Muhammad v. Wiley

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
January 29, 2010
TENTH CIRCUIT Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
C. ELI-JAH HAKEEM
MUHAMMAD, a/k/a Christopher
Mitchell,
Petitioner - Appellant, No. 09-1471
(D. Colorado)
v. (D.C. No. 09-cv-00049-ZLW)
RON WILEY, FCC/ADMAX Warden,
Respondent - Appellee.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before HARTZ, ANDERSON, and TYMKOVICH, Circuit Judges.
After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist in the determination
of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10 th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is
therefore ordered submitted without oral argument.
*
This order and judgment is not binding precedent except under the
doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited,
however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th
Cir. R. 32.1.
Appellant and petitioner C. Eli-Jah Hakeem Muhammad, a/k/a Christopher
Mitchell, appeals the district court’s order denying his 28 U.S.C. § 2241 petitions,
which claimed violations of his due process rights during disciplinary proceedings
relating to two incident reports. 1 For the following reasons, we affirm.
Mr. Muhammad is in the custody of the United States Bureau of Prisons at
ADMAX Florence. The two incident reports (“IR”) in question, IR #1703408 and
IR #1703407, relate to the same infraction which occurred on February 25, 2008,
when Mr. Muhammad sprayed both a fellow inmate and a prison officer with
urine from a shampoo bottle. In IR #1703408, Mr. Muhammad was charged with
spraying another inmate with urine and in IR #1703407, he was charged with
spraying an officer with urine. A single disciplinary hearing addressed both
incidents. The outcome of the hearing was that Mr. Muhammad was assigned
varying days of disciplinary segregation and restrictions on the use of certain
1
As the district court stated with regard to Mr. Muhammad:
Applicant is a prolific filer of both prisoner complaints and of § 2241
actions in this Court. Applicant is subject to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g)
restrictions in prisoner complaint actions. He has also filed six
previous § 2241 actions, all of which address disciplinary actions and
have been dismissed for failure to state a violation of Applicant’s due
process rights under Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 556 (1974).
Five of the six previous § 2241 actions have been affirmed on appeal.
The sixth § 2241 action is pending on appeal.
Muhammad v. Wiley, 2009 WL 3172714, at *1 (D. Colo. Oct. 2, 2009) (footnote
omitted).
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amenities, and he was deprived of certain good conduct time. Mr. Muhammad
unsuccessfully pursued an administrative appeal.
Mr. Muhammad then filed these § 2241 habeas petitions. He raised seven
claims in one petition and four in the other, alleging a deprivation of his
procedural and substantive due process rights because prison officials failed to
follow the Code of Federal Regulations and either violated the requirements in
Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 556 (1974), or violated his Fifth Amendment
rights. The district court denied one of his habeas petitions. Muhammad v.
Warden, 2009 WL 440888 (D. Colo. Feb. 18, 2009), rev’d, Muhammad v. Wiley,
341 Fed. Appx. 359 (10 th Cir. July 16, 2009) (unpublished). On appeal, this court
reversed and remanded the matter, finding that, although Mr. Muhammad had
filed two separate § 2241 applications, one on January 13, 2009, and the other on
January 27, 2009, the district court had only addressed the merits of one (the
January 27 application).
On remand, the district court addressed both applications, reaffirming the
denial of the January 13, 2009, application and denying the other application and
dismissing the action. The court also denied Mr. Muhammad permission to
proceed on appeal in forma pauperis. This appeal followed.
We review de novo the district court’s denial of Mr. Muhammad’s § 2241
applications. See Bradshaw v. Story, 86 F.3d 164, 166 (10 th Cir. 1996). While
Mr. Muhammad’s hand-written, pro se brief is extremely hard to decipher, we
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have done our best to discern his arguments. He presents ten issues:
(1) “violation of the 1st Wolff factor: whether there was ineffective notice of
disciplinary charges”; (2) “violation of the 3rd Wolff factor: whether pro se
appellant was denied the right to present documentary evidence in his defense”;
(3) “whether there was ‘some evidence’ in the record to support an adverse prison
disciplinary decision”; (4) “whether there was a deprivation of
procedural/substantive due process in connection of [sic] revoked good-time
credits”; (5) “violation of the 1st Wolff factor: whether there was ineffective
notice of disciplinary charges on incident report No. 1703408”; (6) “violation of
the 4th Wolff factor: whether pro se appellant been [sic] afforded the procedural
due process to which he was entitled”; (7) “violation of the 3rd Wolff factor:
denial to call requested witness in incident report #1703408”; (8) “violation of the
3rd Wolff factor: whether pro se appellant was denied the right to present
exculpatory evidence in his defense in incident report # 1703408”; (9) “whether
disciplinary action not based on evidence adduced at the admin D.H.O. hearing on
incident report #1703408”; (10) “whether there was a deprivation of
procedural/substantive due process in connection of [sic] removed good-time
credits relating to incident report #1703408.” Appellant/Petitioner’s Op. Br. at 3-
12.
It appears that Mr. Muhammad raised all of these issues before the district
court, and the court addressed them in its two opinions issued in this case. We
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have read the entire record and have carefully read Mr. Muhammad’s submissions
to the best of our ability. We cannot improve on the district court’s discussion
and analysis of Mr. Muhammad’s arguments, and we therefore affirm the district
court’s denial of Mr. Muhammad’s § 2241 applications for substantially the
reasons stated in its decisions dated February 18, 2009, and October 2, 2009.
For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the denial of Mr. Muhammad’s
petitions. We DENY Mr. Muhammad leave to proceed on appeal in forma
pauperis.
As indicated above, Mr. Muhammad is a prolific filer. This is his seventh
§ 2241 action challenging disciplinary proceedings. We caution Mr. Muhammad
that repetitive proceedings arguing meritless issues may subject him to sanctions.
See In re Winslow, 17 F.3d 314, 316 (10 th Cir. 1994) (en banc); Braley v.
Campbell, 832 F.2d 1504, 1510 (10 th Cir. 1987).
ENTERED FOR THE COURT
Stephen H. Anderson
Circuit Judge
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