Ephraim v. Federal Bureau of Prisons

• Court: District Court, District of Columbia
• Decided: November 16, 2012
• Docket: Civil Action No. 2012-1863
• Status: Published

Opinion

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FILED FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA NOV 1 6 2012 Lionell Elizah Ephraim aka ) Clerk, U.S. District & Bankruptcy Lionel Elizah Williams, ) Courts for the District of Columbia ) Plaintiff, ) ) v. ) Civil Action No. 12 1863 ) Federal Bureau of Prisons et al., ) ) Defendants. )

MEMORANDUM OPINION

This matter is before the Court on review of the plaintiffs pro se complaint and

application to proceed in forma pauperis. The application will be granted and the complaint will

be dismissed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915A (requiring dismissal of a prisoner's complaint upon

a determination that the complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted).

The plaintiff is an inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution in Welch, West Virginia,

who claims that the Bureau of Prisons ("BOP") is improperly treating his federal sentence

imposed by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia as running

consecutively to a state sentence. See Civil Complaint for Injunctive and Declaratory Relief

from Ultra Vires Conduct by Government Agency and Officials Under Title 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331

and 1361 ("Compl.") at 6-7, 9-11. The plaintiff seeks "INJUNCTIVE/MANDAMUS AND

DECLARATORY RELIEF," id at 13, but his challenge to the BOP's calculation of his sentence

must be pursued via a writ ofhabeas corpus. See Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 500

(1973); LoBue v. Christopher, 82 F.3d 1081, 1082-84 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (determining that the

district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over a declaratory judgment action because the

remedy of habeas corpus was available in the location of the plaintiffs' custodian); Williams v.

AI 3 Hill, 74 F.3d 1339, 1340 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (stating that "it is well-settled that a [person] seeking

relief from his conviction or sentence may not bring [actions for injunctive and declaratory

relief]") (citations omitted).

A habeas petition is properly directed at the applicant's immediate custodian, see

Rumsfeld v. Padilla, 542 U.S. 426, 439 (2004); Blair-Bey v. Quick, 151 F.3d 1036, 1039 (D.C.

Cir. 1998), and "a district court may not entertain a habeas petition involving present physical

custody unless the respondent custodian is within its territorial jurisdiction." Stokes v. US.

Parole Comm'n, 374 F.3d 1235, 1239 (D.C. Cir. 2004); accord Rooney v. Sec'y ofArmy, 405

F.3d 1029, 1032 (D.C. Cir. 2005) (habeas 'jurisdiction is proper only in the district in which the

immediate, not the ultimate, custodian is located") (internal citations and quotation marks

omitted). Since the plaintiff states that he has two habeas petitions pending in the Southern

District of West Virginia, Com pl. at 12, this case will be dismissed. 1

~/3,@ un· States Distnct Judge October 2Jl , 2012

1 A separate Order accompanies this Memorandum Opinion.