US v. Hudgins

Filing 920060925

Opinion

UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 06-6048

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, versus ADRIAN MAURICE HUDGINS, Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, at Beckley. Joseph Robert Goodwin, District Judge. (CR-96-181; CA-03-221-5)

Submitted:

June 28, 2006

Decided:

September 25, 2006

Before WILLIAMS, MICHAEL, and KING, Circuit Judges.

Vacated and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Adrian Maurice Hudgins, Appellant Pro Se. Charles T. Miller, United States Attorney, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. See Local Rule 36(c).

PER CURIAM: Adrian Maurice Hudgins appeals the district court's order accepting the recommendation of the magistrate judge, which

construed a letter that Hudgins sent to the court as a 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (2000) motion, and dismissing the § 2255 motion. In 1997, Hudgins was convicted in the Southern District of West Virginia for possession of contraband (marijuana) in prison. term of The district court sentenced him to a twenty-one-month imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised

release, and imposed a $500 fine. assessment fee.

The court also imposed a $100

On March 3, 2003, Hudgins sent a letter to the

district court, claiming that the court improperly delegated the timing and amount of payments to the Bureau of Prisons in violation of United States v. Miller, 77 F.3d 71 (4th Cir. 1996). Because a § 2255 motion may not be used for the sole purpose of challenging fines or restitution orders, we conclude that the district court should have treated Hudgins's claim as a habeas corpus petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 (2000). See United

States v. Bernard, 351 F.3d 360, 361 (8th Cir. 2003) (collecting cases). A § 2241 petition, however, must be brought in the

district of incarceration, 28 U.S.C. § 2241(a); In re: Jones, 226 F.3d 328, 332 (4th Cir. 2000), and Hudgins is incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Ashland, Kentucky. The

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district court therefore does not have jurisdiction over this § 2241 proceeding. We vacate the district court's order and remand for the court to determine whether transferring Hudgins's § 2241 petition to the proper federal district court would serve the interests of justice, see 28 U.S.C. § 1631 (2000), or whether the action would be more appropriately dismissed without prejudice to Hudgins's right to file his action in the appropriate district court. We

dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

VACATED AND REMANDED

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