2d 890, 891 (9th Cir. 1979).
Pinson’s petition cannot be fairly read as attacking “the
legality or duration of confinement,” and while she sought
release from USP Victorville, she also sought an injunction
to require USP Victorville to remedy the unconstitutional
conditions of confinement. It is also unclear what facts
Pinson could allege in an amended petition to confer subject
matter jurisdiction on the district court under § 2241. And,
of course, the claims in Pinson’s petition are now mooted by
her transfer from USP Victorville.
For these reasons, we conclude that the district court
lacked jurisdiction over Pinson’s habeas petition because it
was unable to fashion the requested relief after her transfer
from USP Victorville, and we accordingly affirm the
judgment dismissing Pinson’s petition. Atel Fin. Corp. v.
Quaker Coal Co., 321 F.3d 924, 926 (9th Cir. 2003) (per
curiam) (“We may affirm a district court’s judgment on any
ground supported by the record, whether or not the decision
of the district court relied on the same grounds or reasoning
we adopt.”). We further conclude that the district court’s
summary dismissal of Pinson’s petition was not improper
and deny Pinson any requested relief on that ground.7
With these threshold matters resolved, we turn to the
main issue on appeal.
7
Because Pinson’s petition is moot and does not allege that “no set of
conditions” could satisfy constitutional concerns, we do not consider
whether she has alleged sufficient facts to support habeas jurisdiction, as
we do with Sands’s petition in Section III.B.
14 PINSON V. CARVAJAL
B.
Sands’s habeas petition also challenges his conditions of
confinement. This court’s holding in Crawford
notwithstanding, Sands argues that his claims that the terms
and conditions of his incarceration constitute cruel and
unusual punishment sound in habeas for two reasons. First,
relying on Hernandez v. Campbell, 204 F.3d 861, 864 (9th
Cir. 2000) (per curiam), he asserts that the requested relief is
available under § 2241. Second, he argues that his
conditions-of-confinement claims lie at the “core of habeas
corpus” because no set of conditions could render his
continued confinement constitutional and, thus, release is the
only effective remedy. We consider each argument in turn.
1.
As an initial matter, we note some tension in our case
law regarding the intersection between § 2241 and § 2255.
On the one hand, we have routinely held that Ҥ 2255
provides the exclusive procedural mechanism by which a
federal prisoner may test the legality of detention.”
Lorentsen v. Hood, 223 F.3d 950, 953 (9th Cir. 2000); see
also Harrison v. Ollison, 519 F.3d 952, 955 (9th Cir. 2008);
Ivy v. Pontesso, 328 F.3d 1057, 1059 (9th Cir. 2003); United
States v. Pirro, 104 F.3d 297, 299 (9th Cir. 1997). 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, 223 F.3d at 953; Harrison, 519 F.3d at 956; Ivy,
328 F.3d at 1059; Pirro, 104 F.3d at 299.
This view is supported by § 2255’s text, which permits a
federal prisoner to move a court to “vacate, set aside, or
correct the sentence” based on the contention that the
PINSON V. CARVAJAL 15
sentence is “subject to collateral attack,” 28 U.S.C.
§ 2255(a), which is broad enough to cover Sands’s claims
here. It is also supported by the Supreme Court’s conclusion
in Hill v. United States, that § 2255 “was intended simply to
provide in the sentencing court a remedy exactly
commensurate with that which had previously been
available by habeas corpus in the court of the district where
the prisoner was confined.” 368 U.S. 424, 427 (1962). And
it accords with secondary authority surveying caselaw—
including from the Ninth Circuit—concluding that if “relief
is possible under § 2255,” a remedy under that section is
“exclusive” and “traditional habeas corpus [relief] under §
2241 is barred.” Charles A. Wright & Arthur R. Miller, 3
FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE— CRIMINAL § 623 (5th
ed. 2023).
On the other hand, we have 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, 204 F.3d at 864. We first
stated this principle in Ridenour v. United States, 446 F.2d
57, 57 (9th Cir. 1971) (per curiam), where we summarily
affirmed the denial of relief under § 2255 because the
petitioner’s complaints “concern[ed] the manner of the
execution of [the] sentence,” and were “not cognizable under
§ 2255, which is available only to test the sentence imposed,
not a sentence as it is being executed.” We subsequently
applied Ridenour to conclude that our jurisdiction under
§ 2255 does not extend to challenges to parole eligibility
because that section permits a prisoner to “test only the
sentence imposed and not the sentence ‘as it is being
executed.”’ Brown v. United States, 610 F.2d 672, 677 (9th
16 PINSON V. CARVAJAL
Cir. 1980) (quoting Ridenour, 446 F.2d at 57). Instead, we
explained that a habeas petition under § 2241 was “the
proper form of proceeding for obtaining review of parole
decisions.” Id.
Four years later, we applied both Ridenour and Brown to
conclude that claims challenging good-time credits were not
properly brought under § 2255 because such claims
“addresse[d] the execution of [the] sentence, rather than the
sentence itself,” and a motion under § 2255 could “test only
the propriety of the sentence imposed, not the manner of
execution.” United States v. Giddings, 740 F.2d 770, 771–
72 (9th Cir. 1984). Instead, we explained that “[r]eview of
the execution of a sentence may be had through petition for
a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241.” Id. at 772.
We next applied Giddings in a case involving a
prisoner’s challenge brought under § 2255 to the United
States Parole Commission’s denial of a parole request based
on its reliance on purportedly improper evidence.
Doganiere v. United States, 914 F.2d 165, 167 (9th Cir.
1990). Again, we affirmed the denial of the motion,
explaining that “a section 2255 motion can test only the
propriety of the sentence imposed, not the manner of its
execution” and that the “proper way to seek review” of a
decision by the Parole Commission “is by a petition for a
writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241.” Id. at 169–
70.
Finally, in Hernandez, we considered a habeas challenge
to a sentencing determination based on an intervening
change in law after the prisoner’s initial § 2255 motion had
been denied. 204 F.3d at 863–64 (explaining that prisoner
sought resentencing based on the intervening decision in
United States v. Felix, 87 F.3d 1057 (9th Cir. 1996)). We
PINSON V. CARVAJAL 17
explained for the first time 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.” Id. at
864.
We further explained, however, that § 2241 relief was
also available “to contest the legality of a sentence where
[the] remedy under § 2255 is inadequate or ineffective to test
the legality of [the] detention.” Id. at 864–65 (internal
quotation marks and citations omitted). In other words,
Hernandez clarified that relief under § 2241 is available in
two circumstances: when a petitioner challenges the post-
conviction execution of a sentence rather than the legality of
the underlying judgment; and when a petitioner challenges a
sentence’s legality where relief under § 2255 is “inadequate
or ineffective to test the legality of [the] detention.” Id.
Sands does not argue that relief under § 2255 is
“inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of” his
detention. Instead, he contends that, in Hernandez, we
instructed “federal prisoners to bring their ‘conditions’
claims under § 2241” and he reasons that, because his claim
pertains “to the execution of [his] federal sentence[] (which
includes challenges to unlawful ‘conditions’), habeas
jurisdiction was proper.” This argument is unpersuasive.
First, Sands’s argument relies on a misreading of
Hernandez. Sands reads Hernandez as instructing federal
prisoners to bring claims related to the conditions of their
confinement under § 2241. But we did not instruct federal
prisoners to bring claims related to the conditions of their
confinement under § 2241; rather, we stated that challenges
to “conditions of a sentence’s execution” may properly be
18 PINSON V. CARVAJAL
brought under § 2241. Hernandez, 204 F.3d at 864(emphasis added). This is a critical distinction given that
Crawford explicitly rejected habeas jurisdiction over a
federal prisoner’s claims related to the conditions of his
confinement. See Crawford, 599 F.2d at 891–92. In other
words, reading Hernandez as Sands suggests would make it
contradictory to our prior holding in Crawford.
In addition to Hernandez, Sands relies on our
unpublished, non-precedential memorandum disposition in
Moore v. Winn, 698 F. App’x 485 (9th Cir. 2017), and the
“ordinary understanding of the term ‘execution.’”8 Of
8
Sands also relies on the Second Circuit’s decision in Jiminian v. Nash,
245 F.3d 144 (2d Cir. 2001), to argue that conditions-of-confinement
claims generally may be brought under habeas because they challenge a
sentence’s execution. Sands’s reliance on Jiminian is ultimately
unpersuasive. Jiminian involved a successive § 2255 motion alleging a
sentence was imposed in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(c)(1) because the
sentencing court “failed to state, on the record, the reasons for imposing
a sentence at the high end of the applicable United States Sentencing
Guidelines . . . range.” Id. at 145–46. The court relied solely on its own
precedent to conclude that § 2241 petitions “generally challenge[] the
execution of a federal prisoner’s sentence, including such matters as the
administration of parole, computation of a prisoner’s sentence by prison
officials, prison disciplinary actions, prison transfers, types of
detention[,] and prison conditions.” Id. at 146. Unfortunately, this
conclusion lacks any rationale that could guide us here, and it does not
even appear to be supported by the cited authority, none of which
involved consideration of whether a conditions-of-confinement claim
may be brought under § 2241. Compare id. at 146 (citing Chambers v.
United States, 106 F.3d 472, 474–75 (2d Cir. 1997) as “articulating
instances where a federal prisoner may proper file a § 2241 petition” and
stating instances include challenges to “prison conditions”), with
Chambers, 106 F.3d at 474–75 (explaining § 2241 is the proper vehicle
for “[a] challenge to the execution of a sentence,” including the
“calculation of sentence” time and a “decision to deny parole . . . after
PINSON V. CARVAJAL 19
course, Moore is not binding authority. And a closer
evaluation of Moore demonstrates the frailty of Sands’s
position here. Moore involved a prisoner’s challenge to “the
federal Bureau of Prison’s classification system.” 698 F.
App’x at 485 n.1. We concluded that the district court erred
in declining to exercise jurisdiction over the prisoner’s
petition “on the basis that [the prisoner] could not properly
challenge the conditions of his confinement through a habeas
petition” because, under Hernandez, the court could review
a petition that contested the manner, location or condition of
the sentence’s execution. Id. at 486. Sands misreads this as
holding that challenges to the conditions of confinement may
be brought in a habeas action. But given the claim asserted
in Moore, the better reading is that the district court
improperly concluded that the claim challenged the
conditions of confinement—which is not cognizable in
habeas—when in fact the claim pertained to the location or
conditions of the sentence’s execution. See id. at 485 n.1.
And even if Moore could be read as broadly as Sands
suggests, the alleged violations there differ in kind from
Sands’s allegations, making Moore inapposite.
Sands’s reliance on the “ordinary understanding” of the
execution of a sentence is also unavailing for two reasons.
First, applying the ordinary understanding of the term
“execution” merely means § 2241 is available for actions
challenging the conditions of carrying out a sentence or
imposition by court of sentence,” but omitting any reference to prison
conditions). And, as with Moore, even if Jiminian could be read to
suggest that some challenges to prison conditions may be brought under
§ 2241, the challenges in Jiminian are categorically distinguishable from
the challenges brought by Pinson and Sands.
20 PINSON V. CARVAJAL
putting the sentence into effect. But that is not synonymous
with challenging conditions of confinement. Sands cites
Woodall v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, 432 F.3d 235 (3d Cir.
2005), to define the ordinary understanding of the term
“execution.” See id. at 243. But that case involved a
challenge to the location of detention, not the conditions of
confinement. Id. (explaining that an action under § 2241
would lie where the prisoner challenged that his detention
would be carried out in “an ordinary penal institution” rather
than a community corrections center). In other words, we
can adopt Sands’s definition of the “ordinary understanding”
of execution and still conclude that Sands’s claims are not
cognizable under § 2241.
Second, Sands does not identify any published opinion
in which we have authorized a conditions-of-confinement
claim under § 2241. To the contrary, as discussed, we have
consistently applied the terms of § 2255 and § 2241 to limit
claims brought under these statutory provisions to
challenges to the actual execution of the sentence itself,
rather than ancillary harms resulting from the conditions of
confinement. See supra at 14–17.
We are thus ultimately unpersuaded that the federal
habeas statutes or Hernandez create an exception to the rule
announced in Crawford that “the writ of habeas corpus is
limited to attacks upon the legality or duration of
confinement.” Crawford, 599 F.2d at 891. We now consider
Sands’s argument that his claims sound in habeas because,
by alleging that there are no constitutionally permissible
conditions of confinement and that release is the only
adequate remedy, his claims go to the historic core of habeas
corpus.
PINSON V. CARVAJAL 21
2.
Under Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475 (1973), 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. Because Sands contends habeas is the proper vehicle
for his claims in which he seeks release from FCI Lompoc,
we address the relationship between these two features of the
core of habeas corpus.
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.9 It “was a mechanism for
asking why the liberty of a subject is restrained.” Edwards,
141 S. Ct. at 1567 (alterations, internal quotation marks, and
citation omitted). In seventeenth-century England,
“monarchs sometimes jailed their subjects summarily and
indefinitely, with little explanation and even less process. In
response, common law courts developed the . . . writ to force
the Crown to provide reasons for its actions and, if
necessary, to ensure adequate process . . . to justify any
further detention.” Id. (citation omitted); see also Richard
H. Fallon, Jr., et al., HART & WECHSLER’S THE FEDERAL
COURTS AND THE FEDERAL SYSTEM 1194 (7th ed. 2015)
(“[T]he original office of habeas corpus . . . focused instead
on whether extra-judicial detention—most often by the
executive—was authorized by law.”).
9
At common law there were “several” writs of habeas corpus. Edwards
v. Vannoy, 141 S. Ct. 1547, 1566 (2021) (Gorsuch, J., concurring). The
one referred to here—the so-called “Great Writ”—is technically a writ
of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum. Id. at 1567.
22 PINSON V. CARVAJAL
But because this requirement of “process” was often met
if the detention resulted from a criminal conviction issued by
a court of competent jurisdiction, use of the writ was
frequently limited to challenging the jurisdiction of the
sentencing court. See Edwards, 141 S. Ct. at 1567
(explaining the “exception” to the rule that a final judgment
of conviction justified detention was when “the court of
conviction lacked jurisdiction over the defendant or his
offense” but that “the exception was confined to that limited
class of cases” (internal quotation marks and citation
omitted)). And it was this limited scope of the writ that was
adopted by the first Congress in 1789. See id. (explaining
that the scope of the statute authorizing issuance of writs of
habeas corpus by federal courts was “defined” by the
common law); see also Preiser, 411 U.S. at 485.
After the Civil War, use of the writ expanded
significantly “as a remedy available to effect discharge from
any confinement contrary to the Constitution or fundamental
law, even though imposed pursuant to conviction by a court
of competent jurisdiction.” Preiser, 411 U.S. at 485(emphasis added). Thus, habeas corpus was “accepted as the
specific instrument to obtain release” from unlawful
confinement where, for example, the conviction was based
on an unconstitutional statute, detention was based on a
defective instrument, detention was in the wrong institution,
the defendant’s constitutional rights were denied at trial, or
the revocation of parole and return to detention was
unlawful. See id. at 486 (collecting cases concluding that
these circumstances constitute unlawful confinement and
that claims based on these circumstances sound in habeas).
By the time the Supreme Court decided Preiser, “habeas
corpus relief [was] not limited to immediate release from
illegal custody, but [was] available as well to attack future
PINSON V. CARVAJAL 23
confinement and obtain future releases.” Id. at 487. And, of
course, the scope and application of habeas corpus relief was
fundamentally altered in the 1940s by the passage of §§ 2254
and 2255, which, among other things, “required exhaustion
of adequate state remedies as a condition precedent to the
invocation of federal judicial relief.” Id. at 489; see 28
U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1)(A); see also 28 U.S.C. § 2255(f), (h)
(setting one-year statute of limitations on habeas claims
brought by federal prisoners and restricting the availability
of second or successive petitions). All of which resulted in
a situation where, as noted commentators have explained,
the “primary contemporary use of federal habeas corpus is
as a postconviction remedy for prisoners claiming that an
error of federal law—almost always of constitutional law—
infected the judicial proceedings that resulted in detention.”
Fallon, et al., at 1194.
Thus, the history of habeas corpus demonstrates why
release from confinement is the only available remedy for
claims at the writ’s core and, consequently, informs our
analysis about how to classify petitions that allege release is
the only available remedy. Release is the only available
remedy—and thus a claim is at the core of habeas—if a
successful petition demonstrates that the detention itself is
without legal authorization. Authorization may be lacking
because—as in seventeenth-century England—the
conviction was rendered by a court without the jurisdiction
to do so. Or it might be lacking because the prisoner is
detained pursuant to a guilty plea that was coerced or offered
without the benefit of counsel, potentially “invalidat[ing] the
plea and [attendant] sentence.” See Von Moltke v. Gillies,
332 U.S. 708, 710 (1948). Or it might be lacking because at
trial prosecutors failed to disclose exculpatory or
impeachment evidence that was material to the petitioner’s
24 PINSON V. CARVAJAL
guilt. See Skinner v. Switzer, 562 U.S. 521, 536 (2011)
(explaining that “Brady claims have ranked within the
traditional core of habeas corpus”).
In all these circumstances, however, the petitioner has
demonstrated that custody was not authorized to begin with,
which is a legal defect that cannot be solved by ordering
damages or declaratory relief or an injunction.10 Indeed, the
Supreme Court has explicitly held that even when a plaintiff
seeks money damages—a remedy unavailable to a habeas
claimant—the cause of action nonetheless sounds in habeas
if “establishing the basis for the damages claim necessarily
demonstrates the invalidity of the conviction.” Heck v.
Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 481–82 (1994); see also Edwards
v. Balisok, 520 U.S. 641, 646–48 (1997) (prisoner’s action
for damages and declaratory relief properly sounded in
habeas because success on the claims would “necessarily
imply the invalidity of the punishment imposed”).
By contrast, claims that if successful would not
necessarily lead to the invalidity of the custody are not at the
core of habeas corpus. Thus, in Skinner, the Supreme Court
held that a judgment ordering DNA testing did not sound in
habeas because nothing about DNA testing itself implicated
“the unlawfulness of the State’s custody.” 562 U.S. at 525(citation omitted). Indeed, depending on the results of the
DNA testing, the judgment ordering testing could have
10
This principle extends to challenges after a sentence is imposed if a
successful challenge would similarly demonstrate that the continuation
of the sentence in any form is without legal authorization. See, e.g.,
Preiser, 411 U.S. at 486–87 (explaining that challenge to procedures
resulting in deprivation of good-time credits sounds in habeas because
“once [petitioners’] conditional-release date had passed, any further
detention of them in prison was unlawful” (emphasis added)).
PINSON V. CARVAJAL 25
proven the lawfulness of the state’s custody. See id.(“Success in the suit gains for the prisoner only access to the
DNA evidence, which may prove exculpatory, inculpatory,
or inconclusive.”). Similarly, the Supreme Court has
determined that challenges to state procedures regarding
parole eligibility and suitability do not sound in habeas
because success would mean only a subsequent review of
custody, which could still result in continued confinement.
Wilkinson v. Dotson, 544 U.S. 74, 82 (2005).
In short, an action sounds in habeas “no matter the relief
sought (damages or equitable relief), no matter the target of
the prisoner’s suit . . . if success in that action would
necessarily demonstrate the invalidity of confinement or its
duration.”11 Id.11
Notably, this relationship between the right violated and the remedy
sought exists in the civil rights context, too. For example, the Supreme
Court has held that individuals who suffered violations of their
constitutional rights by federal officials have the right to monetary
damages not only to recompense them for their harm, but also as a
financial incentive to deter future violations of the kind that gave rise to
damages in the first instance. See Carlson v. Green, 446 U.S. 14, 21
(1980) (“[T]he Bivens remedy, in addition to compensating victims,
serves a deterrent purpose.”); see also Wilkie v. Robbins, 551 U.S. 537,
550 (2007) (“[W]e have also held that any freestanding damages remedy
for a claimed constitutional violation has to represent a judgment about
the best way to implement a constitutional guarantee . . . .” (emphasis
added)); Corr. Servs. Corp. v. Malesko, 534 U.S. 61, 70–71 (2001)
(explaining that because the “purpose of Bivens is to deter individual
federal officers from committing constitutional violations,” a prisoner
may not bring a Bivens claim for damages allegedly caused by private
entities); FDIC v. Meyer, 510 U.S. 471, 485 (1994) (holding a Bivens
claim does not lie against federal agencies because, if damages claims
were permitted against federal agencies, “there would be no reason for
26 PINSON V. CARVAJAL
Of course, the Supreme Court has also emphasized the
importance of release from custody when considering
whether a claim sounds in habeas. See, e.g., Preiser, 411
U.S. at 498; Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 554–55
(1974) (noting that claims that “sought restoration of good-
time credits” properly sounded in habeas and that claims that
sought damages could be brought in a civil rights action);
Wilkinson, 544 U.S. at 81–82 (concluding prisoner claims
properly sounded in civil rights and not habeas where
success on the merits did “not mean immediate release from
confinement or a shorter stay in prison”); id. at 86 (Scalia,
J., concurring) (contending that characterizing a claim
contemplating “relief that neither terminates custody,
accelerates the future date of release from custody, nor
reduces the level of custody” as lying “at the ‘core of habeas’
would utterly sever the writ from its common-law roots”);
Skinner, 562 U.S. at 525 (“Habeas is the exclusive remedy
. . . for the prisoner who seeks immediate or speedier release
from confinement. Where the prisoner’s claim would not
necessarily spell speedier release, however, suit may be
brought under § 1983.” (internal quotation marks and
citation omitted)); see also Nettles, 830 F.3d at 934–35
(concluding a claim was outside “the core of habeas”
because, if successful, the claim “would not necessarily lead
to immediate or speedier release”).
We do not mean to suggest that the relief requested is
immaterial to a claim’s characterization: we continue to
adhere to the principle that the core of habeas is reserved for
claims that seek release from confinement. See Preiser, 411
U.S. at 489. The critical analytical consideration is why such
aggrieved parties to bring damages actions against individual officers”
and thus “the deterrent effects of the Bivens remedy would be lost”).
PINSON V. CARVAJAL 27
claims are actually at the core of habeas. Thus, the proper
analytical tack when determining whether actions like the
one brought by Sands are at the core of habeas is to consider
why release from confinement is necessary to remedy the
underlying alleged violation.
It is at this critical step in the analysis that Petitioners and
our sister circuits go astray. The question of whether a claim
goes to the core of habeas does not turn, as they seem to
suggest, solely on whether the prisoner requested release as
opposed to some other form of relief. See Wilson v.
Williams, 961 F.3d 829, 838 (6th Cir. 2020) (noting the
“Supreme Court has held that release from confinement—
the remedy petitioners seek here—is ‘the heart of habeas
corpus’” and concluding claims that “sought improvement
in the conditions at” a prison “were conditions of
confinement claims not appropriately considered under
§ 2241,” but claims that sought release from confinement
sounded in habeas (quoting Preiser, 411 U.S. at 498)); Hope
v. Warden, 972 F.3d 310, 323 (3d Cir. 2020) (“Where a
petitioner seeks release from detention, habeas (not a § 1983
action seeking release) is proper.”).12
12
Thus, in Wilson, the Sixth Circuit found habeas jurisdiction based on
prisoners’ allegations that there were “no mitigation efforts that [the
prison] could undertake that would prevent the risk of contraction . . .
other than immediate release,” reasoning that “where a petitioner claims
that no set of conditions would be constitutionally sufficient the claim
should be construed as challenging the fact or extent, rather than the
conditions of confinement.” 961 F.3d at 838. In line with this reasoning,
the court also concluded that a claim related to non-medically vulnerable
inmates was not properly considered in habeas because those inmates
only “sought improvement in the conditions at [the prison] rather than
release.” Id. Likewise, in Hope, the Third Circuit relied on the
28 PINSON V. CARVAJAL
Instead, as previously discussed, our review of the
history and purpose of habeas leads us to conclude the
relevant question is whether, based on the allegations in the
petition, release is legally required irrespective of the relief
requested. By collapsing the habeas analysis into a simple
inquiry of the requested relief, Petitioners, and the authority
they cite, fail to account for the historic purpose of the writ
and misapprehend the relationship between the nature of a
claim and its requested relief.13 Or, stated differently, a
successful claim sounding in habeas necessarily results in
release, but a claim seeking release does not necessarily
sound in habeas.
3.
We now apply these principles to Sands’s petition.
Because the government contends jurisdiction is absent over
Sands’s habeas petition as a matter of law, we are required
to take Sands’s factual allegations as true, but not his legal
conclusions. See, e.g., Leite v. Crane Co., 749 F.3d 1117,
1121 (9th Cir. 2014); see also Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S.
662, 679 (2009) (“While legal conclusions can provide the
“extraordinary circumstances” of the COVID-19 pandemic in
concluding that a “claim seeking only release on the basis that
unconstitutional confinement conditions require it” could be brought in
a habeas petition. 972 F.3d at 317. Non-precedential decisions from
other circuits have reached similar conclusions. See Cheek v. Warden of
Fed. Med. Ctr., 835 F. App’x 737, 738–39 (5th Cir. 2020) (unpublished);
Medina v. Williams, 823 F. App’x 674, 676 (10th Cir. 2020)
(unpublished).
13
Characterizing causes of action by the relief requested, as the Sixth
Circuit did in Wilson and as Petitioners advocate here, is in fact contrary
to basic precepts of our legal regime: a claim sounds in tort, for example,
because it derives from a non-contractual civil injury, not because the
plaintiff seeks punitive damages.
PINSON V. CARVAJAL 29
framework of a complaint, they must be supported by factual
allegations.”). In other words, while we must accept as true
Sands’s allegations regarding the conditions at FCI Lompoc,
we must determine whether those facts demonstrate, as
Sands contends, that “no set of conditions under the present
circumstances” could exist that would constitutionally
permit Sands’s detention such that the very fact of those
conditions violates the Constitution or fundamental law.
They do not.
Sands’s first basis for habeas relief is that FCI Lompoc’s
staff was deliberately indifferent in their failure to treat him
for his underlying conditions of hypertension and obesity.
This alleged violation is at best tangentially related to the
COVID-19 pandemic, and Sands fails to explain how relief
short of release is inadequate to cure the alleged
constitutional violation. Instead, this is a garden-variety
Eighth Amendment claim based on the deliberate failure to
deliver adequate medical care, which is a standard civil
rights claim. See Malesko, 534 U.S. at 78 (Stevens, J.,
dissenting) (explaining that Eighth Amendment claims
based on inadequate medical care “fall[] in the heartland of
substantive Bivens claims”); see also Estelle v. Gamble, 429
U.S. 97, 105 (1976) (“Regardless of how evidenced,
deliberate indifference to a prisoner’s serious illness or
injury states a cause of action under § 1983.”). Because this
claim neither goes to the fact of Sands’s confinement nor
would require immediate release if successful, it is outside
the core of habeas.
Sands’s second, fourth, and fifth claims allege facts
related to the COVID-19 pandemic, but those facts do not
demonstrate that his continued detention is unlawful. Sands
alleges that staff at FCI Lompoc were deliberately
indifferent to his medical needs by failing to implement
30 PINSON V. CARVAJAL
policies based on guidelines from the CDC, failing to isolate
and retest Sands for COVID-19 after he received an
indeterminate test result, and failing to remove him from
housing that was allegedly “full of COVID-19-positive
inmates” after Sands tested negative. Sands’s allegation that
“no set of conditions” could remedy FCI Lompoc’s failure
to administer a second test after his initial inconclusive test
result is facially meritless, as he acknowledges he was
retested less than ten days after his initial test.
His allegations related to FCI Lompoc’s failure to
implement certain policies fare no better. As an initial
matter, Sands does not specify which CDC guidelines were
deliberately ignored by FCI Lompoc officials, and those
guidelines changed frequently and dramatically in the early
days of the pandemic. See, e.g., Deborah Netburn, A
timeline of the CDC’s advice on face masks, L.A. Times
(July 27, 2021), https://www.latimes.com/science/story/202
1-07-27/timeline-cdc-mask-guidance-during-covid-19-pand
emic, [https://perma.cc/DC2N-YMBA] (noting that CDC
guidance in early 2020 was that healthy people not taking
care of sick individuals need not wear face masks, which
changed on April 3, 2020). More importantly, his
allegations demonstrate precisely the set of conditions that
would be needed to remedy the alleged constitutional
violations: adherence to CDC guidelines regarding, inter
alia, screening staff, providing sufficient testing, and
isolating individuals who test positive for the disease. The
logical inference from Sands’s petition is that if FCI Lompoc
had followed the protocols and directives from the relevant
federal agencies, the unsafe conditions of confinement
would be remedied. These “relevant specific allegations
found in the body of the [petition] take precedence” over
Sands’s bare allegation that there are no set of conditions
PINSON V. CARVAJAL 31
under which his confinement would be constitutional. Smith
v. Gross, 604 F.2d 639, 641 n.2 (9th Cir. 1979). Thus, this
claim fails to demonstrate the illegality of his detention or
the necessity for release.
Finally, Sands alleges that he suffered an Eighth
Amendment violation due to FCI Lompoc’s “deliberately
indifferent failure to immediately reduce the inmate
population.” As Sands acknowledges, both Congress and
the executive branch directed federal prison authorities to
transfer prisoners to promote social distancing during
COVID-19 outbreaks. Sands further acknowledges that
some inmates were released from FCI Lompoc consistent
with this directive, but he contends that the prison
“maintained its population above its designated capacity”
and received new inmates during that period, which did not
allow for “meaningful social distancing between inmates.”
A federal prisoner, however, is not without equitable
remedies for health issues caused by prison overcrowding.
See Brown v. Plata, 563 U.S. 493 (2011). In Brown, the
plaintiffs alleged that the entire California state prison
system had “fallen short of minimum constitutional
requirements and . . . failed to meet prisoners’ basic health
needs” for more than a decade. Id. at 501. Prisoners with
mental health issues were “held for prolonged periods in
telephone-booth-sized cages,” or in “administrative
segregation . . . where they endure[d] harsh and isolated
conditions and receive[d] only limited mental health
services.” Id. at 503–04. As a result of this overcrowding,
the suicide rate in California prisons was nearly 80% higher
than the national average for prisons, and the majority of
those suicides were “most probably foreseeable and/or
preventable” because they “involved some measure of
32 PINSON V. CARVAJAL
inadequate assessment, treatment, or intervention.” Id. at
504 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
Prisoners suffering from physical illnesses fared no
better. Prisoners died during delays to see specialists and to
receive evaluations from primary physicians; in one case, a
prisoner died of testicular cancer after medical professionals
failed to develop a treatment regimen despite seventeen
months of testicular pain. Id. at 504–05. A former medical
director for the Illinois state prison system offered evidence
that “extreme departures from the standard of care were
‘widespread,’ and that the proportion of ‘possibly
preventable or preventable’ deaths was ‘extremely high.’”
Id. at 505. By the time the Supreme Court considered the
case, conditions in California’s prison system had become so
dire that prison wardens and health care officials were forced
to decide daily which of the medically vulnerable subclasses
would be denied care due to staff shortages and patient loads.
Id. at 509. If any case raises the possibility that the alleged
constitutional violations are so widespread no effective
equitable relief could be granted, surely it is Brown.14
And yet, Brown was a civil rights action brought under
the Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”). See id. at 500.
And the Court concluded, based on the allegations, that it
was proper for the three-judge district court to determine that
the only relief that would remedy the violation of the federal
right would be transferring prisoners to “county facilities or
14
In fact, claims alleging systemic constitutional violations within a
prison have long been brought through civil rights actions rather than
habeas petitions. See Gates v. Collier, 501 F.2d 1291, 1295–96 (5th Cir.
1974) (granting relief on a § 1983 claim where it was undisputed that the
Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman had been characterized by
systemic and wide-ranging civil rights abuses for years).
PINSON V. CARVAJAL 33
facilities in other [s]tates.” Id. at 526–27. Thus, Supreme
Court precedent amply demonstrates that Sands has access
to a remedy that can cure the alleged constitutional
violations short of his release.
Importantly, we recognize the grave risks to public
health and the tragic mortality rates that attended the
COVID-19 pandemic. By no means do we discount those
risks or trivialize the suffering experienced by far too many
during the pandemic, especially individuals who, like Sands,
were lawfully detained during its height. But if injunctive
relief can remedy the constitutional violations alleged in
Brown, it is hard to see how the conditions faced by Sands
were so beyond redemption as to require his release.
Moreover, we recognize that the Supreme Court has left
open the key question of whether there are circumstances
when a challenge to the conditions of confinement is
properly brought in a petition for writ of habeas corpus. See
Ziglar v. Abbasi, 582 U.S. 120, 144–45 (2017) (“[W]e leave
to another day the question of the propriety of using a writ
of habeas corpus to obtain review of the conditions of
confinement, as distinct from the fact or length of
confinement.”) (quoting Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 526,
n.6 (1979)). We conclude that Sands has failed to allege
facts to support his legal contention that his detention was
unlawful because no set of conditions exist that would cure
the constitutional violations at FCI Lompoc.
34 PINSON V. CARVAJAL
Because Sands’s claims lie outside the historic core of
habeas corpus, we conclude the district court properly found
it lacked jurisdiction to hear Sands’s petition.15
C.
Finally, Petitioners contend that even if we lack
jurisdiction over their habeas claims, we should still remand
to the district court with instructions to consider their habeas
petitions as civil rights actions. In Nettles, we stated that a
court may recharacterize a habeas petition if it “is amenable
to conversion on its face, meaning that it names the correct
defendants and seeks the correct relief” and “so long as [the
court] warns the pro se litigant of the consequences of the
conversion and provides an opportunity for the litigant to
withdraw or amend his or her complaint.” 830 F.3d at 936(citation omitted). But this general principle—that habeas
petitions may be converted to civil-rights actions—predates
the enactment of the PLRA, which significantly impacted a
court’s ability to convert a habeas petition into a civil rights
action. Id. at 935–36. And Petitioners point to no case—
and we have found none—where such conversion is
required, rather than discretionary.
Moreover, Petitioners do not even attempt to explain
why the respective habeas petitions are amenable to
conversion. Instead, they argue that the district court should
have considered “the pros and cons of conversion as required
15
Based on Sands’s presentation, we need not—and do not—attempt to
circumscribe the reach of habeas relief or relief on a civil rights action
for federal prisoners. See Nettles, 830 F.3d at 931. Sands premised
jurisdiction on the reach of § 2241 and on the contention that his “no set
of conditions” claim was within the core of habeas corpus. By rejecting
Sands’s claims, we do not suggest the proper resolution of other habeas
claims for other federal prisoners.
PINSON V. CARVAJAL 35
by Nettles.” But Nettles merely states that the district court
may conduct this exercise, and only where the petition is
amenable to conversion on its face, a showing which neither
Pinson nor Sands make here. Id. at 936 (“If the complaint is
amenable to conversion on its face . . . the court may
recharacterize the petition” after warning and providing for
an opportunity to withdraw (emphasis added) (citation
omitted)).
And the petitions are facially not amenable to
conversion. Sands does not seek money damages as allowed
by Bivens or equitable relief under either the PLRA or
federal courts’ general authority to issue equitable relief for
violation of federal law. Even if Pinson’s claims were not
moot, she similarly does not seek money damages, and while
she seeks equitable relief, she seeks it from the director of
the BOP, who is not the proper defendant for claims of
violations at an individual prison.
Petitioners’ arguments to the contrary are either
mistaken or inapposite. They contend, for example, that
“Nettles makes clear that habeas petitions should not be
automatically dismissed because a pro se litigant mistakenly
asserts her claims through the wrong procedural vehicle.”
But that is not the holding in Nettles, and it ignores the
critical fact that conversion is only potentially appropriate if
facially available. Petitioners then argue that the
government “wrongly presumes that conversion would have
been impossible or otherwise detrimental” because the
PLRA’s “three-strikes” rule and its exhaustion requirement
may not apply. But the mere “possibility” that these
limitations might not have impacted Pinson’s and Sands’s
petitions does not mean the district court was obligated to
convert their petitions to civil rights actions. In fact, the
possibility that the limitations could have impacted these
36 PINSON V. CARVAJAL
petitions indicates that conversion was either not facially
available or would not benefit Pinson and Sands. And the
argument that “[a]ny other potential mistakes or oversights
in the pro se pleadings could have been easily cured through
amendment” directly contradicts any implication that the
petitions were facially eligible for conversion.
We therefore conclude the district court was not required
to convert Pinson’s and Sands’s habeas petitions into civil
rights actions, and we decline the invitation to remand to the
district court to perform this conversion in the first instance.
IV.
Accordingly, we affirm the judgments from the district
court dismissing Pinson’s and Sands’s habeas petitions for
lack of jurisdiction.
AFFIRMED.