Keith v. McCaughtry

783 F. Supp. 1170, 1992 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1685, 1992 WL 24331
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Wisconsin
DecidedFebruary 12, 1992
DocketNo. 91-C-612
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 783 F. Supp. 1170 (Keith v. McCaughtry) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Wisconsin primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Keith v. McCaughtry, 783 F. Supp. 1170, 1992 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1685, 1992 WL 24331 (E.D. Wis. 1992).

Opinion

DECISION and ORDER

MYRON L. GORDON, Senior District Judge.

By decision and order of July 22, 1991, the court granted the petitioner, Ronald Keith, currently incarcerated at the Wau-pun Correctional Institution, leave to proceed with his in forma pauperis petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 2242 and 2254. See also 28 U.S.C. § 1915.

However, in its decision and order, the court noted that Mr. Keith had completed his 40-month sentence of imprisonment for the January 27, 1984, state court judgment of conviction challenged in this petition. Accordingly, the court requested that the respondent address the question of whether Mr. Keith is presently “in custody” pursuant to that judgment of conviction. In response, the respondent has filed a motion to dismiss the petition for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction on that ground. The motion will be granted.

I.

A.

Section 2254(a) states that “a district court shall entertain a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a state court only on the ground that he is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a) (emphasis added). The “in custody” requirement is jurisdictional. See Maleng v. Cook, 490 U.S. 488, 494, 109 S.Ct. 1923, 1927, 104 L.Ed.2d 540 (1989); Marks v. Rees, 715 F.2d 372, 374 (7th Cir.1983).

The court of appeals for the seventh circuit has explained that the “in custody” requirement contains a causation element:

That a person happens to be in custody is of course not a sufficient reason to rummage, through old judgments in search of ones that may be invalid. To obtain relief under § 2254 the prisoner must show that his current confinement violates the Constitution or laws of the United States. That will be so only if the prior judgments not only are invalid but also were used to augment the current one.

Crank v. Duckworth, 905 F.2d 1090 (7th Cir.1990) (emphasis in original) (Easter-brook, J.).

Accordingly, prisoners who wish to “rummage through old judgments” in an attempt to secure the writ of habeas corpus must identify a “positive and demonstrable nexus between the current custody and the prior conviction.” Lowery v. Young, 887 F.2d 1309, 1312 (7th Cir.1989) (quoting Young v. Lynaugh, 821 F.2d 1133, 1137 (5th Cir.1987), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 986, 108 S.Ct. 503, 98 L.Ed.2d 501 (1988)). See also Crank, 905 F.2d at 1091. Only those prisoners who establish a causal link between the conviction they challenge and their present custodial status are deemed to be “in custody” for purposes of subject matter jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. See Lowery, 887 F.2d at 1311-13 (district court had jurisdiction to consider habeas corpus petition relating to a prior conviction for which the petitioner was no longer in custody where that conviction was used to enhance a subsequent prison sentence that the petitioner was then serving). See also Maleng, 490 U.S. at 492-93, 109 S.Ct. at 1926 (evaluating the “in custody” requirement).

The requisite causal link has been found where “sufficient evidence” existed in the record to demonstrate that the prior convictions “were considered, and given some weight, by” the sentencing judge. See Lowery, 887 F.2d at 1312. Nevertheless, it has been acknowledged that “[s]uch a link [1172]*1172may be hard to show when the sentencing judge knows about the prior conviction but does not expressly augment the sentence on account of it.” Crank, 905 F.2d at 1091-92.

B.

Mr. Keith’s lengthy petition states that he was convicted of three counts of second degree sexual assault on January 24, 1984, and sentenced to 40 months in prison. The petition offers some eleven grounds of challenge to the judgment of conviction, which are not relevant to the present motion. Suffice it to say that Mr. Keith’s petition reflects his dissatisfaction with the consequences of his having been convicted in 1984 in Dane County Circuit Court of the sexual assault of one or more young boys. When it ruled upon Mr. Keith’s request for leave to proceed in forma pauperis, the court determined that his contentions translate, at least arguably, into more than merely colorable violations of his rights under the fifth and sixth amendments of the constitution.

In support of the motion to dismiss for want of subject matter jurisdiction, the respondent has proffered several exhibits in an attempt to demonstrate that Mr. Keith is not “in custody” pursuant to the judgment of conviction that he seeks to challenge in this petition. These exhibits establish that Mr. Keith’s assertion that he was convicted of three counts of second-degree sexual assault and sentenced to 40 months of imprisonment on January 24, 1984, is incorrect. Compare Respondent’s Exhibits A-D with Petition at 2, 7. The exhibits also call into question Mr. Keith’s cryptic assertion that he “received a concurrent sentence of 50-months with 5-years probation which was revoked and [he] received a 10-yr. sentence on that” in connection with the conviction he challenges in this petition. (There is no dispute that Mr. Keith is now “in custody” pursuant to the ten-year sentence at the Waupun Correctional Institution.)

The exhibits demonstrate that Mr. Keith was convicted of a single count of second degree sexual assault, for which he was sentenced to 40 months imprisonment on January 27, 1984. See Respondent’s Exhibit A (judgment of conviction). It is true that there were other judgments of conviction: On March 8, 1984, Mr. Keith was convicted of one count of first degree sexual assault, for which he was sentenced to 50 months imprisonment, and one count of second degree sexual assault, for which he was sentenced to five years probation. See Respondent’s Exhibits C and D. However, because Mr. Keith challenged the March 8, 1984, convictions in a separate habeas corpus petition, they are of only peripheral importance here. See Keith v. McCaughtry, (E.D.Wis. filed March 6, 1991). At all events, that challenge was unsuccessful; the petition was dismissed by decision and order of September 25, 1991, see 775 F.Supp. 290 (E.D.Wis. 1991) (Gordon, J.).

I find that it is the single January 27, 1984, conviction that Mr. Keith is challenging in his present petition.

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956 F. Supp. 1478 (E.D. Wisconsin, 1997)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
783 F. Supp. 1170, 1992 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1685, 1992 WL 24331, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/keith-v-mccaughtry-wied-1992.