Andrew-Bey v. Garland

• Court: District Court, District of Columbia
• Decided: February 12, 2024
• Docket: Civil Action No. 2023-3885
• Status: Published

Opinion

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

ROBERT ANDREW-BEY, ) ) Petitioner, ) ) Civil Action No. 23-03885 (UNA) v. ) ) MERRICK B. GARLAND et al., ) ) Respondents. )

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Petitioner, appearing pro se, has filed a Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus pursuant to

28 U.S.C. § 2241 and an application to proceed in forma pauperis (IFP). For the following

reasons, the Court will grant the IFP application and dismiss the case for want of jurisdiction.

Petitioner is incarcerated at Canaan U.S. Penitentiary in Waymart, Pennsylvania. The

scribbled handwritten petition is difficult to follow but appears to arise from a criminal proceeding

in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. See Pet. at 1, 2 (citing Reed v. USA, No. 2009-

CF1-15815 (D.C. Super. Ct.)).

To the extent Petitioner is challenging his D.C. conviction, it is established that D.C.

“prisoner[s] ha[ve] no recourse to a federal judicial forum unless [it is shown that] the local

remedy,” D.C. Code § 23-110, “is inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention.”

Garris v. Lindsay, 794 F.2d 722, 726 (D.C. Cir. 1986) (cleaned up). Put simply, the local remedy

“divests federal courts of jurisdiction to hear habeas petitions by [D.C.] prisoners who could have

raised viable claims pursuant to § 23-110(a).” Williams v. Martinez, 586 F.3d 995, 998 (D.C. Cir.

2009); see Ibrahim v. United States, 661 F.3d 1141, 1146 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (explaining that the

local remedy is “not a procedural bar to otherwise available federal habeas claims; it is Congress’s

deliberate channeling of constitutional collateral attacks on Superior Court sentences to courts within the District’s judicial system (subject to Supreme Court review), with federal habeas

available only as a safety valve”) (italics and parenthesis in original)).

The instant Petition does not present a discernible ground to overcome the jurisdictional

barriers to review by this Court. 1 Consequently, this case will be dismissed by separate order.

_________/s/_____________ RUDOLPH CONTRERAS Date: February 12, 2024 United States District Judge

1 If Petitioner is challenging the execution of his sentence, rather than its legality, any writ must be directed “to the person having custody of the person detained,” 28 U.S.C. § 2243, which in this case is the prison warden in Pennsylvania. Rumsfeld v. Padilla, 542 U.S. 426, 439 (2004); Blair-Bey v. Quick, 151 F.3d 1036, 1039 (D.C. Cir. 1998); see Herndon v. U.S. Parole Com'n, 961 F. Supp. 2d 138, 141 (D.D.C. 2013) (noting that “[h]abeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 is the exclusive federal avenue available to a District of Columbia prisoner challenging the manner of execution of a sentence, rather than the sentence itself”) (cleaned up)). And under the law of this Circuit, this Court “may not entertain a habeas petition involving present physical custody unless the respondent custodian is within its territorial jurisdiction.” Stokes v. U.S. Parole Comm’n, 374 F.3d 1235, 1239 (D.C. Cir. 2004). 2