Blackburn v. Williams
Opinion
F I L E D United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS NOV 29 2000 TENTH CIRCUIT PATRICK FISHER Clerk
FLOYD BLACKBURN,
Petitioner-Appellant, No. 00-2240 v. D.N.M. JOE WILLIAMS, Warden, Lea County (D.C. No. CIV-00-295-BB) Correctional Facility; GARY JOHNSON, Governor, State of New Mexico; ROBERT PERRY, Secretary of Corrections; NEW MEXICO CORRECTIONS DEPARTMENT, State of New Mexico; WACKENHUT CORRECTIONS CORPORATION, a Florida corporation; LEA COUNTY, NEW MEXICO; ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO,
Respondents-Appellees.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before BALDOCK , HENRY , and LUCERO , Circuit Judges. **
* This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. The court generally disfavors the citation of orders and judgments; nevertheless, an order and judgment may be cited under the terms and conditions of 10th Cir. R. 36.3.
** After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined unanimously to honor the parties’ request for decision on the briefs (continued...) Floyd Blackburn, proceeding pro se, appeals the dismissal, without
prejudice, of his habeas corpus action brought pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241 for
failure to exhaust state court remedies. 1 Mr. Blackburn challenges his
incarceration in the Lea County Correctional Facility (LCCF), a privately-run
prison facility in New Mexico, on the grounds that it violates both state law and
his constitutional rights. Mr. Blackburn claims he is a third-party beneficiary of
the contract between the New Mexico Corrections Department (NMCD) and Lea
County, as well as the contract between Lea County and Wackenhut Corrections
Corporation (Wackenhut), the company that operates LCCF. He maintains his
constitutional rights have been violated because Lea County and Wackenhut have
breached these contracts by failing to ensure the proper classification of inmates
and failing to provide a sufficient number of properly trained and adequately
experienced staff. Mr. Blackburn alleges that the Defendants, Governor Gary
(...continued) **
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(f). The case is therefore submitted without oral argument. 1 This action has a somewhat unusual procedural history. The district court opened this action as a § 2254 petition, and, noting that Mr. Blackburn had already filed a § 2254 petition, transferred the petition to this court for a ruling under AEDPA on the issue of whether Mr. Blackburn had permission to file a second and successive § 2254 petition. This court, in appeal No. 00-2098, ruled that this was a § 2241 rather than a § 2254 petition, vacated the order of transfer and remanded the action to the district court for further proceedings. Meanwhile, Mr. Blackburn appealed the order of transfer to this court. That appeal, No. 00- 2111, has been dismissed.
-2- Johnson, Secretary of Corrections Robert Perry, and the NMCD, therefore
violated the terms of N.M. Stat. Ann. § 31-20-2(G) by failing to adequately
comply with NMCD standards for housing inmates at LCCF. As a result, he
alleges that he has suffered unspecified, but serious and irreparable harm. Mr.
Blackburn also claims that Lea County is not “in the business of providing
correctional jail services to government entities.” Aplts’ Br. at 4. Thus, he
believes the Lea County contract to provide such services violates N.M. Stat.
Ann. § 33-1-17(B) and also infringes upon his rights under the First, Eighth, and
Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. Finally, Mr.
Blackburn contends that Wackenhut engaged in fraud through its contract, in
violation of N.M. Stat. Ann. § 30-16-6 and that the acts of all of the defendants
constitutes a pattern of racketeering activity prohibited under N.M. Stat. Ann. §
30-42-3(D).
Mr. Blackburn filed a pro se petition in the New Mexico district court for
writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241, seeking an order vacating his
conviction and sentence and granting his unconditional release. The magistrate
judge issued a sua sponte show cause order for Mr. Blackburn to explain why the
petition should not be dismissed for failure to exhaust state remedies. After
-3- consideration of Mr. Blackburn's response to the show cause order, the district
court dismissed the petition without prejudice. Mr. Blackburn appealed. He also
seeks a certificate of appealability pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c).
In Montez v. McKinna , 208 F.3d 862, 864-65 (10th Cir. 2000), this court
held that a habeas petition challenging a transfer to a privately run prison may be
cognizable under § 2241. We made clear that a state habeas petitioner is generally
required to exhaust state remedies when his action is brought under § 2241. See
id. at 866. The prisoner in that case had failed to exhaust his state remedies, but
we nevertheless rejected his challenge on the merits, relying upon 28 U.S.C. §
2254(b)(2) as analogous authority.
We also held that a certificate of appealability is required for a § 2241
appeal. See id. at 866-69. To obtain a certificate of appealability, a habeas
petitioner must make a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right.
See 18 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2). This showing requires a demonstration that
reasonable jurists could debate whether the petition should have been resolved in
a different manner. See Slack v. McDaniel , 120 S. Ct. 1595, 1603-04 (2000). We
conclude Mr. Blackburn has failed to make this showing.
First, Mr. Blackburn's state law claims are not cognizable in a federal
habeas actions. See 28 U.S.C. § 2241(c)(3); Montez , 208 F.3d at 865. Further, to
the extent Mr. Blackburn challenges his transfer per se to a private facility
-4- pursuant to contract, such a claim is not cognizable under § 2241. See id. at
865-66; accord Rael v. Williams , 223 F.3d 1153, 1154 (10th Cir. 2000) (stating
that fact that inmate is transferred to, or must reside in, a private prison, “simply
does not raise a federal constitutional claim”). 2
Finally, to the extent Mr. Blackburn raises cognizable federal constitutional
claims, the district court properly dismissed his petition without prejudice for
failure to exhaust. “Before a federal court may grant habeas relief to a state
prisoner, the prisoner must exhaust his remedies in state court. In other words, the
state prisoner must give the state courts an opportunity to act on his claims before
he presents those claims to the federal courts in a habeas petition.” O'Sullivan v.
Boerckel , 526 U.S. 838, 842 (1999); accord Brown v. Shanks ,
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