Bradin v. Thomas

Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit·Decided August 13, 2020·No. 19-3093·Unpublished

Opinion

FILED

United States Court of Appeals UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT August 13, 2020

Christopher M. Wolpert

Clerk of Court

JOHN BRADIN,

Petitioner - Appellant,

v. Nos. 19-3093 & 19-3190 (D.C. No. 5:19-CV-03041-JWL)

LINDA THOMAS, Warden; UNITED (D. Kan.) STATES BOARD OF PROBATION & PAROLE,

Respondents - Appellees.

ORDER AND JUDGMENT*

Before TYMKOVICH, Chief Judge, HOLMES and BACHARACH, Circuit Judges.

John Bradin, a federal prisoner proceeding pro se, appeals from the district court’s denial of his motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction (No. 19-3093) and its final judgment on his 28 U.S.C. § 2241 petition for a writ of habeas corpus (No. 19-3190). We have procedurally consolidated the two appeals for disposition. Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm.

*

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); 10th 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 This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel.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.

I. BACKGROUND

In 1975, Mr. Bradin was convicted in the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri on federal bank robbery charges and sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment. He was released on parole in 1980. Between January 1986 and July 1989, Mr. Bradin was arrested for three parole violations, which resulted in two additional terms of confinement. He was released on parole again in May 1991.

In September 1992, the United States Parole Commission (USPC)1 issued a warrant for Mr. Bradin’s arrest for parole violations based on charges in two separate criminal actions pending in Missouri state court. In a memorandum to the warrant, the USPC instructed that if Mr. Bradin was already in state custody (which he was), the warrant should not be executed, but a detainer should be placed instead. The USPC supplemented the warrant in 1993 with information regarding Mr. Bradin’s convictions in Missouri state court, where he was sentenced to twenty-five years’ imprisonment for his crimes in the two criminal actions.

In November 2018, after Mr. Bradin finished serving his state sentences, the United States Marshals Service executed the 1992 warrant that had been lodged as a detainer and took him into federal custody. He was initially housed at the Leavenworth Detention Center in Leavenworth, Kansas. Upon execution of the

1 In naming the respondents to his § 2241 petition, Mr. Bradin incorrectly identified the USPC as the “United States Board of Probation and Parole.”

warrant, the USPC was authorized to revoke his parole and impose up to 1,602 days of confinement for his parole violations.

Before the USPC held a parole revocation hearing, Mr. Bradin filed his § 2241 habeas petition in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas. He sought release from custody or to a halfway house based on a number of grounds for relief regarding the use of the detainer, the delay in providing a revocation hearing, his inability to serve his state and federal sentences concurrently, and his eligibility for compassionate release under the First Step Act of 2018. He also filed a motion for a temporary restraining order (TRO) and a preliminary injunction (PI) concerning (1) respondents’ alleged refusal to mail his § 2241 petition and (2) a box of his personal property the Missouri Department of Corrections held that allegedly included evidence both crucial to his petition and showing that the Social Security Administration unlawfully seized his social security benefits for over 26 years, which he wanted to use to hire counsel of choice.

The district court denied the TRO/PI motion and appointed the Kansas Federal Public Defender (FPD) to represent Mr. Bradin. Despite the FPD’s representation, Mr. Bradin continued filing pro se motions. He also filed a pro se appeal of the order denying the TRO/PI motion. In some of his pro se motions, Mr. Bradin indicated he did not want the FPD as his counsel and asked the court to order the release of his Social Security funds so he could hire his own attorney. After a status conference on the issue of appointed counsel, the court ordered that if Mr. Bradin wished to continue with the FPD, he had to notify the court in writing by a date certain or the

court would withdraw the appointment. When Mr. Bradin did not respond, the court withdrew the appointment.

Eventually, the district court ruled on the § 2241 petition, denying it in part and dismissing it in part, and entered a separate judgment. Mr. Bradin filed a notice of appeal from the separate judgment. We defer further discussion of the district court’s rulings until our analysis of Mr. Bradin’s appellate arguments.

II. DISCUSSION

Mr. Bradin’s pro se appellate brief lacks clarity.2 But we must afford it (and his other pro se filings) a liberal construction, albeit without acting as his attorney. See Yang v. Archuleta, 525 F.3d 925, 927 n.1 (10th Cir. 2008). So doing, we discern the following issues in his brief and address them in order of analytical convenience. A. Challenges to the district court’s jurisdiction over § 2241 petition 1. Standing Order 18-3 Mr. Bradin argues that the district court lacked jurisdiction to rule on his § 2241 petition because at the time he was housed at the Leavenworth Detention Center, the Center recorded attorney-client meetings between federal detainees and their attorneys, and the United States Attorney’s Office in Kansas City, Kansas, obtained some of those recordings. Based on an assumption that the Center recorded his communications with counsel, Mr. Bradin contends that the District of Kansas’s

2 The USPC elected not to file a response brief, so Mr. Bradin’s opening brief is the sole brief on appeal.

Standing Order No. 18-3 required the district court to transfer his § 2241 case to Chief Judge Julie Robinson, and its failure to do so deprived the court of jurisdiction. We disagree.

The District of Kansas issued Standing Order No. 18-3 to address possible postconviction Sixth Amendment violations caused by the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s access to the recorded meetings, as described in United States v. Carter, 429 F. Supp. 3d 788 (D. Kan. 2019), vacated in part by United States v. Carter, No. 16-20032-02-JAR, 2020 WL 430739 (D. Kan. Jan. 28, 2020). In relevant part, Standing Order No. 18-3 provides:

[T]he Court appoints the Federal Public Defender to represent any defendant from the District of Kansas who may have a post-conviction Sixth Amendment claim based on the recording of in-person attorney-client meetings or attorney-client phone calls by any holding facility housing federal detainees within this District. The FPD is appointed to review potential cases regardless of whether the FPD represented the defendant in earlier District Court proceedings. . . . [T]he FPD is authorized to raise any other claims in the interest of the defendant.

D. Kan. Standing Order No. 18-3 (July 17, 2018). In Carter, Chief Judge Robinson

ordered that the 28 U.S.C. § 2255 cases the FPD had by then filed pursuant to Standing Order No. 18-3 be reassigned to her:

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